Party nomination strategies in flexible-list systems

Abstract

A paradox in the comparative literature on electoral systems is that one of the most common systems in Europe – flexible-list proportional representation systems – may be the least understood. Any study of flexible-list systems must start by acknowledging a puzzle: why candidates spend time and effort striving to win preference votes when typically these votes make no difference between election and defeat. Offering the first comprehensive multi-country test of this key puzzle, we provide evidence from Belgium, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia that parties will promote to better list ranks in the next election those candidates who are successful at winning preference votes, thereby improving their prospects of election in the longer term and incentivizing them to cultivate personal reputations. Our findings have important implications for party scholars and practitioners when designing, or reforming, political institutions.

Rank effects in political promotions

“…Furthermore, our results provide a word of caution on what can be learned about rank effects from correlational analysis, such as those presented by Crisp et al (2013) and André et al (2017).…”

“…Consistent with the idea of vote ranks mattering for political promotions, a higher rank and more votes increase politicians' likelihood of being promoted. Based on that analysis, we would reach conclusions similar to Crisp et al (2013) and André et al (2017), namely that all the top ranks matter for political promotions, even after controlling for a rich set of observable characteristics.…”

“…For instance, the candidates who obtain the most votes in Finnish parliamentary elections-"vote rakes" (ääniharava), as they are called in Finnish-often are front-runners when it comes to distributing cabinet positions. Descriptive evidence from a variety of countries (Crisp et al 2013;André et al 2017) suggests that much like Finland, the political parties in political systems with preferential voting often choose their vote pullers for political promotion. To what extent such procedures reflect vote ranks and not some other characteristics correlated with electoral success is an empirical question that should be explored further in future research.…”

“…Our paper provides several extensions to the literature on rank effects in politics (Crisp et al 2013;Anagol and Fujiwara 2016;André et al 2017). We also contribute to the literature on political selection and the design of electoral systems more generally.…”

“…Anagol and Fujiwara (2016) exploit regression discontinuity designs in Brazilian, Indian and Canadian first-past-the-post elections, documenting that second-place candidates are substantially more likely than close third-place candidates to win in subsequent elections. More closely related to our work on how parties make decisions are recent studies by Crisp et al (2013) and André et al (2017), who report correlational evidence from Belgium, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, indicating that in the case of semi-open lists, parties reward vote-earning candidates with better future pre-election list positions. Most importantly, show a causal link between winning the preferential vote and becoming a party leader in Swedish municipalities with semi-open list systems.…”