Party Nomination Strategies in List Proportional Representation Systems

Abstract

In list proportional representation (PR) systems, parties shape political selection. We propose a theory of party list choice and elections in list PR systems. Our results describe how a party allocates candidates of heterogeneous quality across list ranks depending on (1) its policy goals and ( 2) its competitive environment. We test our predictions on the universe of Swedish local politicians from 1991 to 2014. Although parties assign better candidates to higher ranks at all ballot levels, the pattern is most pronounced among electorally advantaged parties that have the strongest prospect of controlling the executive. Our findings challenge conventional accounts of candidate selection in which parties prioritize candidate quality in their nomination strategies only when constrained by electoral incentives.Verification Material: The materials and data required to verify the computational reproducibility of the procedures, results and analyses in this article are available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/UQPIKX.

Homophily in voting behavior: Evidence from preferential voting

“…There is no consensus among scholars on what characteristics are used to rank the candidates on the ballot. Buisseret et al (2022) show that candidates are ranked according to their quality (measured by candidates' education, occupation, leadership skills and cognitive abilities), while Galasso and Nannicini (2015) observe that the top positions are filled by party officers and former deputies (Members of Parliament) who are loyal to the party. In the Czech Republic, Svitáková and Šoltés (2020) show that Czech parties tend to allocate the top ballot positions to better‐educated candidates or to those with high intra‐party value (party members or donors).…”

Antagonistic Cooperation: Factional Competition in the Shadow of Elections

“…Adams and Merrill 2008;Serra 2011;Ting, Hirano, and Snyder 2018). A smaller theoretical literature studies party organizations outside of primaries (Buisseret et al 2022;Caillaud and Tirole 2002;Crutzen, Castanheira, and Sahuguet 2010). I contribute to this literature by formalizing a party's internal organization as the degree of power sharing among its faction, and showing how this changes with features of the electoral environment such as polarization and electoral institutions.…”

Length of candidate lists and political careers: Quasi-experimental evidence from Brazil

“…Our results also challenge the conventional view that Brazilian parties are of little relevance, given their strategic control over lists. In this sense, we also speak to the literature that studies the composition of party lists (Buisseret, 2022;Ceyhan, 2018;Cox et al, 2021;Svitáková and Soltés, 2020), more specifically those referring to OLPR in a weakly institutionalized party system (e.g. Samuels, 2003;Scully, 1995).…”

“…Besley et al, 2011; Jones and Olken, 2005). In practice, although politicians are chosen by voters, in most cases a selection is made by political parties “that act as gate-keepers to aspiring candidates” (Buisseret, 2022: 1). In other words, political parties shape the possible choices for voters, influence the paths of those who decide to build a political career and, indirectly, the interests most likely to be heard (Crotty, 1968).…”

“…8.Several studies on the closed-list system, where the ordering of the party list is explicitly observable, point to an ordering of the lists according to the candidate’s electoral potential (Buisseret, 2022; Ceyhan, 2018; Cox et al, 2021; Svitáková and Soltés, 2020). In the open-list system, we do not observe the ordering carried out by the parties, but only the names of the pre-candidates included in the final list.…”