Party Strategy, Candidate Selection, and Legislative Behavior in Mexico

Abstract

What explains party unity in legislatures? Prior research suggests when candidate selection and electoral rules create incentives for legislators to cultivate a personal vote, party unity should decline. However, previous theories often treat candidate selection rules as exogenous institutions that have independent effects on legislative behavior despite the fact the choice of nomination rules are often an intraparty issue and a key component of partisan electoral strategies. Here, we develop a theory linking candidate selection rules to party unity through the strategic behavior of party leaders. Our main finding is that, under personalized electoral rules, the effects of nomination rules on legislative behavior are conditional on parties' electoral incentives. We test our theory using data from the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, a case where our results are unlikely to be explained by personal vote‐seeking incentives since legislators are banned from seeking reelection.

Strategies of the Party Selectorate: The Two-Level Game in District Selections in Germany’s Mixed Member Electoral System

“…It is argued in this article that there are underlying strategic considerations of the parties' selectorates which lead to a different prioritization and hierarchy of the selection criteria and thus to a different outcome of the candidate selection process. And indeed, it has been argued that there are two main goals which are relevant for the strategic considerations in the process of candidate selection: party-related organizational goals and electoral goals (Best and Cotta, 2000;Adams and Merrill, 2008;Dodeigne and Meulewaeter, 2014;Ascencio and Kerevel, 2020): From the perspective of the party organization, a candidate should be loyal to the party and should fit in with the ideological and policy-related objectives of the party (Andeweg and Thomassen, 2011). Hence, with regard to the organizational goal, party membership, a long-term service in local and party offices, and intra-party visibility are likely to be the most important selection criteria because they serve as cues for party loyalty.…”

“…This is surprising since the parties' strategies are highly relevant as an important explanatory and dynamic link between the parties' goals and context factors of candidate selection on the one side and the adopted selection criteria and the outcome of candidate selection on the other side. In a nutshell, it is argued that the parties' selectorates are regularly forced to set priorities between the-often-competing goals of party loyalty and electability in the process of candidate selection (Ascencio and Kerevel, 2020). This is likely to result in a strategy which is adopted by the selectorate in order to achieve the prioritized goal(s).…”

“…This suggests that the selectorate nominates under certain conditions candidates for strategic considerations, e.g., electoral goals. By that, the strategies are likely to influence the hierarchy of the selection criteria, the outcome of the candidate selection process, the campaign behavior and the behavior of MPs (e.g., Preece, 2014;Papp and Zorigt, 2016;Ascencio and Kerevel, 2020;Zittel and Nyhuis, 2021).…”

The Personalization of Electoral Rules: How Shifting Influence From Selectors to Voters Affects Party Unity

“…17. Using a game-theoretic model, Ascencio and Kerevel (2020) derive the similar prediction that the effect of delegating candidate selection from the party leadership to other intra-party actors can lead to more or less dissent in candidate-centered systems depending on actors' preferences and motivations. 18.…”

“…6 The seminal contribution by Carey and Shugart (1995: 420) explains that "[w]hen we speak of a tension between personal and party reputation, then, we are referring to the potential conflict between individual politicians and district-level party leaders" [my emphasis]. Subsequent work typically does not (or perhaps cannot due to data limitations) incorporate the policy preferences of these selectors (for an exception see Ascencio and Kerevel, 2020). on political parties (e.g., Katz, 2001;May, 1973;Schofield and Sened, 2005).…”