COMPARATIVE POLITICS

Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers o f Political science that deais
with contemporary govemment and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterized by
a stress on Comparative analysis and strong metbodological rigour. The series is published
in associatíon with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit
www.ecpmet.eu
The Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David M, Farretl, School o f Politics
and International Relations, University College Dublin. and Kenneth Carty, Professor o f Political
Science, University of British Columbía

OTHER TITLES IN TH1S SERIES

Parliam ents and Coalitions

The Role o f Legislativo Institutions in M ulliparty G ovcm ance
l.unny W, M artin a n d Georg Vanberg

W hen Citizens Decide

Lessons from C itizen Assem blics on Electoral R efonn
Patríck Fournivr, }lenk van der Koik, H Kenneth Carry, André Blais, a n d Jonathan Rose

Platform or Personality?
The Role o f Party L-e-aders in Elections
A m anda Bittner

Political Leaders and D emocratic Elections

Edited by Kvas Aartx, André Bhtis. and H erm a nn Schm itt

T he Politics o f Party Funding

State Funding to Political Parties and Party Com petition in W estern Europe
Michaet Kofi

D csigning D einocracy in a Dangerous World

André* Reynolds

D em ocracy within Parties

Candidate Selection M ethods and
Their Political Conseqaences
Reuven Y, Hazan and Gideon Rahat

Party Politics in N ew Democracias

E dited by P aul Webb and Stephen White

íntergovem m ental C ooperaron

Rational Choices in Federal Systems and Beyond
N icole BotUyer

The D ynam ics o f 'T w o-Party Politics

Party Struetures and the M anagem ent o f Com petition
A lan Ware

Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining

The D em ocratic Life Cycle in Western Furope
Edited by Kuare Str&m, Wblfgang C. Müller, and Torbjarn Bergman

Politics at the Centre

The Selection and Removal o f Party Leaders in the A nglo ParUamemary D em o cracia
William P. Cw.v.v a n d André Blais
The Challenges of Intra-Party
Democracy

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 9

What Is Dem ocratic Candidate Selection?

Gideon Rahat

Candidate selection takes place prior to general elections. It is the process by which
partles decide whom to present as thcir eandidates in elections. These may be
candidates on a list or in single member districts. Becausc some candidacies are
worth much more than others— for exampie, in a safe district or at the top o f a Iist—
candidate selection is as important to individual politicians as are general elections.
I As this chapter will demónstrate, if we adhere to the notion that democracy has the
i same meaning within parties as it does at the State level, then we have to admit that
i such democracy is a rare phenomenon. To illustrate this, imagine a country {we
‘ cannot cali it a democracy) in which general elections look like candidate selection.
There is limited sufffage, and not all citizcns have the right to stand for election.
Frcedom and faimess o f elections are not strictly upheld becausc o f a lack of
resourccs and will, and thus the results may not be seen as legitímate. Moreover in
many cases, incumbents face no subsequent competition and thus lack an incentive to
be responsive to their voters and accountable for their actions and misdoings.
Following this exercise, we may end up thinking that primaries in the US are the
most democratic, as they most ciósely resemble general elections. Yet scholars are
not at all unequivocal on this point. When proposing a recipe for democracy, they
tend to be cautious, to expose the reader to possible risks o f inclusiveness and
openness (Norris 2004; Scarrow 2005; A shiagbor2008; Williams and Paun 2011).
In doing so, they highlight some o f the diíferent democratic norms that may be at
tensión among varying forms o f candidate selection.
Methods o f candidate selection vary over time, from party to party and even
within the same party in different districts. This, in itself, does not mean that it is
impossible to find a common denominator that defines democratic candidato
selection. Aftcr all, electoral systems also vary, yet we know what democratic
; election is and what it is not. The goal o f this chaptcr is both to determine whether
candidate selection— as the possible ‘twin sister’ o f elections— adheres to the
standards o f democratic elections and to assess what the expectations from it are
in terms o f democracy.
The chapter starts with an examination of the implementation of the basic
shared standards of democratic elections for candidate selection. These two
 What ¡s Democratic Candidate Selection? 137

institutions— elections and selections— are functionally similar in the sense that
they are supposed to regúlate democratic choice. They are also seen as sequential Y'
elementsin-the chain o f the recruitment process (Norris 1997). Yet I couíd find no
comparison in the literature between candidate selection and election— they are
addressed only separately (except for studies analysing the impact o f one on the
other, e.g. divisive primaries and their influence on elections results). Take, for
example, the Inter Parliamentary Union’s expanded edition o f ‘Free and Fair
Elections’ (Goodwin-Gill 2006): in all its 214 pages, it makes almost no mention
o f candidate selection. Meanwhile, three impressive KGO reports that promote
candidate selection as a means to enhance democracy do not compare selections
to elections (Norris 2004; Scarrow 2005; Ashiagbor 2008). Having said that,
a closer look suggests that the comparison is there, if cmbedded in the background.
Even scholars who are critical o f primaries cali their adoption ‘democratization’,
admitting that inclusiveness in candidate selection, which approaches the idea
of universal suffrage, is ‘m ore’ democratic (Rahat and Hazan 2001). Not surpris-
ingly, the comparison that will be conducted herc ultimately concludes that, rather
than being its twin sister, candidate selection is at best the (democratically) ;
impoverished cousin of elections.
The second part o f the chapter reviews the democratic expectations that parties
have o f candidate selection. Parties usually set limited expectations of candidate
selection, and these tend to pertain to inclusiveness and representation. They may
present reforms that increase the inclusiveness o f their selectorates and/or that
oblige them to ensure certain kinds and levets o f representation (adoption of
representation correction mechanisms, such as quotas) as enhancements of
IPD, In short, IPD in candidate selection is perccived in terms of an inclusive
participatoty process and a representative outcomc.

S E L E C T IO N A S T H E T W IN S IS T E R O F E L E C T IO N S

Our starting point is the notion that, in general, democracy has the same meaning
both at the State level and within parties. That is, we should look for the same traits
and impose the same standards at both levels, In particular, candidate selection is
to the party what elections are to the democratic state: parties and (sometimes)
individual candidatcs compete in democratic legislatíve elections while individ­
uáis and, rarely, party factions (e.g. Argentina; see D e Luca, Jones, and Tula 2002)
compete for a realistic candidacy in intemal party selection.
When we define national elections as democratic, we expect thcm to be ■
inclusive, ffee, fair, and (periodically) competitive. Can we expect the sam c ! .
from candidate selection? Let us see whether candidate selection in democratic >'
states fulfils the real-world expectations that are set for elections.
 138 Gideon Rahat
Inclusive
Democratic elections need to be inclusive in terms o f the electorate (universal
suffrage) and in terms o f candidacy (the right to run for office and/or be elected).'
When it comes to candidate selection, only the US primaries uphold such a high
standard o f inclusiveness in terms o f both candidacy and the selectorate (which is
similar to the electorate). This is clearly the case for the most open methods—
(nonpartisan, blanket, and also open primaries). But even American closed pri­
maries are highly inclusive in Comparative terms. iThis cannot be understood
_ to directly result fforn the fact that United States’ legislation regulates candidate
1 selection.'. In other countries where the law requires partics to adopt rclativcly
inclusive selectorates— such as Germany, New Zealand, and Finland— the stand­
ard is direct and even indirect involvement ofparty members, not o f all votcrsJThe
depth of regulation and the actual ‘narionalization’ o f US parties, however, are o f a
different kind and, as we shall see, do constitute a case in which democratic
election and selection are highly similar, if not identical, institutions.
In general, Jevels of inclusiveness o f candidate selection methods vary across
democratic countries, within them, and even within parties at different times and in
.'different distriets and regions.|J_n some cases selection is restricted to party
- members, in others to delegates who were selected by party members, and in
still others to non-selected party elites or even to a single leader [For example,
variance is found among the Nordic countries that usually hold common high
democratic standárds (Narud, Pedersen, and Valen 2002). In Iccland, partics often
conduct open primarles in which all voters in the relevant district can particípate.
In Finland (by law) and Denmark (without a law), party primaries— which are
restricted to membership participation— are the norm. In Norway, in most cases,
the selectorate is composed of selected delegates who ratiíy or change a list that a
small nomination committee prepared before the selection meeting. Meanwhile, in
Israel, high variance is found in the level of inclusiveness o f the selectorate:
in some Israelí parties members are the selectorate, in others delegates are, and
still in others the selectorate is a small party elite or cvcn a single leader. In
Belgium (with no law) and in Germany (by law), within the same party, in some
distriets party members are involved in candidate selection, in others delegates
select the candidates.
[ Parties also often include several selectorates with varying levels o f inclusivc-
'ness. This is the case for the British parties that use a multi-stage selection
process that starts, many times, with a small screening committee, continúes
with a delegate-nominated shortlist and ends with membership selection. In the

' Opening selection to the whole electorate does not imply that it is, as a whole, the relevant demos,
but that we allow all o f those that support the party to be part o f its demos. We cannot, o f coursc, be sure
that all those who take part ir candidate selection are supporters of the party, even in the weak sense that
they will vote for it or for its candidates in the general elections.
 What ¡s Democratic Candidate Selection? 139
Conservative Party, before the 2010 elections, the process even ended with a
selection meeting open to all voters in about 100 districts (selection was still
subject to members’ approval) and open primaries through postal ballot in two
districts (Mcllveen 2009, McSweeney 2010). ,
i Adopting more inclusive selectorates may seem to be democratic in the sense 1 1
that it indicates a narrowing o f the gap between the size o f the selectorate and the ( .
electorate.. Vet, it remains unclear syhether opening up the selectorates makes them'J ¿
more representative o f the electorate. ín fact, it may actually provide dispropor-l :• '
tional powcr to those individuáis and groups that have the ability to mobilizei,
people to join parties (in case o f party primaries) and/or to take part in selection (in \
case o f open prim aries^Israel, for example, has seen several attempts by groups to 1
recruit members to parties in order to use the opening up o f the selection process
to promote their own interests and idcologies. There are several extreme right
groups and— recently— also a left-wing group publicly calling on the people—
especially voters o f other parties— to take on membership in the Likud, the right-
wing govemíng party, in order to infiuence candidate selection. To encourage the
trend, the recruiters stress that selecting Likud eandidates and then in the general
election voting for other parties will double voters’ Political influence.
rAs long as only a small minority o f the electorate takes part in the opened-up
sáéction events, it may actually dístort responsivenessJ On the other hand, this
claim also applies to many second-order elections, so itr a n be argued that parties
should be (democratically) praised for opening up; it is the people who are to be
blamed for not taking advantage o f the opportunity given to them to enhance their ,,
influence. Whatcver the case, the discussion above brings to the fore the question: i ' .
who is the party demos? Is it the party’s voters or all voters? lf it is one o f them, but
" it is practically smaller— because only a small minority join parties and take part in
candidate selection— should it be representative o f them?)
'LCandidacy requirements also vary. Parties use a mix o f formal and informal
mechanisms to tailor their pool of eandidates^ Some parties might let anyone f
(anyone, that is, eligible to do so according to the national law) compete for
candidacy, while others might require party membership for a certain period of
time prior to selection and some even add additional restrictions. Candidacy in
many o f the US Democratic and Republican primaries is, in principie, open to all
citizens, and this in itself is seen as a way to assure the implemcntation o f the
democratic right to stand for elections. In Ireland, as in most democracies, the
parties effectively control who can and cannot seek candidacy under their party
label. Some parties chose not to limit candidacy to people who were members for a
fixed period before selection, while others restricted it to thosc who were members
for six months, a year, and even two years (Gallagher 1988).
Additional restrictions inelude age restrictions: Austrian and Belgian parties, for
example, limited the máximum age o f their eandidates (De Winter 1988; Müller
1992). Such a limitation, w e can rcasonably assume, would not be adopted
through a national law because— unlike the requirements for minimal ag e—it
 140 Gideon Rahat
would be seen as an unfair restriction of the right to stand for election. What
country would daré block the election o f its seniora? A party or paities may do it,
and still the golden-agers will have the chance to get elected, through other parties
or by cstablishing a party o f their own (possibly a pensionera’ party). This may
underscore why state-level democracy should abide by stricter standards than
parties. After all, parties are sub-units within a democratic whole. Yet, on the
other hand, especially in cases where parties monopolizo elections, achieving
democracy at the state level might require that parties too abide by certain rules,
such as allowing ethnic minorities or women to join them and take part in their
candidate selections.
Unlike democracy at the state level, at the party level there is no norm or
t standard for inclusiveness— for either the selectorate or for candidacy— that serves
as a threshold that a party must pass to be considered a democratic party. In short,
most democracies fail the inclusiveness test. This might lead us to conclude,
already at this early stage, that most democracies are deficient in this sense. This
would be the case even for those relatively inclusive cases in which parties allow
all citizens to join them as members and take part in candidate selection if they are
ready to pay a membership fee. No country that would ask a citizen to pay a fee in
order to participate in elections would be considered democratic these days. This
leaves us with the US as the only case that comes cióse to meeting the standard.
Or it might indicate that elections and selections are not twin sisters.

Free
Freedom entaiis the right and the opportunity to choose one thing over
another. (Elklit and Svensson 1997: 35)

In mass democratic elections, free individual cholee is the norm. Citizens make
their own choices and are not coerced into choosing a specific party or candidate.
Candidate selection in a democracy is as ffee as elections when it comes to those
: traits that define the polity as a democracy and its elections as democratic: freedom
|o f movement, speech, assembly, association, press, and so on.
However, in the intra-party environment we might face phenomena that we

Í 'ould not tolérate at the national level. The secret ballot is an important fcature o f
emocratic elections as it is meant to ensure that those who can potentially
">T pressurc the voter do not know whether he/she ultimately complied or not. Jln
/ parties in which selection is a result o f elite bargaining secrecy is not kept in the
„ sense that the few who engage in the bargaining make their prefercnces explicit, at
least to each other.j In those cases, coerción is unlikely when the fcw selectora are
powerful enough to expose their prcferences and negotiate them with others who
A have different prefcrences. Coerción is likely when a single leader is much more
1 1 powerful than other members o f the selectorate. We may thus say that in parties in
 What Is Democratic Candidate Selection? 141

which selection is typically under the guidance o f a single leader, it is not free.
Such intra-party realities seem to be typical for the extreme right in Europe (for
example, the French National Front), for parties that were established and domin-
ated by a single leader, such as Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Winston
Peters’ New Zealand First, and for retigious parties. But even in parties in which
the norm is using inclusive selectorates— such as the Liberal and Conservative
parties in Cañada, that use party members to select many o f its eandidates— we
witness instances in which party leaders make the choice.
It seems that in wider selectorates (those comfjosed o f party delegates, members \ v
or supporters), secrecy is also the norm. Yet we encounter accounts and allegations '■
of patron-client and other corrupt practices that defy the principie of free elections. •>
We cannot quantitatively determine that these cases are more frequent or that they
are more decisive in their influence on selection results. Yet, on the basis o f what we
hear and what is occasionally exposed, we can reasonably assume that at least in
some parties and districts there is a Pandora’s box conceming this element o f the
freedom o f selection|(Back and Solomos 1994; Baum and Robinson 1995; Criddle :
1997; Rahat and Sher-Hadar 1999; Combes 2003; Navot 2006; Scherlis 2008)., I
Another aspect o f free elections has to do with the opportunity to particípate in ¡^
the election (Elklit and Svensson 1997).iPartics do not have resources at the scale
that states have, and thus when we deal with mass selection within parties—
membership ballots or primaries that are open to all citizens— the decisión over
where to hold the selection meeting or where to lócate the polling booths (or
whether— or not— to use postal ballot or online voting) might becomc critical in
its influence on selection resultsjThat is, a decisión that implies that a selection
meeting will take place in the hometown o f one o f the eandidates may enhance
her/his chances to win candidacy.
A final aspect o f the freedom o f elections is the legal possibility o f complaint ( /
(Elklit and Svensson 1997).jParties in democracies can have judicial or semi-
judicial organs that deal with complaínts conceming breadles o f the freedom (and
faimess) o f their interna! electionsj Yet, these organs are suspected (often with
reason) o f being partial. Sometimes state-level judicial organs are called in to
decide and it is their policy towards parties (how autonomous they are) that will
strongly affect their willingness to make dccisions that may contradict those o f the
intra-party organs. (
It is only when the democratic state gets in volved, to regúlate and adminístrate, ’ •
that selection can be seen as upholding the standards o f freedom o f elections. Yet, j
this also requires parties to relinquish their autonomy.

Fair
F aim ess m eans im partiality. The opposite o f faim ess is unequal treatm ent o f
equals, w hcreby som e p eople (o r groups) are given unreasonable advantages.
 142 Gideon Rahat
Thus, faimess involves both regularity (the unbiased appiication o f rules) and
reasonablenesa (the not-too-unequal distribution o f relevan: resources among
competitors). (E lklitand Svensson 1997: 35)

. Faimess o f elections refers to many things relating to their administration and

'■regulation.2,These range from ccrtain rules regarding the conduct and financing o f
campaigns to vote counts that do not distort the voters’ verdict. They also inchtde
a requirement for transparency that wiil help demónstrate that the elections wcre
indeed fair. Over the years democracies developed rules and mechanisms that by
and large have succecded in regulating elections according to the norms set by the
legislators in each country. What about faimess in candidate selection?
¡ ^From different accounts conceming candidate selection in established dcmoc-
\ racies we leam that parties do not have the ability (or sometimes the will) to ensure
1fair selection (Duverger 1954; Malloy 2003; Rahat 2008)|_Jheir abilities are
¡ limited because parties do not possess, as States do, the resoürccs and apparatuses
\needed for administrating and regulating elections^Their motivation to investígate
and punish candidates for breaking the rales is also low because candidate
selection takes place on the eve o f general elections, and the last thing they need
then are allegations of intra-party corruption. Thus it is not surprising that democ­
racies in which parties are formally and legally the basic units of electoral
competition (democracies with proportional and mixed electoral systems) often
choose to ignore this problem altogethcr (Hofiuung 2008).(Put differcntly, the
‘solution’ is not to take care o f potential problems in advance but rather to keep
selection a prívate matter and to find ad hoc Solutions in case those problems arise/
A solution to the problem o f unfair candidate selection is to involve the state in
its regníation and even its administration (Hofnung 2008). As the American
experience teaches us, this move implies that the notion o f the party as a voluntary
, association is abandoned. That is, assuring faimess by hamessing the power and
' ability o f the state is not cost-free. It can reduce the autonomy o f the party up to the
point that it would not be able to decide who can stand for candidacy and who can
join as members. Neverthcless, it seems that the trend o f incrcased regulation o f
parties by States is a reality (van Hiezen 2004 and this volume). The real challenge
is to see whether the American way is the only way, or perhaps there is another
path that allows regulated parties some autonomy from the state. In short, and
retuming to our maín concern here, it is sate to say that the little wc know
about unfairness in candidate selection— and perhaps cven more the fact that we
cannot know too much (which breaches the norm for transparency)— teaches us
that selection is not likely to be as fair as are elections (save, maybe, for the
.US case).

(,
For a list of conditions that have to be fiilfilled to make elections fair, see table 1 in Elklit and
Svensson (1997).
 What Is Democratic Candidate Selection ? 143
(Periodically) competitive
Democratic elections should be competitive because they are supposed to allow
different people and worldvicws to compete for public posts. Periodic competition
is important because it is supposed tó keep elected representatives responsive and
accountable to their votersl Democratic elections, then, are periodic so the elected
representatives will know that they have to face the public from time to time and
thus be accountable for their failures and successes. /
We know that in practico, some elections are more competitive than others. If
we take, for example, the success rate of incumbents to be re-clected as a sign
o f competition, we encounter high variance (Somit et al. 1994). When we look at
the intra-party level, we also encounter high variance. In some cases—such as
parties in the US, Cañada, New Zealand, and the UK— incumbents are rarely
removed and are even virtually irremovable. Once they are elected they stay in
parliament either until they are defeated in national elections or until they decide to
retire. In other cases- -Israel (Hadar 2008), and Spain and Portugal (Montabes
and Ortega 1999), for instance— selection seems to be a significant source for
tumover.
Wc can reasonably expect candidate selection to be synchronized with elec­
tions. That is, prior to each election candidates have to be selected in order to
compete (at least on a party ticket, which is the common phenomenon) in the
general election. However, we know of many cases in which incumbents are
automatically rc-nominatcd. Sometimes it is a de fa cto phenomenon— there is a
formal opportunity for competition butnobody contcsts. Sometimes itis thcexplicit
decisión o f the party; this phenomenon is especially common in countries with
elections in single member distriets and small multi-member ones (Hazan and Rahat
2010 ).
Unlike the cases o f inclusiveness, freedom, and faimess, it is here that candidate
selection is not necessaríly democratically ‘inferior’, or rather, as this chapter will
argüe, o f a different kind. In other words, in democracies with large multi-member
distriets— and (relatively) centralized candidate selection— candidate selection
may be an important arena for competition. Moreover, it is elaimed that competi­
tion is actually higher in the less-inclusive case o f selection by delegates rather
than by party members (Rahat, Hazan, and Katz 2008). That is, wider inclusive­
ness does not breed more competition. While state regulation may ensure de ju re ’
competition in candidate selection, de facto competition seems to result from other
features o f the candidate selection method such as candidacy requirements, inclu­
siveness, and centralization (Hazan and Rahat 2010). i

Summary: elections versus selections

American primaries are closer to elections than other candidate selection methods.
They are highly inclusive, and because they are run by the state they can be as fair
 144 Gideon Rahat
and free as general elections are. True, American primaries are not highly com-
petitive, but we cannot definitively blame inclusiveness for that (Rahat, Hazan,
' v ¡and Katz 2008) because low competitiveness is found in most cases where a small
, ■. ,} jdistrict-magnitude electoral system results in a highly decentralized candidate
, ' selection method (Hazan and Rahat 2010). Yet, in following the participatory
c, '-■■■■ ethos, making candidate selection more inclusive, and in highly regulating it, to
make selection free, fair and formally competitive, ‘America’s politicians helped
to propel (the parties] down a path in which they bccame arguably less important
Political intermediarles than parties in other democracies’ (Ware 2002: 264). In
short, highly inclusive, regulated candidate selection is not without a price, maybe
because it becomes too similar to elections.
It is clear that selection is democratically inferior to general elections when we
compare them using the terms we expect the latter to fulfil. Elections at most times
are more inclusive, fair, and free. In terms o f periodie competition we cannot
make the same claim, but neither can we argüe that selection is democratically
superior here, except perhaps in some cases o f candidate selection in large multi-
member districts. This should lead us to reformulate our expectations. A growing
number o f countries do achieve the standards o f democratic elections. Yet, these
same standards are not fulfilled when it comes to candidate selection. This refleets
i a democratic reality in which candidate selection is not judged by the same
istandards as elections (except for the exceptional American case). If so, what
lis democratic candidate selection? The next section looks at how parties (and, in a
ifew cases, countries) deal with this quandary.

T H E P E R C E P T IO N O F D E M O C R A T IC C A N D ID A T E S E L E C T IO N

In the last decades, parties reformed their candidate selection methods in the ñame
o f enhancing IPD. They did so in two central ways. One was to democratize the
selection process: in the last fifty years, more and more parties have given their
members a central (and some even an exclusive) role in the selection o f their
eandidates (Scarrow et al. 2000; Bille 2001; Caul-Kittilson and Scarrow 2003).3
In the UK, for example, the Labour and Conservative parties increasingly involve
their members— and the latter, even non-members— in the final stage of the
selection o f their eandidates. The same trends— the adoption o f increasingly

5 Another development in candidate selection that could also reflect democratization, and could have
been—but was not—presentid as such was the easing o f candidacy requirements. There is no
systematic study that maps this trend. Yet more electorally orionted parties seem to prefer to open
tbeir ranks to potentially popular outsidcrs, rather than limiting candidacy to those who served within
the party for long periods before being eligible to present for candidacy.
 What Is Democratic Candidate Selection? 145

inclusive selectorates— are reported from all over the democratic world, includíng
second-wave democracies such as Israel and thírd-wave democracies such as
Taiwan, Argentina, and Botswana.
Yet, it should be noted that in many cases, parties open their selection in an
incremental way, and even then with caution— that is, they involve their members
in selection but do not give them the solé authority to select candidates, In other
words, party members are one seiectorate out of a íew that particípate in selection.
They may be selecting from a shortlist that was designed by small exclusive
selectorates (the UK parties fall into this category), or they might have a voice
that is then combined with that of other selectorates (as with New Zealand’s
Labour Party). O r they may be the only selector», yet their decisión can be vetoed
by another party actor; this is the case for Canadian parties, where party members
select the candidates but the party leader can veto their decisión (Cross 2006). In
other cases, such as the Labor party in Israel (since 1992), members are the single
exclusive seiectorate that select the party candidates.
The second kind o f reform has to do with outeomes o f the selection process.
Since the 1970s, we have seen an evident trend, at the intra-party level, o f adopting
measures— such as quotas— to enhance women’s representation (Krook 2009).
Such measures are also sometimes adopted to enhance the representation o f other
groups, such as minorities and youth.
Parties present the adoption o f thesc measures in public as an attempt to reform
and to become more democratic. Such reforms are spotlighted as ensuring
widening participation (when adopting more inclusive selectorates) and enhancing
representation (when adopting representation correction mechanisms such as
quotas). The following words o f UK prime minister David Cameron reflect the
way parties present their reforms:

One o f therreforms I’m most proud o f is the widespread introduction of open

primarles for the selection o f Conservatíve parliamentary candidates in recent
years. 1 want to see that eontinue, with much greater use o f open primarles for
the selection o f parliamentary candidates— and not just in the Conservative
Party, but every party. In time, this will have a transformatíve cffect on our
politics, taking power from the party clites and the oíd boy networks and
giving it to the people. (PolitícsHome 26 May 2009)

lt can be argued, o f cornse, that parties adopt these measures not because they are
really interested in democracy. They might ‘dcmocratize’ because doing so could
help the party in the competitive electoral market or because it serves specifre
actors within the party. Yet, this does not mean that they do not adhere to specific
democratic norms (or at least are limited by them) when they try to serve their
interests. The trend ofdem petatízatien points to the direction o f reform in candi­
date selection methods and sets its boundaries (Bamea and Rahat 2007). Party
leaders might democratize to weakcn the influencé o f party activists and incrcase
their autonomy in polieymaking, as the cartel party approach claims (Katz and
 146 Gideon Rahat
Mair 1995; Katz 2001; Carty, this volume). But the Choice o f democratizing points
to the limited space for manoeuver o f the leaders that is dictated by what is wideiy
i perceived as democratic. That is, leaders would be better o ff if they were the
i selectors; democratization is not their ideal strategy for increasing their autonomy
i but their second bcst. Only a few, however, adopt this ideal option (e.g. ítaly’s
formcr prime minister Berlusconi). Thus, even if 1PD is promoted out o f instru­
mental and sclf-serving motivations (as happens, often, with national-level dem-
ocratizatio'n), it can and should be seen, at least, as also adhering to established
democratic norms.
A few established democracies have legislation that concems the process
o f candidate selection, specifically the required inclusiveness o f candidate selec­
tion. The legal definition varies, from the most inclusive American nonparrisan
and blanket primaries through American open, semi-open, and closed primaries,
to direct (e.g. Finland) and indirect (Norway 1920-2002) selection by party
members. Germany allows parties to choose between direct and indirect selection
^ by party members while New Zealand adds a third altemativc, a combination of
' ’ 1 these two. The more inclusive candidate selection methods are seen as the norm,
' / ! but the inclusiveness level varies wideiy. In short, while few countries set inclu-
1 siveness as the main standard for democratic selection, even among them there is
no shared norm and the selectorate is stretched from party delegates to all voters. It
can be argued that they make exclusive selection by a single leader or a small party
élite illegal. Yet in terms o f inclusiveness o f selection, even in these countries,
party elites and leaders play a central role in candidate selection, for example, in
pre-designing an agreed list o f candidates for the delegates to ratify. If we can
generalizc something from these cases, it is that the involvement o f wider selecto­
rates in candidate selection is perceived to be more democratic.
) IThe second kind o f legislation that has to do with candidate selection concems
itsproducts rather than the process p er se^Many countries these days define by
law a mínimum quota o f female (and male) candidacics (and sometimes minority
groups) that each party must put forward in elections (Htun 2004; Krook 2009).
These include veteran democracies such as Belgium and France and younger
democracies in Latín America and Southern Europe. This legislation has to do
with notions o f proper and just Tcpresentation, usually in terms of gender, In this
case, parties are told what they should produce, rather than what method they
should use. In other words, it does not matter whether a single leader or hundreds
of thousands o f party members or supporters select women as party candidates—
as long as there are ‘cnough’ female candidates. In fact, it would be easier for
parties with more exclusive selectorates to uphold these laws, while parties with
large selectorates often need to use rules to restrict selection.
An interesting case is when requirements for both inclusiveness and representa-
tion are set. And here we witness, in fact, a real intra-democratic dilemma between
inclusiveness and representation. That is, parties cannot observe intemal regula-
tions or national laws that require them to present a minimal number o f candidates
 What Is Democratic Candidate Selection? 147

from a certain gender unless they have some control over their selectorates’
choices. This seems to have led the Mexican legislature to determine that gender
quotas would not be required in cases of selection through primaries (Baldez
2007)^ This need not be an either/or case. jThere are mechanisms that allow for
primaries and ensure w om cn’s representation at the same time.l Still, such a
combination does require that the selectors' choices are guided or limited.
To summarize, inclusiveness is seen as enhancing democracy in the candidate
selection process while representation is seen as the main issue when it comes to
the outcomes o f candidate selection. Other potential democratic considcrations
might arise from time to time but they do not take centcr stage. Candidacy seems
to have become more inclusive over the years, yet this development was not
presented as democratization. Decentrahzation o f candidate selection could have
been perceived and presented as democratization in candidate selection. But in this
case, there was no clear trend o f decentralization but rather o f centralization,
which was used, among other things, to enablc the leadership to control candida-
cies in a way that would ensure more representative outcomes.

D 1SC U SS10N

It is only now that we are bcginning to ask and answ erthe question o f what exactly
democratic selection is. Unlike the case o f elections, we hardly have the Compara­
tive tools to answer it— there are no Freedom House or Polity índices. What we
can claim on the basis o f Cross (2008), Rahat (2009), and Hazan and Rahat (2010)
is that the assessment o f candidate selection should be different from elections, but
relate to them— that is, it should add to democracy. But here we already have
discord between the relatively positive view o f inclusiveness o f Cross (2008) and
the much-less-enthusiastic view of Hazan and Rahat (2010).
According to Cross (2008), candidate selection is a possible compensatory tool
that helps to counter flaws o f the democratic order at the national level. There are
no general standard norms that a candidate selection method need abide by.
Rather, selection is a flexible mechanism that should be adapted to each democ­
racy according to its specific needs. These result from the spccific features o f its
electoral systcm, party system and the role o f the members o f parliament as
polieymakers. Cross puts inclusiveness as the democratic norm, yet claims that
its significance for democracy is a function o f the national level polity— the kind
and level o f democratic enhancement that it necds— not a must in every case. He
argües, for example, that inclusive candidate selection is more important in cases
where a closed-list system is used because it compensates for the lack o f a personal
element in the general elections.
 148 Gideon Rahat
While Cross stresses the process, Rahat (2009) and Hazan and Rahat (2010)
put more emphasis on outcomes. Hazan and Rahat claim that inclusiveness o f
candidate selection might breed low-quality participation (Rahat and Hazan
2007), low levéis o f representation, and medium-level competition (Rahat,
Hazan, and Katz 2008). It may also expose the party to the influences o f non-
party actors in a way that might distort the chain o f delegation and harm its
ability to be responsive to its voters (Rahat 2008). Furthermore, inclusiveness
might- hurt the ability o f a party to sustain itself as an organization that is based,
at least partly, on voluntarism and volunteer work. That is because it takes
away its ability $o use the right to select candidates as an important part o f
its arsenal o f selective incentives (Rahat 2009). Thus, if a party is indeed a
part o f the whole—-a democratic whole in which inclusiveness is strictly kept at
the state level— it may trade inclusiveness for other elements that can enhance
democracy.
Hazan and Rahat also see candidate selection as a possible compensatory
tool, but one that is less sensitive to the characteristics o f the national level
democratic order. Their approach is based on two notions. First, that parties, in
any democracy, should help to compénsate for some common deficiencíes at the
national level that result from the undeniable need for inclusiveness in democratic
elections. They can do this by enhancing representation and competition and
í creating balanced responsiveness in candidate selections.‘9lnclusiveness should
' not be seen as a must, as it is at the national level, if the involvement o f less
inclusive selectorates can help strengthen these other democratic dimensions.
Second, parties are important institutions in themselves. As such, they should be
able to sustain themselves by allocating selective incentives— that is, a privileged
position to activists— in candidate selection. They should also be intemally
democratic by having a system o f checks and balances. This trait is expressed,
when it comes to candidate selection, in spreading selection among severa]
selectorates.
The difference between Cross’s approach and Hazan and Rahat’s is illuminated
in the examination o f the American case—the one that was found to be the
closest to the democratic election ideal in the first section. The US has all five
justifications that Cross outlincs— at the level o f the electoral and party system
and regarding the role o f deputies— to use primaries as a compensatory tool
for national-level elections. For Hazan and Rahat, however, the US case is an
example o f the trade-off that highly inclusive primaries create: while wide partici­
pation and high levels o f candidate-centered responsiveness are achieved, inclu­
siveness breeds relatively low levels of representation, competition, and party
cohesión.

4 That ¡s, responsiveness in which the party actors still play a central role vis-á-vis non-party actors.
 What Is Democratic Candidate Selection? 149
CONCLUSfONS

When it comes to candidate selection, the differences in the perception o f 1PD—

like those diñerences in the general debate on democracy— stem from a different
perception on the ímportance of the various elements o f democracy: Should we
emphasize the process or the outcomes? W hat is the optimal balance between
participation, representation, competition, and responsiveness? Thesg'dáys, the
defihition o f IPD is elearly less strict than that o f national-level democracy, both in
the política! world and among experts.
There are uneasy relationships between the two prominent elements in the „
perception o f IPD in the real world, participation and representation (Rahat,
Hazan, and Katz 2008; M cllveen, 2009). To illustrate this point, think o f two
poles: at one end,jwe have candidate selection that is conducted by millions ó f
citizens who happen to select men and only men as candidate^ A t the other end,
we have a single leader, an enlightened diqtator, who ensures that half o f the
candidacies would be awarded to women!<In short, to ensure a representative
outeome, parties are required to regúlate the decisions o f the selectorsyjn between
the two poles we can lócate the current perception o f IPD; the dilemma and the
debate concéntrate— as a result o f the uneasy relationships between these two— on
preferring one or the other, or on the optimal balance between them.