Beyond the Party’s Realm - The Consequences of Variation in Candidate Selection

Abstract: In the last two decades, Western European parties have introduced various methods to select candidates for executive public office. A process that before was mainly the privilege of a narrow elite was opened to party members in several parties. While research extensively investigated the effects of variation in candidate selection on parties, little is known about the effects that variation in candidate selection has on voters and whether the effects are gendered. The dissertation argues that candidate selection has consequences beyond the party and explores in four research articles how variation in candidate selection affects voters’ corruption perceptions, their evaluations of candidate quality, female representation, and gendered effects of evaluations of corruptibility. Overall, the results suggest that the consequences of variation in candidate selection are far-reaching, highlighting the importance of considering the impact of candidate selection and intraparty democracy more generally on outcomes beyond the party. The research articles in the dissertation demonstrate that candidate selection can affect corruption perceptions, evaluations of valence, and female representation. Not only does this dissertation demonstrate the need to consider the effects of intraparty dynamics on factors outside of the party, but it also illustrates how previous literature on each of the outcomes investigated in the dissertation fell short of considering intraparty democracy as an explanatory factor. Given the results of this dissertation, future research should thus focus more strongly theoretically and empirically on the effects of intraparty dynamics.