Candidate selection

Candidate selection is an integral part of the political process but is seldom highlighted in election studies. This is not surprising given that the process of selecting party representatives has traditionally taken place behind closed party doors. Yet the political recruitment process can tell us a great deal about party organisations, the distribution of power within parties, candidate qualities favoured by party members, and the routes of entry to a parliamentary career. Candidate selection can be the occasion of high elation for the chosen ones and of bitter disappointment for the losers; it can present an opportunity for healing old party wounds, creating fresh antagonisms, or containing long-standing tensions. The drama of a selection contest is overshadowed by the intensity of an election campaign, yet it is the method by which the potential range of candidates is narrowed and as such is a vital stage in the electoral process. The central significance of candidate selection for parties has been observed by Gallagher (1988, 3), who notes that “selecting candidates is an important part of any study of political parties because it is one of their main activities… The contest over candidate selection is generally even more intense than the struggle for control over the party manifesto”. Indeed, as parties become more professional in their approach to political life, others would give primacy to the activity of candidate selection, arguing that “the European mass party is becoming limited to electioneering and the selection of candidates” (Jupp, quoted in Gallagher 1988, 3).