Resumen de District candidacies for the German Bundestag: what spurs or hampers intra-party competition?
Danny Schindler, Anastasia Pyschny, Malte Cordes
The article analyses district candidate selections as an arena for intra-partycompetition. To investigate what spurs or hampers contested races, we focuson Germany. Relying on data from the Bundestag election in 2017, thefirstpart of our paper looks at factors that statistically stimulate rivalry at thenomination event. Subsequently, we explore the‘secret garden’ofpreselection by drawing on interviews to examine whether intra-partycompetition might be muted prior to the selection conferences. A keydeterminant for competitive nominations is a vacant candidacy rather thanthe chance of winning the district or the selection mode. Moreover, theinvolvement of several regional party units lowers competition. Interestingly,there would be more contested nominations if it were up to the nominatingselectorates. However, things look somewhat different regarding the localparty leadership: In part,‘coronations’are caused by early withdrawals ofaspirants due to the leadership’sinfluence as steering agent.
