How Democratic Party Leadership Rules can Destabilize Democratic Support

• In Event: Intra-Party Dynamics in the US

Abstract

How might parties’ internal organizations undermine or bolster democratic institutions? This paper examines parties’ rules governing leadership selection in parliamentary democracies. While some parties hold primaries that are open to all supporters, others restrict leadership selection to members of parliament or executive councils. And many parties use some hybrid of these systems. I argue that selection rules not only impact attributes of a party’s leadership nominee (including their position and competence) but also have the ability to undermine voter confidence in democracy.
Combining cross-national party organization data, manifesto data, and voter surveys, I examine the effect of party rules on these varying outcomes. The survey data suggests that individuals are more likely to feel confident in the electoral process when parties in their country allow for member participation through democratic selection processes. (This effect is similar for all individuals in a country, regardless of whether or not their preferred party uses democratic rules.) Yet, a very decentralized set of nomination rules has the potential to nominate extreme or incompetent candidates, which in turn can destabilize the party system and erode support for democracy. Thus, there is a positive direct effect of democratic party rules on voters’ support for democracy, but a negative indirect effect (when extreme candidates are selected) on such support.
Because organizational rules are not independent of democratic support, I am supplement the observational data with an experiment in which Canadian voters are primed to think about their parties’ rules as more or less democratic relative to other countries’ systems. (The experimental results are not yet available.)
The paper fits well with APSA’s focus on Democracy and Destabilization. In particular, I argue that democratic rules within parties can destabilize support for democracy in the electorate. Over the past five years, a number of democratic parties have nominated leaders with extreme, and at times antidemocratic, positions. Because these leaders are typically selected in parties with decentralized and democratic selection procedures, they are viewed as legitimate nominees. Yet at the same time their positions can undermine voter support for democracy.

Author

• Georgia Kernell, UCLA