Suchergebnisse

Recruiting candidates for local elections is a complex task. Even though some parties find difficult to attract candidates (mainly due to the decreased party membership and the lack of interest for local politics), one of the most important concerns is related to the subtle balance between different types of candidates on the list. Local parties need candidates who embody two main functions: (1) to attract votes (in open list systems) and (2) to serve the interests of the party once elected. As a result, party leaders place on their electoral list candidates who belong to the party structure (incumbent councilors, party members, etc.) as well as candidates who would attract more votes (for example by including 'external' candidates on the list). Following a large data collection process, this paper relies on a quantitative analysis of the 986 lists that participated in the 2012 local elections in the 262 Walloon municipalities (Belgium). The presence of different types of candidates (incumbent mayor and alderman, incumbent councilor, party member, party activist, external candidate, etc.) will be measured for each individual list. In a second stage, the paper will identify the factors that explain variation of the presence of such candidates across lists and municipalities with the help of demographic factors (size of the municipality, rural vs. urban, etc.), political factors (ideology of the list, independence from the national party, etc.) and party competition factors (number of competing lists, electoral alliances, etc.). Overall, this research seeks to uncover the diversity of local electoral strategies guiding local recruitment and why it matters for the electoral results of the lists.

The name of a party is an important dimension of its political position. Often, the label used by a political party in its name tells much about its ideology. But, since in most cases, only a few parties compete for each election it is difficult to undertake large qualitative and quantitative analyses of party names. Local elections can provide an interesting option, however. Indeed, in several cases, we find lots of different names, and not only the usual national party labels. In the last local elections in Wallonia, one of the three Belgian Regions, 1012 lists were in competition. Such data provide a fertile ground for analysis. To study the name of the lists, we proceed in two steps. First, we build a typology of the names. We classify the lists in different categories: lists with national party name, lists with a clear reference to a national party, lists with an ideological label, lists with a clear reference to the commune's name, lists with a reference to the communal level but also lists with a reference to democracy, to a union or alliance, to change and an alternative way of doing politics, to the future, with puns, and with a reference to a person. In the second step, using multinomial regressions, we show where the different types of lists can be found and above all we look at their electoral performances and thus test the hypothesis whether the party name matters or not.