German Parties as a New Case of Leadership Selection Research
A growing subfield of research on party politics examines the selection of party leaders, primarily through the analysis of actors and their ambitions, organizational procedures, and circumstances.1 It either focuses on a single political party or compares several parties in a state,2 or parties in a set of states.3 However, we still know far too little about methods of selecting leaders, not least when it comes to how parties adapt to keep pace with their dynamic environment or otherwise refuse to evolve with the times.
The research situation regarding German parties is even worse. The subject of leadership selection change has been insufficiently explored and even left out of comparative studies, probably due to the extraordinarily stable patterns of party leaders elected by delegates at “coronation masses.”4 Between 1945 and the late 1980s, for example, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) had three chairmen. Only since then has it had a higher fluctuation in leaders. The era of long-term chairpersons was even longer for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), with Helmut Kohl in power for 25 years from 1973 to 1998 and Angela Merkel for 18 years from 2000 to 2018.
In recent years significant changes have taken place in both parties. Accordingly, this article compares the CDU and SPD, which have undergone the greatest changes; the smaller parties represented in the current Bundestag still follow the traditional mode of leadership selection. These changes will be conceptualized in a descriptive (as opposed to a normative) manner as catch-up democratization, which reflects an international trend toward greater intra-party democracy (IPD).5 This article aims to find out exactly what kind of democratization has taken place. Therefore, altogether seven recent leadership selections between 2017 and 2022 will be compared to traditional selection processes, which will be aggregated for the quarter-century since 1990 (the year of German reunification). Methodologically, both longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses will be carried out. Since democratization generally has a positive connotation,6 we will distinguish analytically between two main types of IPD. It will be shown that democratization is not a one-way street for the two compared parties. Rather, there are ups and downs and different democratizations in different intra-party dimensions. In this regard, this article will provide an important piece of the puzzle in the scholarly debate on the party-internal implementation of organizational changes and retractions.
The CDU and SPD share the largest membership and greatest electoral strength in the German party system. Both traditionally aspire to be a Volkspartei—a term associated with the model of a “catch-all party”7 that aims to capture the maximum number of votes. Since it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to defend this status given recent election losses,8 the party chairs are becoming even more important. On the one hand, parties under pressure are more likely to be associated with a desire for renewal.9 On the other hand, the position of the CDU and SPD as governing parties—they formed three grand coalitions between 2005 and 2021—should have made changes less likely.10 In this regard, this analysis will offer new insights and contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the conditions for the democratizing of leadership selection.
The following section highlights academic discussions on leadership selection change. Subsequently, the article's research design will be introduced. As IPD is divided into an input and output dimension,11 this article will focus on the former.12 The question at hand is how and why democratic leadership selections were organized and implemented. Consistent with basic ideas about democracy13 used in studies on leadership selection,14 the article's thesis of democratization of internal selection methods is applied across the proposal of candidates, competition among them, levels of decision-making, and inclusion/exclusion of party members. The empirical section first describes the traditional method of leadership selection by German parties. Secondly, the recent leadership selections of the CDU and SPD will be analyzed and compared to traditional ones. Data sources include statutes, resolutions, press releases, and related internal documents, membership, and participation statistics, as well as party-internal election results from the archives of the respective associated political foundations (the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Friedrich Ebert Foundation), public survey data, and media reports. In addition, three talks were conducted with the staff of party headquarters to reflect on the article's thesis and research findings.15 The final section concludes the results, assesses the implications, and discusses their relevance for further research.
Academic Discussions on Party Leadership Selection Change
Research on leadership selection touches on many aspects of contemporary party politics, however, it is still an emerging discipline, having begun only in the 1990s.16 Since then, scholars have made significant advances in their conceptualization and methods, which have been influenced by research on candidate selection.17 Accordingly, they have conducted a growing number of comparative empirical studies18 that often include Canada and Israel.19 A side note here is that these studies only focus on formally elected leaders, which would suggest that there could not have been an informal party leader who was never elected.20
The relevance of research on leadership selection is obvious, as party leaders are key political actors who dominate coalition governments and normally become the head of government.21 Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda (1994) have theorized that party change does not just happen of its own accord but rather can be attributed to external or internal stimuli being processed by a party in relation to its main goal.22 A leadership selection change is one of the internal factors that increases the probability of substantial “party reform.”23 Indeed, leadership renewal is often accompanied by a rejuvenation of the party as a whole which means that younger and less experienced candidates are successful.24
Although intertwined, there are competing academic explanations for a change in leadership selection.25 They can be divided into party-exogenous and -endogenous narratives.26 One of the key narratives is “democratization.”27 From a party-exogenous perspective, this process can be understood as an adaptation to changes in a party's environment. Although it seems paradoxical, organizational democratization can be related to the cartel party approach28: to counteract weakened roots in society,29 parties try to re-legitimatize themselves by involving their rank-and-file members in internal decision-making. Especially given the populist challenge to liberal democracy, their links to society must appear as vibrant as possible.30
In terms of party-endogenous narratives, changes in the configuration of organizational power are key.31 A widespread assumption (also) goes back to the cartel party approach: democratization strengthens higher-level party elites by upholding their power, while simultaneously bypassing and thereby weakening their mid-level counterparts.32 A similar calculus is at play when a candidate with seemingly low chances of winning calls for grassroots involvement to gain an advantage, or when a competing wing advocates for greater inclusion to achieve mobilization from which it will later benefit.33 Inclusion and competition are mutually reinforcing34: due to the costs of financial and organizational efforts, greater inclusion only makes sense if a choice can be made between at least two promising candidates.35
Regarding the level of participation, a distinction can be made between an inclusive and exclusive leadership selection.36 Participation is highly exclusive when it is made by the parliamentary party group (PPG), as had been typical for British parties until the party primaries to elect Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson, respectively.37 It is extremely inclusive when the entire electorate can make the selection decision, as in the very rare case of the Democratic Party in Italy.38 There may be a gain in legitimacy after a democratized selection. A necessary condition, however, would be that the members who voted for a losing candidate accept the result. If this is not the case, polarizing victories can weaken a newly elected leader.39
As for the debate on mobilization through democratized leadership selection, there is no clear research-backed evidence;40 in the short term, there may be changes in the internal distribution of power.41 In the long term, the potential for membership growth seems limited due to “entryism” or “instant memberships.”42 Ultimately, leadership performance itself is critical. With few exceptions, research on the output level of democratized leadership selection is quite underdeveloped and controversial.43 Giulia Sandri and Antonella Seddone conclude that “primaries have a positive effect on public opinion and therefore on the citizens’ perceptions of the party.”44 Primaries can serve as a test run to find the best frontrunner for general elections, especially if they promote a favorable perception of the party among the public. Dissent as a by-product of competition between candidates, however, may contradict this.45
Theses and Research Design
Analogous to the two ideal types of representative democracy suggested by Arend Lijphart, which focus on the dominant decision-making mode of intra-state politics,46 this article distinguishes between the “consensus-oriented IPD” and “majoritarian-oriented IPD.”47 Both types were introduced to theoretically capture the main IPD configurations in Germany, which are characterized by specific peculiarities in accordance with the Political Parties Act (Parteiengesetz). In short, in the consensus-oriented IPD negotiations among party officials to find a compromise are the dominant mode of decision-making. This type prefers exclusive party circles to reach decisions that are later ratified at delegate assemblies without open disputes. The direct participation of all members reflects the ideal of the majoritarian-oriented IPD, under which inclusive decisions are made at general meetings or by ballots with a final majority vote. While the consensus-oriented IPD type aims to balance party-specific power issues and intra-party representation demands, the majoritarian-oriented IPD emphasizes competition and the legitimacy of grassroots democracy within parties.
The research on leadership selection has developed several indicators for empirical analysis of party-internal democracy. These are (1) the proposal of candidates (restricted by an exclusive elitist circle or otherwise open to self-candidacies), (2) the competition among the candidates (“coronations” or close races), (3) the level of decision-making (central/federal or decentral/subnational), and (4) the degree to which party members are included (through an exclusive federal delegate assembly or an inclusive party primary). Because leadership selection is described as a complex multi-stage procedure, Susan E. Scarrow argues for carefully examining at which stage decisions are made.48 Conceptual distinctions help to elucidate where the power of selection is to be found and how it is distributed within a party: selection processes will be distinguished between the pre-decision arena and the final arena, where the election of the party leader is either prepared or concluded.49 Furthermore, we will separate official and informal elements.
The article's thesis of democratized intra-party decision-making for recent leadership selections in the CDU and SPD is defined as a shift from a rather consensus-oriented, top-down mode toward a more competition-oriented, bottom-up mode. This also means weakening the pre-decision arena in favor of the final decision arena. A traditional exclusive configuration will shift toward more inclusion in both the selectorate and candidacy dimensions. To put it in detail for our analytical dimensions: we expect a loss of elite control over the proposal of candidates (1), competition among the candidates (2), decentralization of the selection process (3), and greater inclusion of party members (4). To evaluate the thesis on democratization, the expected shifts between previous and more recent party leadership selections are examined using the four variables operationalized in the empirical section.
The article's general thesis on the trend toward the majoritarian-oriented IPD reveals the importance of two interdependent aspects. Research shows that a more inclusive candidate dimension fosters an inclusive selection dimension and vice versa.50 First, selectors must have the opportunity to choose between at least two promising candidates. Only if they can influence the outcome of the election can one speak of effective participation. Second, party members who wish to participate in the selection of leadership must be allowed to do so. Both requirements stem from a fundamental understanding of democracy, which includes the right of everyone to participate.51
Traditional Patterns in German Party Leadership Selection
Germany is known for its stable conditions for the recruitment of party leaders, which can be classified as elite-based negotiations and thus refer to the consensus-oriented IPD type.52 Usually, the Federal Executive Committee or the Presidium, a leading subcommittee of the national party board, conceived of as a “steering agent,”53 made a recommendation for the incumbent chair (or, only in rare cases, for a new one). This did not preclude an incumbent from informally proposing his or her successor,54 as was the case with Angela Merkel and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (often referred to by her initials AKK) in the CDU, or Sigmar Gabriel and Martin Schulz in the SPD. Competition was quite unusual in the (re-)selection of the chair, as appointment or “coronation” was the common practice.55 Until the most recent selections analyzed here, the last time the CDU had more than one person running for party chair was in 1971, and the SPD only did in 1993 and 1995.56
Until today, the chairperson must be elected de jure by an exclusive part of the “party in central office” at the federal level: under German party law, a federal assembly composed of delegates elected by secret ballot from assemblies of subnational party branches has the final say.57 The federal assembly meets at least every two years. Its size currently ranges from six hundred (plus the members of the federal executive committee) in the SPD to 1,001 in the CDU.
The decision-making process in the search for a new party chair resembled a “black box.”58 However, typical patterns have already been studied. Traditionally, party professionals who have accumulated individual political capital on an arduous and lengthy path from the bottom of the party are recruited. In keeping with Germany's federalism, different paths can be followed.59 Acquiring and demonstrating professional political qualifications can either be gained through influential government positions at the state level, especially as premier (Ministerpräsident) (e.g., Helmut Kohl or Gerhard Schröder), or at the federal level, as a federal minister or PPG leader (e.g., Wolfgang Schäuble or Angela Merkel).
The Democratization of Leadership Selection in the CDU and SPD
The Origins of Leadership Selection Change
In the beginning, changes in the selection of German party leadership did not look like democratization in the four-dimensional sense in which it is understood here. Rather, it resembled the populist emergence of a new leader in line with a “party awakening,” as was described as a phenomenon of recent leadership selections.60 In March 2017, Schulz was elected as the new SPD chair and candidate for chancellor in the upcoming federal election. He was elected with an incredible 100 percent of the delegates’ votes, with no opponents and no prior party primary. Even the SPD's most famous long-term chairman, Willy Brandt, achieved at best 99 percent of delegates’ votes (1966 in Dortmund) and at worst 90 percent (1979 in Berlin).
Schulz's profile had two distinctive features. First, he presented himself as a political outsider, at least as far as national politics in Germany was concerned. Second, he emphasized his first job as a bookseller and honorary mayor of the small city of Würselen. However, he was not a political amateur but a professional: he was president of the European Parliament (2012 to 2017), to which he had belonged since 1994, and for almost two decades he was an ex-officio member of the SPD Präsidium (1999 to 2018). His image contributed to an unprecedented mobilization of party members and voters. The media called this “Schulz-Hype.”61 The growing support for SPD around this euphoria could be measured in opinion polls and through an increase in membership. Starting at 21 percent in January 2017, the Social Democrats reached 32 percent in March 2017—a level that it has yet to reach again (Figure 1). The party welcomed about 25,000 new members, marking the first significant increase since 1990.
Public support and membership numbers of the SPD. 2016 to 2022
Note: The light gray line marks the SPD's performance in representative opinion polls (Sonntagsfrage) conducted by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen (2022) commissioned by the ZDF-Politbarometer (to be read from the right axis). N between 1,000 and 1,700. The dark gray line represents the monthly membership numbers provided by the SPD headquarters (to be read from the left axis). This line shows two influxes of members: the first and more significant one around the “enthronement” of Schulz. The second did not take place at a leadership selection but rather during the primary in Spring 2018 on the agreement to continue the controversial grand coalition. Another influx did not happen, not even in the month before the 2019 primary to elect the new leadership team of Esken and Walter-Borjans.
Citation: German Politics and Society 42, 1; 10.3167/gps.2024.420103
But the success was ultimately short-lived. With the electoral losses in the Saarland elections at the end of March 2017, public support dropped. After the SPD's poor performance in the 2017 federal election (with only 20.5 percent of the second votes, which was five percentage points below the 2013 result), Martin Schulz finally resigned in January 2018.
This moment of a fallen star marked the beginning of the SPD's democratization process. Thus, its origins can be interpreted as growing inter-party frustration over closed leadership selections that could guarantee neither unity within the party nor electoral success. The motivation was similar to that of the CDU, which later adopted the SPD primary after two unsuccessful short-term leaderships. The CDU primary was preceded by a double “external shock,”62 namely the defeat in the 2021 federal election and the new status as an opposition party. As the CDU defines itself as a governing party, its former chairman and frontrunner Armin Laschet was still trying to keep his party in government after the dramatic losses on election night.63
In the following, the concept of democratization is analyzed in the four subcategories presented above. For a detailed chronological description of the most important stages, and actors of the CDU's and SPD's recent leadership selections, see Figures 2 and 3.
Leadership selections in the CDU: 2018 to 2022
Citation: German Politics and Society 42, 1; 10.3167/gps.2024.420103
Leadership selections in the SPD: 2017 to 2021
Citation: German Politics and Society 42, 1; 10.3167/gps.2024.420103
Democratization in the Candidate Dimension: Self-candidacies and (Intensified) Competition
Democratization in the candidate dimension meant, first, a shift from the nomination of candidates by party elites to self-candidacies, which encouraged the emergence of new types who presented themselves as outsiders to the party establishment. To name the most important examples: Friedrich Merz wanted to be perceived as a successful businessman who retired from politics more than a decade ago. According to Saskia Esken, her decision to run for SPD co-chair was rooted in self-empowerment. In the media, she was referred to as a backbencher, and Norbert Walter-Borjans, who had been out of politics, was denigrated as a “political pensioner.”64
The increase in self-nominations has been fostered by only minimal formal requirements, as the two recent primaries show. Nevertheless, they could be a hurdle for members without sufficient intra-party support. This was the experience of a CDU member who was not nominated by her district party (Kreisverband) for the 2021–2022 leadership selection.65 In the CDU, a candidate needed the nomination of a party executive at one of the vertical (e.g., Bezirksvorstand) or horizontal (e.g., the national board of the youth organization Junge Union) party levels. In the SPD's primary in 2019, the formal requirement was a nomination by at least five party branches at the district level (Unterbezirk) or one at the regional (Bezirk) or state level (Landesverband).
Second, more candidates threw their hats into the ring, and competition between them intensified. This expanded the choices available to the party selectorate, while at the same time making results less predictable. Ofer Kenig, Gideon Rahat and Or Tuttnauer define “close races” as election outcomes with a margin of less than ten percentage points.66 In some departure from previous research, such results occurred not only in the 2019 SPD primary, where competition can be expected.67 Surprisingly, there were close races also in delegate assemblies (CDU 2018 and early 2021; see Tables 2 and 3).
The details of what happened were as follows in the SPD: after Martin Schulz, Andrea Nahles served as chairwoman from April 2018 to June 2019. Like Schulz, she was also elected only by a delegate assembly. Nevertheless, her election as chairwoman can be seen as the first step toward democratization within SPD. Although much hope was placed in her across the party, she was challenged by an opposing candidate, who called herself a “grassroots-member.” Nahles’ challenger received a remarkable 27.6 percent of the delegates’ votes. In the next SPD's leadership selection, when a tandem was supposed to be chosen, self-candidacies became even more important. The first round of the 2019 primary did not produce a clear victory. The best results were achieved by Olaf Scholz and Klara Geywitz, who represented the party establishment, with 22.7 percent, and the “underdogs” Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans with 21 percent. The other teams achieved 16.3, 14.63, 14.61, and 9.6 percent. In the final round, the tables turned, and the second team prevailed with 53.1 percent.
CDU: after Merkel announced her resignation, 12 candidates emerged. Nine were deemed to have no chance, so they soon resigned. In the first ballot at the 2018 delegate assembly, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer received 45 percent of the vote, followed by Friedrich Merz with 39 percent and Jens Spahn with 16 percent. Without an absolute majority, a second ballot was necessary, leading to a tight margin for AKK, who won only 52 percent of the vote. After a series of missteps and a loss of authority within her party following the state elections in Thuringia in October 2019, AKK announced her resignation in February 2020, after only 14 months in office. Due to delays related to COVID-19, she was not replaced by Armin Laschet until January 2021. His digital election by delegates in January 2021 also required two ballots. In the first, he received 38 percent, Merz 38.5, and Norbert Röttgen 22.4 percent. In the run-off, Laschet acquired 53 percent of the vote. Finally, Merz was elected in the third leadership election at the end of 2021 by a party primary in which he won by a wide margin over his two opponents.
Democratization of the Decision-making Level: Decentralization
Decentralization of the CDU and SPD leadership selections occurred in regional conferences. Regionalkonferenzen were open to all members who wished to participate. They allow for greater member inclusion in the selection process than national assemblies (Tables 2 and 3). In the beginning, the candidates introduced themselves in short speeches with strict time limits. The participating members then asked questions, which the candidates had to answer in the same amount of time. No decisions were made at these meetings. Nevertheless, regional conferences became an important part of the decision-making process. Generally, the candidates’ communication has the potential to influence the party-internal public, and, specifically, the views of responsive delegates who decide about the new party chair.68
However, the relevance of these regional conferences as a new decentral component69 in the pre-decision arena of leadership selection is up for discussion: first, they bypass the established multi-level hierarchy for intra-party opinion formation70 at the vertical levels (especially the influential state party branches) and horizontal levels (especially the influential youth organizations). Second, the party elites in Berlin were primarily responsible for organizing and financing the regional conferences. Taken together, these two aspects can also be interpreted as an attempt by the headquarters to regain central influence on a decentralized selection process.
Following Chancellor Angela Merkel's announcement that she would be stepping down from the chair, the CDU organized eight regional conferences throughout Germany in November 2018. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Jens Spahn and Friedrich Merz presented themselves to the party base there. About 13,200 members participated (out of about 415,000 on December 31, 2018) (Table 1). In the context of the CDU's worst result to date in the 2021 federal election (with only 18.9 percent of the second votes, eight percentage points below the 2017 result), AKK's successor Armin Laschet was finally replaced by Friedrich Merz in January 2022. The process of this most recent leadership selection was initiated on a decentralized basis. An extraordinary district leaders’ conference (Kreisvorsitzendenkonferenz), convened without formal jurisdiction, recommended to hold a primary election.
Participation numbers at regional conferences: 2018 and 2019
| Party | Location | Date | Number of participants (approximately) |
|---|---|---|---|
| CDU | Lübeck | November 15, 2018 | 800 |
| Idar-Oberstein | November 20, 2018 | 2,000 | |
| Seebach | November 21, 2018 | 600 | |
| Halle (Saale) | November 22, 2018 | 500 | |
| Böblingen | November 27, 2018 | 2,000 | |
| Düsseldorf | November 28, 2018 | 3,800 | |
| Bremen | November 29, 2018 | 1,500 | |
| Berlin | November 30, 2018 | 2,000 | |
| SPD | Saarbrücken | September 4, 2019 | 500 |
| Hanover | September 6, 2019 | 900 | |
| Bernburg | September 7, 2019 | 150 | |
| Bremen | September 8, 2019 | 600 | |
| Friedberg | September 9, 2019 | 800 | |
| Nieder-Olm | September 10, 2019 | 700 | |
| Erfurt | September 11, 2019 | 400 | |
| Nuremberg | September 12, 2019 | 700 | |
| Filderstadt | September 14, 2019 | 1,000 | |
| Oldenburg | September 15, 2019 | 700 | |
| Baunatal | September 16, 2019 | 850 | |
| Berlin | September 17, 2019 | 1,000 | |
| Hamburg | September 18, 2019 | 800 | |
| Neubrandenburg | September 20, 2019 | 200 | |
| Neumünster | September 21, 2019 | 600 | |
| Ettlingen | September 23, 2019 | 900 | |
| Braunschweig | September 27, 2019 | 800 | |
| Kamen | September 28, 2019 | 1,000 | |
| Troisdorf | September 29, 2019 | 950 | |
| Potsdam | October 1, 2019 | 500 | |
| Duisburg | October 6, 2019 | 1,500 | |
| Dresden | October 10, 2019 | 400 | |
| Munich | October 12, 2019 | 1,000 |
Note: Author's calculation, data based on information from the CDU and SPD headquarters as well as media reports.
In the SPD, 23 regional conferences were held over six weeks in October and November 2019, attended by approximately 17,000 members (out of about 419,000 as of December 31, 2019; see Table 1). Party-internal pressure after the SPD's bad result in the 2019 European Parliament elections (15.8 percent) led to the resignation of Andrea Nahles. As a result, seven tandems and one single candidate presented themselves to the party base at these 23 regional conferences. The regional conferences were followed by the 2019 SPD primary.
Democratization of Intra-party Participation Possibilities: Greater Inclusion
Besides the regional conferences, the greater inclusion of CDU and SPD members was achieved primarily through primary elections. The Mitgliederbefragungen were part of the final arena of the leadership selection, while the regional conferences were included in the pre-decision arena in order to contribute to a deliberative opinion formation. Only for legal reasons, federal assemblies formally confirmed the results.71
Comparing the inclusion of party members in the 2019 SPD primary, 53 percent of all members participated in the first round of voting, and 54 percent in the run-off. For the first time in the party's history, all members could cast their votes online, as well as by the traditional absentee ballot. This was also the case for the CDU. In its 2021 primary, the first in its history, as many as two-thirds of all members took part. This was significantly more than for the SPD, which had already held primaries on coalition negotiations in 2013 and 2018—both with an even larger turnout of 78 percent. Compared to the regional conference inclusion rates, which ranged from 3 to 4 percent, the primaries were able to involve many more members. The lowest level of inclusion was measured at the federal delegate assemblies, with values ranging from 0.1 to 0.3 percent (all numbers in Table 2 and 3).
Comparison of CDU leadership selections: 1990 to 2016 and 2018 to 2021–2022
|
Comparison of SPD leadership selections: 1991 to 2016 and 2017 to 2021
|
These quantitative findings contain a qualitative dimension: first, delegates in a federal assembly are primarily mid-level and federal party elites. These are MPs from state legislatures and the Bundestag, ministers and state secretaries as well as party chairs and members of party executive committees at the district, regional and state level (Kreis-, Bezirks- und Landesvorstände).72 In contrast, participants in regional conferences include representatives of the regional and state party bureaucracy as well as party activists. Primaries are dominated by rank-and-file members, especially in the case of a high turnout. At the primaries, it was possible to observe that intra-party groups with mobilization capabilities such as youth organizations gained power. For this reason, journalists called the former chair of the SPD's “Young Socialists,” Kevin Kühnert, the secret leader of the party.73
The two recent primaries in the CDU and SPD were initiated either by a bottom-up decision (CDU: district leaders’ conference) or a top-down decision (SPD: federal executive board), and neither by the grassroots. The nature of these initiations underscores the notion that a party can use a primary as a form of crisis management. In the SPD, there was great uncertainty after the downfall of its chairs Schulz and Nahles, which prompted an interim leadership decision to hold a primary (Figure 3). The Social Democrats were split into two wings, one that wanted to overcome the grand coalition and one that supported it. In the CDU, there was a conflict between the party establishment surrounding Merkel (with its modernization course) and the conservative base, which was addressed by Merz. Since he had been narrowly defeated at the 2018 and 2021 delegate assemblies and the political performance of his two predecessors had been poor, one motivation for the primary was apparently to finally make a clear decision with broad legitimacy. Indeed, an absolute majority voted for Merz as CDU chairman (Table 2).
Conclusion and Outlook
The recent leadership selections of the CDU and SPD can be summarized as experiments in strengthening internal democracy. Although the traditional elitist selection method that aligns with the consensus-oriented IPD reappeared in the 2021 SPD leadership selection (Table 3), a tendency toward the majoritarian-oriented IPD was reconstructed.74 This can be interpreted as catching up with an international trend.75 The two parties compared here have attempted to find a proper selection method that will generate a future leadership that they could unite behind. Regional conferences and primaries became optional elements in the selection procedure. Furthermore, when a primary takes place, its results must still be approved by a delegate assembly. While this can be downplayed as a party-legal requirement, it shows that the changes outlined here have not yet been institutionalized.76
Consistent with our conceptualization of democratization in four dimensions and their operationalizations, the empirical results show the following: first, party elites’ power in terms of the proposal of candidates was weakened. Self-candidacies were on the rise. Since the function of the “steering agent”77 was undermined in the search for a new chair, democratized selections cannot be understood as a strategic element of higher party elites to enforce their control issues, as discussed in the academic literature.78 Second, competition took place, both at an exclusive delegate assembly (CDU: 2018 and early 2021) as well as in an inclusive party primary (SPD 2019, CDU late 2021). Consequently, the eligible party members could only choose a default option, rather than making a selection. Third, decentralization is no longer “irrelevant”79 in the selection of German party leaders. However, the influence of the regional conferences on the final decision arena (CDU delegate assembly in 2018, SPD primary in 2019) could not be readily determined and needs to be investigated further. Fourth, in terms of grassroots involvement, both regional conferences and party primaries have delivered on their promise to be open to every member, albeit with varying levels of inclusion. Thus, scholars can no longer conclude that German parties have resisted “the trend towards more inclusive selectorates,”80 or that their leadership elections are an “elite affair […] behind closed doors.”81
In terms of the motivation and impact of democratization in leadership selection, we argued that the desire for reform was particularly pronounced against the backdrop of unresolved intra-party conflicts. The SPD (with or without the continuation of the infamous grand coalition) was only placated by the election of Esken/Borjans after two unfortunate tenures. The CDU (with or without turning away from Merkel's course toward modernization) only smoothed the waters with the election of Merz in a primary. Regarding the outcome of inclusive processes, the empirical results of the primaries are contradictory. They were either less calculable (SPD primary in 2019) or more calculable (CDU primary in 2021). In both cases, outsiders succeeded in this new setting; the traditional selection criteria of political capital and seniority were reduced.82 This might also tie in with the aforementioned issue of backtracking on democratization steps if elites feel the selection process results in less electable leaders.
It is difficult to predict where the parties’ search for the best leadership selection procedure will take them in the future—which requires further research with a larger number of Ns. Nonetheless, it can already be asserted that regional conferences and primaries have become optional elements within the German party system. Their use not only is a matter of political will or normative considerations but also has a financial aspect, as inclusive primaries can be more expensive than exclusive delegate assemblies (which, due to German party law, must be held after a primary). Ultimately, an inclusive and competitive democratic selection will only be necessary if the party does not have a candidate or chairperson who is considered successful within the party on whom the outcome of the election would hinge regardless.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful for the helpful comments from Klaus Detterbeck (†) as well as those made at a workshop on leadership selection change at Yale University in 2020, especially by Ian Shapiro and Frances McCall Rosenbluth (†). I also thank Oskar Niedermayer and the CDU and SPD headquarters for providing data and Felix Wortmann Callejón for research assistance.
Notes
For example, Ofer Kenig, “Classifying Party Leaders’ Selection Methods in Parliamentary Democracies,” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 19, no. 4 (2009): 433–447; William P. Cross, Ofer Kenig, Scott Pruysers and Gideon Rahat, The Promise and Challenge of Party Primary Elections. A Comparative Perspective (Montreal: McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2016).
For example, Agnès Alexandre-Collier and Emmanuelle Avril, “The Use of Primaries for the Selection of Party Leaders in the UK Conservative and Labour Parties: Formal Rules and Ideological Congruence,” in New Paths for Selecting Political Elites Investigating the Impact of Inclusive Candidate and Party Leader Selection Methods, ed. Giulia Sandri and Antonella Seddone (London/New York: Routledge, 2021), 160–179.
For example, Manuela Caiani, Enrico Padoan and Bruno Marino, “Candidate Selection, Personalization and Different Logics of Centralization in New Southern European Populism: The Cases of Podemos and the M5S,” Government and Opposition 57, no. 3 (2022), 404–427.
William P. Cross and Jean-Benoit Pilet, “The Selection of Party Leaders in Contemporary Parliamentary Democracies,” in The Selection of Political Party Leaders in Contemporary Parliamentary Democracies: A Comparative Study, ed. Jean-Benoit Pilet and William P. Cross (London: Routledge, 2014), 1–11; Giulia, Sandri, Antonella Seddone and Fulvio Venturino, eds., Party Primaries in Comparative Perspective (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015); for exceptions in terms of democratization cases of leadership selections at the state level in Germany, see Klaus Detterbeck and Ingo Rohlfing, “Party Leader Selection in Germany,” in The Selection of Political Party Leaders in Contemporary Parliamentary Democracies. A Comparative Study, ed. Jean-Benoit Pilet and William P. Cross (London: Routledge, 2014): 77–92; Anne Küppers, “Effects of Party Primaries in German Regional Party Branches,” German Politics 30, no. 2 (2021): 208–226.
For example, William P. Cross and Jean-Benoit Pilet, eds., The Politics of Party Leadership: A Cross-National Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
Piero Ignazi, “The Four Knights of Intra-party Democracy: A Rescue for Party Delegitimation,” Party Politics 26, no. 1 (2020): 9–20.
Otto Kirchheimer, “Der Wandel des westeuropäischen Parteisystems,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 6, no. 1 (1965): 20–41.
Thorsten Faas and Tristan Klingelhöfer, “German Politics at the Traffic Light: New Beginnings in the Election of 2021,” West European Politics 45, no. 7 (2022): 1506–1521.
Robert Harmel, Uk Heo, Alexander Tan and Kenneth Janda, “Performance, Leadership, Factions and Party Change: An Empirical Analysis,” West European Politics 18, no. 1 (1995): 1–33; Giulia Sandri, Antonella Seddone and Fulvio Venturino, “Understanding Leadership Profile Renewal,” in The Politics of Party Leadership: A Cross-National Perspective, ed. William P. Cross and Jean-Benoit Pilet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 90–106.
Marco Lisi, “The Democratisation of Party Leadership Selection: The Portuguese Experience,” Portuguese Journal of Social Science 9, no. 2 (2010): 127–149; Mihail Chiru, Anika Gauja, Sergiu Gherghina and Juan Rodríguez-Teruel, “Explaining Change in Party Leadership Selection Rules,” in The Politics of PartyLeadership: A Cross-National Perspective, ed. William P. Cross and Jean-Benoit Pilet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 31–49.
Susan E. Scarrow, Paul Webb and David M. Farrel, “From Social Integration to Electoral Contestation: The Changing Distribution of Power within Political Parties,” in Parties without Partisans, Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies, ed. Russel J. Dalton and Martin P. Wattenberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 129–153.
A significant change has taken place for most German parliamentary parties in the output dimension: since 2019, The Greens, The Left and the right-wing populist AfD have been led by two individuals, which, from a comparative perspective, is exceptional (see: Donatella, Campus, Niko Switek and Marco Valbruzzi, Collective Leadership and Divided Power in West European Parties (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021); Ofer Kenig, Gideon Rahat and Reuven Y. Hazan, “Leadership Selection versus Candidate Selection: Similarities and Differences,” in Party Primaries in Comparative Perspective, ed. Giulia Sandri, Antonella Seddone and Fulvio Venturino (London: Routledge, 2015), 21–39; Bram Wauters and Jean-Benoit Pilet, “Electing Women as Party Leaders,” in The Politics of Party Leadership: A Cross-National Perspective, ed. William P. Cross and Jean-Benoit Pilet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 73–89). As for the parties studied here, the SPD introduced gender parity in leadership in the same year, while the CDU still only has one leader.
Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998); Pippa Norris and Joni Lovenduski, Political Recruitment. Gender, Race and Class in British Parliament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
Kenig, “Democratization of Party Leadership Selection”; William P. Cross and André Blais, “Who Selects the Party Leader?” Party Politics 18, no. 2 (2012): 127–150; Jean-Benoit Pilet and William P. Cross, eds., The Selection of Political Party Leaders in Contemporary Parliamentary Democracies: A Comparative Study (London: Routledge, 2014); Cross and Pilet, The Politics of Party Leadership.
For the CDU: Frank Niebuhr (Member Service and Party Reform) as of March 7, 2022; for the SPD: Kevin Kühnert (General Secretary) as of December 17, 2021, and Ingolf Klaassen (Department Participation) as of February 10, 2022.
For example, Wolfgang C. Müller and Delia Meth-Cohn, “The Selection of Party Chairmen in Austria: A Study in Intra Party Decision Making,” European Journal of Political Research 20, no. 1 (1991): 39–66; Michael Marsh, “Introduction: Selecting the Party Leader,” European Journal of Political Research 24, no. 3 (1993): 229–231.
For example, Ofer Kenig, “Classifying Party Leaders’ Selection Methods in Parliamentary Democracies,” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 19, no. 4 (2009): 433–447; Nicholas Aylott and Niklas Bolin, “Managed Intra-party Democracy: Precursory Delegation and Party Leader Selection,” Party Politics 23, no. 1 (2016): 55–65.
James W. Davis, Leadership Selection in Six Western Democracies (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998); Kenig, “Democratization of Party Leadership Selection”; Cross and Blais, “Who Selects the Party Leader?”; Pilet and Cross, eds., The Selection of Political Party Leaders in Contemporary Parliamentary Democracies; Cross and Pilet, eds., The Politics of Party Leadership.
Cross, Kenig, Pruysers, and Rahat, The Promise and Challenge of Party Primary Elections.
While certainly a rare situation, the informal leadership of a party ought to be better reflected in academic scholarship. The German Greens under the aegis of Joschka Fischer serve as an instructive example: between 1998 and 2005, Fischer was foreign minister and de facto leader of his party without a formal leadership position (Detterbeck and Rohlfing, “Party leader selection in Germany”). Current examples can also be found in right-wing populist parties: the German AfD appears to be increasingly under the control of Björn Höcke (Severin Weiland, “AfD-Bundesparteitag in Riesa: Höckes Bauprojekt,” Spiegel Online, 19 June 2022, https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/kommentar-zum-parteitag-der-afd-bjoern-hoecke-langfristig-auf-dem-sprung-a-59cf8249-06b1-4610-904b-80c29f7235eb (accessed 6 February 2023), and the Polish PiS has been unofficially led by Jarosław Kaczyn´ski for some time (Lenka Bustikova, “The Radical Right in Eastern Europe,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, ed. Jens Rydgren (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 799–821, here 811.
For example, Ludger Helms, “Pathways to the Chancellery: The Making of Chancellor Scholz in Perspective,” German Politics and Society 40, no. 2 (2022): 71–89.
Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda, “An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change,” Journal of Theoretical Politics 6, no. 3 (1994): 259–287; Kaare Strom, “A Behavioral Theory of Competitive Political Parties,” American Journal of Political Science 34, no. 2 (1990): 565–598.
Fabio Wolkenstein, Rethinking Party Reform (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
Cross and Blais, “Who Selects the Party Leader?”; Jean-Benoit Pilet and William P. Cross, “Uncovering the Politics of Party Leadership,” in The Politics of Party Leadership: A Cross-National Perspective, ed. William P. Cross and Jean-Benoit Pilet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 1–11; Sandri, Seddone, and Venturino, “Understanding Leadership Profile Renewal.”
For an overview, see Lisi, “The Democratisation of Party Leadership Selection,” 129–132.
Bram Wauters, “Democratising Party Leadership Selection in Belgium: Motivations and Decision Makers,” Political Studies 62, no. 1 (2014): 61–80; Shlomit Barnea and Gideon Rahat, “Reforming Candidate Selection Methods: A Three Level Approach,” Party Politics 13, no. 3 (2007): 375–394.
Lawrence LeDuc, “Democratizing Party Leadership Selection,” Party Politics 7, no. 3 (2001): 323–341; Cross and Blais, “Who Selects the Party Leader?”; Michael Radecki and Sergiu Gherghina, “Objective and Subjective Party Leadership Selection: Regulations, Activists, and Voters in Poland,” European Politics and Society 16, no. 4 (2015): 598–612; Ying Wang, “The Pendulum Swings: Experiences from the LDP on Democratizing Party Leadership Selection,” Japanese Journal of Political Science 17, no. 1 (2016): 106–127.
Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair, “Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party,” Party Politics 1, no. 1 (1995): 5–28.
Ingrid van Biezen and Thomas Poguntke, “The Decline of Membership-based Politics,” Party Politics 20, no. 2 (2014): 205–216.
Ignazi, “The Four Knights of Intra-party Democracy.”
Nicholas Aylott and Niklas Bolin, eds., Managing Leader Selection in European Political Parties (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).
For example, Jonathan Hopkin, “Bringing the Members Back In? Democratizing Candidate Selection in Britain and Spain,” Party Politics 7, no. 3 (2001): 343–361; Niklas Bolin, Nicholas Aylott, Benjamin von dem Berge, and Thomas Poguntke, “Patterns of Intra-Party Democracy across the World,” in Organizing Political Parties: Representation, Participation, and Power, ed. Susan E. Scarrow, Paul Webb, and Thomas Poguntke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 158–184; Gideon Rahat and Assaf Shapira, “An Intra-Party Democracy Index. Theory, Design and A Demonstration,” Parliamentary Affairs 70, no. 1 (2017): 84–110.
Chiru, Gauja, Gherghina, and Rodríguez-Teruel, “Explaining Change in Party Leadership Selection Rules.”
Cross and Blais, “Who Selects the Party Leader?”
Jean-Benoit Pilet and William P. Cross, “The Selection of Party Leaders in Comparative Perspective,” in The Selection of Political Party Leaders in Contemporary Parliamentary Democracies. A Comparative Study, ed. Jean-Benoit Pilet and William P. Cross (London: Routledge, 2014), 222–239.
For the variety of selectorates see Cross, Kenig, Pruysers, and Rahat, The Promise and Challenge of Party Primary Elections.
Cross and Blais, “Who Selects the Party Leader?”; Andrew Denham, “From Coronations to Close Encounters: Party Leadership selection in British Politics,” British Politics 8, no. 2 (2013): 164–180; Tim Bale and Paul Webb, “The Selection of Party Leaders in the UK,” in The Selection of Political Party Leaders in Contemporary Parliamentary Democracies A Comparative Study, ed. Jean-Benoit Pilet and William P. Cross (London: Routledge, 2014), 12–30.
Kenig, “Classifying Party Leaders’ Selection Methods in Parliamentary Democracies.”
William P. Cross and Scott Pruysers, “Sore Losers? The Costs of Intra-party Democracy,” Party Politics 25, no. 4 (2019): 483–494; Zachary Greene and Matthias Haber, “Leadership Competition and Disagreement at Party National Congresses,” British Journal of Political Science 46, no. 3 (2016): 611–632.
LeDuc, “Democratizing Party Leadership Selection.”
Jessica Garland, “A Wider Range of Friends: Multi-speed Organising during the 2015 Labour Leadership Contest,” The Political Quarterly 87, no. 1 (2016): 23–30.
R. K. Carty and Donald E. Blake, “The Adoption of Membership Votes for Choosing Party Leaders: The Experience of Canadian Parties,” Party Politics 5, no. 2 (1999): 211–224; Ofer Kenig, Gideon Rahat, and Or Tuttnauer, “Competitiveness of Party Leadership Selection Processes,” in The Politics of Party Leadership: A Cross-National Perspective, ed. William P. Cross and Jean-Benoit Pilet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 50–72.
For example, Cross, Kenig, Pruysers and Rahat, The Promise and Challenge of Party Primary Elections; Sandri, Seddone, and Venturino, eds., Party Primaries in Comparative Perspective.
Giulia Sandri and Antonella Seddone, “Conclusion,” in Party Primaries in Comparative Perspective, ed. Giulia Sandri, Antonella Seddone, and Fulvio Venturino (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 181–197, here 192.
Ignazi, “The Four Knights of Intra-party Democracy.”
Arend Lijphart, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-One Countries (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984).
Benjamin Höhne, “How Democracy Works within a Populist Party: Candidate Selection in the Alternative for Germany,” Government and Opposition 58, no. 3 (2023): 478–496; see also Bolin, Aylott, von dem Berge, and Poguntke, “Patterns of Intra-Party Democracy across the World.”
Susan E. Scarrow, “Intra-Party Democracy and Party Unity: Varied Rules, Varied Consequences,” Representation 57, no. 1 (2021): 41–57.
Benjamin Höhne, Rekrutierung von Abgeordneten des Europäischen Parlaments. Organisation, Akteure und Entscheidungen in Parteien (Opladen: Barbara Budrich, 2013); Nicholas Aylott and Niklas Bolin, “Locating Power in Party Leader Selection,” Scandinavian Political Studies 46, no. 1–2 (2023): 1–22.
Küppers, “Effects of Party Primaries in German Regional Party Branches,” 212; Danny Schindler, Anastasia Pyschny, and Malte Cordes, “District Candidacies for the German Bundestag: What Spurs or Hampers Intra-party Competition?,” The Journal of Legislative Studies 29, no. 1 (2023): 171–188.
Dahl, On Democracy; Norris and Lovenduski, Political Recruitment.
Davis, Leadership selection in six Western democracies; Javier Astudillo and Klaus Detterbeck, “Why, Sometimes, Primaries? Intraparty Democratization as a Default Selection Mechanism in German and Spanish Mainstream Parties,” Party Politics 26, no. 5 (2020): 594–604.
Aylott and Bolin, “Managed Intra-party Democracy.”
Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik and Gijs Schumacher, “Why Some Leaders Die Hard (and Others Don't),” in The Politics of Party Leadership: A Cross-National Perspective, ed. William P. Cross and Jean-Benoit Pilet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 107–127; Oliver Gruber, William P. Cross, Scott Pruysers, and Tim Bale, “The End of the Affair: A Comparative Study of How Party Leadership Terms End,” in The Politics of Party Leadership: A Cross-National Perspective, ed. William P. Cross and Jean-Benoit Pilet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 128–148.
Küppers, “Effects of Party Primaries in German Regional Party Branches.”
Uwe Jun and Simon Jakobs, “The Selection of Party Leaders in Germany,” in Managing Leader Selection in European Political Parties, ed. Nicholas Aylott and Niklas Bolin (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), 73–94.
A general meeting is also possible, but for organizational reasons—except in the case of the younger AfD—it usually does not take place, see Anna-Sophie Heinze and Manès Weisskircher, “No Strong Leaders Needed? AfD Party Organisation Between Collective Leadership, Internal Democracy, and ‘Movement-Party’ Strategy,” Politics and Governance 9, no. 4 (2021): 263–274.
Fredrik Bynander and Paul ‘t Hart, “When Power Changes Hands: The Political Psychology of Leadership Succession in Democracies,” Political Psychology 27, no. 5 (2006): 707–730, here 725.
Davis, Leadership Selection in Six Western Democracies.
Sandri, Seddone, and Venturino, “Understanding Leadership Profile Renewal”; Helene Helboe Pedersen and Gijs Schumacher, “Do Leadership Changes Improve Electoral Performance?,” in The Politics of Party Leadership: A Cross-National Perspective, ed. William P. Cross and Jean-Benoit Pilet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015): 149–164.
Dennis Michels and Isabelle Borucki‚ “Die Organisationsreform der SPD 2017–2019: Jung, weiblich und digital?,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 62, no. 1 (2021): 121–148.
Harmel and Janda, “An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change;” Cross and Blais, “Who Selects the Party Leader?”
Benjamin Höhne and Elias Koch, “Wie weiter mit der Parteiorganisation der CDU nach Merkel? Eine Analyse der Debatten auf Regionalkonferenzen zum neuen Parteivorsitz,” Zeitschrift für Parteienwissenschaften (MIP) 29, no. 3 (2023): 313–342.
Sonja Plagmann, “Vom Politikrentner zum SPD-Vorsitzenden: Wer ist Norbert Walter-Borjans,” Merkur.de, October 26, 2019, https://www.merkur.de/politik/norbert-walter-borjans-neuer-spd-vorsitzenden-ehefrau-privat-beruf-kinder-zr-13045420.html (accessed 6 February 2023).
Boris Herrmann and Robert Roßmann, “Es bleibt beim Männer-Trio,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 16 November 2021, https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/buder-cdu-vorsitz-1.5466055 (accessed February 6, 2023).
Kenig, Rahat, and Tuttnauer, “Competitiveness of Party Leadership Selection Processes.”
Ibid.
Höhne and Koch, “Wie weiter mit der Parteiorganisation der CDU nach Merkel?”
In the CDU, the first and (until 2018) only regional conferences took place during the period leading up to Merkel's election as chair in 2000. Their task was not to find a new chair but to investigate the party's donations scandal under former Chancellor Kohl. In the SPD, regional conferences have been taking place to discuss policy programs like Chancellor Schröder's welfare state and labour market reforms in the so-called Agenda 2010.
In general, see Nicole Bolleyer, “New Party Organization in Western Europe: Of Party Hierarchies, Stratarchies and Federations,” Party Politics 18, no. 3 (2011): 315–336.
At the SPD December 2019 delegate assembly that followed the primary, Esken received 76 percent of the vote, while Walter-Borjans won 89 percent. Two more ballots were required after the 2021 CDU primary. Due to COVID-19, the delegates could not meet in person but met online instead. Their election of Merz had to be confirmed by a postal vote, as digital votes are not recognized as being secure enough by the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) (Wissenschaftlicher Dienst des Bundestages, Fachbereich 3 Verfassung und Verwaltung, Verfassungsrechtliche Zulässigkeit von Online-Parteitagen und elektronischen Abstimmungen (Berlin, 2020)). In both ballots, Merz received 95 percent.
Benjamin Höhne, “Wie stellen Parteien ihre Parlamentsbewerber auf? Das Personalmanagement vor der Bundestagswahl 2017,” in Parteien, Parteiensysteme und politische Orientierungen. Aktuelle Beiträge aus der Parteienforschung, ed., Carsten Koschmieder (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2017), 227–253.
Alexander Neubacher, “Sprengkommando Kühnert,” Spiegel Online, October 9, 2021, https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/doku-ueber-spd-politiker-sprengkommando-kevin-kuehnert-kolumne-a-f81741d6-e46e-41f7-8191-649bb2bb2011 (accessed February 6, 2023).
For these IPD types see Höhne, “How Democracy Works within a Populist Party.”
Kenig, “Democratization of Party Leadership Selection;” Cross and Pilet, eds., The Politics of Party Leadership.
In this context, the question arises as to how the parties can deal with possible differences between the result of a primary and the result of a subsequent delegate assembly, especially if the winner of a primary does not receive the majority of delegate votes.
Aylott and Bolin, “Managed intra-party democracy.”
Katz and Mair, “Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy.”
Ofer Kenig, Gideon Rahat and Reuven Y. Hazan, “Leadership Selection versus Candidate Selection: Similarities and Differences,” in Party Primaries in Comparative Perspective, eds., Giulia Sandri, Antonella Seddone and Fulvio Venturino (London/New York: Routledge, 2015), 21–39, here 28.
Cross and Pilet, “The selection of party leaders in contemporary parliamentary democracies,” 3.
Detterbeck and Rohlfing, “Party leader selection in Germany.”
Stephen Barber, “Arise, Careerless Politician: The Rise of the Professional Party Leader,” Politics 34, no. 1 (2014): 23–31.
