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Abstract
Since the mid-1990s, German parties at the regional level have started to hold party primaries (infrequently) to select their leaders. In recent years, research on primaries has attracted the attention of political science scholars, but surprisingly, the German case has been left out of international comparative studies. Hence, I tested four hypotheses on possible consequences regarding membership numbers, intra-party competition, and characteristics of party leaders. My findings indicate that primaries attract more candidates than conventions, but there are no differences in the closeness of the race. Party leaders selected by rank-and-file members are less politically experienced than those selected by delegates. The probability that the most experienced candidate wins a competitive leadership race is much lower in primaries. In contrast to previous studies, I find no signs that women are disadvantaged in primaries. However, I find support for the glass cliff phenomenon: in both delegate conferences and primaries, female leaders are selected in weaker party branches.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
SUPPORTING INFORMATION
All datasets and the R code will be provided by the author upon request.
Notes
1 Strengthening party leadership and the introduction of primaries might be interwoven: primaries were introduced to strengthen party leadership by removing power from the middle-level activists – as Katz and Mair (Citation1995) and Wauters (Citation2014) suggest.
2 The few cases of the selection of new Länder prime ministers during an ongoing legislative period are not considered in the analysis.
3 With two exceptions: The Liberals in Bavaria selected their top candidate for the 2018 regional election in an online primary. The Greens in the city-state of Bremen selected their top candidate for the 2019 regional election in a primary.
4 In total, 25 primaries were held at the regional level, but primaries for the selection of regional prime minister and scheduled re-selection of leaders were not included. Also, the membership ballots by the SPD Baden-Württemberg in 2018 and SPD Saxony-Anhalt in 2019/20 are excluded. The primary of the SPD Baden-Württemberg did not produce a clear winner. Both candidates decided to withdraw their candidacies before the formal selection at the party convention, and a different leader was selected. The SPD Saxony-Anhalt selected a team of leaders (one women and one men) for the first time.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Anne Küppers
Anne Küppers is research fellow and PhD candidate at the Institute for Political Science and Sociology at the University of Bonn. Her research focuses on party primaries, party organisation, and party membership. She has lectured bachelor students in German politics and the study of left parties.