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The Selection of Candidates and Its Impact on Parliamentary Behaviour: Insights from the Italian Case

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Democratizing Candidate Selection

Abstract

MPs elected in 2013 Italian general election were selected through three main procedures: open primaries, closed primaries and exclusive methods, meaning that they were appointed directly by the party élites or party leaders. This peculiar feature of the Italian Parliament offers the opportunity to analyse the impact of different selection methods within the same political context. Drawing from a large and original data set including parliamentary behaviour of all the Italian MPs elected in the 2013 general election, this article addresses the impact of candidate selection methods by focusing on the dimension of party unity. Our hypothesis is that inclusive procedures for selecting candidates may entail a low degree of party unity, namely a higher propensity for MPs to rebel against the party line. The analysis shows that the selection methods only marginally affect MPs’ parliamentary behaviour and not always in the expected direction.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    Antonella Seddone

  2. University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy

    Stefano Rombi

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  1. Antonella Seddone
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  2. Stefano Rombi
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Correspondence to Antonella Seddone .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Guillermo Cordero

  2. Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain

    Xavier Coller

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Seddone, A., Rombi, S. (2018). The Selection of Candidates and Its Impact on Parliamentary Behaviour: Insights from the Italian Case. In: Cordero, G., Coller, X. (eds) Democratizing Candidate Selection. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76550-1_10

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