Bottoms up: How subnational elections predict parties’ decisions to run in presidential elections in Europe and Latin America

Abstract

Do parties’ experiences in subnational elections predict when parties enter national competition and compete for the presidency? Building upon the party nationalization literature, we argue that a party’s presence in elections across subnational units and its subsequent performance in these elections are determining factors for whether it enters the presidential race. To conduct our analysis, we have assembled an original dataset on parties’ presence and performance in subnational elections and presidential entry in 17 countries in Europe and Latin America from 1990 to 2013. We find that a party’s presence and performance in subnational elections are significant predictors of its decision to run for president, even when the party ran in the previous election and when the elections are concurrent. These findings have important implications for understanding how subnational elections relate to national party systems and democratic representation, more generally.