Democratization of party leadership selection: Do wider selectorates produce more competitive contests?

Abstract

The last two decades saw a significant shift in party leaders' selection methods. As part of a wider phenomenon of intra-party democratization, many parties opened their leadership selection procedure to wider selection bodies (selectorates). Such a step was expected to reduce the parties' elitist and oligarchic tendencies by attracting more leadership aspirants and producing more competitive contests. This study aims to evaluate whether these expectations materialized – do wider selectorates produce more competitive leadership contests? Using the selectorate's level of inclusiveness as the explanatory variable, this paper explores 143 leadership contests to see whether these expectations materialized. Several operative indicators are used to evaluate the level of competitiveness. The main conclusion is that larger selectorates tend to attract more leadership candidates, but also tend to produce less competitive contests.