Media-political skills, Candidate selection methods and electoral success

Abstract

The analyses concentrate on the influences of the media and political skills of political actors on their electoral success. Many believe that demonstrating media skills is crucial for electoral success because it helps political actors to persuade media consumers to vote for them; but in some candidate selection methods, such as when a single leader selects the candidates, the media might not be an important factor. Therefore, the analyses take into account the interaction of media-political skills of political actors with candidate selection methods. This raises the question whether the democratisation of selection methods, now occurring in many countries, is making media-political skills more important. Multiple regression analyses show that media-political skills have a strong impact on the electoral success of 81 Israeli Members of the Knesset. They reveal a clear interaction with selection methods, and show that media-political skills have a greater impact in the more democratic methods of selection. The level of incumbents' parliamentary activity was found to have no impact at all on their electoral success in all candidate selection methods.