Winning over voters or fighting party comrades? Personalized constituency campaigning in Austria

Abstract

This article analyses constituency campaigning and personalization when electoral system and party organizational incentives conflict. Providing the first study of candidate campaign behaviour in Austria we show that a sizeable number of candidates in national elections engage in personalized rather than party-centred campaigns. Focussing on behavioural indicators of ‘personalized’ campaigning, we find that individual motivation and resources play an important role in how candidates conduct their campaigns. Factors such as experience in political office, the probability of winning a seat, candidate goal choice (self- or party-promotion), the district characteristic (urban or rural) and party affiliation influence the numbers of hours spent on campaigning and the kind of campaign resources candidates use and value most.