The Impact of Candidate Selection on Mass-Elite Ideological Congruence: The Case of Belgium

Vandeleene, Audrey [UCL] De Winter, Lieven [UCL] Meulewaeter, Conrad [UCL] Baudewyns, Pierre [UCL]

Candidate selection is a major function exercised by political parties. Yet they differ a lot regarding who selects their candidates, varying on both dimensions of inclusiveness and centralisation. One can wonder whether these variations in the modes of candidate selection do really matter. The paper classifies ten Belgian political parties, for two federal elections – a regular (2007) and an early election (2010) – on a five-points inclusiveness scale summarizing selection modes. Based on this scale, the paper empirically tests the impact of candidate selection modes on the degree of mass – elite ideological congruence, using positions of candidates and voters on the left-right scale and on the authoritarian-libertarian scale. Our results confirm that selection matters. More exclusive selectorates tend to select candidates being ideologically closer to their voters.