The impact of endorsements in intra-party elections: Evidence from open primaries in a new Portuguese party

AuthorMarco Lisi,António Luís Dias,João Cancela
DOI10.1177/0263395716680125
Published date01 May 2017
Date01 May 2017
Subject MatterArticles
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395716680125
Politics
2017, Vol. 37(2) 167 –183
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0263395716680125
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The impact of endorsements in
intra-party elections: Evidence
from open primaries in a new
Portuguese party
João Cancela, António Luís Dias
and Marco Lisi
Department of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities and IPRI, Nova University of
Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
Abstract
What affects the prospects of candidates in open intra-party elections? This research article
examines the determinants of candidate performance in the first open party primaries conducted
by LIVRE, a newly emerged Portuguese party, in 2015. This innovative process of candidate
selection allowed individuals from outside the party not only to vote but also to run for office.
Through the construction of an original dataset and the use of social network analysis, this study
shows that centrality in the network of endorsements has a significant impact on the probability
to be selected in party lists. Our findings shed additional light on the determinants of success in
candidate selection and open new insights into the dynamics behind party primaries.
Keywords
candidate selection, political recruitment, Portugal, primaries, social network analysis
Received: 17th February 2016; revised version received: 26th August 2016; Accepted: 4th October 2016
Introduction
The selection of candidates for public office is one of the key functions of parties and a
crucial aspect of how representative democracies work (Gallagher and Marsh, 1988;
Norris, 1997). Against a background of growing distrust towards parties, an increase in
anti-party feelings and shrinking membership (Whiteley, 2011), candidate selection meth-
ods have changed significantly in Europe, namely, through the adoption of more inclusive
criteria of recruitment (Kittilson and Scarrow, 2003; Krouwel, 2012; Sandri et al., 2015b).
It has been argued that such innovations might significantly affect party politics, in terms
of members’ attitudes, patterns of participation, intra-party competition, the profile of
Corresponding author:
João Cancela, Department of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities and IPRI, Nova
University of Lisbon, Av. de Berna 26-C, 1069-061 Lisbon, Portugal.
Email: joaocancela@gmail.com
680125POL0010.1177/0263395716680125PoliticsCancela et al.
research-article2016
Article
168 Politics 37(2)
members of parliament (MPs), as well as the degree of responsiveness (Cross and Katz,
2013; Hazan and Rahat, 2010; Sandri et al., 2015b). Therefore, it is important to under-
stand the process of primary elections, how they function, and their potential effects on the
recruitment of political elites.
This article contributes to the literature on primaries held across Europe by addressing
a question that has remained overlooked: to what extent is the success of candidates in
open intra-party elections a consequence of their political connections? While research
about party primaries held in the American political system has already shown that indi-
vidual endorsers affect the performance of candidates (Dominguez, 2011), it has remained
untested whether this holds in other political contexts. In the following, we demonstrate
that political connections also play a role in a less institutionalised, smaller party in a dif-
ferent political system. Our empirical analysis focuses on the case of the open primaries
held by LIVRE/Tempo de Avançar (L/TdA), a Portuguese political party founded in 2014
that adopted this method for selecting and ordering candidates for the 2015 national par-
liamentary elections. This instance of open primaries provides a relevant case study for
two main reasons.
First, the rules adopted by L/TdA for its primary elections were quite inclusive in
terms of both the selectorate and the candidacy. The novelty of primary elections imple-
mented by L/TdA was of the utmost significance especially considering the Portuguese
electoral system: a closed-list proportional representation (PR) system that ranks among
those in Europe providing less freedom of choice to voters (Pereira and Andrade e Silva,
2009). The results of the primaries conducted by L/TdA defined not only who would be a
candidate but also the order of candidates within the closed lists. For this reason, the
adoption of these primaries can be understood as a way of circumventing the institutional
rigidity imposed upon citizens by placing additional discretion at their hands. While intra-
party elections as open as these remain comparatively rare in the European landscape, the
use of inclusive practices in candidate selection is expanding across the continent (Sandri
and Seddone, 2015: 1). As a growing number of parties adopt inclusive selection mecha-
nisms and provide space for non-member participation, the case of L/TdA offers the
chance to test a set of specific propositions about the determinants of candidate success in
this type of elections against which future cases can be evaluated.
Second, this case study illustrates how research about parties can be enhanced by look-
ing at them not only as formal organisations but also as networks, following the cue of
Katz and Mair (2009: 761–762). In this context, we should have in mind that different
parties across the globe are adopting ‘a more networked model of organization that
reduces the need for formal membership and gives grassroots supporters’ a stronger deci-
sion-making role’ (Gibson, 2015: 186). However, while understanding parties as net-
works might be theoretically appealing, it can be a challenge to find appropriate data to
put this effort into practice. In this case, the primaries generated an extensive amount of
data, as L/TdA publicised in its website relevant information about the candidates, their
supporters and the electoral results. These data allow us to go beyond the examination of
the individual attributes of candidates and to also take into account the complex set of
relations that characterises the party and study it using social network analysis (SNA)
techniques. Thus, we exploit relational data (Scott, 2000: 3) to unveil aspects in the life
of political parties that typically remain out of direct observation.
The results suggest that obtaining endorsements from relevant actors and occupying a
central position in the network of political connections significantly increased the elec-
toral performance of individuals running in the L/TdA primaries. Thus, our case study

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