Description
This book offers the first comprehensive, comparative and coherent perspective on parliamentary candidates in contemporary representative democracy.
Based on the unique database of the ‘Comparative Candidate Survey' project which interrogated parliamentary candidates in more than 30 countries, it fills a significant lacuna by focusing on the thousands of ordinary candidates that participate in national elections. It examines who the candidates are in terms of their socio-demographic background and political career patterns, how they were selected by their parties, what their policy preference are and whether these are congruent to those held by their voters, who they seek to represent and how they intend to do so once elected, and what their visions are on representative democracy and party government. Last but not least, it investigates how they go about reaching out to their potential voters during the election campaign.
This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political parties and party politics, political elites, political communication, political participation, elections, theories of democracy and representation, legislative studies, voting behaviour and more broadly to European politics, as well as to political and policy professionals throughout Europe.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: Candidates, Parties, and Voters in Representative Democracies
Lieven De Winter, Rune Karlsen and Hermann Schmitt
2. Office or Policies? Exploring Candidates’ Motivations to Run for a Party and The Triggering Role of Political Contexts
Pierre Baudewyns and Stefano Camatarri
3. Candidate Selection: Still a Secret Garden?
Mihail Chiru Lieven De Winter Audrey Vandeleene
4. Candidate Campaigns in Comparative Perspective
Rune Karlsen, Georg Lütz and Patrik Öhberg
5. Determinants of Personalised Campaigning: A Comparative Analysis
Iakovos Makropoulos, Sofia Collignon, Heiko Giebler, Wolfgang Rüdig, Javier Sajuria and Wolfgang Weßels
6. Candidates’ Representational Roles
Eva H. Önnudóttir and Åsa von Schoultz
7. Intra-party Ideological Heterogeneity: Are Candidates Agents of their Parties?
Daniela Giannetti and Luca Pinto
8. Policy Representation in Europe
Zsolt Enyedi, Andrea Pedrazzani and Paolo Segatti
9. The Beliefs of Parliamentary Candidates on Electoral Democracy: Who are the Guardians of Democracy and what Motivates them?
Thomas Zittel
10. Conclusion and Perspectives
Lieven De Winter, Rune Karlsen and Hermann Schmitt
