Intra-party Competition: District Nomination of the Candidates for the Federal Elections 2009

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Marion Reiser
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2011 to 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 214158014

This habilitation project deals with political competition in representative democracies, more precisely with intra-party competition in Germany. Typically, political scientists focus on democratic competition between parties and thus, identify political competition with elections. But in Germany as in other democracies in many cases inter-party competition is overshadowed by intra-party competition. Intra-party nomination is still crucial for the personnel composition of the German Bundestag since the majority of the candidates know at the day of nomination whether they will become a Member of Parliament or not. But despite the importance of intra-party competition and candidate nomination, there has been hardly any research on this topic. This project wants to contribute to a better understanding of the central micro-mechanisms structuring the nomination process and intra-party competition in Germany. The central question of the project is: Which factors and mechanisms shape the structure of intra-party competition and its results in Germany? This question will be examined empirically by analyzing intra-party competition and selection processes on the district level for the federal elections 2009. The study focuses on three central aspects: First, the project asks which factors and mechanisms influence degree and form of intra-party competition in electoral districts. Second, the project aims to analyze the organization of intra-party competition and its mechanisms. Third, the project is interested in central individual resources and characteristics of (successful) aspirants and selection criteria. In order to analyze intra-party competition a combination of different methods participant observation, document analysis, and face-to-face interviews is used.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Denmark
• Host: Professorin Karina Kosiara-Pedersen, Ph.D.