| ID | 148661 |
| Title Proper | Primary effect |
| Other Title Information | preference votes and political promotions |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Folke, Olle ; Rickne, Johanna ; OLLE FOLKE (a1), TORSTEN PERSSON (a2) and JOHANNA RICKNE (a3) ; Persson, Torsten |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | In this analysis of how electoral rules and outcomes shape the internal organization of political parties, we make an analogy to primary elections to argue that parties use preference-vote tallies to identify popular politicians and promote them to positions of power. We document this behavior among parties in Sweden's semi-open-list system and in Brazil's open-list system. To identify a causal impact of preference votes, we exploit a regression discontinuity design around the threshold of winning the most preference votes on a party list. In our main case, Sweden, these narrow “primary winners” are at least 50% more likely to become local party leaders than their runners-up. Across individual politicians, the primary effect is present only for politicians who hold the first few positions on the list and when the preference-vote winner and runner-up have similar competence levels. Across party groups, the primary effect is the strongest in unthreatened governing parties. |
| `In' analytical Note | American Political Science Review Vol. 110, No.3; Aug 2016: p.559-578 |
| Journal Source | American Political Science Review 2016-09 110, 3 |
| Key Words | Primary Effect ; Preference Votes ; Political Promotions |