Policy congruence and strategic loyalty: which parties nominate candidates dissatisfied with democracy? Evidence from 11 European countries

ABSTRACT This article considers the interplay between the democratic attitudes of candidates and their nomination through political parties. The focus is on candidates who articulate a dissatisfied attitude towards the current status of democracy, and the research interest lies on the parties that might nominate such candidates in national elections. In doing so, the article establishes a link between work on the democratic beliefs of candidates as a specific part of the political elite and literature on party behaviour. The study is grounded in both classical attempts and recent work on political elites and candidate nomination, and its theoretical framework is based on the assumption that parties principally select supportive candidates. Two major mechanisms are investigated: on the one hand, nomination as an expression of policy congruence between the party and its candidates, on the other, candidate nomination as a way to maintain loyalty with the party’s strategic behaviour in parliament. In a first empirical attempt to this research interest, the study analyses data from 76 parties in 11 European countries.