Going inclusive: How parties face their challenges
Quaderno 78, 2, 2017 / Volume 78, Issue 2 (December), 2017
ISSN 0392 - 6753
Going inclusive: How parties face their challenges - Introduction: Going inclusive: How parties face their challenges (Stefano Rombi, University of Cagliari - Fulvio Venturino, University of Cagliari)
Winds of Change: How Primaries Brought Renewal to the Italian Parliament (Fulvio Venturino, University of Cagliari - Antonella Seddone, University of Turin)
In the lead-up to the 2013 parliamentary election, four Italian parties used primaries to select candidates. Primaries, which were autonomously decided upon by the parties' central offices, have operated according to different rules. These quasi-experimental circumstances allow an assessment of the effects of rules and selectors' predispositions in the promotion of legislator renewal. An examination of three aspects of renewal–gender balance, rejuvenation and turnover–found that party leaderships sometimes deliberately pursued renewal through biased rules. The cases in point are Partito Democratico and Sinistra Ecologia e Libertà regarding gender balance, and Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) regarding turnover. Moreover, even when unconstrained by the rules, selectors have pushed for renewal, as shown by the rise in female representation in the M5S. In general, primary elections have demonstrated to be renewalfriendly. However, it remains unclear whether this is an idiosyncratic effect connected to a single
election, or a general tendency due to the characteristics of primary voters.
Towards the 2017 French election: Socialist and Republican nominees from the selection to the presidential election (Marino De Luca, University of Calabria)
Primaries have become an important aspect of the French party system. In recent times, the process, used by different parties, has been opened up to coopérateurs (‘sympathisers'). Both the Socialist Party and the Republicans held primaries in the 2017 presidential elections. This can be seen as an expected step towards addressing problems such as leadership and representativeness. This process is also in line with the personalisation that has become a feature of the Fifth Republic. Following the collapse of the main parties during the last elections, the primary system seems to have entered a period of crisis. This article will hence analyse the introduction of primaries in France, with particular attention to the 2017 presidential election. Our focus is on the similarities and differences between these two open selection processes and their respective effects.
Party Leadership Selection in the United Kingdom - (Bruno Marino SNS - Stefano Rombi, University of Cagliari)
In the past few decades, British parties have undergone deep transformations, also concerning their leader selection rules. It could be interesting to directly tackle this area of intra-party changes, also given the increasing attention devoted to party leaders and to their mode of selection. This article will explore both the precise features of the changes in the rules governing the selection of party leaders (particularly focusing on the selectorate), and also the characteristics of most recent leadership races occurred in the most important parties in the United Kingdom. To begin with, the article will explore the expansions of the selectorate occurred between the mid-1960s and today, particularly analysing the implementation of OMOV (one-member one-vote) systems. Second, attention will be devoted to the precise features of the selection mechanisms, by applying the quadripartite scheme devised by Hazan and Rahat (the selectorate, the candidacy, the decentralization, and the voting system). Third, we will focus on the most recent leadership races that elected Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May as leader of, respectively, the Labour and the Conservative Party. All in all, the article shows that British parties have surely undergone deep transformations concerning the rules for the selection of their leaders and the precise features of recent leadership races, but also that a full empowerment of party members has not been reached yet.
Le elezioni nel mondo / Elections in the World - (Stefano Rombi, University of Cagliari)
Le elezioni in Italia / Elections in Italy - (Vincenzo Emanuele, Luiss Roma)