The Face of the Party: Party Leadership Selection, and the Role of Family and Faith

• Date: 01 June 2022
• Author: Vineeta Yadav,Amanda Fidalgo
• DOI: 10.1177/10659129211011538
• Published date: 01 June 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

2022, Vol. 75(2) 379 –393

Article

https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129211011538

Political Research Quarterly

© 2021 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129211011538

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Party organizational leaders are central to a party’s opera-

tions and success. These leaders include party chairmen

and members of important organizational bodies includ-

ing the party executive board, nomination, and disciplin-

ary committees. They play key roles in allocating party

tickets, patronage, and resources; deciding party strategy;

and defining the party’s image among voters (Cross and

Pilet 2016; Kitschelt 1989; Norris 2004; Scarrow 2005).

They are also highly influential in establishing the orga-

nizational culture of a party and socializing party mem-

bers and voters into democratic or undemocratic values

and practices (Linz and Stepan 1997; Randall and

Svåsand 2002). The choices and decisions party leaders

make therefore affect the careers and political success of

individual politicians, the organization, character and

success of political parties, and the political culture of a

country. Given their impact, the question of how party

leaders are selected within parties has rightfully attracted

the attention of scholars, policymakers, and democracy

activists.

In practice, parties use a wide range of de facto selec-

tion practices for choosing their organizational leaders

ranging from direct party-wide elections in which all

party members have an equal vote to completely auto-

cratic choices made exclusively by a small clique or even

a single individual.1 While party leaders in established

Western democracies are typically selected through com-

petitive internal elections (Cross and Blais 2012; Cross

and Pilet 2016), such open selection procedures are strik-

ingly rare among developing democracies (Mainwaring

2018; Scarrow 2005).2 Instead, most parties in develop-

ing democracies, tend to use more exclusive, and less

democratic practices such as selection by a small clique

of party leaders, the previous party leader, or a single

family (Chandra 2016; Mainwaring 2018). Given the

importance of party leaders for politicians’ careers, such

practices raise an important question: Why do politicians

support such undemocratic selection practices on a deci-

sion of such importance to their careers?

1011538PRQXXX10.1177/10659129211011538Political Research QuarterlyYadav and Fidalgo

research-article2021

1The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA

2New College of Florida, Sarasota, USA

Corresponding Author:

Vineeta Yadav, The Pennsylvania State University, 309 Pond Lab,

University Park, PA 16802, USA.

Email: vyadav@psu.edu

The Face of the Party: Party

Leadership Selection, and the

Role of Family and Faith

Vineeta Yadav1 and Amanda Fidalgo2

Abstract

Political parties in developing country democracies are often characterized by undemocratic internal party practices,

including for selecting party organizational leaders. Scholars identify institutional, party-level, and demographic

factors as driving such practices. In this paper, we contribute to this research by considering the effect of two

personal factors—personal religiosity and membership in a political family. Politicians act in accordance with

personal values and strategic incentives. We argue religiosity influences both in ways that undermine support

for democratic intra-party selection practices. We hypothesize that membership in a political family increases the

undemocratic effects of high religiosity because it strengthens the capacity of highly religious dynasts to access and

mobilize politically through religious and family networks. This strengthens their strategic independence from their

party, leading them to support undemocratic leadership selection practices. We test this prediction for the case of

Turkey using original data from a 2017 survey of 200 Turkish politicians. We find that religiosity is only associated

with reduced support for democratic leadership selection practices among politicians who are members of political

families. This result is robust to the inclusion of party-specific effects, religious party membership, and individual

characteristics including support for political Islam.

Keywords

intra-party democracy, elite religiosity, political dynasty, Turkey