Political Candidate Selection The “secret garden of politics”, where some win and others lose their candidate selection bids, and why some aspirant candidates are successful while others fail have been enduring puzzles within political science. This book solves this puzzle by proposing and applying a universally applicable multistage approach to discover the relationship between selection rules, selectors’ biases, aspirants’ attributes, and selection outcomes. Rare party and survey data on winning and losing candidates and insider views on what it takes to win a selection contest at multiple selection stages are compared and used to reveal the inner workings of the secret garden. With a primary focus on the British Labour party over several elections, the findings challenge many long-held assumptions about why some aspirant candidate types are successful over others and provides real-world and controversial solutions to addressing women’s and other marginalised groups’ descriptive underrepresentation. As such, it provides a much-needed fresh look at party selection processes and draws new conclusions as to why political underrepresentation occurs and should inform policies to remedy it. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of gender and ethnicity in politics, political parties and candidate selection, and more broadly to the study of political elites, comparative politics, sociology, labour studies, gender, race, and disability studies, and to practitioners. Jeanette Ashe is Chair of the Political Science Department at Douglas College, British Columbia, Canada. Routledge Studies on Political Parties and Party Systems Series Editors: Ingrid van Biezen Leiden University, the Netherlands, and Fernando Casal Bértoa, University of Nottingham, UK This new series focuses on major issues affecting political parties in a broad sense. It welcomes a wide-range of theoretical and methodological approaches on politi- cal parties and party systems in Europe and beyond, including comparative works examining regions outside of Europe. In particular, it aims to improve our present understanding of these topics through the examination of the crisis of political parties and challenges party organizations face in the contemporary world, the increasing internal complexity of party organizations in terms of regulation, fund- ing, membership, the more frequent presence of party system change, and the development of political parties and party systems in under-researched countries. Party System Change, the European Crisis and the State of Democracy Edited by Marco Lisi Do Parties Still Represent? An Analysis of the Representativeness of Political Parties in Western Democracies Edited by Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters Leaders, Factions and the Game of Intra-Party Politics Andrea Ceron Informal Politics in Post-Communist Europe Political Parties, Clientelism and State Capture Michal Klíma Political Candidate Selection Who Wins, Who Loses, and Under-Representation in the UK Jeanette Ashe For information about the series: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Advances- in-International-Relations-and-Global-Politics/book-series/IRGP Political Candidate Selection Who Wins, Who Loses, and Under-Representation in the UK Jeanette Ashe First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Jeanette Ashe The right of Jeanette Ashe to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-03951-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-17580-5 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC For my Mum and Dad Contents List of tables viii List of figures x Acknowledgements xi List of abbreviations xiii 1 Study overview 1 2 The selection process puzzle and ideal candidate types 22 3 Data and initial supply and demand tests 42 4 Centralisation and the Labour party’s candidate selection process 61 5 Assessing centralisation in the British Labour party’s selection process 85 6 Assessing early stage selector preference for “ideal” candidates 110 7 Do local party members select “ideal” candidates? 154 8 Conclusion 180 Appendix: British Labour party candidate survey 189 Bibliography 204 Index 214 Tables 1.1 Factors influencing the selection processes 11 3.1 Labour party candidate selection process results (2001, 2005, 2010) 46 3.2 Labour party’s selection process 50 3.3 Labour party selection process filtering (sex) 54 3.4 Labour party selection process filtering (race) 55 3.5 Labour party selection process filtering (physical ability) 56 3.6 Filtering by sex, race, and disability (2015) 57 4.1 Key reforms to the Labour party candidate selection process 69 4.2 2010 General Election 12-week selection timetable 74 5.1 Labour candidate selection process: key participants and rules 88 5.2 Multistage assessment of the Labour party selection process (women) 98 5.3 Multistage assessment of the Labour party selection process (BAME) 100 5.4 Multistage assessment of the Labour party selection process (disabled) 101 5.5 The effect of centralisation on women 102 5.6 The effect of centralisation on BAME 104 5.7 The effect of centralisation on disabled aspirants 105 6.1 Independent variables and associated categories 112 6.2 Survey data from aspirant candidates (2005 and 2010 selection processes) 122 6.3 NPP approval: variables, descriptive statistics, and relationship tests 125 6.4 Shortlisting: variables, descriptive statistics, and relationship tests 131 6.5 Model 2 logistic regression predicting likelihood of being shortlisted 133 6.6 Shortlisting: descriptive statistics and relationship tests for open seats 136 6.7 Model 3 logistic regression results for shortlisting in open seats 138 6.8 Descriptive statistics and relationship tests for open and winnable seats 139 6.9 Model 4 logistic regression results, shortlisted (open and winnable seats) 142 Tables ix 6.10 Regression model summary 143 7.1 Selection contests 157 7.2 Model 5 regression results (selected) 161 7.3 Selection contests in open seats 163 7.4 Model 6 regression results (selected in open seats) 165 7.5 Selection contests in open and winnable seats 167 7.6 Model 7 regression results (selected in open and winnable seats) 170 7.7 Selection contests in AWS seats 172 7.8 Model 8 (AWS seats) 174 7.9 Regression model result summary 176 8.1 Regression modelling summary 183