Who do parties select as their electoral leaders and why?

在现代议会制民主国家，政党在即将到来的议会选举中任命选举领导人是很常见的。对于大党来说，这是一个直观的理解，因为他们有明显的机会提供政府首脑，但小党也可以提名选举领导人。虽然选举领导人在媒体报道竞选活动和影响投票行为方面占据突出地位，但对于政党选择谁担任这一职位，并没有可比性的见解。因此，本项目研究政党选择谁作为他们的选举领导人及其原因。作为一个理论起点，我预计各政党将面临来自个性化和总统化进程的挑战，这些挑战将在选举领导人的选择和这些个人的职业生涯中表现出来。在政党层面，将调查选举委员长是否担任其他领导职务（议会外党代表、议会党代表、政府党代表）。我把这种领导职位的分布称为领导分裂。在选举领导人层面，该项目打算分析他们过去在党内（议会外党、议会内党和政府内党）的职业道路，以确定通往这一职位的职业类型。随后，我的目的是回答为什么政党选择不同的领导配置与选举领导（领导分裂）相结合。除了制度和政党层面的解释因素外，我对选举领导人的职业道路如何影响党的领导层中的星座感兴趣。为了追求这些研究问题，我将选择混合方法的方法。首先，我想建立两个独特的数据集合。第一个数据收集位于政党一级，记录了20个议会民主国家自1960年以来政党领导职位的现任者。第二个数据收集是指选举领导人的级别，并捕捉他们过去在党组织中的职业轨迹。在此基础上，我计划对职业数据进行序列分析，找出党组织中不同职位的继承和积累规律。为了与选举领导人一起分析领导星座，我将依靠双变量统计和回归分析。然后，定量分析的结果将指导案例选择，以进行比较案例研究，进一步检验和证实选举领导人的职业类型对政党一级领导分裂的影响。它将追踪领导碎片化的决策过程，从而揭示所涉及的关键行动者的演算。

In modern parliamentary democracies, it is nowadays common for political parties to feature electoral leaders for upcoming parliamentary elections. For major parties, this makes intuitive sense as they have a clear chance of providing the head of government, but also small parties nominate electoral leaders. Although electoral leaders figure prominently in media coverage of electoral campaigns and influence voting behavior, there are no comparative insights on who parties select for this position. Therefore, this project studies who parties choose as their electoral leaders and why. As a theoretical starting point, I expect that parties face challenges emanating from the processes of personalization and presidentialization and that these challenges find expression in the selection of their electoral leaders and in the career profiles of these individuals. At the party level, the project plans to investigate whether electoral leaders hold any other leadership position(s) and which ones (extra-parliamentary party leader, parliamentary party leader and governmental party leader position). I refer to this distribution of leadership positions as leadership fragmentation. At the level of electoral leaders, the project intends to analyze their past career paths in the party (extra-parliamentary party, party in parliament and party in government) to identify career types leading to this position. Subsequently, I aim to answer why parties opt for different leadership configurations in conjunction with electoral leadership (leadership fragmentation). Besides explanatory factors at the system and party level, I am interested in how career paths of electoral leaders influence the constellations in the party leadership.To pursue these research questions, I will choose a mixed methods approach. At first, I want to build two unique data collections. The first data collection is located at the party level and documents the incumbents of the leadership positions of parties in 20 parliamentary democracies since 1960. The second data collection refers to the level of electoral leaders and captures their past career paths in the party organization. Following this, I plan to apply sequence analysis to the career data in order to identify patterns in the succession and accumulation of different positions held in the party organization. For analyzing leadership constellations in conjunction with electoral leaders, I will rely on bivariate statistics and regression analysis. The findings of the quantitative analyses will then guide the case selection for a comparative case study that will further test and substantiate the influence of career types of electoral leaders on leadership fragmentation at the party level. It will trace the decision-making process for the leadership fragmentation and thereby reveal the calculus of the involved key actors.