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How do parties organize the representation of geographic regions with their slate of candidates? While electoral systems enforce different degrees of institutionalized representation of regions, parties are the main actors to ensure a balanced representation of geographic regions. What can explain the under- or overrepresentation of certain geographic regions? I argue that how parties organize their candidate selection at the local level has repercussions for geographic representation in parliament. Using data on candidate residencies for all major parties in Germany for the period of 1980 to today, as well as fine-grained membership data for one party, I show that the relative strength of local party branches determines list placements as well as the county hosting the candidate in plurality districts, leading to consequences for regional representation in the German Bundestag. Additional analyses show that regional under-representation has implications for the distribution of political federal grants.
The plot shows how many delegates local party chapters of the Green party can expect to send to nomination events. The number of delegates is based on local membership numbers and represents their voting power at nomination events. The size of the hollow circles represent the number of candidates per local party chapters that were placed on the respective party list. Solid black dots indicate local chapters whose candidates were placed on the first list position.
The visual correlation between voting power and candidate placement is supported by a number of different model specifications. The connection between strength of local parties and nomination success holds at the district level and the party-list level for most parties in Germany.
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