"Winning isn't everything": The Re-Nomination of Losing Candidates

Why do parties re-nominate losing candidates? This project develops a comparative theory for losers of elections. We advance that political parties take note of two moments, one before the election and one after the race. These moments consider the electoral experience and the electoral performance...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Saldana, Jorge Leonardo
Tipo de recurso: tesis doctoral
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:Chile
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.anid.cl:10533/246039
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10533/246039
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Ciencias Sociales
Ciencias Políticas
Descripción
Sumario:Why do parties re-nominate losing candidates? This project develops a comparative theory for losers of elections. We advance that political parties take note of two moments, one before the election and one after the race. These moments consider the electoral experience and the electoral performance of the candidate, respectively. Thus, we contend that parties treat experienced candidates differently from amateurs, and over-performers differently than under-performers when considering their futures in the electoral arena, despite all being equally losing candidates. Expanding the understanding of elections to include losing candidates – especially after realizing that some of these unsuccessful politicians come back to win elections – is a pending task for political scientists. We hope this is the start of a more nuanced discussion about the topic, with a framework that can be expanded to other countries. Similarly, these results can be complemented by qualitative studies with interviews to also-rans who are now winners, or to perennial losers, to gauge their strategies after being confronted with electoral defeat.