Political Parties, Candidate Selection, and Quality of Government

Abstract

Abstract This article explores empirically the relation between political parties’ institutions and quality of government. I focus on procedures used to nominate presidential candidates given the importance of candidate selection in party politics. Using a panel dataset of Latin American countries, I find robust evidence of a positive relation between the use of democratic procedures, such as primaries, and quality of government. To shed light on the mechanism, I examine why parties use primaries. I find evidence suggestive that the results are mostly driven by the increase in political competition and candidates’ pre-electoral incentives.