September 2021

What spurs or hampers contested district nominations for the Bundestag? Our new article provides some answers: Determinants for competitive conferences are a vacant candidacy, extra-parliamentary parties, and the involvement of several regional party units. Interestingly, there is a vast demand for more contested nominations among the selectorates. However, some ‘coronations’ are caused by early withdrawals of aspirants due to the leadership’s influence.

In "Government & Opposition", Benjamin Höhne analyses the AfD's intra-party democracy (IPD). On a broad empirical basis of the #BuKa2017 project as well as self-developed measurement methods, he shows that the AfD has a "competitive IPD". This is significantly more pronounced than in the other six parties in the Bundestag, even compared to the participation-oriented Greens.

The left-wing movement "Aufstehen" was a political experiment that received a lot of media attention in a relatively short period of time. In his article, Benjamin Höhne traces the development of the self-proclaimed movement, places it in the German party landscape and draws conclusions from its rapid failure for new "movement parties" in Germany.