Political Selection in Germany: Final Report

This project aimed to make two major contributions. First, we aimed to hand collect hitherto unavailable data on the traits and electoral performance of hundreds of thousands of candidates competing for local council seats in three German states: Bavaria, Hesse, and Saxony. Second, relying on this data, we intended to study the importance of political selection at the local level in Germany. We found that in Bavaria, an additional female councilor significantly increases the provision of child care spots. The marginal effect of a female councilor is strongest when there are few other women represented in a local council. This implies that having "one seat at the table" might already be sufficient to influence policy choices. We also found that one important reason for the under-representation of women in politics is that women are less likely to recontest than men, and established that the size of this recontest gap depends on institutional constraints. For example, women are more likely to recontest in municipalities where council meetings take place late in the evening, when household chores have been completed. Another important finding was that in the 2020 local council elections in Bavaria, which were held under the looming threat of the Covid-19 pandemic, incumbency advantages shrunk more strongly in municipalities where the pandemic was arguably more salient at the time of the election. This suggests that while democracies might not be able to react as decisively as autocracies, they have unique advantages, too. In particular, they are able to quickly change the selection of leaders and elect new politicians to office who are arguably better suited to deal with looming crises. We also established that the occupational background of politicians does not matter for their performance while in office. More specifically, mayors who have a background in public administration are not more likely to attract grants to their municipality than other mayors. This finding is timely, given frequent calls for public offices, such as ministerships, to be held by politicians with professional experience in the relevant policy domain. We show that professional experience is not necessarily useful to succeed in public office. Finally, we found that in local elections across Saxony, voters elect candidates of the AfD - Germany's main populist party - not because of their personal traits but rather due to the AfD's party brand. This is an important finding given the common belief that local elections are candidate-centric and fought over local issues. It implies that with the rise of populist parties, the nature of local politics is changing.