Abstract
The recruitment of political leadership is one of the most relevant functions carried out by parties in contemporary democracies. Yet, the specialized literature often addresses only a few aspects related to the last stage of the process, which covers candidate selection, the socio-economic profile of elected leaders, and the careers of the relevant politicians, neglecting the strategies and modalities of attraction and the training of new cadres by party organizations. Thus, up to the present, no heuristic model has actually been developed in order to enable the observation and analysis of recruitment in its several moments. Our aim in this text is to present a typology for the study of party recruitment in all its stages. Therefore, we provide a conceptual definition which regards party recruitment as a comprehensive process that involves three aspects: (1) attracting new members to the organization; (2) training future cadres; and (3) allocating them, later, to the party’s bureaucratcy or to government positions and/or selecting them as candidates for representative positions with the possibility of carrying out a mandate. Based on this definition, we propose a model of analysis that frames party recruitment according to its types, subtypes, ways, means, modalities, and sub-modalities.
party recruitment; political recruitment; typology of party recruitment; party affiliation; party elites
