The arduous path to mandate
by OK
Daniel Hellmann: Der mühselige Weg zum Mandat – aber welcher? Empirische Untersuchungen zu Inhalt und Bedeutung der Ochsentour, in: Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen (ZParl), Vol. 51 (2020), Issue 1, pp. 49-67. (DOI: 10.5771/0340-1758-2020-1-49)
The Ochsentour describes the slow, hard road to the top of political positions and is colloquially negatively associated. But despite this negative image, it remains unclear what actually constitutes this process of intraparty proving and how to interpret the metaphor of the arduous journey of the ox dragging the plough. A descriptive analysis based on the IParl survey shows that an aspirant’s nomination success depends on much more than the symptomatical duration of his or her party membership. These findings instead indicate that the development of a trusted relationship between candidate and party base is the key component of intraparty promotion. Overall the data suggests that aspirants are mostly flexible, show high levels of engagement and have proved themselves to their party base. Thus, the Ochsentour metaphor does not fit to the actual performance of candidature applicants.
The article is published in: ZParl, Vol. 51 (2020), Issue 1, pp. 49-67.
