Gideon Rahat and Reuven Y. Hazan, "Candidate Selection Methods: An Analytical Framework," Party Politics, 7 (May 2001), 297-322.

First Paragraph:
Developing tools for the study of candidate selection methods is important in two respects. First, when we study party politics, appropriate tools enable us to draw a map of a major element in the party's internal power structure. Second, if we claim that the behavior of parties is affected by the nature of the electoral system, then the behavior of individual politicians must be affected by the nature of the selection method. This means that without analytical tools such as those supplied by electoral systems researchers (for example, Rae, 1967; Taagepera and Shugart, 1989), we lack an important factor for analyzing party politics. In light of the personification of politics and changes in party organization that lead to increased autonomy for the individual politicians at the top (Katz and Mair, 1995; Katz, in this issue), this gap needs to be filled through further research.

Figures and Tables:
Figure 1: Candidacy p. 301
Figure 2: Party Selectorates p. 301
Figure 3: Candidacy and party selectorates in candidate selection p. 304
Figure 4: Centralization and decentralization of candidate selection p. 305
Figure 5: Candidate nomination and party representational control p. 307
Table 1: Appointment systems and voting systems p. 308
Figure 6: Candidate selectorates and party cohesion p. 314

Last Paragraph:
Does the Israeli case show that the future of candidate selection methods lies in its past? Not necessarily, but it does show that there is a way out of the predicament of democratization - if the candidate selection method is not a legal requirement, but rather a partisan decision. Moreover, Israel is not a 'prototypical' case study. The Australian Labour and Liberal parties began shifting away from party primaries as early as the 1950s; from the 1970s onward, several Belgian parties phased out or abolished use of membership balloting as part of the candidate selection process; in the 1980s and 1990s, most Dutch parties (except D'66) eliminated the option of balloting local party members; and the Austrian OVP and SPO ceased to use party primaries as a candidate selection method in the two most recent elections, after changing their statutes to recognize this method and implementing it in the 1994 elections. In sum, the parties' ability to 'undemocratize' their candidate selection methods and reassert both party discipline and cohesion could be the harbinger of a reversal in the overall demise of parties.