Jonathan Hopkin, "Bringing the Members Back In? Democratizing Candidate Selection in Britain and Spain," Party Politics, 7 (May 2001), 343-361.

First Paragraph:
Candidate selection in West European parties has traditionally been the preserve of small numbers of party officials operating in less than transparent conditions, leading Gallagher and Marsh to describe it as the 'secret garden' of politics in their 1988 study. However, a decade later, forms of candidate selection involving membership ballots of various kinds are becoming an increasingly visible feature of West European party politics, with major parties in a number of countries, including Spain and the UK, including members in the party 'selectorates' which elect candidates for public offices. This article assesses the causes and consequences of parties extending membership participation in candidate selection, and examines the emerging empirical reality in two cases where parties have made such changes.

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Last Paragraph
This is why pessimistic predictions that candidate selection reform hastens the disappearance of European-style membership parties appear off the mark. Party cohesion in the two cases studied has not been seriously undermined by membership participation in candidate selection, for the very reasons outlined above. The powers that party leaders retain ensure organizational cohesion. Party primaries may create greater uncertainty over some key party decisions, but candidates will not be independent of party if their nominations have to be formally approved by party committees and their campaigns rely on party resources. Parties appear to face a dilemma between organizational cohesion and responsiveness. The involvement of individual party members, or even party voters, undermines cohesion by creating rival sources of internal legitimacy, challenging leadership authority. Party cohesion is more likely in closed party structures where leaderships leave nothing to chance and the internal opposition has restricted opportunities for voice. The parties studied here have maintained their cohesion at the expense of a genuine democratization of their internal procedures.