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Abstract
How and how well do different parties manage similar environmental changes? How do organizations shape parties’ adaptation to change? In 1996 New Zealand replaced its Single Member Plurality (SMP) electoral system with a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system. MMP added an overriding proportional tier to national elections and compelled the major incumbent parties, Labour and National, to undertake new tasks: the creation of national lists of candidates and the construction of nationwide campaigns for the ‘party vote’. This paper compares how Labour and National organized candidate selection in response to MMP. It demonstrates how and why Labour possessed organizational capacities to meet these challenges that National lacked before the advent of MMP and for several years after it.
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Notes on contributors
Gregory R Stephens
John Leslie is a Lecturer in Political Science and International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington. He has published on the institutional structure of party organizations and his current research compares market integration in the European Union and closer economic relations between Australia and New Zealand.
John Leslie
Gregory R Stephens completed his Master of Arts in Political Science at Victoria University of Wellington in 2008. His thesis, ‘Electoral Reform and the Centralisation of the New Zealand National Party’, explored the New Zealand National Party’s 2003 reorganization and the impact of this reorganization on how National undertook candidate selection and the campaign strategy in the 2005 election. His research interests include political parties, elections and democratic processes. He is currently working in the New Zealand public sector.