Representation in crisis: The Icelandic case

In this chapter we analyse whether and how the global credit crunch has had a long-term impact on how representation is carried out in Iceland, focusing on candidate selection. The use of primaries was already in place in Iceland before the crisis and thus the Icelandic parties, both established and new ones, had limited opportunities to respond to a loss of confidence in the political system by implementing primaries as a new way to select candidates. The emergence of four new parties with parliamentary representation since the crisis, however, allows us to examine whether the new parties use a more inclusive way of selecting their candidates by primaries, e.g. whether their candidate selection is open to a wider pool of voters compared to the established parties. Furthermore, we test Hazan’s and Rahat’s (2010) claim that party primaries deinstitutionalize party organizations, focusing on the post-crisis era. Our main results show there are no clear trends of an increase in the use of primaries to select candidates in Iceland, and that primaries, as practiced in Iceland, have not undermined party organizations regarding participation, representativeness, intra-party competitiveness or responsiveness.