Democratising party leadership selection in Belgium and Israel

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on key concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book provides a general overview of the processes of democratic innovation within political parties. Political parties are currently continuing to choose inclusion as an answer to the anti-party feeling, blame and delegitimisation they experience within the political scene, they barely perceive the outcomes in terms of electoral consensus and membership mobilisation. The difficulties in illustrating a clear and direct impact of primaries on political parties suggest the need to expand the research on this issue by enlarging the focus. The comparative approach has contributed to an understanding of the actual functioning of primary elections within different political and party systems. The book addresses both candidate and leader selection; and, besides the case analysed, it deals with the issue of the differences between the two types of selection thoroughly from a theoretical point of view.