By Calixte Bloquet and Danny Schindler.
After the collapse of the “traffic light” coalition and the dissolution of the Bundestag, Germany is gearing up for new elections on February 23rd, 2025. Happening in an incredibly fragile international and national context, the German elections are likely to be of vital importance. Yet, as with every election, the outcome is uncertain, as many topics collide in the campaign, and many voters are still undecided. One of the criteria for their choices will be who the candidates are: what they offer in terms of policies, which party they come from, whether they provide leadership skills and trustworthiness … And, to a lesser extent, how attractive they are.
Physical appearance does not usually top the list of criteria when picking a political representative, yet it can be particularly relevant in the case of parliamentary elections, where many little-known candidates are discovered for the first time on election posters. In the current German campaign, it is occasionally mentioned, with Green chancellor candidate Robert Habeck being described in medias as “probably the most attractive candidate for chancellor”. We take this opportunity to look into the role of attractiveness in candidate selection in German parties, how important it is, and for whom.
When and how to measure attractiveness?
The literature has already shown that attractiveness (slightly) improves the chances of being elected, in general but also in Germany specifically, be it in regional, national or European elections. But if it seems to be established that it matters to voters, little is known about how important it is for selectors inside parties, i.e., when it comes to deciding who can run for election in the first place: do selectors anticipate physical characteristics to be of importance, or do they take their decisions based on exclusively political criteria?
To answer this question, we draw on a party survey on candidate selection for the 19th Bundestag (2017-2021). More specifically, we asked more than 9000 party selectors in randomly selected nomination meetings at both district and state level (party lists), representing each party in the Bundestag, to judge which of a list of criteria were important or unimportant when nominating a candidate. Among the list, two items can be related to physical appearance: “attractiveness” (“Attraktivität”) on the one hand, and “well-groomed appearance” (“gepflegtes Erscheinungsbilds”) on the other.
Ultimately, our survey question does not measure the actual influence of physical appearance, but rather how willing selectors are to say these characteristics matter. This implies that respondents are likely under-reporting, either because they are unwilling to disclose what could be regarded as a “superficial” concern compared to political orientation, or because they might not be aware of its full influence on them.
What role does appearance play in the candidate selection process?
So does beauty matter? According to our data, both attractiveness and well-groomed appearance are relevant for the nomination of Bundestag candidates, to varying degrees: a third of respondents say attractiveness is important or very important (32,6%), and four fifths that a well-groomed appearance is (79,8%). Those results seem unrelated to the amount of political experience, for example the time spent weekly on party work or whether or not one holds a leadership position: committed members rated attractiveness and appearance as just as important or unimportant as less active ones.
What seems to matter most are social characteristics and political orientation – and through them, likely moral values. Indeed, our results seem to indicate that the older, less educated and more conservative party selectors are, the more likely they are to declare that either attractiveness or a well-groomed appearance matter. All those effects remain true in a multivariate model. On the other hand, younger, more educated and more progressive party selectors are less likely to admit the same, either because it influences them less, or because it is less appropriate of a thing to admit in those contexts. In ideological terms, party members of the conservative CDU and CSU attach more than twice as often importance to attractiveness than their counterparts among the Left Party or the Greens. As far as gender goes, if a well-groomed appearance is rated as similarly important by men and women, men attribute slightly more importance to attractiveness than women (Figure 1 and 2).
It is not to say that rational considerations do not also play their part: regardless of those other factors, selectors report that physical appearance matters less when nominating multiple candidates for lists rather than one individual candidate for a district. This is hardly surprising, when lists are composed of several dozens of candidates, most of them placed way too low to ever have a chance to be elected anyway. But this does not mitigate the importance of the other factors in any way.
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To be sure, the importance of physical appearance in candidate selection should not be overestimated: other selection criteria carry greater weight. In our survey for example, more than 94% of respondents considered it important that the nominees demonstrate expertise in certain policy areas and are approachable. However, physical appearance does also come into play, not only in competition between parties, but also in internal party selection processes. In a context where personalization of politics, even in Germany, keeps rising, candidates might be able to find here some competitive advantage.
About the authors
Dr Calixte Bloquet is a Research Associate at the Institute for Parliamentary Research, where Dr Danny Schindler is the director.