Candidate selection in Brazil was poorly treated in regarding the perception candidates have of the entire process. Thereby, the purpose of this article is to analyse decision making process of choosing candidates in the four greatests Brazilian parties, DEM, PMDB, PSDB and PT. From this analisys, stablish empirical criteria for the internal democracy measure within political parties. In order to, we applied a survey to 120 federal deputies candidates in the 2010 election. The framework for analisys was the proposed by Freidenberg (2003) for the definition and measure of internal democracy and Hazan e Rahat (2010) for the candidate selection process. The hypothesis stands for more inclusive selections and done by vote, produces more democratic parties. The results points out that political parties with middle strata´s organizational participation, as delegates, and mobilize the vote for the decision making process, not always presents better representative index. In the other hand, political parties selects thier candidates em very different way, independent from institutional constraint. Thesse differences ocurred essentialy regards the inclusiviness and the nomination shape. This points out that the electoral system isn't the exclusive determinant of the party behavior.
candidate selection; political parties; internal democracy; 2010 Brazil´s elections
