Judged by their statutory arrangement the selection procedures of the seven main governmental Belgian parties in the 1944–1992 period suggest that party presidents are recruited in a fully democratic way, anticipating a contest between several candidates which is ultimately decided by a secret vote of the members’ representatives at the national congress or council or, as in the PSC and recently the PRL, by a membership vote. In practice, competition only occurs in the PSC and the VU. In the other parties, the party elites usually propose a consensus candidate to the party's congress, who is then legitimated by a near‐unanimous vote or by acclamation. The elite legitimates this method by referring to the devastating effects of an open competition for the party's unity, as well as the belief that the elite can better assess the party needs and the prospective candidates’ skills than the more uninvolved and inexperienced congress delegate or party member.

Unlike most European countries, party leadership roles in Britain are largely concentrated into the hands of one person. The pattern was established in the nineteenth century, when the posts of Prime Minister and party leader were intertwined, and has been maintained by the modern parties. Each of the main British parties has changed its method of selecting its leader in the last thirty years and between them the parties use, or have used relatively recently, the four basic methods of selection—by the party elite, by parliamentarians, by activists and by party members. The broad trend has been for the parties to make their procedures more open and participatory. While this pattern has reflected the ‘spirit of the age’ the major reasons for the change have been political considerations. The Conservatives changed from selection by party elites to selection by MPs in an attempt to modernise their image. Labour adopted an electoral college as a result of power struggles between left and right in the party. The Liberals eventually accepted that it was not sensible for their leader to be selected by just a dozen or less MPs (and the Social Democrats and Liberal Democrats duly followed this logic). Despite the adoption of more open procedures the selectorates are still relatively small (with only the Liberal Democrats involving all members), while control over the process of nomination remains firmly in the hands of the MPs. One consequence of this is that British party leaders have been characterised, above all, by the extent of their parliamentary experience. Within that characteristic, however, the detailed rules of the different selection procedures have been crucial in determining which particular parliamentarians would emerge.

The methods of selection used by French political parties can be grouped into two categories: election by a party conference with some thousands of delegates for the right wing parties or election by a party committee after the party conference with some hundreds of representatives for the left wing parties. Nevertheless, the existence of a presidential election has completely changed the meaning of these methods of selecting party leaders. Political parties have been transformed into presidential machines carrying out two types of successive duties; as a springboard for a candidate at the presidential elections, then as a relay of the President of the Republic (the ‘president's party’). In these two types of situation the selection of leaders is not completely the same. First, in order to gain access to the presidential election, certain politicians have quickly understood that it was necessary to create new political parties or to transform weak political groups in altering the normal rules of selection of the leaders or in overthrowing the existing leadership. Then the leader of the President's party is directly chosen by the President of the Republic himself. The formal methods of selection only serve to ratify the President's choice.

Traditionally Irish party leaders, elected by their own parliamentary parties, endured a security of tenure only likely to be broken by personal electoral defeat. Now they live under a much more demanding regime. Leaders are challenged frequently and at least one has been deposed. Whereas once successions were managed now contests are normal, and they attract considerable publicity. These changes are bound up with the shift toward greater competition in Irish electoral politics, and a greater uncertainty about the nature of the parties themselves.

Leadership practices in political parties reflect the necessity of delegation as well as the desire by the rank‐and‐file to control their leaders. Norwegian political parties have traditionally divided their leadership functions between two or even three offices, whose powers have varied between as well as within parties. Non‐socialist parties have vested more power in their parliamentary leaders, and socialist parties more in their organizational chairs. The electoral process is in principle open, but contested elections have traditionally been rare. In recent years, however, contested elections have become more common, parliamentary leaders have lost much of their autonomy, and leadership tenure, at least in some parties, has gone down. Heightened electoral competitiveness seems to be driving many of these changes.

Few parties apart from the PSOE have enjoyed stable and cohesive leaderships. A comparison between the PSOE and the AP/PP shows how much more stable the experience of the former has been. Both elect leaders at delegate congesses, although in practice there is little real involvement by rank and file members. Political culture, cleavages and the role of TV all account for this instability.