In this opinion piece, Luke Pierson writes about how political parties have no place in local body politics. Pierson is not a political scientist, but an entrepreneur/businessman. This makes sense, given he wants candidates "who understand leadership, strategy and know how to read a balance sheet." However, how does his claim that "Party politics simply have no place in council, and the dysfunction we’re seeing now proves it" stack up, when considering the wealth of evidence on the subject?
Firstly, the claim that party-affiliated candidates don't know about "leadership, strategy, and [finance]" is dubious. There's no demonstrable evidence of this; primarily because what constitutes leadership and strategy are not fixed values they, like how we understand finance, are ideological: good finance skills are understood differently to those who are left-wing and those who are right-wing.
Pierson also suggests that removing partisanship from council might increase voter turnout. The opposite is true: there is a wealth of literature which suggests that removing barriers to voting is one of the best ways to increase voter turnout (for example, voter registration decreases total turnout; Ansolabehere, Konisky, 2004). Political party affiliation is an easy way for voters to understand the broad ideology of the candidate; they can understand their values and what is important to the candidate simply by seeing the affiliation (Schaffner, Streb, and Wright, 2001).
Furthermore, the claim that having nonpartisan councillors would lead to better-value candidates being elected is also not supported by the evidence. Voters are lazy, and the vast majority will not do research on the candidates, instead either picking at random, using name recognition, or using name-bias to cast their vote (that is, racially or ethnically profiling the candidates; Thrasher, Borisyuk, Rallings, Webber, 2017). Therefore, we would not just have more candidates picked at random, but also possibly a less ethnically diverse council (studies show that diverse governance is in fact good for business).
Interestingly, banning candidates from affiliating to political parties does not decrease the influence that political parties have in the process, instead it makes it more difficult for voters to understand what financial forces are at play. In America, for example, the non-partisan races are dominated by Republicans who regularly outspend their opponents although they are not officially 'Republican'. Do we want that kind of hidden influence in New Zealand politics?
So, what then? Well the obvious answer is that we should expect more of political parties. I agree with Pierson that in many instances the calibre of local councillors is low, fuelled by low engagement rates and general uninterested in local body politics. Political parties should make their processes far more robust: political parties serve as an important democratic function as 'gatekeepers' and quality control, yet I think they have fallen remarkably short in this role. I also believe it's time for right-wing parties to start getting involved, publicly, in local body politics. No more third-party organisations to raise money and endorse certain candidates, just be straight up and put the label on your candidate and let the voter make their own decision.