Internal Party Democracy in New and in Established Democracies

Abstract

Robert Michels’ statement “Who says organisations, says oligarchy” is one of the most quoted formulations in the study of political parties. It remains a contested formulation because it touches upon a widespread notion that political parties in democracies themselves should function as ‘schools of democracy’ and therefore should themselves be democratic. However, it remains a disputed term also because it is not always clear what internal party democracy means, nor if it is central to how parties operate at the macro-level. There are several properties of parties that ‘should’ be subject to internal democracy. Among these properties are the rules for how the organisation of the party is structured. These rules should be transparent and known to the party members and the rules can only be changed following established and recognised procedures. Access to the leadership positions in the party should be through elections. Similarly, nomination of candidates for elections must involve a defined ‘selectorate’ and not limited to the preferences of a single leader. It is also assumed that in an internally democratic party, the party members are to some extent involved in the formulation of party policy, as for instance as expressed in an electoral manifesto. Nevertheless, there is no standard way parties have organised themselves to carry out these functions and lack of internal party democracy is often seen as a cause of party decline in established democracies and a deficiency of political parties in new democracies. This panel invites papers that address these concerns with empirical studies of political parties in what we can call new democracies. Parties in ‘third wave democracies’ have often emerged from the top, rather than from grass-root political movements. Where parties are based on grass-root movements, as in the case of liberation movements turned political parties, the transition has proved problematic for internal party relationships. Political parties in established democracies are also part of a civil society sector characterised by grass root based organisations. However, in many new democracies the civil society sector is weak and does not necessarily serve as ‘role models’ for the organisation of political parties. Each paper is invited to operationalise internal party democracy and to outline an appropriate approaches to investigate internal party democracy empirically.

Title	Details
Why Extra-Parliamentary Party Organisations? The Members’ View	View Paper Details
Internal Party Democracy in Poland in the Context of Party Leadership	View Paper Details
Internal Democracy in Militant Movements Turned Political Parties: A Comparison of Partai Aceh and Fretilin	View Paper Details
Outside Support for Internal Party Democracy? How the German Political Foundations Shape Political Parties in Sub-Saharan Africa	View Paper Details
The Dilemmas of Intra-Party Democracy: Lessons from Italy, Japan and Elsewhere	View Paper Details