Party organizations are often described as composed of three ‘faces’: the party on the ground, the party in central office, and the party in public office. A widespread diagnosis in the literature on political parties is that the balance of power among the three faces has shifted, resulting in the ascendancy of the party in public office – and a corresponding decline in intra-party democracy. In the first section of the paper, I discuss different perspectives on the utility of extra-parliamentary organizations – both on the ground and in central office – more closely.
The following empirical analysis uses data from a 2009 Norwegian survey of party members and party congress delegates, which includes a battery of questions on how different aspects of the party organization works. Democratic intra-party participation – which requires an extra-parliamentary organization – as well as outward-oriented activities, such as campaigning, are covered.
The first research question deals with the usefulness of party organizations seen from within – both in general and regarding specific functions. The second question relates to the dimensionality of these evaluations: Can we discern different ‘ideal types’ of party organizations where some aspects are well taken care of and others neglected? Theoretically, this part of the analysis takes the party models as its starting point: do some party members emphasize ‘inward-oriented’, participatory aspects of party organization (in line with the mass party model) whereas others focus on outward-oriented aspects (as one might expect from the catch-all party model)? The final question is about party differences: Has the historical legacies of the seven parties represented in the Norwegian parliament resulted in different perceptions why party organizations matter? And if so, do these patterns correspond to distinct party models?
