Personalized Versus Non-Personalized Political Parties

All existing and surviving political parties may serve as efficient solutions to a collective action problem and as successful heuristics for voters. Yet when looking closely, some may be merely about their leaders, some merely about their candidates, while others would be about a team. The goal of the paper is to develop a theoretical basis and methodological tools for mapping patterns of power relations within political parties, specifically between the party as a group and its individual politician(s). It will start with proposing three ideal types of political parties. First, the centralized-personalized party, a political party that is merely a platform that serves the individual goals of its leader. Second, the decentralized-personalized party, a political party that is merely a platform that serves the individual goals of its candidates (in plural). Third, the non-personalized party, that emphasizes team-playing and see itself as more than a platform for individuals(s). Then, these ideal types will be used to analyze three representative real-world examples. The next step would be to develop a more complex framework for analyzing all real-world cases, not just the (almost) pure ones. Finally, the paper will present a preliminary discussion of the origins of these different partisan patterns and of their political consequences.