Internal Party Democracy: Unpacking the countervailing forces of party regulation and continuing party elite power

Enhanced internal party democracy was embraced early and widely in many of the old parties and most of the significant new entry parties in the Republic of Ireland from the 1990s. Candidate selection, leadership elections and decisions on coalition entry were reformed to give important roles to party members. In line with the main expectations of the literature (Pilet and Cross, 2014; Scarrow, 2014; Gauja 2017), Irish parties sought to (re)engage members, attract new members, enhance decision making and project a more open and appealing profile to all voters. But the narrative of democratisation sits uneasily with party constitution clauses that allow ‘Headquarters’ (a proxy term for party elites) to add and de-select candidates, determine the number of candidates to be selected, outvote members in leadership elections and generally have a consequentialist impact on the outcomes in all of the areas where internal democratic reforms were adopted. The central focus of this research strand is to unpack the tensions between member empowerment and elite control. The second strand of the research will situate the analysis in the context of increasing regulation of parties through financial directives and gender quotas. Collectively, the strands will map the countervailing forces at the heart of internal party democratic reforms (see also Reidy 2021). The work will involve interviews with party strategists and analysis of candidate profile data and decisions from leader elections dating from 2002. The research maps onto the second objective of the workshop in that it analyses internal democracy within parties and it will evaluate how reforms have impacted on party operation, party organisation and shaped wider political competition.