Political Parties as Venues for and Vehicles of Conflict

Despite democratic societies undergoing fundamental change over recent decades, parties have remained central actors in the democratic process. Parties simultaneously need to function as venues for participation and vehicles of representation both inside and outside institutions (e.g., Scarrow 2015). This has become more challenging as sources of intra-party conflict have multiplied over the last decades, due to a variety of external pressures but also through parties involving rank-and-file members more in internal decision-making. Meanwhile, inter-party conflict has intensified and diversified, visible in an increasing fragmentation and polarization of party systems but also in the topics that dominate the competitive agenda. In light of these two important developments, this Section invites (theoretical and empirical) Papers on how parties operate as venues for and vehicles of conflict (Gherghina et al. 2019; Stokes 1963; Adams 2012). More specifically, we are interested in the following themes: 1. In many democracies, parties have experienced major upheaval, triggering severe intra-organizational frictions, such as during the migration crisis (Dostal 2017; Hertner 2021) or regarding divisions over Europe (Bale 2012; Clark 2012). Meanwhile, Europeanization and decentralization have made the institutional settings parties operate in more complex, reinforcing intra-organizational coordination problems and potential conflict across governmental layers (Swenden & Maddens 2009; Bolleyer et al, 2014), while mainstream parties are increasingly confronted with the rise of populist challengers on the left and right (Green-Pedersen 2019). While we invite papers exploring how parties try to cope with conflict emerging in response to different sources (e.g. devolution, external crises, intra-organizational democratization), it is of particular interest how these strategies impact on parties’ ability to engage in inter-party conflict and competition. 2. To date, intra-party conflict has predominantly been treated as a phenomenon that parties try to avoid and need to manage to contain its costs. According to Blondel (1978, 1138) ‘a disunited party is always viewed with some scorn by opponents, and with worry by supporters’, an orientation which has shaped research about legislators’ dissent (Campbell et al. 2019; Carey 2009; Kam 2009), research about electoral behaviour focused on voters’ perceptions of intra-party conflict (Greene and Haber 2015; Lehrer and Lin 2020; Lehrer, Stöckle, and Juhl 2022), as well as party politics scholarship dealing with the structure and dynamics of intra-party conflict (Ceron 2019; Michels 1915) alike. Meanwhile, in line with management and organization research (Mikkelsen and Clegg 2018), some voices in party research point to the possibility that certain types of conflict might, if handled properly, be beneficial (e.g., Boucek 2009; Campbell et al. 2019; DiSalvo 2012; Kitschelt 1994; Farrell et al 2015). While this Section generally invites Papers on the various intra-party conflicts, we particularly invite Papers on the potentially beneficial effects of intra-party conflict, both on parties as organizations or vehicles for inter-party conflict and competition. 3. While inter-party conflict has long been seen as desirable and indeed necessary for the functioning of democracies (Downs 1957; Stokes 1963), studies on affective polarization suggest that not all kinds of political competition between political elites may have positive effects (Iyengar et al. 2019). Affective polarization – dislike of a partisan outgroup – is commonly assumed to destabilize democracies through the erosions of democratic norms, electoral positions, and political behaviours (Voelkel et al. 2022). At the same time, the literature on party competition has centred around parties’ electoral platforms. This concerns party positions or the salience attributed to different topics, and how this affects voters (Fagerholm 2016; Beyer & Hänni 2018; Green-Pedersen 2019), while some new work suggests that other party behaviour, such as cooperation or rhetoric, may also affect voters’ reactions to party competition (Bassan-Nygate & Weiss 2022; Jung 2020; Kosmidis et al. 2019). How do (changing) parliamentary alliances between parties affect polarization? How does elite rhetoric about opponents affect citizens’ democratic attitudes and behaviours? And more generally, what is the relative importance of non-policy-based inter-party conflict compared to policy-based inter-party conflict in determining parties’ electoral performance? 4. Inter-party conflict over positions and agendas is at the heart of what political parties as a set are supposed to deliver, according to influential normative accounts (Adams 2001; APSA 1950). Responsiveness to and maintaining congruence with voters’ changing positional or issue demands form parties’ main strategies for outperforming their competitors. Existing work in this field has typically focused on one of these strategies, their determinants, and electoral effects, either analysing parties’ shifts to voters’ (changing) positions and agenda demands (i.e., responsiveness) or analysing parties’ match with voters’ positions and agenda demands (i.e., congruence. Some new work suggests that the combination of the two, when responsiveness leads to congruence, is the ultimate party strategy in spatial theories of party competition (Beyer & Hänni 2018; Ibenskas & Polk 2022). We therefore invite particularly contributions on congruent responsiveness, its determinants and electoral and representational effects as well as on the relative merits of the alternative vote-seeking strategies for party competition: responsiveness, congruence, and congruent responsiveness.