Do more inclusive parties change less? Intraparty democracy and programmatic change

2023/11/07 by Sofia Marini · 1 voice · 9 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Democracy #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Gender Politics and Representation #Law #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Psychology #Representativeness heuristic #Salience (neuroscience) #Social Policy and Reform Studies #Social psychology #Sociology

paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/01402382.2023.2272117

published in West European Politics 48(2), 270-296 (Taylor & Francis)

openalex publication_date 2023/11/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

The extent to which political parties change their policy positions and the emphasis they give to different topics is crucial for the representativeness and responsiveness of contemporary political systems.This article aims to clarify the role of intraparty democracy in explaining the amount of such change.Previous research has shown that a stronger empowerment of members decreases programmatic change.This hypothesis is tested here more broadly, looking at both position shifts and emphasis change, adopting a more comprehensive definition of intraparty democracy and unpacking the Left-Right scale into an economic and cultural subdimension.It is further argued that the effect of intraparty democracy is moderated by the relative salience of the economic vs. cultural subdimensions of political competition.The empirical analysis of 47 parties in 10 countries between 1995 and 2019 confirms that more internally democratic parties change less, while evidence concerning the moderating effect of relative salience is more mixed.

Citations

• The Growing Importance of Issue Competition: The Changing Nature of Party Competition in Western Europe
• Inside the Cartel Party: Party Organisation in Government and Opposition
• Who sets the agenda and who responds to it in the Danish parliament? A new model of issue competition and agenda‐setting
• Timely Decisions: The Effects of Past National Elections on Party Policy Change
• Issue Diversification: Which Niche Parties Can Succeed Electorally by Broadening Their Agenda?
• ‘It’s the economy, stupid’: when new politics parties take on old politics issues

Cited by

• New people, new policy: How personnel renewal in the party executive affects party policy change. The case of Austria

Discussions

• Online first: "Do more inclusive parties change less? Intraparty democracy and programmatic change" by Sofia Marini doi.org/10.1080/0140... Polisky [bsky, 19 points, 0 comments]

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