Abstract
This article aims to contribute both theoretically and empirically to the study of political parties in the EU context, focusing on party organisation. Theoretically, it draws on insights from various literatures to develop a novel typology of multilevel party organisation specific to the EU context. It argues that parties are goal-seeking actors that choose their organisation based on a cost-benefit analysis, involving both party characteristics and the institutional context. Empirically, the article applies this framework on the Flemish political parties. It finds that rational goal-seeking behaviour cannot fully account for parties’ organisational choices. Results show that normative and historical considerations play a crucial role in parties’ cost-benefit analysis. It therefore calls upon future research to expand the number of comparative studies and to further assess parties’ goal-seeking behaviour regarding their multilevel organisation.
Highlights
The EU poses national political parties with a fundamental challenge, as it simultaneously issues significant constraints on the policy freedom of national legislators and presents parties with a political arena that goes beyond the boundaries of the familiar nation-state (Blomgren, 2003; Hix, 2008)
While European integration might not have been a major instigator of organisational change, it generated a level of governance on which a number of actors are active: Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), ministers, commissioners and several presidents—all of which “are predominantly recruited from political parties” (Hix & Lord, 1997, p. 1)
This article assessed the multilevel organisation of national political parties in an EU context
Summary
The EU poses national political parties with a fundamental challenge, as it simultaneously issues significant constraints on the policy freedom of national legislators and presents parties with a political arena that goes beyond the boundaries of the familiar nation-state (Blomgren, 2003; Hix, 2008). The EU “confronts domestic political parties with a new structure of threats and opportunities” While European integration might not have been a major instigator of organisational change, it generated a level of governance on which a number of actors are active: Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), ministers, commissioners and several presidents—all of which “are predominantly recruited from political parties” Just as in the national arena, political parties “embody the link between citizenry and EU institutions” (Lefkofridi, 2020). The main question this article aims to answer is: How do parties structure their contacts with the European level, and what explains differences between parties?
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