Panebianco’s Organizational Model and its Applicability on the Transformation of Communist Parties in the West Europe

Abstract

The paper deals with the organizational model of political parties created by Italian political scientist Angelo Panebianco. For presentation of this, outside Italian academic discourse, an „unknown“ model is necessary to briefly describe the whole organizational theory and to introduce the review of this model. After that we examine the applicability of Panebianco ́s scheme on the structural transformation of communist political parties at the end of 1980s. This suitability will be measured on the case example of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). The PCI was historically the strongest and most influential communist party outside the Soviet bloc and that is why it is convenient to apply the organizational model to the organizational changes of the PCI during its transformation. We also define five main criteria of these changes and their compatibility with the Panebianco ́s model. Thus the main aim of this paper is to prove the suitability of the organizational model not only to the structural transformation of the Italian communists but using this case example also to the universal transformation of the communist parties in the western world.