Abstract
ABSTRACT Political parties are essential for the functioning of parliamentary democracy, yet parties have not received much attention in contemporary research on popular education. The aim of this article is to analyse the contemporary role of party-political education as a form of popular education in two labour movement parties in Sweden. The study is based on semi-structured interviews focusing on the reasoning behind the organisation of education in political parties. The interviews were conducted with ten interviewees who represented ABF (the Swedish workers’ educational association), the Left Party, and the Social Democratic Party. The thematic analysis resulted in four categories of roles ascribed to education in political parties: ideological training, training skilled members and leaders, training for a social infrastructure, and training for internal positioning and distinction. The first two categories correspond to knowledge-oriented roles, while the two last represent relationship-oriented roles. Findings show that party-political popular education still plays a significant role in contemporary Sweden. The shrinking member base of political parties creates challenges when new members and prospective representatives cannot be expected to have as extensive popular movement experience as previous representatives. In this situation, study activities are, to some extent, attributed more significance than previously.
Highlights
Political parties are essential for the functioning of parliamentary democracy, yet parties have not received much attention in contemporary research on popular education
According to the terminology used by the interviewees, the educational activities are referred to as introductory courses, members’ courses, representatives’ courses, specialised courses, leadership courses, ideology studies, election studies, studies in specific political areas, module-based studies, process courses, trade union/political evening schools, theme events, and debates
Even though the Left Party no longer sees itself as actively marginalised for political reasons, its educational activities are still rather loosely integrated with ABF
Summary
Political parties are essential for the functioning of parliamentary democracy, yet parties have not received much attention in contemporary research on popular education. This article addresses this research gap by presenting an exploratory study on the various roles of intra-party education It is based on a qualitative analysis of interviews with experienced party functionaries and popular educators in two Swedish labour movement parties. Some studies have noted that the educational practices among communist parties have influenced other, non-communist, parties Both Flowers (2005) and Holford (1994) point out how the communist parties’ traditions and methods of training and education have become a source of inspiration for the People’s Action Party (PAP) in Singapore. As shown by Holford (1994), PAP has utilised labour education as a means to gain control over the National Trade Union Congress, i.e. the main trade union organisation of the country
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