Party Organizational Development Research Articles

Un dialogo possibile? Teoria delle organizzazioni e studio dei partiti

Literature devoted to party organizations rarely relies on Organization Theory. With the exception of the fundamental contribution by Panebianco, which dates back to 1982, limited efforts have been made towards a mutual contamination between the study of party organizational development and the vast body of theories, approaches and analytical frameworks that crowd Organization Theory. Moreover, while Organization Theory has recently paid attention to the study of political parties, party scholars are still committed to accumulating empirical knowledge or, at best, elaborating ideal-typical models. The aim of this contribution is to favour a cross-fertilization between these two literatures, by building on the premises of organizational institutionalism and on the organizations as multi-dimensional rational open systems perspective. Despite our effort is primarily conceptual, our arguments are conceived to be properly translated into empirical observations.

Party organizational development and the electoral performance of the radical right: exploring the role of local candidates in the breakthrough elections of the Sweden democrats 2002–2014

ABSTRACTIt is today commonplace to view radical right parties as masters of their own fates. However, whereas most authors in the field focus on dominant leaders, the impact of party organizations remains understudied. To remedy some of this, we study the impact of three unique measures of organizational development on the electoral performance of the Sweden Democrats (SD) in four consecutive local elections between 2002 and 2014. When controlling for crucial demand- and supply-side factors, while holding the appeal of the national leadership constant, we find that the size, competence, and stability of the local candidate base were all decisive for explaining the success of the SD. These findings suggest that a developed organizational base not only matters to the long-term persistence of radical right parties, but also to their electoral breakthrough. Additionally, we suggest that party organizations are likely to have a greater impact in countries where radical right parties are already established. We conclude by arguing that our findings potentially provide insights into mechanisms that explain how new parties in general establish themselves.

The Race to 270: The Electoral College and the Campaign Strategies of 2000 and 2004 (review)

Reviewed by: The Race to 270: The Electoral College and the Campaign Strategies of 2000 and 2004 William Crotty The Race to 270: The Electoral College and the Campaign Strategies of 2000 and 2004. By Daron R. Shaw. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006; pp 216. $50.00 cloth; $20.00 paper. Daron R. Shaw's study of the presidential campaigns of 2000 and 2004 has two purposes. The first purpose is to assess the impact of the Electoral College on candidates' decision making, while arguing the importance of the campaign period in general in moving small but ultimately significant segments of the electorate to one side or the other. Second, it is also meant to combine the expertise and skills of both the political scientist and the practitioner (because Shaw served as an advisor to both Bush-Cheney campaigns) in teasing out the impact of various strategies in shaping an election's outcome. Shaw makes a strong, and I would say welcome, argument for the relevance of campaigns in affecting voter decision making and ultimately deciding the outcomes of elections. In this context, the study helps question the notion of largely predetermined results based on partisan affiliations. Put in other terms, it serves to make the case that "politics is important." The point is not new. V. O. Key Jr. passionately advanced the cause, but it bears repeating as a response to drier, more formalistic analyses that predominate in the field of political science. Shaw's approach is parsimonious; the focus is primarily restricted to television advertising and candidate appearances. At the same time, the dynamics of campaigns are much more inclusive, with party and grassroots organizing, message definition, voter contacts, fundraising, and personal styles, media coverage, in-house decision making and strategizing, ideological perspectives, and so on. The study can be seen as a partial if important and [End Page 157] creative effort to isolate the operations and impact of a specialized set of campaign dynamics. Shaw critiques the relevant academic research and, in particular, the writings directing attention away from the campaign and therefore directly or indirectly arguing its "minimalist" importance in shaping contests. The review of the literature and the availability and quality of data sources used in the study is persuasive. Not surprisingly, the book may make its greatest contribution in assessing the adaptation of campaign thinking (Karl Rove being the principal arbitrator) to maximize Electoral College advantages (as an example, party versus ideology favoring Bush-Cheney in assessing resource allocations at the state level). Based on such calculations, the states could be rank-ordered in relation to winnability (safe, battlegrounded, lost) for targeting financial allocations and candidate appearances, and for determining the nature of the strategy to be pursued. There were alternative strategies, too: offensive, attack in weak support and battleground states; defensive, campaign in states leaning to Bush and a handful of those favoring the opponent; or "high-risk," a singularly intense focus on the battleground states needed to prevail in the Electoral College. Of particular interest to me were the factors weighed to decide a state's importance and consequently the kind of campaign to be conducted there. These included voting histories, poll numbers, party organizational development and leadership support, strength and competitiveness of lower-level races, issue potential (issue positions were tailored to each state's outlook and values), and native son roots. Likewise, media markets were identified in relation both to the campaign's master plan and to cost-effectiveness in reaching the undecided and swing voters. In allocating resources to media markets across states, importance was placed on the state profile (core, leaning, or battleground) and competitiveness ("states where the race was clear and where TV advertising was relatively inexpensive tended to get more commercials and more visits"), and the strategic allocations favored in one campaign (2000) were closely correlated with its successor (2004) (73). Not surprisingly, "battleground states were inundated with both TV ads and visits from candidates," and despite intensive programming, "presidential and vice presidential appearances … varied much more with the movements of the opposition than the campaign's own Electoral College plan" (73). The Electoral College framework provides the boundaries within which each party's campaign...

North Carolina: The Development of Party Organizations in a Competitive Environment

Activists in the two political parties have moved further apart over the past ten years. They already were ideologically distinct in 1991, but since then the Republicans have become even more conservative and the Democrats have moved in a liberal direction. Also, Democratic activists now have a substantially higher percentage of blacks and women in their ranks than was the case in 1991. Both parties have become somewhat more cohesive than they were in 1991, although both organizations still contain conflict and factions, with the Democrats being somewhat more divided than the Republicans. Among Democrats, the tensions involved in keeping their biracial coalition together can be stressful. Among Republicans, the split between Christian Right conservatives and others is the most obvious deep division. Both parties appear to be stronger organizations now than a decade ago. In particular, the activists report higher levels of organizational activity and the two parties seem fairly evenly matched in grassroots organizational strength at this point in time.

Alabama: Maturing Party Competition

After years of a virtual Democratic monopoly over its electoral politics, Alabama has become a politically competitive state. Reflecting this political transformation, the results of the 1991 and 2001 Grassroots Party Activists surveys show that Alabama’s Democratic and Republican party activists are increasingly distinguishable in their social characteristics, ideological stands, and policy positions. Also accompanying the state’s new political competitiveness has been the development of party organizations that are now roughly balanced in terms of their strength and capabilities.

Introduction: Studying Southern Political Party Activists

The political changes that have occurred in the South over the past several decades have affected the political party organizations in the region. A region once marked by a weak and highly factionalized Democratic Party organization and an almost non-existent Republican Party organization now has two significant party organizations operating in each state. Examining the development of party organizations in the region should tell us much about both political party organizations and southern politics. This study, the Southern Grassroots Party Activists 2001 Project, focuses on political party activists active at the county level. Over 7,000 activists in the eleven southern states were surveyed in 2001. This study is linked to the 1991 Southern Grassroots Party Activists Project, which surveyed a similar group of activists, using a similar questionnaire. The following articles both analyze the 2001 data patterns and compare the 2001 results to the 1991 patterns.

The Communist Successor Parties and Party Organizational Development in Post-Communist Politics

The emergence of competitive party politics in the countries of postcommunist Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union has offered a unique opportunity to test some long-held propositions in party organization theory. What factors may promote certain types of organizations over others? To address this question, I develop a theoretical framework which identifies a set of party organizational types and the factors which might lead to the development of certain types over others. Second, I test these in light of the evidence from the communist successor parties from ten Eastem European and former Soviet countries. It was found that, among several independent variables, the previous communist regime type, the strength of the constitutional presidency, and the features of the electoral system were the best predictors of party organizational type among the communist successor parties.

The Communist Successor Parties and Party Organizational Development in Post-Communist Politics

The Communist Successor Parties and Party Organizational Development in Post-Communist Politics

Left or right? The CPRF and the problem of democratic consolidation in Russia

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) is the largest of the successor organizations to the CPSU and, paradoxically, one of the leading conservative parties. The party's organizational development reflects the larger problem of party formation in Russia but has distinctive features of its own. The CPRF's programmatic evolution is symptomatic of the larger issue of post‐communist ideological confusion. Finally, the CPRF's contribution to the consolidation of Russian parliamentarianism in particular and the political system in general is ambivalent.

Developing Party Organizations in East-Central Europe

Political parties are central to the process of democratization in east-central Europe. In contrast to the many studies that look at the instability of new parties and party systems, this article focuses on party organizational development. First, a hypothesis is put forward contending that parties in the region are likely to develop as formations with loose electoral constituencies, unimportant membership and a dominant role played by party leaders. Second, this hypothesis is tested on a sample of six parties from the Czech Republic. The analysis shows that certain variations in organizational structure exist, deriving from the distinction between old parties and newly established parties, the former deviating from the hypothesis to a greater extent than the latter.

The Dynamics of Party Organizational Development

Once characterized as poor, transitory, and “powerless,” national party organizations in the United States are now financially secure, stable, and highly influential in election campaigns and in their relations with state and local party committees. The transformation of the Democratic and Republican national, congressional, and senatorial campaign committees can be explained using theories of organizational change from the organizational behavior literature and traditional arguments about electoral competition and coalition-building from the parties literature. This paper explains the timing and content of party organizational development by focusing on the nature of the problems that confront the parties, the crises that create opportunities for party organizational change, the motives and behaviors of political entrepreneurs instigating the change, and the internal politics of the party organizations themselves. The explanation accounts for the different paths of institutionalization taken by the six national party organizations and for the variations in the roles they currently play in the electoral process.

Takeoff Point for the National Socialist Party: The Landtag Election in Baden, I929

Recent studies of the history of the National Socialist Party of Germany have produced much illuminating material on the k. party's organizational development and growth during its period of struggle up to the seizure of power. In addition, there are several studies of local or regional scope covering the same period, mostly dealing with areas in northern Germany, which provide a close-up view of the party and its tactics. This investigation will examine the nature of the Nazi voter appeal as it is revealed in the campaign and election to the state legislature (Landtag) in the south German state of Baden in 1929. The circumstance that the election fell in this year permits an examination of the development of the party midway between its failure in the Reichstag election of 1928 and its success in 1930; a close analysis of local statistics will show where the early converts to the National Socialist voting ranks came from, and will suggest some clues to the reasons for Hitler's early successes.