Which Face Comes First? The Ascendancy of the Party in Public Office

Abstract

Recently, students of European parties have come to agree that organizational power has been concentrating in the party in public office (PPO), whose particular interests and objectives shape those of the party at large. This process of growing autonomy of the PPO—hypothesized by Katz and Mair—goes hand in hand with that of party penetration of the state and with a corresponding decline of party presence within civil society. This chapter aims to verify, empirically, if the PPO is indeed moving in the direction of becoming the strongest party organizational ‘face’. It also investigates whether the degree of ascendancy of the PPO varies 1) across parties and 2) across countries. To this end, it analyses persistence and change in party organizations across ten European countries, from the 1970s to 2010, using data from the Political Party Database Project (PPDB) and comparable data from the Party Organizations Data Handbook.

The ‘genetic’ effect: Can parties’ past organizational choices condition the development of their internal distribution of power in the cartel party era? Evidence from Finland, 1983–2017

“…In both parties, MPs have strengthened their hold of leadership positions and the PPO's financial and staff resources have increased considerably, while the PCO's financial resources have stagnated and staff resources have even decreased. Recent comparative studies have found similar developments (Bardi et al, 2017). This study's findings confirm the suspicions raised by earlier studies: the PCO/PPO resource distribution can change towards the cartel model, while the distribution of (formal) decision-making power remains stable.…”

The failure of mainstream parties and the impact of new challenger parties in France, Italy and Spain

“…But it is not a question of numbers, whose decline is unequivocal (Bardi et al, 2017), safe exceptions such as the amazing increase in the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. The real trouble concerns the different meaning that, in present times, enrolling in a party has with respect to the era of the mass party.…”

How does party organisation develop beyond clientelism in new democracies? Evidence from South Korea, 1992–2016

“…Although records have been kept by the NEC since 1992, Specifically, for the analysis of internal power shifts, this article focuses on two empirical indicators commonly used in the existing literature: the number of salaried party staff members at the PCO and the number of party executives and candidates selected through competitive elections (e.g. Bardi et al, 2017;Katz & Mair, 2009;Van Biezen, 2003). If there has been a power shift within a party, we expect the number of salaried staff members at the PCO to be reduced, and competitive elections to be used for the selection of party executives and candidates more frequently than the appointment by party leaders.…”