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Rethinking Intra-Party Cohesion in Times of Party Transformation

Parties and elections
Institutions
Sergiu Gherghina
University of Glasgow
Caroline Close
Université Libre de Bruxelles

Building: Business School South, Room: Room B02

Wednesday 09:00 - 17:00 BST (26/04/2017)

Thursday 09:00 - 17:00 BST (27/04/2017)

Friday 09:00 - 17:00 BST (28/04/2017)

Intra-party cohesion is a crucial feature of parliamentary democracies. Government’s stability and survival as well as legislative activity greatly depend on the capacity of political parties to work as unified entities. But parties are not monolithic organizations: they aggregate more or less divergent views; include followers and leaders; and are organized along a hierarchical or stratarchical structure. Intra-party divisions can be frequent between and within the faces of the party: party members’ dissatisfaction with their local section (party on the ground); divisions at party congresses surrounding the elaboration of the party platform or leadership selection (central office); disunity of legislators voting behavior (public office). Given these dissensions, how do parties manage to work as cohesive blocks? This is the topic addressed by this workshop especially that it becomes even more relevant at a time when party organizations are in a continuous process of transformation through processes such as cartelization, intra-party democratization, and dealignement. These developments are likely to influence the degree of cohesion between and within the faces of the party. For example, we may expect greater dissensions between grassroots supporters and their elites as the latter are moving away from civil society and enhancing their position in the state; while intra-party democratization may increase grassroots’ control of their leaders. Intra-party democratization might increase the heterogeneity of interests and ideas among party members, while cartelization might bring resources that leaders can use as ‘carrots’ to incentivize cohesion among public officials. This workshop aims to achieve four objectives: (1) To define cohesion (with different meaning in the literature); 2) To identify ways to measure cohesion (within and between the faces of the party); (3) To identify determinants of cohesion and (4) To analyze how party transformations affect parties’ capacity to function as collective entities.

Title Details
Party Switching: The Ultimate Lack of Cohesion within Party in Public Office View Paper Details
Rethinking the Concept of Intra-Party Cohesion View Paper Details
Exploring Party Cohesion among the Party on the Ground: The Impact of Party Activists’ Social Networks on the Cohesion of their Local Party Branch View Paper Details
Intra-Party-Group Cohesion in the European Parliament prior to its First Direct Elections in 1979 View Paper Details
Advice-Giving and Party Loyalty: The Role of Information Acquisition in the Socialisation Experiences of New British MPs View Paper Details
An Institutional Solution to Guarantee Party Unity: The Anti-Defection Law of Israel View Paper Details
The Party (un)Faithful: Explaining Disloyal Party Members’ Voting Behaviour in Belgium and the United Kingdom View Paper Details
Learning from Party Splits - Validating Methods of Automated Text Analysis in Intra-Party Settings View Paper Details
Intra-Party Judicial Decision-Making and Conflict Resolution: A Political Approach View Paper Details
Verba Volant, Scripta Manent? Party Conferences and Intra-Party Cohesion in Italy and France View Paper Details
The Electoral Sources of Party Unity. A Quantitative Text-Based Analysis on Vote Explanations in the German Bundestag View Paper Details
Intra-party Cohesion at Grassroots: Ideological Proximity of Croatian and Slovenian Local Councilors to their National Parties in the Context of Party Transformation View Paper Details
Intra-party Cohesion and the Impact of Socialisation: A Study of Year of Entry Cohorts in the Liberal Party of Australia 1983–2013 View Paper Details
Party Cohesion at Three Levels of Government in the Netherlands View Paper Details
Liberty - Security Dilemmas and Party Cohesion in the European Parliament View Paper Details
Party-Level Characteristics and Party Switching: Evidence from Nine Western European Countries, 1990-2014 View Paper Details
Achieving Intra-Party Cohesion during Committee Negotiations - The Room for Manoeuvre of Individual Legislators in the Bundestag and the Tweede Kamer View Paper Details
Party Cohesion as Outcome of MP Cooperation View Paper Details
Are Backbenchers Fighting Back? Intra-party Mobilisation in German Parliament Debates on the Greek Crisis View Paper Details
The Politics of Leadership Selection and Party Discipline in Parliamentary Democracies View Paper Details
Factionalism as a Public Asset? The Effect of an Open Culture of Debate in Podemos View Paper Details
Explaining Intra-party Perceptions of Party Organization and Leadership View Paper Details
Explaining Party Splits: A Comparative Study of 25 European Democracies View Paper Details