Political advisors appeal to our imagination. Ranging from Machiavelli to spindoctor Kasper Juul in the Borgen TV series, they inhabit a peculiar but powerful place in collective memory. Political scientists are no exception to that rule. Political professionals are often considered influential figures close to the center of power: “Political consultants do not limit themselves to executive duties, technical support or specific skills: rather, in many ways, they substitute for what used to be the very essence of the party, at least at election time, namely decision making and organization. (…) Often, a source of tension between the politician and the consultant is the consultant’s desire to be given full decision-making authority in all aspects and all phases of the campaign, to the point where the politicians and outsider observers may wonder who is in charge” (Mancini, 1999, p. 237). Oddly enough, these recurrent claims about the professionalization of party politics remain largely unverified empirically. Research on staff in political parties remains scarce (Webb & Kolodny, 2006).
Therefore, this paper stipulates an empirical research agenda on the professionalization of political parties. We start by introducing the role of professionalization within our theoretical frame of reference: the literature on party transformation – a conscious choice. Although a variety of disciplines deal with the concept of political professionalization, political parties remain the main focus of this research. Our interest lies in what the process of professionalization can tell us about the nature of today’s political parties. After this theoretical orientation, a preliminary conceptual framework will be introduced. Taking the work of Panebianco (1988) as a starting point, we’ll try to translate concepts into empirically applicable research instruments. As will soon become clear, that conceptual work isn’t finished. The author welcomes suggestions on how to further develop this framework. The same goes for the final section, in which a preliminary empirical research strategy is presented.
