Party Elites and Political Career in a Context of Participatory Democracy: The Case of Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) in Greece

This Paper studies the modifications occurred into Panhellenic Socialist Movement- PASOK as a result of the implementation of participatory democracy since 2004. The paper focuses on the impact of intra-party democracy on patterns of political career within socialist party. The aim of the paper is to present how the introduction of participatory model contributes to modify the logic of party elite’s recruitment through a reevaluation of legitimate resources into intra-party competition. The Paper is based on a field research conducted between 2010-2014 including archival research, interviews with socialist elected officials, local leaders and party members and observation of every-day activities of socialist local branches. Our research indicates that the adoption of intra-party democracy in 2004 is accompanied by a broaden control of new party ruling elite over party procedures and party organs. This control is primarily expressed by a centralization of policy making process and candidates’ selection. In both cases, socialist local branches, and middle-level activists seem to be institutionally marginalized from decision making process. This new balance of internal power leads towards a redefinition of membership and of the importance of collective organs into party life. Therefore, traditional types of career based on accumulation of collective resources like party activism, implication into party organs and local anchorage tend to be skirted by individual qualities like expertise or social proximity with established party elites. Finally, the fact that the members of ruling elite monopolize the open primaries and control the selection of candidates in all types of elections leads us to conceive socialist participatory project as an ambiguous process which combines initiatives to increase party enrollment with trends of reproduction of established party elite.