Joining the Mainstream: How Niche Parties Adapt to the Possibility of Power

How do political parties make decisions? And do decision-making processes change as political parties approach legislative power? The bulk of literature on political parties focuses on the relationships between them. There is, for instance, an impressive and deep body of of scholarly work examining party positioning, party competition, and coalition building; but what goes on inside political parties and whether and how parties alter their internal structure and process when they begin to approach legislative power remains relatively unexplored. We approach these questions by looking at niche parties and suggesting that the desire to enter the political mainstream, whether motivated by promising polls or electoral results are a practical desire directly to influence policy making, should go hand in hand with organizational adjustments to give parties the wherewithal to participate in governing coalitions. Specifically, we argue that as parties approach power—as parties move from grass-root politics toward responsibility within the legislative process—they should democratize their decision making by broadening the pool of actors participating in it.