Reimagining political parties

Contemporary criticism of representative democracy points to political parties, among others. Hence, there is a window of opportunity for established parties to transform and recalibrate, and for new parties to organize differently than the current norms of established parties. With the defining characteristic of candidate nomination, ‘parties’ will always be needed in representative democracy, but they need not be organized as we have hitherto seen, neither must it forever be the ones that we currently have. In addition, candidate nomination may be most of what is left as interest aggregation and policy formulation are (also) enabled in deliberative practices and alternative channels of political participation. Political parties are male-dominated and skew political recruitment by not providing an organization that mobilize women (and other under-represented groups such as shorter educated, ethnic minorities). What style and substance of political parties will make women – and other underrepresented groups – more likely to enroll, mobilize to various dimensions of party activism, and stand for party or elected office? The purpose of the paper is to reimagine the institutions – formal and informal processes and practices – of political parties on the basis of the feminist and democratic principles of inclusiveness, responsiveness and egalitarianism (Celis & Childs 2020). How do parties organize to include women’s ideological and intersectional differences, and heterogeneous interests? How are parties to organize to ensure alignment between the promoted issues and interests and those of women within civil society? And how are parties to organize to ensure equal power status and equal impact of various issues and interests? These three principles in particular concern representation, accountability, and power; the three essential aspects of democracy.