Implementing Intra-Party Democracy: The Determinants of the Democratic Party Structure

In recent decades, the question of intra-party democracy (IPD) has been salient in political science research. There was significant attention to the capacity of IPD to democratize the political systems, reduce the distance between the supporters and the party leadership, and increase the influence of the party members on the leaders’ decision-making process. In particular, the leader selection procedures, inclusive decision-making process, and deliberative consultation tools are primary topics of the IPD analysis. Despite the merits of the democratization of the party structure for the political system, the universal implementation of intra-party democracy remains challenging. The level of supporters’ involvement in the party processes varies from party to party, leading to the existence of non-democratic parties in democratic systems, which are less concerned with the democratic internal structure. There are different approaches to explaining those differences. Firstly, the ideological position of the political players may influence the level of IPD implementation. The recent surge of radical parties exemplifies the leader-centered and undemocratic tendencies in party construction. Secondly, there exists the size argument, which claims that it is easier to introduce horizontal mechanisms in smaller parties. Lastly, the functional structure of the parties, based on the division of the party branch on different governance levels, may appreciate the IPD. The dispersion of power through the introduction of sub-levels of party governance benefits the involvement of the supporters and party members in the decision-making processes. Those assumptions question the universality of IPD implementation as they imply that IPD depends on the party characteristics, which are unlikely to be changed. This paper investigates those assumptions to distinguish the determinants of intra-party democratization. I employ the data from The Political Party Database Project that covers 288 parties in 51 democracies for the 2016-19 period. In particular, I analyze the relationship between IPD variables, such as the parties’ leader selection procedure and decision-making involvement of the party members and supporters, with the key characteristics of the political parties, such as ideology, size, and the functional structure of the political parties. The ordinal regression analysis is harnessed to study the relationship between the ordinal data presented in the database. The outcomes of the analysis will assist in measuring the dependency of IPD implementation on the party characteristics and assess the feasibility of universal intra-party democratization.