Party Congress Politics

Political parties function as linkage between state and society in modern democracies. Individuals and societal groups organize in parties to compete in elections and to shape society according to their common ideals. However, within parties, interests and political goal orientations tend to diverge. In particular, intra-party divides frequently arise between the party leadership focused on the partys electoral success and party activists, who are primarily policy-oriented. The level of activist influence on party decisions, thus the power balance between the party leadership and party activists, is therefore an important determinant of party politics. While intra-party power is a prominent topic in the party organization literature with important implications for the workings of democracy, we know relatively little about how, and under what circumstances, party activists actually affect intra-party decision-making. The project studies these power relations within political parties. For one, we examine long- term trends in the power balance between party leaders and party activists. Is there a general decline of activist influence and increasing dominance by the party leadership? Secondly, we systematically explore short-term drivers of change. How does, amongst other things, electoral performance or government participation affect the power relations between leaders and activists? We collect and analyze data based on party congress minutes and other internal documents of Austrian parties, as well as related news media reports. Building on these documents, we use various content analytical methods, extracting information on the preferences of party leaders and party activists, the conflicts between these actors, and their relative influence on party decisions, to answer the projects research questions.

Political parties are the central linkages between state and society in modern democracies. However, within parties, there are different interests and goals. In particular, differences often arise between the party leadership, which is generally more focused on electoral strategy, and the party activists. Against this background, the extent of activists' influence on the internal party decision-making process, or the power balance between leadership and rank-and-file, becomes crucial for the policies pursued by the party. Despite the traditional prominence of this topic in party research and its implications for democratic policy, relatively little is known about the specific conditions under which the party rank-and-file can actively influence internal party decisions. The "Party Congress Politics" project examined precisely these power relations within Austrian parties. The project investigated how the balance of power between party leadership and party activists has changed since 1945. For this purpose, all available party conference documents of those parties that played a significant role in party competition between 1945 and 2024 were collected and analyzed. The study examined long-term trends (in one direction) and short-term changes (in opposite directions). Various explanatory factors were examined for short-term changes, such as the party's performance in elections or the winning or losing of government participation. The results partially support both theoretical expectations and suggest that competing explanatory approaches-the hierarchy and stratarchy perspectives-can contribute to a better understanding of power relations within political parties. A significant decline in grassroots participation in intra-party decision-making since the early 2000s and the further declining influence of rank-and-file on personnel decisions are long-term developments. At the same time, intra-party democracy benefits from poor performance in party competition. Grassroots activists become more involved in party decision-making the less successful their party is in elections. Likewise, party executive committee members are held accountable for the party's poor electoral results in intra-party elections, even though they are rarely at real risk of being voted out of office at party conferences. The loss of government participation has no generalizable effects; these depend largely on the timing of the party conference relative to the respective shock. Thus, the setting of the party conference date can be deliberately used by underperforming party elites to reduce intra-party criticism. Despite the relative stability of the institutions of intra-party democracy, their substance in terms of actual grassroots participation and their influence on party decisions has suffered a long-term decline. Importantly, however, this is only observable in some components of intra-party democracy, while others remain unaffected by this trend. In addition to incremental, long-term change, power oscillations between the grassroots and the party elite can be observed, often triggered by poor performance of the parties in political competition.