No Change After A Storm? A Review of Post Electoral Defeat Changes in Party Structure And Organisational Culture

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores if and how electoral defeats affect the changes in organisational structure of political parties and investigates whether party characteristics, such as being in a government or in an opposition, its country of origin affect how parties respond to defeat in terms of the party organizational structure. For the purposes of this article, three elements were considered for the scope of organisational structure change: party decomposition, change of power balance and the appearance of new organs or bodies in the party. Analysis is based on the examination of 73 parties from 28 countries, and of the consideration of party efforts to change their organization. The conclusion, however, was unclear. Therefore, an in-depth analysis of 12 selected political parties representing three different party systems and electoral systems was also conducted. The study of the Polish, Belgian and British systems facilitate explanation of the reasons why parties take some selective corrective structural actions after electoral defeat. Nevertheless, they are mostly not to be fundamental and have some relation to a specific conditions affecting concrete parties in different party systems.