Minor organizational change in Green parties

Abstract

A source of the strength of Green parties has been their willingness to realign their distinctive organizational characteristics to suit the external environment, with the effect of pushing such organizations closer to a more conventional party type. Major organizational adaptations by Green parties have been much studied but only scant attention has been paid to the cumulative effects that ‘minor’ change renders to such parties. This article examines the impact of minor organizational change through an analysis of one of the oldest statewide Green parties in Australia. It finds that minor organizational changes exert a subtle but equally powerful force in moving such parties away from their amateur status to a more professional party type, even in the absence of reform to historical party structures.