Party Organization and Organizational Adaptation in the LastThird of the Twentieth Century

在欧洲，大众民主和大众政党的历史是 密不可分 群众政党兴起，动员并融入 以前的政治制度剥夺了社会各阶层的公民权， 并产生和引导压力， 民主政治。 政党是纪律严明的组织， 声称既植根于社会，又在政府中得到民众的授权。 从马克斯·韦伯到莫里斯·杜沃格的观察家们都把群众党描述为 作为未来的政党，并认为他们是不可避免的， 是大众民主的副产品，也是大众民主的必要前提。 这一观点是基于两个长期趋势的互补性： 公共服务和国家的增长，以及 由群众组织和鼓励的群众参与政治 parties. 它也植根于一个高度分层和分割的 社会结构。 近年来，两者之间的互补性 趋势已经变得不稳定：政党越来越不依赖于他们的 成员，而公民则依赖于政党。 此外，欧洲 社会结构不那么简单，削弱了政党的基础 忠诚和组织。 缔约方如何适应这些变化？ 传统智慧 表明有一种趋势，即政党由外部资助， 由职业官员领导，由职业政治家领导; 主要面向外部而非内部的政党。 在 在许多方面，这表明欧洲政党正在成为 更像是美国人，而不是相反， 理论建议。 尽管这些趋势对人类的特征具有潜在的重要性， 民主政府，很少有系统的研究已经针对 收集西方民主国家政党组织的数据。 这 该项目通过收集有关组织的数据来解决这一缺陷。 在12个欧洲国家的60多个政党中， 国家 通过这项研究，调查人员将积累， 这是第一次，系统的跨国证据表明， 在这些重要的政治组织中。 他们是不是变得 更加自给自足？ 决策是否变得更加集中？ 群众党员人数是否在减少， 脱离了他们的社区根基 这个世纪还是 群众性政党？ 这些只是其中的几个问题， 数据库将允许学者解决。

Within Europe, the histories of mass democracy and the mass party are inextricably linked. Mass parties arose to mobilize and integrate into the political system previously disenfranchised segments of society, and to generate and channel pressure for even wider inclusion in democratic politics. Parties were disciplined organizations able to claim both roots in society and a popular mandate in government. Observers from Max Weber to Maurice Duverger described the mass party as the party of the future and argued that they were the inevitable byproduct of, and necessary precondition for, mass democracy. This view was based on the complementarity of two long-term trends: the growth of public services and the state, and the expansion of popular participation in politics as organized and encouraged by mass parties. It was also rooted in a highly stratified and segmented social structure. In recent years, the complementarity between the two trends has been becoming unstuck: parties are less dependent on their members, while citizens are dependent on parties. As well, European societies are less simply structured, weakening one basis of party loyalty and organization. How have parties adapted to these changes? Conventional wisdom suggests a trend towards parties that are externally financed, staffed by professional officials, and led by career politicians; towards parties whose primary orientation is external rather than internal. In many respects, this is to suggest that European parties are becoming more like those in America, instead of the reverse as the older theories suggested. Despite the potential importance of these trends for the character of democratic government, little systematic research has been directed at gathering data on party organizations in Western democracies. This project attends to this deficiency by gathering data on organizational development in more than sixty political parties in twelve European countries. Through this research the investigators will accumulate, for the first time, systematic cross-national evidence on what is taking place in these key political organizations. Are they becoming more self-sufficient? Is decision-making becoming more centralized? Is mass-membership in decline, and are the parties increasingly divorced from their community roots? Is this still the century of the mass political party? These are but a few of the questions that this database will allow scholars to address.