Collection: Organisation Studies Collection
As a taster of our publishing on Organisation Studies, we put together a collection of free articles, chapters and open access titles. If you are interested in trying out more content from our Business, Management and Economics Collection, Work in the Global Economy journal or Global Social Challenges themes, ask your librarian to sign up for a free trial.
Organisation Studies Collection
The chapter poses two interrelated questions: why have organization scholars abandoned the study of political parties, and what might we learn from rediscovering the value of party organization research? To answer the first, I begin by chronicling the rise of party organizations in Western democracies and conclude that the nature of political parties runs counter to the dominant conception of society as a unified whole that must resist partisanship. To answer the second, I compile a list of characteristics that make parties valuable study objects for organization scholars. Here, I focus on parties as organizations that (1) are explicit about the inclusions and exclusions that constitute them, (2) conduct much of their infighting in the media and other open spaces, (3) rely heavily on normative modes of control to keep members in line, (4) use normative modes of commitment to keep members on board, and (5) experience rapid and ongoing institutional change. These five characteristics, I argue, make parties ‘critical cases’ of organizing. In conclusion, I introduce the book’s main case: the Danish green party Alternativet.
