POLITICAL PARTIES AS MULTI-LEVEL ORGANIZATIONS
Territorial Links within Norwegian Political Parties1
Elin Haugsgjerd Allern
Postdoctoral fellow
Department of Political Science, University of Oslo
P.O. Box 1097 Blindern, 317 OSLO, Norway
[email protected]
Jo Saglie
Senior researcher
Institute for Social Research
P.O. Box 3233 Elisenberg, 0208 OSLO, Norway
[email protected]
Paper draft. Please do not quote without permission.
Abstract
This paper looks at parties as multi-level organizations in a fairly decentralized unitary state –
Norway. Concentrating on day-to-day policy-making within and outside public office, we ask what the
territorial relationship between the national party and the sub-national branches looks like in a system
where the separate levels of government enjoy some autonomy. The analysis includes the party
organization as such, but also the local and national parliamentary ‘faces’ of the parties in question.
Hence, we primarily explore possible vertical intra-party links, along the dimensions of vertical
integration, over-all direction of government, centralization of power and local autonomy. By
including data on actual behaviour – from a survey conducted among a sample of party officials and
representatives in public office – in addition to organizational-level data, we are able to critically
examine the actual importance of the formal party structure. Contrary to the widely purveyed
expectations of the cartel party thesis we find that Norwegian parties are formally integrated and not
uniformly governed from above. The survey reveals a considerable amount of intra-party contact,
including attempts to influence policy from both above and below. In line with the formal party
structure, the county branch is a key nexus for intra-party communication, but formal links are
supplemented by ’internal lobbying’: the parliamentary party group, not the central party organization,
is the local party officials’ main locus of contact at the national level. Finally, the analysis suggests
that the variation across parties is limited. In conclusion, we speculate on whether the state structure
outweighs other factors likely to impinge on intra-party relationships.
Paper prepared for the panel ‘Democratic Governance in a Multilevel System – How Local
Government Deals with National Policies’, Conference on ‘Democracy as Idea and Practice’,
Oslo, 14–15 January 2010.
1
An earlier version of the paper was presented at the ECPR General Conference, Potsdam, 10–12 September
2009, and at seminars at the Institute for Social Research, Oslo, 9 October 2009 and the Norwegian University of
Science and Technology, Trondheim, 11 December 2009. We would like to thank the conference and seminar
participants for helpful comments.
Introduction
Although the literature on political parties has seen considerable progress in studying the
formal organization of political parties, we still lack in-depth knowledge about the internal
politics of political parties in established democracies. System-level theories often assume
that parties can be treated as unitary collective actors, but factions frequently split real-life
parties based on, for example, basic ideological disagreements (e.g. Boucek 2009). Parties’
formal structures might include both functional (sectoral/social) and territorial elements, and
social (civic) as well as public (state) organizational units (cf. Katz and Mair 1993; Poguntke
2006). In this paper, we primarily address the vertical, territorial dimension of party politics
and ask how we can best comprehend this potential complexity of modern party
organizations: How do parties organize and function across levels of governance? We
approach this issue by means of an in-depth study of party organizations – based on rich and
original data – in a fairly decentralized unitary state consisting of three levels of government –
Norway (cf. Lijphart 1999: 189).
The paper proceeds as follows: First, we review existing literature addressing the
territorial dimension of parties as organizations. Second, we consider different dimensions of
the relationship between central and local levels of party organizations in multi-level systems.
We discuss how parties may be linked internally across territory and how control and
influence over policy-making may be allocated and distributed across party levels or ‘faces’.
We acknowledge the national party’s need for cohesion by efficiently implementing statewide policies at lower levels, but also local parties’ possible interest in autonomy – and
position as stakeholders in national policies. Hence, our starting point is the need for
coordination – and potential for conflict – between different territorial levels of party
organizations. Thereafter follows a section on the case of Norway and what we expect to
characterize parties in a polity like the Norwegian one. We then present our data and methods.
The empirical analysis begins with a discussion of formal party rules, continues with analyses
of our survey data, and finally explores possible differences between the seven major
Norwegian parties. In conclusion, we speculate on the relative importance of the state
structure compared to other factors likely to impinge on intra-party relationships.
Parties as Organizations in Multi-level Settings
Most parties operate on several territorial levels of government: the national level, one or
more sub-national levels and, within the European Union, the European level as well.
Accordingly, they tend to keep organizational units at all these levels. But the competition for
2
votes and office at different levels of government may well create tensions as well as
coordination problems within the party (cf. Thorlakson 2009: 157), and it is not given how
parties choose to organize in political systems in which the separate levels enjoy significant,
or some, autonomy. Nevertheless, the literature on party organizations focuses primarily on
national parties and how they have changed over time.
This said, the numerous analyses based on the seminal models of the cadre party, mass
party, catch-all party or cartel party sometimes describe how parties organize locally (Katz
and Mair 1995; Krouwel 2006), even if the relationship between ordinary party members,
activists and leadership is at the centre of attention here (see, e.g., Eldersveld 1964; Carty
2004). Indeed, according to Katz and Mair’s (1995) much quoted cartel party thesis, simple
hierarchical paradigms no longer represent the reality of contemporary party structures.
Following in the wake of ‘cartelization’ of national party systems – i.e. distortion of
competition for votes though selective institutional arrangements and constraints of ‘feasible’
policy options (Katz and Mair 1995) – most parties are likely to have incorporated a
stratarchical dimension in their organization today, as stated by Peter Mair (1994: 17): a
division of labour – mutual autonomy – between different ‘faces’ or levels of the party.
Moreover, political parties in multi-layered systems have become a popular subject for
research in recent years (see e.g. Deschouwer 2003, 2006; Carty 2004; Thorlakson 2009; van
Houten 2009a, 2009b; Swenden and Maddens 2009a). There is a large literature – with long
historical roots – arguing that party organization has important consequences for how federal
political systems work (see Thorlakson 2009 for an overview). Others discuss electoral
dynamics: to what extent do electoral competition and party systems vary across territorial
levels (for an overview, see Swenden and Maddens 2009b: 4ff)? Yet another key issue is to
what extent statewide parties ‘link’ the subsystems of a multi-level party system by contesting
elections at multiple levels of governance (ibid: 9ff). But, most important for our purpose,
scholars have addressed the state structure’s possible impact on parties’ organizational
structure in terms of integration, autonomy and influence across levels of governance.
The state structure seems – at least to some extent – to colour the organization of
parties in several cases (see, e.g. Thorlakson 200; Swenden and Maddens 2009b), and it has
been argued that a federal structure confines the development of strong national party
organizations for numerous reasons. Due to the transfer of power to local levels, parties tend
to allocate resources at the sub-national level, at the expense of national activities, in federal
systems (Müller 2002: 253). However, the literature of parties and multi-level settings has
concentrated on federal or regionalized states to date. So to which degree – and how – party
3
organizations in such systems actually differ from parties in unitary systems of power
allocation is a somewhat moot point. Does decentralization favour the development of
stratarchical parties, in line with the cartel party thesis – or is the effect of the state structure
primarily dependent on whether the state is basically federal or unitary? Equally important,
we have limited knowledge as to whether parties in more or less decentralized unitary systems
diverge along similar, if not identical, lines. Therefore, focusing on the case of Norway
empirically, this paper more specifically discusses how parties organize, and work as
organizations, in multi-level unitary states: Do links exist and what is the power relationship
between the national party and the sub-national party branches? In this way, we also aim to
explore to what extent Norwegian parties work as integrative mechanisms across levels of
government.
To date the local level has received less attention than regional–statewide party links
in the scholarly literature (Swenden and Maddens 2009a, but see Copus 2004, ch. 5), but we
include the municipal party branches and their possible connections with the regional and
national levels as well as the relationship between the county parties and the national party.
Furthermore, contrary to the common focus in the party literature on election-oriented
decisions (Laffin, Shaw and Taylor 2007; Thorlakson 2009), emphasis is put on policymaking in day-to-day politics. In other words, we study the numerous everyday policy
decisions that are made by political parties within and outside public office, rather than the
election-oriented and ‘cyclic’ party decision-making such as candidate selection and
manifesto-making. Therefore, we do not only examine the party organization as such, but also
the local and national parliamentary ‘face’ of the parties in question. Finally, by including
data on actual behaviour – from a survey conducted among a sample of municipal and county
party officials and party representatives in public office – in addition to organizational-level
data, we are able to critically examine the actual importance of formal party structure.
However, first, we need to clarify how the vertical intra-party dimension can be specified and
studied empirically.
The Vertical Intra-party Dimension
The growing attention paid to ‘political parties and multi-level systems’ in recent years has
intensified the debate on how we can best describe and analyze the internal – and not least the
vertical – organization of (contemporary) political parties. The bottom-up or top-down
hierarchical model – best know as Duverger’s (1954/72) mass party or Kirchheimer’s (1966)
catch-all party – has been challenged by new party models, including various alternatives to
4
the hierarchical relationship traditionally associated with parties in established democracies
(Harmel 2002; Krouwel 2006). When presenting their new cartel party model, Katz and Mair
(1995: 18) above all refer to the following variables when specifying how parties may
vertically differ – or converge – in this regard: First, the relationship between members and
elites/leaders: Is the party leadership elected and controlled by lower levels (mass party), or is
the degree of membership (local) control of the national leadership weak (catch-all party,
cartel party)? Second, the structure across organizational levels: Is the party characterized by
an indirect bottom-up structure (mass party), a top-down hierarchical one (catch-all party) or
does the party work in line with a stratarchical model of significant mutual autonomy between
the local and the national level (cartel party)? According to Mair (1994: 17), it may even be
the case that ‘the local party will become essentially unconcerned about any real input into the
national party (and vice versa), and will devote itself primarily to politics at the local level’.
However, no doubt a slightly more refined conceptualization is needed if we are to
study the vertical relationship in-depth empirically. A possible solution, Carty (2004: 10)
suggests, is to compare parties to economic franchise systems:
Typically, parties’ central organizations are responsible for providing the basic
product line (policy and leadership), for devising and directing the major
communication line (the national campaign) and for establishing standard
organizational management, training and financing functions (...). Local units,
however they are defined (geographically or otherwise), more often provide the basic
organizational home of most party members, and are typically charged with delivering
the product, i.e. creating organizations that can find and support candidates as well as
mobilizing campaigns to deliver the vote on the ground (...).
However, there are limits to the usefulness of this conceptualization for our purpose
for two reasons: 1) The relationships between a central organization and its local franchises
can, according to Carty (2004) vary enormously. Parties can, as ‘franchise systems’, be
centralized, decentralized or federalized; there is no standard franchise party structure. Hence,
this conceptualization is not of much help when the aim is to distinguish between different
types of vertical party structures. 2) In line with Bolleyer (2009), we think the stratarchical
model can be fruitfully contrasted with hierarchy, even if it is never easy to locate party power
in a single place – and even though a completely decentralized party deserves a separate label;
what Bolleyer names ‘party federation’, in line with Elderveld’s (1964) older version of
‘stratarchy’.
5
So what are the key analytical dimensions describing the relationship between the
national – or state-wide – and subnational units of parties (state/regional and/or local)? To
begin with, we assume that state-wide parties are non-flat organizational structures. What
interests us here is the vertical relationship between the local and/or regional and national
level of party organizations.2 First, we shall – like Thorlakson (2009) – argue that vertical
integration is a separate and basic dimension. It refers to the very existence of organizational
links, inter-dependence and co-operation between the national and sub-national party bodies
across territorial levels – or whether parties are organizationally split in the sense that each
layer of the organization is independent of every other layer. Given that the party exists at
both/all levels (and is state-wide), an integrated party is characterized by party organizational
levels sharing a common governance structure and a unitary membership structure (see
Thorlakson 2009: 161). Indirect hierarchical links can extend ‘vertically’ upwards or
downwards via multiple links in the same direction. Such parties can build strong and
coherent party organizations, and offer mechanisms for brokering disagreements between
constituent units. However, we also need to check to what extent communication exists at the
individual level – in day-to-day politics. Even if a party’s organizational levels are formally
separate, party officials are not necessarily disconnected in practice, not least as regards
current political issues and decision-making.
Unless a party is a pure stratarchy, the next major question is whether the party is, by
and large, governed from below (‘bottom-up’), or whether the regional/local levels are so
weak that the party resembles a top-down oligarchy? Put differently and more specifically:
What characterizes the party in terms of the over-all direction of internal government, degree
of centralization/ decentralization and local autonomy?
As regards the party’s overall direction of government, the question is to what extent
the elected party leadership is formally accountable to territorial units, and to what extent the
local level may control national party leaders (cf. Katz and Mair 1995). One possible indicator
would be the representation of local or regional party organizations in the executive bodies of
national party: Is the executive chiefly composed of local/regional party representatives (high,
‘bottom-up’), or is such representation accompanied by representation of functional groups
(medium, mixed), or finally, are local/regional representatives in minority or virtually non-
2
In the rest of this paper, we will frequently use ‘local’ as a common label for both sub-national levels for the
sake of simplicty.
6
existent as the selection is only based on mixed individual characteristics (low; not ‘bottomup’ in the territorial sense).3
This said, a basically integrated (hierarchical) organization may well include elements
of stratarchy as parties can virtually operate autonomously in specific fields, by for example
giving the local parties and national elites mutual autonomy to specify the national party
program in terms of concrete policy statements. Thus, a second key question is to what extent
power in major issues – is centralized (concentrated) or decentralized (dispersed) (Laffin,
Shaw and Taylor 2007). Paraphrasing Janda (1980), a centralized party is ‘one which features
the concentration of effective decision-making authority in the national party organs, with a
premium placed on a smaller number of individuals participating in the decision’. Hence, we
need – above all – to ask how many fields of competence – or, more specifically, aspects of
policy-formulation – are given to the national level by party statutes.4 Moreover, to see
whether the actual behaviour correspond to the formal party structure, we must examine to
what extent party officials at different levels actually communicate and to some extent
interfere in each others’ affairs.
Third, the vertical relationship of parties can be shaped by the degree of local
autonomy. While non-integrated parties are autonomous by definition, integrated parties’
degree of local autonomy depends on the degree of national party control over local party
organizations in various matters (cf. Thorlakson 2009: 162–63). In parties with low local
autonomy, local parties only enjoy formal autonomy in purely local issues (cf. Bolleyer 2009:
9), and they are expected to loyally implement national policies at the regional and local level
(Laffin, Shaw and Taylor 2007). A possible indicator would be whether the national level has
any formal right to interfere in such decisions. However, the degree of autonomy will also
depend on the sanctions available to national leaders (cf. ibid) – can the national party
dissolve or expel a territorial unit or not, or are possible conflicts rather solved by
negotiations? Moreover, the actual use of influence should be taken into consideration: To
what extent do national party leaders actually try to influence or coordinate regional and local
policy decisions?
However, as our focus is on policy-making across levels of government, we find it of
paramount importance to include the parliamentary ‘face’ of parties at all levels. Tensions
between the levels might not least occur in regard to public policy decision-making. We
3
This indicator is inspired by Thorlakson’s assessment of bottom-up ‘influence’ of state parties in federal states
(cf. Thorlakson 2009: 162 ).
4
The type of competence is not as important here as our focus is not on candidate selection and manifestomaking in particular (but see for example Bolleyer 2009).
7
generally expect there to be no formal links between the party in national, municipal and
regional public offices – as the party organization is normally meant to perform ‘the linkage
function’ across levels and as local parties need to relate to whatever party is in government
(nationally). Hence, as far as this part of the party is concerned, we are mostly concerned with
the extent of contact and interference between party officials and representatives at various
levels. Yet we cannot take for granted that the party organization is the primary inter-linking
mechanisms between elections in practice. In other words: To the extent that interaction exists
across levels, do local party officials and representatives and national politicians communicate
directly with each other – or do they mostly communicate through the mid-level party
organization elites and/or the national party executive? Figure 1 illustrates possible formal
and informal connections in a three-level system like the Norwegian one.
Figure 1 The structure of parties across territorial levels. Possible formal and informal links
in a three-level system.
Party’s central office
Party in national public office
Party’s regional offices
Party in regional public offices
Party’s local offices (branches)
Party in local public offices
Note: Regular arrows indicate possible statutory links, while dotted arrows indicate links that exist independent
of the formal party structure.
To conclude, the relationship between the national, regional and local party level (in
unitary states) may vary along the following dimensions: vertical integration, over-all
direction of government, centralization of power in major issues, and finally, degree of local
autonomy. In what follows, we shall use this framework as a basis for assessing the
relationship between the local, regional and national level of Norwegian parties in relation to
policy-making. The various indicators will, when needed, be specified to address policymaking in particular in due course. For example, exploration of the content of the contacts
between party officials and representatives gives us valuable additional information as it
8
shows whether intra-party contact deals with more than purely organizational matters, and
whether local office-holders are active within their own field of responsibility (jurisdiction)
only.
The Case of Norway
What kind of vertical intra-party relationships can be expected in the Norwegian case? It has
been argued that in general parties must today incorporate a stratarchical dimension in their
organization (Mair 1994). But as explained above, we assume that the state structure will also
colour the patterns of vertical integration and power of parties. Norway is a unitary state with
three levels of government: the national (statewide) level, 19 counties (regions), and (at the
time of writing) 430 municipalities. At all levels, decisions are made by a directly elected
council (county councils and municipal councils). Initially , it could therefore be argued that
entirely separate party levels – fully disintegrated stratarchy – is less likely in a Norway (than
in federal or regionalized states like for instance Germany or Spain). Indeed, interdependence
between levels might well bring about more interaction in unitary states than in loosely
coupled federal states.
However, Norway formally is a decentralized unitary state (Lijphart 1999: 189). First,
municipalities and counties are governed by separately elected bodies enjoying the freedom to
adapt national policies to local needs and to make decisions that to some extent undermine
national policies (Smith 2002). Second, all Norwegian municipalities are ‘generalist
municipalities’ with equal status and responsibilities (see, e.g., Rose 2004). They attend to a
broad spectrum of tasks, including primary education, primary health care, care for the young
and elderly, and a number of other social welfare programmes. Hence, the structure of local
and national government may call for some decentralization of resources and decisionmaking, in addition to demands for a certain degree of local party autonomy. What the ‘party
label’ means may well differ significantly across territory. The same argument also applies to
the county level even though it should be noted that the position of the regional level – the
county councils – in the Norwegian system has declined in recent years, and abolition of this
political-administrative level is regularly discussed (Baldersheim and Fimreite 2007).5
This said, counties and not least municipalities do serve as tools for implementation of
national welfare state services. National politicians depend on municipalities to fulfil their
election pledges on, for instance, education and services for the elderly. The comprehensive
5
In 2002, its most important task – hospitals – was taken over by the state. Its remaining main tasks are local
transport and upper secondary education.
9
responsibilities of local government therefore give national politicians an incentive to control
their counterparts at the local level (Tranvik and Fimreite 2006). Accordingly, municipal
freedom of action is limited by national regulations and nationally mandated programmes,
and the local tax rates are in practice set by national authorities. As a consequence, despite a
significant degree of decentralization, national party elites do certainly also face incentives to
govern the party top-down in day-to-day politics. Thus, specification of national policies is
likely to be decentralized, beyond policy formulation on purely local matters. However, a
significant pressure for standardization of party policies across the state territory probably
exists in practice, hereby limiting the room for local party autonomy in issues of national
relevance, in line with the cartel party thesis.
As far as the election and party system goes, we may note that proportional electoral
systems are used at all levels, promoting multi-party structures. When our study was carried
out, Norway was governed by a governed by a centre-left coalition, comprising the Labour
Party (DnA), the Socialist Left Party (SV) and the Centre Party (Sp). The centre-right
opposition consisted of the Conservative Party (H), the Christian People’s Party (KrF), the
Liberal Party (V) and the Progress Party (FrP). These are the seven parties persistently
represented in the Norwegian Parliament – the Storting – after the Second World War. Deeply
rooted conflicts between the centre and the periphery (see, e.g., Rokkan 1967) have not led to
different party systems in different regions – only regional differences in support for
individual parties. Local lists compete with national parties in a number of municipalities
(Aars and Ringkjøb 2005), but received only 3 per cent of the votes at the 2007 municipal
elections. So the party alternatives are generally the same at all three levels of government,
and the need for coordination between levels arises in all Norwegian parties.
By and large, all major Norwegian parties have adapted a general organizational
structure that corresponds to the administrative structure of the state (Heidar and Saglie
2003): they all include municipal and county party branches below the central level, even if
large parties may have several local branches within the largest municipalities, while smaller
parties tend not to have branches in the smallest municipalities. But as parliamentary
candidates are, in all seven parties, selected at the county level, and MPs thus generally need
support from their regional party branch to be reselected, we expect the county branches to be
more influential within the parties than the weak role of the county council would indicate.
Historically, the mass party type became – and has to a large extent remained – an
organizational ideal for all Norwegian parties (Heidar and Saglie 2003). However, as argued
above, the question is if the relationship between local, regional and national party branches
10
in day-to-day politics actually mirrors this hierachical, ‘bottom-up’ party model – or whether
parties rather approach the cartel party model. Moreover, despite organizational
standardization, Norwegian parties have – to some extent – different organizational origins
and traditions that might colour how parties respond to the current incentive structures of their
environment (cf. e.g. Panebianco 1988: 58). The Conservatives and the Liberals traditionally
put less emphasis on the extra-parliamentary membership organizations than the other old
(centre or left) parties in Norway. More recently, the Progress Party has developed a
particularly streamlined state-wide organization, which appears to be somewhat more
centralized than the other parties’ organization today (Heidar and Saglie 2002). Hence, a
secondary question to be discussed is then whether possible variation in patterns of
integration, influence and autonomy across Norwegian parties follows differences in
organizational traditions.
Data and Methods
In line with the framework developed above, we first assess the intra-party relationships by
studying formal rules (i.e. statutes) and other institutional arrangements by means of party
documents and interviews with national party officials and 16 county secretaries. However,
due to space and capacity constraints, our main focus in this paper is on the behaviour and the
perceptions of municipal and county party officials.6 These survey data are generated from a
web-based survey of municipal and county party office-holders, representing the seven largest
parties in the Norwegian party system. The survey was conducted by means of a selfadministered electronic set of questions on the Internet. Each respondent received an e-mail
with a link to a closed website.7
At the county level, our sample of party officials comprises two categories: all leaders
of county party branches and all county party secretaries.8 The position as county branch
leader is an elected office, but the county secretaries are full-time party employees. As there
are 19 counties in Norway, each party has 19 county branch leaders. Some county branches of
the Labour Party have two secretaries, while some of the smaller parties do not have
secretaries in all counties. The Progress Party has regional offices, where one or more
6
This means that certain reservations have to be made as regards the organizational data in this version of the
paper. A more accurate description of party rules and institutional arrangements will be provided in the next
version.
7
We used software offered by QuestBack (www.questback.com).
8
Party-affiliated members of the National Council of the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional
Authorities were also included in the survey, but the questions analysed in this paper were not asked to this
group.
11
secretaries cover a group of adjacent counties. At the municipal level, our sample comprises
two categories: leaders of municipal party branches and leaders of party groups in municipal
council. Most parties do not have branches in all 430 municipalities. Two random samples –
100 branch leaders and 100 party group leaders – were drawn from each of the seven parties’
register of local office-holders. Some parties chose to draw the samples themselves, while
others gave us access to the register and let us draw the samples ourselves.9 The major reason
why we did not invite leaders of party groups in county councils to participate in the survey is
that our main focus here is the municipal-national axis, not the regional-national axis and the
regional-municipal axis per se.10
The electronic questionnaire was distributed to the respondents in late May 2008.
After three reminders, the final response rate was 49 per cent at the municipal level and 64 per
cent at the county level. At the municipal level, the variation between parties was negligible;
the response rate varied between 44 (Conservatives) and 51 (Progress Party) per cent. But
party differences were considerable at the county level, where response rates varied between
48 (Progress) and 80 (Labour) per cent. However, by and large, we consider the response
rates to be generally acceptable.
Finally, it should be noted that the survey analysis presented below represents a first
presentation of the survey material. It does not include tests of significance, but such will be
included in the next version of the paper. Moreover, we will in some cases consider applying
more sophisticated measures than simple cross-tables.
Empirical Analysis
We start our empirical analysis by mapping the formal rules – and other institutional
arrangements of relevance – for day-to-day policy-making, in light of the analytical
dimensions discussed above. We then move on to the actual behaviour and perceptions of
party officials, with regard to vertical integration as well as the question of top-down versus
9
Two parties posed special challenges. When we first approached the Socialist Left Party headquarters, we
discovered that the party did not keep any register of its municipal council group leaders. Direct contact from the
central office to municipal county groups was evidently limited: the central office addressed the municipal
branch, not party representatives in local public office. As a result of our request, the party started gathering
names and addresses. By the time we drew our sample, the party had collected names and e-mail addresses from
18 of the 19 counties. As a matter of principle, the Progress Party would not hand out any addresses of local
officials. The party has an updated and informative website, however, where names and contact information for
all its national and local office-holders are published. The party did not refuse to send us a list of its municipal
branches and municipal council groups. We then drew samples of municipalities, and filled in the e-mail
addresses from the party website.
10
Moreover, the same person fairly frequently occupies both the office as municipal branch leader and leader of
municipal council group. Thus, in some cases, the same person appeared in both samples. We then replaced
these individuals with reserves in one of the two samples. Others held office at both the county and municipal
level. We kept these people in the county sample, and used reserves for the municipal sample.
12
bottom-up governance. In this way, we aim to both provide a ‘robustness test’ of formal
relations and explore the uncharted territories of the organizational maps. The survey material
distinguishes between the municipal and county level, and also includes items addressing the
content of contacts and locus of lower levels attempts of political influence. Hereby, we aim
to qualify our conclusions. Finally, we turn to the issue of potential differences between the
seven Norwegian parties.
Vertical integration and overall direction of government: Formal rules
Norwegian party statutes clearly describe a high level of formal vertical integration. All
parties have largely kept the formal structures of a hierarchical party model based on unitary
mass membership. In all parties, members join the party as a whole, but are generally
expected to belong to a local branch. Local branches are joined to the central organization by
regional structures. The archetypal example of this ‘mass party model’ in Norway has been
Labour, but eventually, all major Norwegian parties developed similar membership
organizations (Svåsand 1994:327). Direct intra-party democracy has been discussed, but
hardly used to date (Heidar and Saglie 2003). The integrative organizational structures of the
mass party still enjoy high levels of legitimacy among party members and activists (Saglie
and Heidar 2004). Parties have also established forums for interaction between politicians
from different levels (in addition to the party congress), such as national conferences for local
politicians (but it remains to be seen how extensive such arrangements are).
To what extent are these integrated parties governed from above, according to party
statutes? Starting with the overall direction of government – whether the elected party
leadership is elected and controlled by territorial units – we note that the principle of
representative democracy is a central feature of Norwegian party organizations. The national
leadership – between the annual or biannual party congress – usually consists of a national
council (landsstyre) and a national executive committee (sentralstyre). But are these bodies
chiefly composed of local/regional party representatives, or is such representation
accompanied by representation of functional groups, or finally, are local/regional
representatives in minority or virtually non-existent? From the local units, delegates are
elected to congresses at the county level. The 19 county branches elect most of the delegates
to the national congress, and most of the members of the national council. Members of the
national executive committee, on the other hand, are not representing county branches – and
the executives also include members of collateral organizations as youth organizations. In
short, Norwegian party statutes describe a large degree of bottom-up control, but give
13
municipal branches minimal direct say in national party affairs. Their potential influence is
indirect, via the county branch. This makes the county a crucial nexus in the Norwegian
political system. As mentioned above, parliamentary candidates are also selected at the county
level; at nomination conventions in each constituency, which are identical to the 19 counties.
These conventions are composed of delegates elected by the municipal branches (Valen et al.
2002). But, most important, we see that the national party executive is not based on formal
territorial representation, while the less important national council is also made up by country
party leaders.
How centralized are major policy decisions? Do local parties have an efficient
decision-making role according to party statutes, or are they simply implementing national
policies (cf. Laffin, Shaw and Taylor 2007)? Put differently, how many aspects of policyformulation are given to the local and national level respectively by party statutes? First, we
may note that the national party manifestos are fairly detailed in Norway (Green-Pedersen
2007) and that they are adopted by the national party congress – the supreme decisionmaking body of the party as whole – in all parties. Hence, the document is indeed regarded as
‘binding’ for party representatives in public office at all levels. However, the inclusiveness of
the process – and the common use of ‘hearings’ among territorial units during the manifestomaking – limits the degree of centralization (see Allern, Bay and Saglie 2009). Moreover, the
party manifestos do not contain guidelines for all kinds of decisions – and they may be
deliberately vague in particular issues. This may cause further centralization as it gives the
parliamentary party group greater leeway. But, by the same token, party representatives in
local public office are given room of manoeuvre in local public decision-making. Hence, there
is at least a significant element of formal decentralization of policy-making.
Party statutes do, however, not draw a clear picture as regards the degree local
autonomy. This aspect seems to be constrained by informal norms, rather than formal rules.
Our interviews with party organizers at the national level suggest that top-down interference
in local politics is seen as illegitimate in most Norwegian parties (to be confirmed).
Coordination of election campaigning is widely seen as acceptable, and local politicians are
certainly expected to adhere to the party manifesto, as well as the basic values and principles
of the party. But besides this, central interference in local policy-making is generally seen as
an infringement of the principles of intra-party democracy. Municipal and county parties
usually produce their own manifestos for local elections, but as far as we can see, national
party statutes do not say much how these should come about (to be confirmed). Neither do
party statutes say much about potential sanctions against local units: party statutes usually
14
describe procedures for expulsion, but these are aimed at individual members (to be
confirmed).
Vertical integration: Behaviour and perceptions
To what extent are Norwegian party officials at the local and national levels entwined in
interactions – i.e. regular contact – about policy issues? We have, through the survey, tried to
measure the level of vertical integration in Norwegian parties by asking local party officials
about various aspects of their contact with higher levels of the party structure. First, we asked
how frequently they are in direct contact with the national party level. Table 1 shows how
often various local office-holders were in touch with the national organization and
parliamentary group, concerning national, county and municipal policy-making decisions as
well as party organizational matters, the last year. There is no clear-cut standard describing a
‘considerable’ or ‘insignificant’ contact frequency. But if a majority of local officials has at
least monthly contact with a specific part of the national party organization, this can be
regarded as a significant extent of frequent contact.
Table 1. Municipal and county party officials’ contact with party central organization and
parliamentary party group. Per cent.
Never
A few times
Monthly
Weekly
Daily
Total
N
Municipal party officials
County party officials
Contact concerning ....
national county
muniparty
national county
muniparty
policypolicycipal
organi- policypolicycipal
organimaking making policy- zational making making policy- zational
making matters
making matters
37
40
27
39
4
6
10
3
53
47
53
50
27
32
32
22
9
12
14
8
40
40
34
35
2
2
6
2
28
21
23
35
0
0
1
0
2
1
2
4
101
101
101
99
101
100
101
99
665
668
670
679
147
145
148
147
Question: About how often did you have direct contact with the party central organization and/or the
parliamentary party group (including staff) concerning national, county and municipal decision-making
processes during the last year?
About how often did you have direct contact with the party central organization and/or the parliamentary party
group (including staff) on various party organizational matters during the last year?
First, the table shows that local office holders do have contact with the party’s central
organization and/or parliamentary group, but not necessarily extensively in the sense that a
large part of the officials are in touch with the national party level monthly or more often.
Within all four issue areas, a majority of the county level office-holders had contact with the
15
national party organs at least monthly. So the data confirm that the links between the national
party and the county branches are strong. In contrast, most municipal party officials report to
be involved in such on a fairly irregular basis – a few times a year – or not at all. Hence, the
patterns of contact are mostly in line with the formal party structure. To some extent, direct
contact between the municipal and national party levels exists, but integration primarily
materializes through an intermediate regional party level.11
Table 1 also provides some indications of the content of these contacts, which might
give us additional information on whether the patterns vary according to the formal party
structure. The office-holders at the municipal level were most active within their own field of
responsibility (jurisdiction): municipal policy-making. Nevertheless, their contact also
addressed decision-making at the national and county level, as well as party organizational
matters. When we turn to the county office-holders, a different picture emerges. Their most
frequent contacts concerned party organizational matters and national policy issues – not their
own field of policy formulation. However, it should be noted that this could, at least partly, be
caused by a methodological factor: at this level, we have not surveyed the behaviour of party
group leaders in the elected assembly (county council), only officials in the party
organization.
Table 2. Municipal and county party officials’ contact with party central organization and
parliamentary party group, by position. Per cent reporting contact monthly or more often.
National policymaking
County policy-making
Municipal policymaking
Party organizational
matters
Smallest N
Municipal party officials
Leader of
Municipal
Both
party group
party
positions
in
branch
municipal
leader
council
10
10
11
County party officials
County
County
party
secretary
branch
leader
65
74
12
18
14
21
17
25
55
51
72
67
7
13
11
57
93
235
283
145
77
68
Question: See Table 1.
11
Yet it should be noted that the difference migh partly be caused by the fact that some county branch leaders
are also elected MPs.
16
Finally, we have tried to examine to what extent the contact patterns of branch leaders, party
group leaders and secretaries vary according to the organizational map at each party level.
Does the municipal party organization work (horizontally) as a channel ‘to the top’ for the
municipal party group leaders? This distinction is presented in Table 2. However, we see that
differences between branch leaders and party group leaders were quite small at the municipal
level. Those who occupied both positions simultaneously were – not surprisingly – somewhat
more active than the others.
The difference between elected branch leaders and employed secretaries at the county
level stands out more clearly. 93 per cent of the county secretaries contacted national party
organs on party organizational matters at least monthly, compared to 57 per cent of the branch
leaders. This reflects that organizational matters are of course a central part of the secretaries’
job as party professionals. However, secretaries were also more frequently in touch with the
national party regarding policy issues – national, county and municipal decision-making. This
may mirror that the county secretary is a full-time party official, but also confirms a recent
qualitative study testifying to to the general importance of county secretaries in Norwegian
party organizations (Aarebrot and Saglie 2009). Their activity does not, however, mean that
the elected branch leaders are inactive. County branch leaders also contribute to the generally
high frequency of contacts at this level.
Top-down or bottom-up: behaviour and perceptions
Next, we turn to questions of top-down versus bottom-up control. As our dimension ‘overall
direction of government’ mostly applies to formal structure, we focus on centralization and
autonomy. We first asked to what extent municipal and county party branches actually
attempted to influence policy decisions at other administrative levels than their own. And if
so, what body of the party did they mostly address? In this way, we tried to measure patterns
of influence across levels of party-based government. Most of the questions presented in
Table 3 deal with attempts to sway decisions at a higher party level. These results therefore
mainly describe local attempts to colour formally centralized decision-making; in other words
the extent of bottom-up influence.
Table 3 shows how often municipal and county party branches tried to influence
various decisions during the last year, according to the local officials. We see that both
municipal and county office holders did try to influence the decisions of higher and other
party organs, but not necessarily extensively in the sense that a majority of the officials made
such attempts more than a few times. In Table 3, as in Table 1, the municipal branches stand
17
out as less active than their counterparts at the county level. But which party organs were
mostly targeted? From the municipal point of view, the county executive committee is a
nearer addressee than the national party organs – both geographically and in terms of the
hierarchical party structure. This is reflected in our data: 80 per cent had tried to exert
influence on the county executive during the last year, whereas 35 per cent had addressed the
national council and 30 per cent the national executive committee.12 This does not mean that
municipal branches ’keep their hands off’ of national policy decisions in general. We have
already seen in Table 1 that municipal branches, to some extent, engage themselves in
national policy-making, and table 3 shows that 64 per cent had attempted to influence the
parliamentary group or individual MPs. The main addressee at the national level is in other
words the party in public office – not the party in central office.
Table 3. Municipal and county party branches’ attempts to influence other party organs
during the last year. Per cent.
No
1–4 times
5–10 times
More than
10 times
Total
N
Municipal party officials
County party officials
Attempts to influence decisions made by ...
County National National Parlia- National National ParliaMuniexec.
council
exec.
mentary council
exec.
mentary
cipal
commitcommitgroup/
commitgroup/
exec.
tee
tee
MPs
tee
MPs
committee
20
65
70
35
12
26
4
36
65
32
27
54
61
55
37
41
11
3
2
9
23
15
41
17
4
0
1
1
3
4
18
6
100
664
100
593
100
590
99
637
99
145
100
143
100
147
100
143
Question: Did your municipal/county party branch attempt to influence – directly or through intermediaries –
political decisions to be made by the following party organs during the last year?
The same pattern is found at the county level. Nearly all county branches had tried to
influence the parliamentary group during the last year, and 59 per cent had done so five times
or more. Most county branches also addressed the national party organization, but less
frequently. Finally, the table also brings to light an element of top-down influence: a majority
of the county party officials reported attempts to sway the municipal council party groups and
12
The response rate is lower for the questions on the national council and national executive committee than for
the other two items. There is reason to believe that some respondents left questions unanswered, if they
concerned activities in which they did not participate. No answer may mean ‘no’. In that case, Table 3
understates the difference between the national council and national executive committee on the one hand, and
the county executive committee and parliamentary group on the other.
18
Municipal
council
party
groups
40
38
15
8
101
144
the municipal executive committee. The counties were nevertheless more active ‘upwards’
than ‘downwards’.
Table 4. Municipal and county party officials who experienced national party attempts to
coordinate municipal and county council party work during the last year. Per cent.
No
1–4 times
5–10 times
More than 10 times
Total
N
Municipal level
57
36
6
2
101
603
County level
58
33
8
2
101
134
’Don’t know’ are excluded from the calculations.
Question to municipal party officials: Did you experience that the national party attempted to coordinate specific
priorities and decisions in the different municipal council groups of the party – directly or through intermediaries
– during the last year?
Question to county party officials: Did you experience that the national party attempted to coordinate specific
priorities and decisions in the different county council groups of the party – directly or through intermediaries –
during the last year?
In Table 4 we change our focus to the question of local autonomy: the national leadership’s
attempts to influence decisions made by representatives in local – municipal and county –
public office. For sure, it is far from easy to formulate a survey item aimed at measuring these
kind of activities. Because ‘top-down interference’ might well be seen as illegitimate in
parties that are governed formally ‘bottom-up’ over-all, we asked our question cautiously by
means of a ‘soft’ formulation: Had the national party tried to coordinate priorities and
decisions in the party’s county and municipal council groups during the last year? According
to Table 4, a majority of local office-holders reported that no such coordination had taken
place. However, a sizeable minority – about four of ten – had experienced some instances of
central coordination. There are no differences between the municipal and county levels. Thus,
despite decentralization of power, it seems as if the national parties do try to standardize the
local party policies across the state territory to significant – if not large – extent.
Table 5 represents another and final way to measure the aspects of autonomy and
centralization. We asked how important the respondent thinks that various kinds of
documents are as ‘guidelines’ for decision-making in municipal and county council groups.
The list of documents included the national and local party manifestos, as well as other
19
documents from the national party organization and case documents from the local
administration.
Table 5. Municipal and county party officials’ evaluation of various documents as guidelines
for party groups in municipal and county councils. Per cent rating the document as very
important.
Government white papers and circulars
Your party’s national manifesto
Your county/municipal party manifesto
Documents from the parliamentary party group
Documents from the party’s central office
Case documents from the county/municipal administration
Smallest N
Municipal
party
officials
11
48
92
8
17
77
637
County
party
officials
10
73
91
15
29
44
138
‘Not relevant’ and ‘Don’t know’ are included in the calculations.
Question: How will you evaluate the actual importance of the following types of documents as a guideline for
the political decisions that your party’s county/municipal council group has made the last year?
The results in Table 5 are clear: at both the county and municipal level, the most important
guideline is reported to be the local (county or municipal) party manifesto: their ‘contract with
their voters’. This party document is seen as much more important than the national party
manifesto. At the municipal level, 92 per cent of the officials considered the local party
manifesto to be very important, while only 48 per cent found the national manifesto equally
important. This relative importance of the local manifesto might indicate a significant element
of local autonomy as local decisions are reported to be made somewhat independent of the
national party programme.
The table also reveals a clear difference between levels. According to a large majority
of the county party officials, the national manifesto is nearly as important as the county
manifesto for public decisions. In other words, the element of policy centralization seems
stronger at the county level. At the municipal level administrative case documents is ranked
second, just behind the municipal manifesto and much higher than the national manifesto.
This might reflect that municipal politics often revolves around issues where national party
ideology is less relevant.
20
Party differences?
Despite the assumption that the state structure – and other institutional features – colours the
way parties organize territorially, the question is whether party characteristics vary somewhat
within political systems, according to organizational legacy. Above, we argued that the
statutes of all seven parties by and large describe similar organizational structures. However,
there are some nuances worth mentioning in wording. The Progress Party statutes underlines
that the party is one organization, and describes the local organization as ‘subdivisions of the
main organization’.13 Both the Liberal Party and Christian People’s Party, in contrast, state
that ‘the party is composed of county and municipal branches’.14 Hence, we see that the
generally strong degree of centralization in the case of the Progress Party is mirrored in how
the statutes describe the general relationship between the territorial units. But first and
foremost the question is whether we see any traces of this distinctive feature, and the fact that
the Conservatives and the Liberals have traditionally put less emphasis on the extraparliamentary membership organizations than the other old (centre or left) parties in Norway,
in the survey material. Are these differences reflected in the behaviour and perceptions of
local party officials?
Table 6. Municipal party officials’ contact with party central organization and parliamentary
party group, by party. Per cent reporting contact monthly or more often.
National policymaking
County policymaking
Municipal policymaking
Party
organizational
matters
Smallest N
Socialist
Left
11
Labour
Centre
Christian
Liberal
Conser- Progress
vative
13
13
10
12
6
6
14
13
12
10
8
16
23
16
24
17
16
11
28
33
7
10
8
7
9
15
17
91
99
95
96
97
86
97
Question: See Table 1.
Party differences in vertical integration are explored in Table 6, using the same survey item
as in Table 1. We concentrate on the municipal party officials, owing to the small number of
13
Progress Party statutes, § 5,. www.frp.no (2.9.2009)
Liberal Party statutes, § 3, www.venstre.no (2.9.2009). Christian People’s Party statutes, § 3, www.krf.no
(2.9.2009).
14
21
county level respondents in some of the parties. According to Table 6, the differences
between parties are not strong. Nevertheless, the Progress Party stands out as the most
integrated in terms of contact, but the Conservative Party’s is ranked second. At the other end
of the scale, the Liberal Party appears to be the least integrated, followed by the Christian
People’s Party. Hence, we do not find strong support for the idea that party genus colours the
contemporary patterns of behaviour here. The results for the Liberal Party might be attributed
to a liberal ideology of non-interference. But it should also be noted that the Liberals’
organization is small. Hence, the party has fewer full-time county secretaries than the other
parties.
Does variation exist across parties according to party genus with regard to local
attempts to influence decisions at higher level? Table 7 reveals some nuances, even though
the same party organs are most frequently addressed in all parties. The municipal branches of
the Christian People’s Party, Liberal Party and Progress Party (and to some extent the
Socialist Left Party) tried to influence higher party organs somewhat less frequently than the
other centre and left parties, but the differences are small. The results for the Christians and
Liberals are presumably related to these two parties’ relatively low level of integration. On
the other hand, the Progress Party combines a relatively high level of vertical integration with
a relatively low level of bottom-up activity.
Table 7. Municipal party branches’ attempts to influence other party organs during the last
year, by party. Per cent ’yes’.
County exec.
committee
National council
National exec.
committee
Parliamentary
group/MPs
Smallest N
Socialist
Left
80
Labour
Centre
Christian
Liberal
Conser- Progress
vative
88
75
89
85
68
77
39
28
38
37
40
33
22
16
27
27
49
41
31
29
60
79
73
52
57
70
62
83
84
85
83
86
75
91
Question: See Table 3.
In Table 8, we see that the Progress Party branches reported the highest level of top-down
coordination. The Conservatives and Liberals are found in the other end of the scale.
22
Table 8. Municipal party officials who experienced national party attempts to coordinate
municipal council party work during the last year, by party. Per cent ’yes’.
Yes
N
Socialist
Left
44
83
Labour
Centre
Christian
Liberal
41
47
41
39
84
85
83
86
Conser- Progress
vative
36
55
75
91
’Don’t know’ are excluded from the calculations.
Question: See Table 4.
However, again, the differences are not strong, and we cannot characterize the parties as
examples of clearly different power-relationships. When we combine the results of Tables 6,
7 and 8, however, some noteworthy differences occur. The Progress Party approaches a topdown integrated party according to survey data – in line with its development of a highly
centralized organization. The Liberal Party may be the closest approximation to a de facto
disintegrated stratarchy in the Norwegian party system – which corresponds to its history as a
party putting greater emphasis on parliamentary work than extra-parliamentary party
organization. But, then again, the Conservatives are closer to a bottom-up integrated model as
far as actual behaviour is concerned. Hence, the party differences do not unambiguously
correspond to variation in party organizational legacies. Indeed, in sum, the variation across
parties seems limited in Norway.
Discussion and Concluding Remarks
In this paper, we have addressed the vertical, territorial dimension of party politics and asked
how we can best comprehend this complex aspect of modern party organizations.
Specifically, we have explored how parties organize, and work as organizations, in more or
less decentralized unitary states: Do links exist and what is the power relationship between the
national party and the sub-national party branches? In this way, the paper has also aimed to
explore to what extent parties work as integrative mechanisms across levels of government.
According to the much discussed cartel-party thesis, major parties in established
democracies will have incorporated a stratarchical dimension in their organization: a division
of labour – mutual autonomy – between different ‘faces’ or levels of the party (Mair 1994), as
a consequence of ‘cartelization’ of national party systems. There is thus reason to ask whether
most parties today are disintegrated as territorial organizations. However, in line with recent
literature on parties in multi-level settings, we assumed that the enduring political insitutions
23
like the state structure also constrain the patterns of vertical integration and power within
state-wide parties, and asked if decentralization – or only federalization – favours the
development of stratarchical parties.
Examination of the impact of structural and institutional variables requires, of course,
a cross-national survey, but we have in this paper thrown new light on the topic by means of
an in-depth study of party organizations across three levels of government in a fairly
decentralized unitary state. The internal party relations in Norway has been analysed along
several vertical dimensions: vertical integration, over-all direction of government,
centralization of power in major issues, and degree of local autonomy. As Norway is a
unitary but fairly decentralized state, we suggested that the state structure makes a fairly high
level of vertical integration and some, if not much, local power and autonomy in major policy
issues likely within Norwegian political parties. Decentralization notwithstanding, the
national parties need to control the production of welfare state services and hereby face
incentives for national centralization through standardization.
In contrast to traditional literature on party organizations, emphasis was put on policy
decisions in day-to-day politics, not election-oriented and ‘cyclic’ party-decisions such as
candidate selection and adoption of the electoral manifesto. Therefore, we have not only
examined the party organization as such, but also include the local and national parliamentary
‘face’ of the parties in question. Finally, by including data on actual behaviour – from a
survey conducted among a sample of municipal and county party officials and party
representatives in public office – in addition to organizational-level data, we have been able to
critically examine the importance of formal party structure.
Formally, we found that Norwegian parties are not organizationally split in the sense
that each layer of the organization is independent of every other layer. Norwegian party
statutes do indeed describe the existence of integrated party organizations. Generally
speaking, the party statutes moreover contain a considerable element of bottom-up control,
although through indirect procedures where municipal branches have little direct influence.
National party manifestos introduce a strong element of centralization in the parties, even
though manifestos are adopted at national party congresses, after comprehensive hearing
procedures. As far as autonomy is concerned, local party branches are expected to adhere to
the national manifesto and party statutes, but otherwise there are no clearly fixed limits to
their freedom of action. For example, party statutes tend to keep silent on procedures for
adopting local manifestos. Moreover, our survey of the behaviour of party officials and
representatives showed a considerable amount of contact and attempts to influence policy
24
from both above and below. Such communication also includes party groups in local public
office – an organizational element of political parties which usually is neglected in party
research.
So we may conclude that, as hypothesized, the over-all patterns of integration,
influence and autonomy do correspond to the state structure, and Norwegian local parties
have not become ‘essentially unconcerned about any real input into the national party (and
vice versa), and will devote itself primarily to politics at the local level’, as suggested by the
cartel thesis regarding European parties in general (Mair 1994: 17). Norwegian parties are
formally integrated and not uniformly governed from above. Moreover, the survey reveals a
considerable amount of intra-party contact, including attempts to influence policy from both
above and below. Thus, parties do still seem to work as integrative mechanisms across levels
of government in Norway.
Moreover, we have seen that important features of party behaviour correspond closely
to the official organizational charts: above all, both party statutes and survey data point to the
county branches as the key nexus for both upwards and downwards communication. This
said, the formal territorial links are, to a significant extent, supplemented by ’internal
lobbying’ – a significant informal web of intra-party links, bypassing the formal channels of
the party organization: the parliamentary party group, not the central party organization, is the
local party officials’ main locus of contact at the national level. Whether this particular
finding provides some support to the cartel party thesis is open to debate: to some extent, this
pattern of contact can be seen as an indication of local autonomy of the central party office.
Also, the observed strong position of the county parties seem somewhat contrary to
Norway’s administrative structure, where the county level is considered to be the weakest
link. One possible endogenous explanation for this discrepancy may be that the municipal
party branches generally depend on voluntary work, whereas the county parties have full-time
employees. The same difference in capacities is not present in the government structure. In
addition, county party branches are responsible for tasks far beyond the county government:
the fact that the county level controls candidate selection for national elections increases its
political weight considerably.
Interestingly, we did not find clear support for the additional suggestion that possible
differences in patterns of integration, influence and autonomy between Norwegian parties
follows differences in organizational traditions. But does the general tendency revealed
suggest that the state structure actually outweighs the other factors likely to impinge on intraparty relationships across levels of government? Has the institutional structure of the
25
Norwegian state standardized the way Norwegian party organizations work? As shown above,
the findings do, to some extent, correspond to the expectations generated from literature
emphasizing the importance of the state structure. However, the lack of major variation may
also be due to diffusion between parties: As the basic organizational features mirrors the mass
party model, it could be that Norwegian parties have partly learnt from each other by adopting
what was originally the social democratic way of organizing across territory.
That said, a definite answer needs to await future comparative research. No claims
can, of course, be made as to whether the results are generalizable beyond Norway. To date,
the literature on parties and multi-level settings has concentrated on federal or regionalized
states, but to which degree – and how – party organizations in such systems actually differ
from parties in unitary systems of power allocation is still a moot point. We cannot say
exactly how high or low the Norwegian level of intra-party contact, coordination and control
is – and how much the state structure matters – without comparison with other unitary states
or federal states.
Nevertheless, this study has added to our knowledge on political parties by drawing
attention to how party organizations work in day-to-day politics. Parties have declined as
membership organizations, but may survive well as channels for contact and coordination
between party officials and representatives at different levels of government. Moreover, our
case study demonstrates that in order to assess how integrated or disintegrated party levels
really are, we need to explore the actual patterns of interaction between the central, regional
and municipal levels, not only party statutes – in different institutional settings.
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