The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

• In Event: Political Parties and American Democracy Mini-Conference I: Left Parties in Advanced Capitalism

Abstract

Why did mainstream left parties re-orient their policy programs in response to the stagflation crisis of the 1970s but not the financial crises of the 2010s? In this paper, I argue that to understand party decision-making we need to identify how organizational structures condition a party’s overarching ideological orientation, which underpins party policy and electoral strategy. I develop a conceptual approach where organizational change enables processes of sociological turnover amongst intra-party actors, who are identified as the drivers of ideological re-invention. Through Bayesian case analysis of the United States Democratic Party and the British Labour Party, I demonstrate that cohesive ideological re-orientation occurred in the late 20th century as organizational change facilitated the replacement of trade union elites by modernizing political professionals; in the 2010s, the failure of challengers to achieve organizational change ensured that these same types of professionals would retain their dominant hold over party institutions and prevent substantive ideological re-orientation.

Author

• Max Kiefel, Harvard University