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Ideas vs. interests: explaining party elites’ support for party democratic innovations

par Legein, Thomas ;Rangoni, Sacha ;Talukder, David ;Van Haute, Emilie
Référence Contemporary politics
Publication Publié, 2025-07-08

Article révisé par les pairs

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Résumé :

Over recent decades, political parties have experimented with organisational reforms aimed at enhancing more inclusive, direct models. More recently, one emerging model involves Party Democratic Innovations (PDIs), which introduce deliberative and participatory practices within parties to deepen citizen involvement in intra-party decision-making. This article investigates the drivers and barriers for party elites to support PDIs for internal reform, focusing on the Belgian French-speaking Christian Democratic party (cdH) as a representative case of a mainstream party facing electoral decline. Using a qualitative approach that combines internal documents, media analysis, and elite interviews, we show that initial support for PDIs was grounded in a shared normative belief in their democratic value. However, this consensus eroded over time due to competing strategic interests within the party. Our findings bridge the literature on party reform and democratic innovations by highlighting the importance of both ideas and internal power dynamics in shaping elite support for participatory reforms.