Description
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The literature on party politics has generally conceived of party change as party adaptation. Building on the theories of institutional change based on critical juncture analysis, our work contributes to the literature in two ways. Theoretically, by unpacking the concept of party change in three dimensions: adaptation, innovation and persistence. This multidimensionality has been unduly neglected in the literature, too exclusively focused on party adaptation. Empirically, the article analyses whether the attitudes and opinions of middle-level elites reveal adaptation, innovation or persistence in their belief system at the beginning of the third millennium. Drawing upon a unique dataset of national party delegates of 15 Italian political parties, regression results suggest that high entry barriers in party organizations may hinder Schumpeterian innovation. (2018-01-07)
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Notes
| This research received specific grant from a public funding agency: the national party delegates' research project until 2011 was part of an inter-university research program (PRIN), co-funded by the Ministry of Education, University, and Research and the four universities involved: Florence (unit coordinated by Marco Tarchi, who was also the PRIN’s national coordinator), Bologna (unit coordinated by Aldo Di Virgilio), Cosenza (unit coordinated by Francesco Raniolo), and Trieste (unit coordinated by Anna Bosco). The survey of 2013 was carried out by Paola Bordandini, Aldo Di Virgilio and Roberto Cartocci, Department of Political and Social Science (University of Bologna). |