Party Changes after Electoral Defeat in the (Post)Pandemic Era

• In Event: Shifts in Party Systems (Virtual Session)

Abstract

Electoral defeat is undoubtedly at the forefront of the causal conditions of a wide range of party changes (Torgersen 1967; Harmel and Janda 1994; Cross and Blais 2012; Gauja 2017), and is therefore referred to in the literature as the 'mother of party changes' (Janda 1990; Deschouwer 1992; Harmel et al. 1995). An electoral setback represents substantial shock, because it affect one of the main functions of political parties (i.e. competing for power). This shock is all the stronger if a party, after a long period in power, is pushed into opposition as a consequence of losing some electoral support. Being rejected in opposition can be perceived as a symbolic defeat in itself for ruling parties directed towards the exercise of power (Katz and Mair 1995).
Failure in electoral competition induces a number of intentional and non-intentional changes within numerous aspects of a party’s functioning. They can target all aspects of the party organization, such as leadership, policies, tactics, structure, party rules. Typically, electoral defeat prompts people in the party to think about restructure the party organisation, rebranding its external image, or ways to reconnect with the electorate.
One of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic was the enforced cancellation of personal meetings and the need to introduce methods of decision-making with reduced physical presence (Poguntke, Scarrow and Webb 2021). Party congresses, which are the highest authority in most political parties, were cancelled or postponed. Meetings with supporters, potential electorate, affiliated organisations also had to be postponed. Many decisions, e.g. on change of party leadership, programmatic shifts, statutory changes, which are usually expected from the party after an electoral defeat, have been put on hold. However, some decisions had to be taken because the pandemic did not freeze politics, so in many political parties the decision-making process has been shifted to smaller groups of people.
The aim of the presentation is to analyse how European political parties affected by electoral defeat in parliamentary elections prior to the onset of the pandemic reacted to the decline in electoral support and to answer the question to what extent the pandemic disrupted the process of change within them.
The empirical data consists of 50 individual in-depth interviews with members of party headquarters and leadership as well as MPs, MEPs from Belgium, France, Poland, Czech Republic, and United Kingdom. The interviews were conducted between 2018 and 2022.

Author

• Anna Paczesniak, Wroclaw University