Dr Anika Gauja (University of Sydney) - Researching Reform: A Qualitative Approach to Understanding Party Change

In this seminar, I discuss some of the theoretical and empirical challenges of studying how political organisations, such as parties, change over time. Reflecting back on a recently completed project on comparative party reform, I address three main questions: first, what is the nature of organisational change, and how can it be measured? Second, what do we mean when we speak of the political party in comparative research? Is it possible to reconcile structure with agency in these organisations? Finally, how can we study organisations that don’t want to be studied? To answer these questions I put forward a three-tiered theoretical framework for evaluating change that captures intra-organisational, competitive and systemic pressures for change, and argue the benefits of adapting heuristics and approaches from related disciplines in furthering our understandings of the internal workings of political parties. I outline a qualitative methodology for the study of parties that triangulates a diverse range of sources of evidence beyond formal rules changes, including interviews, ethnographic observations, and the systematic analysis of party documents and speeches as strategic rhetorical devices.