Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The main aim of the project was to examine the impact of European integration on the organisation of national political parties, and on the balance of power within them. More specifically, the project sought to investigate whether European integration has further empowered party leaderships, and empowered those people within parties who have an expertise and/or specific involvement in European Union (EU) affairs. As yet, little research has examined the impact of the EU on the internal workings of national political parties. The project thus set out to address the lack of attention that political parties have received in this context and sought to provide the first in-depth, comparative study of the 'Europeanisation' of national political parties. The project investigated the impact of European integration on internal party dynamics by way of a two-stage design. The first stage involved in-depth case studies of parties in six countries (Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden) and drew on an analysis of party documents (statutes, rules, archives) and on the insights of more than 150 interviews with party politicians and party staff. For the second phase, standardised mail questionnaires were administered to politicians and staff in all relevant parties in all 15 (pre-2004 enlargement) EU member states. This study comprises data from the second phase of the research, the questionnaire survey.

Main Topics:

The questionnaire covered present organisational dynamics within the respondent's political party, and changes over the last ten years with respect to 'Europeanisation'.

Purposive selection/case studies

Postal survey