Over the last decade, intra-party democracy (IPD) has become a central theme in political science, somewhat following the notion of party decline that became prominent in the study of advanced democracies a bit earlier on and for which some—at least initially—considered IPD a possible remedy. This collection provides both an authoritative overview of the state of the art by leading scholars of IPD and insightful commentary, and is therefore a must-read. The term “challenges” in the title suitably highlights the difficulties researchers inevitably face when studying IPD from whatever analytical angle chosen. IPD—as the concept of (state) democracy—represents a phenomenon whose meaning scholars cannot agree on, either conceptually or empirically. Once a definition is chosen, it inevitably reflects normative assumptions about what an internally democratic party ought to look like, with strong repercussions for any empirical analysis conducted on its basis.

With good reason, the editors do not try to present an authoritative definition applied across the consecutive chapters but ask what IPD can mean and imply in different areas of party life, areas which are explored in individual chapters of the book. R. Kenneth Carty starts with the classical question concerning whether parties ought to be democratic. Later chapters cover relatively well-explored themes such as leadership selection (William Cross) or candidate selection (Gideon Rahat), as well as less studied dimensions such as IPD in policy development (Anika Gauja) or the intersection between IPD and gender studies (Sarah Childs). Reflecting the pluralist approach toward IPD adopted in this book, discrepancies appear in the way in which the same process or structural change associated with an enhancement of IPD is evaluated. These discrepancies express scholarly disagreement and are articulated across different chapters, thereby making the volume more than the sum of its parts. To give but one example, according to Rahat, increasing inclusiveness of the party selectorate (of those individuals entitled to participate in intra-party decisions) might make a party more democratic in formal terms but simultaneously decrease the quality of participation, by involving less informed rank-and-file members or even occasional party supporters, while alienating loyal activists who otherwise do most work for the organization (pp. 138–39). Childs, using female participation as her yardstick of evaluation instead, sees in such change an improvement in form and in practice: Since the group of rank-and-file members is commonly less male dominated than activists, a shift of decision-making power toward the former will make decision-making more representative of women and therefore more democratic (p. 99).

Irrespective of the interpretation that one is inclined to follow, they lead us to another tension highlighted throughout the study, namely, that a structural change toward more intra-organizational democracy (e.g., moving from delegate decisions to membership polls in line with the one-man-one-vote principle) might democratize the formal rules of the game, but does not necessarily lead to democratic outcomes once these rules apply in practice (on this see Rahat, p. 147; Cross and Katz, p. 175). Lisa Young, in her chapter on party membership (p. 65), as well as Gauja, in her chapter on IPD in policy development (p. 116), stress a discrepancy between IPD as an opportunity structure that contemporary parties might increasingly provide—possibly enhancing their legitimacy from the perspective of citizens—and the actual willingness of the same citizens to actively and productively use these opportunities offered by parties. This nicely echoes Giovanni Sartori’s point that democratization denotes the “massification” of politics, not the meaningful participation of the same masses (Giovanni Sartori, “What Is Politics?” Political Theory 1 [no. 1, 1973]: 5–26). While parties can initiate the former, they have little control over the latter. And increasingly often, parties control neither. As indicated by Ingrid van Biezen and Daniela Romée Piccio as well as by Susan Scarrow, when party law prescribes democratic decision making or when party funding is channelled to parties that meet particular structural requirements, IPD is governed by state regulation more than by parties as autonomous associations.

Talking more about the party component of IPD, the crux is that while IPD can be associated with values such as inclusiveness and representativeness (based on core values underpinning state democracy), they are not only in tension with each other when being implemented simultaneously. They might develop pathologies once implemented in an organizational (rather than state) context (Reuven Y. Hazan and Gideon Rahat, Democracy within Parties: Candidate Selection Methods and their Political Consequences, 2010). The opening up of parties as organizations and the blurring of the boundary between members and supporters—attempts to increase the societal inclusiveness of parties—can fundamentally undermine parties as organizations, if pushed to the extreme. When parties are made as inclusive (and according to some as democratic and as representative of the electorate) as possible, the notion of “intra” becomes meaningless (Gauja, p. 135) as does the notion of the party as membership organization: Then, intra-party decisions are no longer decisions of members who are (at least temporarily) attached to an organization as a distinct entity but simply decisions of a (changeable) subset of the electorate temporarily opting in a specific decision-making process with the free choice to enter (or not) at minimal cost or possibly none at all. Open primaries, as common in the United States, come closest to the democratic ideal of intra-party selection when simply applying the yardstick of citizen equality fundamental to state elections. A consideration of their consequences for parties as organizations reveals possible anti-organizational tendencies inherent in IPD when the contextual change taking place is disregarded. Intra-party democracy tries to make democracy work in a voluntary organization, not at the state level, which presupposes a voluntary organization remains intact in the process. Thus, contextual differences are crucial, as Rahat, for instance, highlights when pointing out the importance of distinguishing state election from intra-organizational selection (pp. 143–44).

The need to avoid simplistic analogies that ignore the peculiarities of IPD as intra-organizational practice is also stressed by Cross and Katz in the concluding chapter: “[W]hen a party is deeply divided, neither the presence nor the absence of IPD is adequate to prevent defeat” (p. 171). IPD is only a workable concept when whatever democratic process is implemented inside a party does not undermine the party as organizational actor. This links back to the initial observation (Cross and Katz, p. 10) that most of the literature—reflecting a long tradition going back to Robert Michels or Maurice Duverger—sees oligarchy as the main opponent to democracy in complex organizations. Following this tradition, another opponent is easily neglected that can be critical in voluntary contexts—anarchy. The study of anarchy or, more moderately put, of the intra-organizational strains and conflict IPD can generate (e.g., the tension between a powerful membership and party unity that various contributors touched upon) is a theme that deserves more attention in future (especially empirical) research. It could have been covered more explicitly at various points in this volume, which overall seemed still more concerned with the problem of oligarchy than with its “twin.” Concerns about too little competitiveness in leadership selection, too little member mobilization, too little influence of women as competitive faction, or too little protection of members’ right to dissent beg the question: How could a party organization possibly operate if it delivered on all of these counts? While this leads back to E.E. Schattschneider’s much-cited skepticism about the compatibility of intra- and intra-party competition, at what point or under which conditions desirable intra-organizational pluralism turns into damaging internal divisions remains an open question.