DONDENA Seminar - Ann-Kristin Kölln

To what extent is intraparty politics structured by factions? This study offers the first large-scale comparative analysis of factions with common definitions. We first provide a conceptual framework of factions for comparative analysis before identifying and mapping factional structures within parties across Western democracies using two new empirical approaches: (1) model-based clustering techniques applied to readily available survey data, covering 20 Western democracies between 2005 and 2019; (2) network analyses of real-world behavior in the form of over 14,000 text-based motions, submitted to 93 party congresses in three European countries between 2016 and 2022. Our results both validate and challenge existing assumptions about intraparty structures by showing that 98% of parties have factions and that the median effective number of factions is 7.5. These factions vary substantially in their sizes, content, or emphases. Beyond that, our paper provides researchers with a new data source and methodological tools to study factions comparatively.

Ann-Kristin Kölln is professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. In her research, she is interested in political parties and public opinion in Europe as well as theories of political representation. Ann-Kristin is the principal investigator of a European Research Council Starting Grant that identifies and studies factions within political parties in Europe (INTRAPARTY). She is also a member of the Young Academy of Sweden.