Party democracy survey 1991: Party member survey

The party democracy survey consists of the following surveys:
- A study conducted in the 1980s that consists of two surveys: a study of the national party elites in 1984 and a study of national convention delegates in 1985.
- Party Member Survey 1991
- Party Member Survey 2000
- National Convention Survey 2000-01

Here is the party member survey 1991 documented. This study was part of a larger study of organizational development in the Norwegian political parties led by Professor Lars Svåsand, University of Bergen and Professor Knut Heidar, University of Oslo. Svåsand was responsible for the study of finance, while Heidar chaired the study of party members. The joint project is called "Parties in change. Party policy under new conditions. " The purpose of the project is to go into the comparative and general debate of party types, their causes and consequences using a Norwegian material. The authors wish to emphasize the organization since the parties, as opposed to systems approach. They will emphasize the thesis of a weakening of internal party vitality - that membership activity is greatly reduced, that party members have instrumental relationship to their political participation. Also central is the thesis of an increasing professionalization and centralization of party organizations - and that changes in party organizations financing can be a key - both as an indicator and cause - of this development. Heidar and Svåsand also want to question the relationship between the organization and system.

Diagnosis of party transformation has three parts: Member activism locally is weakened, top-level party organization strengthened and there is a correlation between the decline locally and increased strength in the middle. The aim of the project is to produce material that can shed light on how durable such a general transformation perspective of parties is, putting this material up against the trends documented from other western European/north American countries, as well as taking up to consideration the significance of the developments that had to survive an encounter with the empirical material, may have various democracy and governance perspective. A member survey will be able to capture the impact of social changes and issues that will be analyzed, for example: How do the parties' grass roots perceive the internal decision-making process in parties? What foundation has members in the traditional conflict lines?