Who wants to be in the Driver’s seat? Members’ views on intra-party democratic innovations

Intra-party democratic innovations are on the rise around the world and burgeoning strands of research provide an institutional understanding of how political parties approach them. However, we still know little about how party members view democratic innovations and the benefits they can bring to the party. This article addresses this gap in the literature by mapping party members’ views on intra-party democratic innovations, and by identifying the areas where these innovations are welcome. It draws on semi-structured interviews with party members of parliamentary political parties in Romania. The results of our thematic analysis indicate that party members show considerably stronger support for deliberative practices compared to direct democracy. There is broad consensus across parties that deliberation can be used mainly for organization development and as electoral strategies but may be also suitable for internal communication and problem solving. Direct democracy is seen as contributing to organization development and as appropriate for internal communication.