Europarties: Elucidating Their Organizational Evolution and Capacity

This chapter focuses on the organization of Europarties. It sets out how they organize and shows the rationale behind their organizational development over the past five decades. The chapter explores three major questions: (1) What are Europarties for? (2) What is the organizational evolution of the Europarties? And (3) What is the organizational structure of the Europarties? However, the chapter goes beyond description and uncovers an evolutionary logic that reflects incremental growth and adjustment and is explained in terms of collective action and identity. An important part of this development is the regulatory framework, including rules regarding funding, which the Europarties themselves have largely instigated. The chapter concludes with reflections on what lessons these findings hold for scholarly understanding and the future of the Europarties.