This chapter critiques the teleological assumptions underpinning traditional party models, specifically the expectation that organizational change follows a linear path toward the state-centric Cartel Party. It argues that the proliferation of new sub-types—such as Business-Firm, Movement, and Digital parties—exposes the limitations of static typologies in capturing the fragmentation of the post-Cartel landscape. To address this theoretical gap, the chapter proposes an “anatomical” framework based on two continuous dimensions: Party Organizational Variance and Disintermediation. By deconstructing the party into its three faces, this approach shifts the analytical focus from taxonomic classification to the measurement of change. The framework distinguishes between the diversity of organizational forms (variance) and the direction of internal restructuring (disintermediation), setting the stage to test whether European parties are converging in structure or merely in functional logic.