When it comes to the prospects for intra-party democracy, the view of the academic literature and many practitioners is generally very bleak. Intra-party democracy is either declining or was never there in the first place. This article will argue that this is not an accurate reflection of what is going on in political parties. Rather than being in either universal long-term decline or permanently and unavoidably absent, intra-party democracy varies between parties. Some parties are indeed more or less permanent oligarchies, just as some have seen a decline in the strength of their internal democracy. However, others have seen an increase in the level of membership influence and yet others have managed to maintain a fairly high level of internal democracy. This article will argue that a combination of five factors (age, origin, ideology, style of democracy in a given country and government ambition) are important in understanding this variation.
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