Bending the Iron Law: Sharing Power Inside Political Parties Can Actually Help Them Win
For decades, scholars of political organization have accepted a rather pessimistic principle: the so-called Iron Law of Oligarchy. This theory holds that all political parties, no matter how internally democratic in their early years, tend to centralize power in the hands of a few leaders. Internal democracy, from this perspective, is less a sustainable ideal and more a temporary illusion.
But a new study by Giovanna M. Invernizzi (Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University) and Carlo Prato (Columbia University) and published in the American Journal of Political Science argues that the Iron Law is not always inescapable destiny. According to their research, political parties don’t always evolve toward centralized power structures. In fact, sometimes it’s more effective for them to share power among internal factions — especially if they want to win elections.