Kenen joukoissa seisot ja kenen puolesta toimit?
Sosiaalidemokraattien ja vihreiden puoluekokoukset edustavuuden näkökulmasta
Keywords:
Representation, Party Congress, The Greens, The Social Democratic Party of FinlandAbstract
This article focuses on the party congress delegates of the Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP) and the Green League (GL). In particular, we analyze the representativeness of the delegates with parties' members and supporters. The delegates are essential actors in the creation of long-term policy goals and strategies, while they are also imperative decision makers in the parties.
The research targets are two different kinds of parties, as the GL represents a new type of generalized party, while the SDP is seen as a traditional party of interest. We used survey methods and content analysis in order to analyze the representativeness of party delegates. By following Hanna Pitkins' theory of political representation, we first compared the formal rules of parties and examine different factors predicting the participation in the Party Congress. To find descriptive and symbolic representativeness, we determine how well delegates represent the supporters and members of parties by their socio-demographic characteristics and class identification, respectively. Finally, we discuss on substantive representativeness by analyzing congress materials and speeches.
We found that the Social Democrats' delegates were more experienced and had more networks when compared to the Greens. The very high status of the GL delegates emphasized the academic tinting of the whole party. In both parties, the delegates had a higher social status than party members and supporters. However, symbolically, the delegates tried to promote the groups placed outside their own position. The Social democrats emphasized labor, while Greens were associated with educational issues.
