ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the organisational transformation of European Green parties will be surveyed across the whole 'lifespan' of these parties, which is across more than three decades for some of them. The initial or 'genetic' organisational features of those parties will first be systematically described. European Green parties are to a more or less large extent the children of the New Social Movements (NSMs). The latter which developed characterised by a specific ideological-organisational project that is: the NSMs' ideology and the way they structured themselves were intertwined. Putting this into a longer-term perspective: Green party organisations were the children and inheritors of the NSMs. The latter were deeply libertarian, antiauthority, with a strong bias against hierarchies and leadership. Hence, the grassroots democratic features of Green parties are also a heritage from this particular period. Such a party type is compatible with a stronger party leader, even if some participatory elements are maintained in the intraparty procedures.
