ABSTRACT
The chapter assesses the internal and external dimensions of party institutionalisation defined as a party’s process towards organisational consolidation, notably ‘systemness’, ‘autonomy’ and ‘reification’, engaging with central conceptual debates and how those have shaped existing empirical research. This shows how the application of the concept of party institutionalisation has increasingly transcended consolidated democracies and now includes new democracies as well as hybrid regimes, a trend that has gone hand in hand with a growing emphasis on its multidimensionality. This intertwined development reflected the need to consider the growing complexity of empirical institutionalisation patterns that appeared ‘partial’ or ‘incomplete’ when being assessed against early notions of the concept originating in Western Europe. Relatedly, it has been increasingly recognised that party institutionalisation should not be equated with a particular organisational form or model (e.g. the presence of formal party branches), as this would effectively prevent ‘conceptual travel’, de facto maintaining the mass party model as ‘gold standard’.
