The INTRAPOL aims to understand the processes that determine who gets elected into positions of political power and whether who is in power is important for citizens’ welfare. A well-performing system is able to select competent and honest leaders who are representative of the citizens’, and who have incentives or the will to make decisions to the benefit of the people. We study these fundamental aspects of political selection in representative democracies from an intra-party perspective. We consider the party and its various actors as separate entities. We aim to understand the role of insiders in representative democracy by carrying out a thorough analysis of how political parties operate, connect to voters, organize their internal structure, and recruit their political personnel, and to study the policy effects of these choices.
The research project Intra-party politics in the past and the present (INTRAPOL) (2023-2027) is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) and hosted by the University of Turku.
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