Political parties as vehicles of ideologies

Political parties are relatively recent political organisations which established themselves as the main vehicles of political ideologies. However, the relationship between ideologies and political parties is far from straightforward. Thus, this chapter argues that there is an awkward but symbiotic relationship between political parties and ideology and that therefore its study requires special methodological tools. The chapter briefly outlines how scholarship on political parties and ideology changed over time and how it shaped the study of political parties. The chapter also assesses the different quantitative and qualitative methods used to study how political parties engage with ideologies and argues that the qualitative methods that place ideational practices at the heart of political parties’ activities are the most appropriate to understand how political parties participate in processes of ideological production, contestation and change.