The party’s constitution outline the party’s structures and internal procedures. The constitution can be changed by the party’s highest decision-making body (often called a national conference). Party constitutions often outline the party’s ideological foundation, its values and principles. The constitution also states the procedures for election of officials and leadership as well as how members can disqualify themselves or be expelled from the party.

Organizational Divisions

Party constitutions also typically outline the organizational divisions and structures that enable the organization to carry out its mission as effectively as possible.

Because organizations that don’t have clear roles and responsibilities are generally ineffective, effective political parties require written rules, or statutes, and organizational divisions. It is furthermore important that party members are made aware of these statutes and divisions through training and awareness raising.

Like any other organization, a political party needs to be designed so that it can best carry out its mission and function in a competitive environment. Well- organized parties take into account their ideology, vision and history, the geography of the country, the needs of the people, and the cultural and ethnic profile of citizens, among others. With such an array of considerations, parties seek to maximize their organizational capacity and resources by designing internal structures that are broken up into geographic and functional units. The benefit of these divisions to parties is both to attract members and develop policies that are appropriate for different parts of the country and with different types of people.

Sources of Regulations

Given that political parties perform such important tasks in democracies today, their internal functioning is very important. A political party may be guided in its structure and functioning by external regulations, such as the Constitution or laws and regulations, by internal party rules, such as the Party Constitution, or by both. However, the distribution or power or the way that decisions are made in reality often differs from written Party Constitutions or internal rules. Aspects of this include the policy formulation and general decision-making process of the political party, the involvement of members and party groups, and the accountability of the party leadership.