Prestigious ERC grant for research on political parties

The ERC Starting Grant is awarded by the European Research Council (ERC), which is the most prestigious funder of excellent research in Europe. The goal is to support the best researchers and the most brilliant ideas. The research grant of EUR 1.5 million runs over five years and aims at researchers who are at the beginning of their careers.

Ann-Kristin Kölln is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and has devoted a large part of her research to political parties and public opinion in Europe. She is the first female researcher at the University of Gothenburg’s Faculty of Social Sciences to be awarded an ERC grant since its start in 2008 and the fourth researcher in total. She will use the grant to run the research project The Benefits of Conflict: How Factions Can Enhance Political Parties’ Electoral Performance, short INTRAPARTY.

"It is a great honour that my project received funding, but it also come with a lot of responsibility. The ERC is internationally renowned, and they expect the research results to be of very high quality. Thanks to the grant, I now have the best conditions for developing and implementing my research ideas."

In the INTRAPARTY project, Ann-Kristin and her research group will study factions, something that exists within virtually all political parties in Europe. These are groupings within a party that differ ideologically from the rest of the party. A general conception, which is not yet scientifically proven, is that factions create conflict within parties, which can have a negative impact on how people vote. But it does not have to be that way.

"My theory is on the contrary that factions can be useful for parties under certain circumstances. By, for example, pursuing their own political issues that go against the party line, they can create a bond with certain groups in society that did not exist before."

Research on factions within political parties is virtually non-existent in political science. Ann-Kristin Kölln’s project will contribute with a deeper knowledge of what a party’s “inner life” looks like, which is important to be able to understand how representative democracy really works.

"It is hardly possible to have democracy without parties. The starting point for my research is that there are factions within virtually all political parties in Europe, and that the conflicts they cause may partly explain why parties regularly change their positions. It may even be the case that factions are ultimately behind parties’ adaptability and survival."