There Is Always an Alternative: a Study of Control and Commitment in Political Organization

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Husted, Emil

Doctoral Thesis There is Always an Alternative: A Study of Control and Commitment in Political Organization

PhD Series, No. 36.2017

Provided in Cooperation with: Copenhagen Business School (CBS)

Suggested Citation: Husted, Emil (2017) : There is Always an Alternative: A Study of Control and Commitment in Political Organization, PhD Series, No. 36.2017, ISBN 9788793579453, Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Frederiksberg, http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9534

This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/209044

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ISSN 0906-6934

Print ISBN: 978-87-93579-44-6 Online ISBN: 978-87-93579-45-3 A STUDY OF CONTROL AND COMMITMENT IN POLITICAL ORGANIZATION

Emil Husted THERE IS ALWAYS AN ALTERNATIVE: A STUDY OF CONTROL AND COMMITMENT IN POLITICAL ORGANIZATION

Doctoral School of Organisation and Management Studies PhD Series 36.2017 PhD Series 36-2017 There is always an alternative A study of control and commitment in political organization

PhD dissertation by Emil Husted Department of Organization Doctoral School of Organisation and Management Studies Copenhagen Business School

Supervisors Ursula Plesner, Copenhagen Business School Julie Uldam, Roskilde University

Word count: 79,818 Emil Husted There is always an alternative: A study of control and commitment in political organization

1st edition 2017 PhD Series 36.2017

ISSN 0906-6934 Print ISBN: 978-87-93579-44-6 Online ISBN: 978-87-93579-45-3

The Doctoral School of Organisation and Management Studies (OMS) is an interdisciplinary research environment at Copenhagen Business School for PhD students working on theoretical and empirical themes related to the organisation and management of private, public and voluntary organizations.

All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Table of contents

List of figures and tables ...... 5 Acknowledgements ...... 6 Preface ...... 8

1. Introduction: The problem of particularization ...... 9 New parties, new problems ...... 10 Research questions ...... 13 Where’s the party ...... 15 Findings and contributions ...... 17 Outline of the dissertation...... 20 References ...... 21

2. The Alternative: A rose by any name? ...... 26 The birth of a party ...... 27 There is always an alternative! ...... 28 Formal organization and recent development ...... 33 What’s in a name? ...... 34 Naming and affect ...... 36 The lure of the alternative ...... 37 References ...... 40

3. Methodology: Studying in the eye of the storm ...... 44 Philosophy of science ...... 45 Post-structuralist discourse theory ...... 46 Analytical strategy ...... 48 Methods and data ...... 51 Communicative validity ...... 52 Reading texts ...... 54 Asking questions ...... 55 Hanging out ...... 58

Studying in the eye of the storm ...... 61 Maintaining expertise ...... 62 Maintaining relevance ...... 63 Maintaining neutrality ...... 64 Maintaining distance ...... 66 References ...... 69

4. Literature: Control and commitment in political organization ...... 76 Political parties and organization studies ...... 78 What is political organization? ...... 80 Review of the literature ...... 83 The legacy of Michels ...... 87 The revival of Follett ...... 90 The relevance of Kanter ...... 94 Gaps and problems ...... 97 References ...... 99

5. First paper: The Alternative to Occupy? ...... 105 Introduction ...... 106 Discourse theory and radical politics ...... 109 The universal and the particular ...... 111 From identity politics to radical politics ...... 112 A brief note on methods ...... 115 Analysis: Institutionalizing radical politics ...... 116 Occupy Wall Street: ‘A movement without demands’ ...... 117 The Alternative: From movement to (movement) party...... 120 Conclusion: Of movements and parties ...... 125 References ...... 127

6. Second paper: Spaces of open-source politics ...... 132 Introduction ...... 133 The Alternative: Open-source politics in practice ...... 136

Organizational space and political organization...... 138 Methods ...... 142 Analysis: Spaces of openness and closure ...... 144 Space 1: Political Laboratories ...... 144 Space 2: The Dialogue platform ...... 149 Space 3: Political Forum ...... 152 Discussion: Dialectics in open-source politics ...... 154 Between imagination and affirmation ...... 155 Between digital and physical space ...... 157 Between universality and particularity ...... 159 Conclusion...... 160 References ...... 162

7. Third paper: Mobilizing ‘the Alternativist’ ...... 171 Introduction ...... 172 Radical politics and the question of identity ...... 174 Subjectification in organizations ...... 177 Identity politics and overdetermination ...... 178 Research design ...... 179 The case of The Alternative ...... 179 Methodological considerations ...... 181 Analysis: Managing subjectivity in The Alternative ...... 183 Constituting ‘A New We’ ...... 183 Mobilizing ‘the Alternativist’ ...... 187 Negotiating ‘the Alternativist’ ...... 191 Discussion: Towards decoupling ...... 197 Conclusion...... 199 References ...... 201

8. Fourth paper: ‘Some have ideologies, we have values’ ...... 207 Introduction ...... 208 The curious case of The Alternative ...... 210

Organizational values: A short review ...... 213 Methods ...... 216 Analysis: Value-based politics in practice ...... 218 Vision values: Courage, curiosity, and humor ...... 220 Humanity values: Empathy, humility, generosity, and trust ...... 225 The anti-politics of trust ...... 230 Conclusion...... 233 References ...... 236

9. Conclusions: The unfinished business of radical politics ...... 243 Answering research questions...... 244 Contributions to research ...... 248 The loosely coupled party ...... 248 Neo-normative control in political organization ...... 249 Studying politics with organization theory ...... 252 Contributions to practice ...... 255 Unfinished business ...... 256 Epilogue ...... 260 References ...... 260

10. Appendix ...... 263 English summary ...... 263 Dansk resumé ...... 266 Co-author declaration, Allan Dreyer Hansen ...... 269 Co-author declaration, Ursula Plesner ...... 271

List of figures and tables

- Figure 1: Illustration of the problem of particularization (p. 12).

- Figure 2: The results of the national elections on June 18, 2015 (p. 32).

- Figure 3: Drawing of Uffe Elbæk talking to a journalist by Roald Als, Politiken. (p. 39).

- Figure 4: Examples of Political Laboratories (p. 145).

- Figure 5: The Alternative’s organization of open-source politics (p. 155).

- Figure 6: Picture of The Alternative’s local office in downtown Copenhagen (p. 186).

- Table 1: Overview of interview respondents (p. 56).

- Table 2: Number of articles on political parties in leading journals (p. 79).

- Table 3: Overview of The Alternative’s values (p. 230).

Acknowledgements In many respects, authoring a PhD is an awfully lonely thing to do. You sit in your office, day after day, wondering if anyone will ever read those precious sentences that took you so long to produce. And when you finally realize that more than half of all academic texts are read by no other than the author, you feel even lonelier. The only thing that really helps is to know that you were never alone. In fact, a small army of people have been following you all along. Some taught you stuff, some helped you write stuff, some read your stuff, some listened to your stuff, some dragged you through stuff – and some just loved you. This is true for anyone, me in particular.

First of all, I would like to thank all my wonderful colleagues at the Department of Organizations at Copenhagen Business School. This place has been my second home for six years straight: I entered as a student assistant and left as a PhD. I could not have wished for a better place to mature academically. Thanks for all the stimulating discussions, wonderful lunches, and wild parties! In particular, I would like to thank Cecilie Glerup, Anders Koed Madsen, Ib Tunby Gulbrandsen, Mie Plotnikof, Mikkel Marfelt, Maya Flensborg Jensen, Jacob Brogaard-Kay, Rasmus Ploug Jenle, Frank Meier, Fabian Müller, Roderick Walker, Thorben Simonsen, Christian Dyrlund Wåhlin-Jacobsen, and all the other PhDs at IOA. Furthermore, thanks to Sine Just, Sara Muhr, Mette Mogensen, Tor Hernes, Peer Hull Christensen, Elisabeth Naima Mikkelsen, Anne Reff Pedersen, Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen, Anne Roelsgaard Obling, Signe Vikkelsø, and Christian De Cock who all spent some of their valuable time reading and commenting my writings.

Thanks also to all those wonderful people from outside CBS who helped me get through the marathon that is a PhD. In particular, I would like to thank André Spicer for hosting me at Cass Business School and Dan Kärreman for connecting me with André. Also, thanks to Peter Fleming and Susanne Ekman for participating in my second work-in-progress seminar. Thanks to Saul Newman and Francisco Carballo for inviting me to Goldsmith for a chat about my project. Thanks to Sverre Spoelstra, Tony Huzzard, Emma Jeanes, and Julie Uldam for helping me improve my first paper. And finally, a huge thanks to Allan Dreyer Hansen for introducing me to the world of discourse theory and for co-authoring one of my papers. Without you, I undoubtedly would have written about something entirely different.

Special thanks to my dear supervisor, Ursula Plesner. You probably do not realize the impact that you have had on me as an academic and as a person. Career-wise, at least, I owe you more than I can begin to express. You hired me as a student assistant on a shaky Skype connection to Uganda, and you stuck with me through all these years, despite my occasional resistance to good advice. With all my heart, thanks! An equal thanks to my dear friend and office-buddy, Andreas Kamstrup. You have made the last two years of my PhD seem like one long bar conversation (that was a compliment). You are wiser than Hegel, older than Plato, and better-looking than Foucault. What can I say? Pour some sugar on May!

All kidding aside, the greatest thanks to my magnificent family. Thanks to Karla and Luis for being the most wonderful cheeky monkeys in the whole world. I hope you know that I love you more than life itself. And thanks to you, Tanja, for being exactly who you are. Thanks for supporting me unconditionally when times get rough. Thanks for staying up late at night listening to academic nonsense. Thanks for helping me find myself and thanks for helping me figure out what really matters. You are the light of my life, the fire of my soul. Jeg elsker dig.

/Emil Vesterbro, August 2017

Preface This dissertation contains four peer-reviewed papers published by or submitted to different academic journals. All four papers are included in the dissertation with permission from the respective publishers. Some of the papers have also been presented at different academic conferences. The specific details of each paper are listed below.

- The first paper (chapter 5) has been published in the open access journal tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique (2017, vol. 15, no. 2) under the title ‘The Alternative to Occupy? Radical politics between protest and parliament’ (www.triple-c.at). The paper is co-authored by Allan Dreyer Hansen, Associate Professor at Roskilde University.

- The second paper (chapter 6) has been published in the journal Organization (2017, vol. 24, no. 5) under the title ‘Spaces of open-source politics: Physical and digital conditions for political organization’ (www.journals.sagepub.com/home/org). A version of the paper was presented at the 32nd EGOS Colloquium in Naples, Italy, July 2016. The paper is co- authored by Ursula Plesner, Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business School.

- The third paper (chapter 7) is in second review at the journal ephemera under the title ‘Mobilizing the Alternativist: Exploring the management of subjectivity in a radical political party’ (www.ephemerajournal.org). A version of the paper was presented at the ICA Regional conference and the ECREA conference on communication and democracy in Copenhagen, Denmark, October 2015.

- The fourth paper (chapter 8) has been submitted to the journal Organization Studies under the title ‘Some have ideologies, we have values: The role of values in political organization’ and is currently awaiting an editorial decision (www.journals.sagepub.com/home/oss). A version of the paper was presented at the Diversity Workshop in Copenhagen, May 2017, and at the 33rd EGOS Colloquium in Copenhagen, July 2017.

1. Introduction The problem of particularization

One has always to remember that collective victories and defeats largely take place at the level of the political imaginary. To construct a political vision in the new conditions, in which keeping open the gap between universality and particularity becomes the very matrix of the political imaginary, is the real challenge confronting contemporary democracy. A dangerous adventure, no doubt, but one on which the future of our societies depends.

Ernesto Laclau (2001: 14), Democracy and the question of power

The purpose of this dissertation is to understand how a political party manages to mobilize support from across the political spectrum without having any policies to show, and how it subsequently manages to maintain that support throughout the process of constructing an elaborate political program and entering parliament. Typically, such questions are investigated by political scientists, meticulously working their way through electoral statistics and comprehensive membership surveys, in an effort to delineate the dynamics of voting behavior. With this dissertation, however, I intend to identify a new path to the study of political parties. Instead of looking to political theory for political answers to political problems, I look to organization theory for organizational answers to political problems. By using concepts and methods from organization theory as a point of departure for studying political phenomena, I believe we can learn something new and interesting about the organization of politics as well as the politics of organization.

More specifically, I explore the case of The Alternative, a recently elected political party in Denmark. The Alternative was founded in late 2013 as a reaction to the unsustainable nature of neoliberal capitalism and the ‘old political culture’. However, instead of presenting a list of tangible demands and trademark issues, The Alternative was launched without any kind of political program. Save for an overall focus on sustainability and entrepreneurship, all they initially had was a name, a short manifesto, and six core values (courage, humor, empathy, transparency,

9 humility, and generosity). A few months after the launch, The Alternative began drafting a political program. With inspiration from the open-source community, they invited the general public to participate in a highly inclusive bottom-up process that culminated with the publication of the party’s first political program in May 2014. A year later, The Alternative ran for parliament and was elected with almost five percent of the votes as one of the youngest parties in the history of Danish politics. Since then, support for The Alternative has continued to grow. In fact, in the year following the elections, the party sextupled its membership base and went from 0.2 percent to 7.8 percent in the opinion polls. This begs the question: How is it possible to undergo a transformation from a vaguely defined movement-like organization to a well-defined political party without marginalizing all those supporters who thought that ‘the alternative’ was something different from what The Alternative turned out to be? This is the puzzle that drives this dissertation.

New parties, new problems Within the last decade, we have witnessed the emergence of a new type of political parties. These are parties such as Podemos in Spain and Movimento 5 Stelle in Italy, and to some extent also SYRIZA in Greece, which have all crystallized more or less directly out of popular movements1. For instance, Podemos was founded in the immediate aftermath of the so-called 15-M movement (also known as Los Indignados) in an attempt to translate the anti-austerity message of the movement into tangible political results (Iglesias, 2015). In a similar fashion, Movimento 5 Stelle (or simply M5S) emerged from a protest movement initiated by Italian comedian, Beppe Grillo, and organized around an immensely popular internet blog (Tronconi, 2016). Some have referred to these parties as ‘hybrid parties’ because of their attempt to consolidate the horizontalism of social movements with the verticalism of political parties (Chironi & Fittipaldi, 2017), others have called them ‘populist parties’ because of their ‘illiberal rhetoric’, which tends to divide society into two antagonistic camps (Kioupkiolis, 2016; Zarzalejos, 2016). A more accurate label, I think, is that of ‘radical parties’. What makes these parties radical has to do, not only with their political ‘logic

1 This does not mean that such parties never existed prior to the emergence of Podemos, M5S, and SYRIZA. One very noteworthy example of an older party is that of Die Grünen, which I will return to in chapter 2. The newness consists in the current proliferation of these parties.

10 of articulation’, which does indeed share the main characteristics of populism (Laclau, 2005), but also with the way in which they entered parliament. One way of understanding the emergence of political projects in general is through the dialectic relationship between what Laclau (1996) calls ‘the universal’ and ‘the particular’. When political projects emerge and become hegemonic, they usually go through a process of universalization, in which a political struggle is detached from its particular context and turned into an ‘empty signifier’ (Laclau, 2001). Crudely put, an empty signifier is a signifier that lacks a signified, which means that it has little positive content of its own (Laclau, 1994). One example of an empty signifier might be the word 'democracy', which can only be defined consensually by describing what it is not: Tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy etc. H