Party Organizational Elites in Norwegian Politics: Representativeness and Party Democracy*

The question raised is why ‘secondary’ representativeness of political elites, i.e. the degree of similarity in socio-demographic background between elite and electorate, is considered important in debates on democratic polities. Three answers are considered: to improve long-term ‘primary’ representtativity. i.e. the representation of public opinions; to build systemic legitimacy: and to encourage the participation of low-mobilized groups. From this perspective new data on the party organizational elites in Norway are presented: The party elites are socially skewed in terms of present position. but fairly broad based in terms of parental background. They reflect the traditional cleavage structures of Norwegian politics, even though the high shares of women and public employees indicate potentially emerging cleavage structures. Particularly the women in party positions are disproportionately recruited from the lower ranks of the public job market.