The ‘dual militancy’ of socialist feminists heralded a development of great significance: increasingly, the socialist parties would come to be considered as one of the sites where campaigns devised elsewhere would be conducted. The evolution amount to a major ‘reform’ of the socialist parties, a reform largely engineered from the outside. By the end of the 1960s, the wider socialist movement was - unknowingly - poised on the threshold of the most momentous transformation in its history

It had started out as a machine for the self-emancipation of the working class and the generator of endless campaigns. It was now becoming an instrument which could be used by those who had found elsewhere, in the feminist, pacifist or ecological movements, a political home, The instrument which socialists had forged at the turn of the century for the improvement of the conditions of the working class, the capture of state power, and the eventual transformation of capitalism into a classless society - the political party - had become the battleground of various types of progressive causes seeking to use the party for their own ends.

Parties of the Left have rarely been endowed with an organisational framework enabling them to monitor molecular changes in society. Mass parties have often been surprised by a rapidly developing mass movement. Ideally, there should always be a systematic and constant restructuring of the party organisation in the light of social change, while the organisation itself should be used as a mechanism with which to gather information about society. This, I believe, is at the root of Gramsci’s injunction that the party should become ‘a collective individual’. But this is more easily said than done.

The most significant obstacles to a social democratic revival turn out to come not from structural or environmental factors, nor from the vibrancy of alternative ideological approaches, but from intellectual fallacies and a loss of will on the part of the left itself.

There is movement towards an expansion of the size of the candidate selectorate as an increasing number of party supporters are being invited to participate. This shift results from many factors including a general move towards a plebiscitary form of politics, a desire to attract more partisans to party membership and activism, and a generalised decline in elite deference in public decision-making among many voters. Some suggest that the broadening of the nominating selectorate is part of a stratarchical bargain in parties in which the centre maintains control over policy by demanding strong cohesion in the parliamentary party while allowing for decentralisation in candidate selection - permitting party activists to choose their own candidate.

We find that contests limited to a small electorate of parliamentarians, many of whom have served together for some time and who have strong personal connections, often take on a Machiavelian cast as participants form secret alliances and challengers often work below the incumbent’s radar to build support for their candidacy.

Rule changes on controversial matters have always been temporary rather than permanent - Branch membership, Branch stacking, local or central party control of endorsement, the relationship between State and federal sections of the party, mechanisms for endorsement of candidates, the relative weight of trade unions or local Branches in the party, and so on. The mature political party is in many ways still the infant organisation - merely rather older and much more cynical.