Political scientist Angelo Panebianco pointed out most contemporary analyses resist studying political parties, and this resistance is partly due to the objective difficulties involved in an organizational analysis of parties. But he also explained that it is the result of widespread prejudices, the sociological prejudice and the teleological prejudice, in the literature on parties that create barriers between the observers and the object observers....[ Read more ]

Political scientist Angelo Panebianco pointed out most contemporary analyses resist studying political parties, and this resistance is partly due to the objective difficulties involved in an organizational analysis of parties. But he also explained that it is the result of widespread prejudices, the sociological prejudice and the teleological prejudice, in the literature on parties that create barriers between the observers and the object observers.

In studying political party institutionalization in Hong Kong in the sovereignty transition period, this study takes The Frontier as a case, and comparison is made between it and the Citizens Party. To avoid the prejudices in studying party, the author has conducted participant observations in The Frontier. In addition, he also employs Panebianco's party Institutionalization framework in the study.

The study finds in the process of institutionalization, although The Frontier is still dominating the environment, it is going towards a natural systems model, which means it is concerned more about its survival, and imposing more restrictions on the actions of the members, particularly the party leaders. However, it is also found Panebianco's model needs modifications, such as to reverse the causality between party leaders and institutionalization and to emphasize the importance of external constraints in local political system, so as to have a more accurate answer for the research question.