Abstract
Political parties play very influential role in the policy-making governance of liberal democracies, but it is very little known about the ways how they generate needed policy knowledge. The paper advances the study of parties' policy capacity to react to contemporary challenges by examining configurations of their policy advisory systems (PAS).
Linking policy concepts (policy capacity, PAS etc.) with organisational theories of political parties (the cartel party theory and the integrated theory of party goals), it applies party policy advisory system model to different Czech parties. The findings shed light on the configuration of party policy advisory systems in various parties varying according to their dominant goal (vote-, office- etc. seeking) that is changing during time and under changing conditions.
The paper highlights some of the ways in which the linking public policy concepts and party organisation theories may offer important theoretical and empirical insights concerning the policy capacity.