Party youth organizations perform a key linkage function between the public (especially young voters) and political institutions (through political parties). However, the extent to which parties are responsive to young voters’ preferences depends on how much youth wings are able to influence their parent party. Among other factors, the internal organization of the youth wing is crucial for orchestrating such pressure.

This paper is the first to investigate two crucial features of youth wing organization. First, the formal decision-making powers granted to youth wing representatives in party bodies. Second, the organizational complexity and autonomy of the youth wing, including its resources.

Previous research has found that youth wings’ structures are related to the organizational culture of their parent party, which is also linked to party ideology. Accordingly, I expect youth wings’ structure – both in terms of formal powers and organizational complexity – to be affected by some characteristics of their parent party. I here focus on intra-party democracy, ideology, age, and size, to explore similarities and differences between youth wings and their parent party.

This paper relies on original data, resulting from the collection and coding of statutes of political parties and their youth wings in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. It aims to provide a cross-country map of party youth wing organization, which is still underexplored. Furthermore, by testing the correlation between youth wing organization and parent party features, it contributes to our understanding of intra-party structures and how they might affect party responsiveness.