Intra-Party Democracy and Party Responsiveness

This study examines whether parties respond to their supporters or to the median voter position. Party leaders require the support of the ‘selectorate’, which is defined as the group that has influence in party leadership selection. Inclusive parties, which rely on rank-and-file membership to select their leaders, will respond to their members. Exclusive parties, which rely on office-seeking members for leadership selection, will respond to the median voter position. Thus, intra-party institutions that (dis)enfranchise party members are crucial for understanding whether a party responds to their supporters (or to the median voter position). Using data from 1975–2003 for six West European countries, this article reports findings that inclusive parties respond to the mean party supporter position. While there is evidence that exclusive parties respond to the median voter position in two-party systems, this finding does not extend to multiparty systems. This study has implications for the understanding of intra-party institutions and political representation.     

Exploring the Basis of Declining Party Membership in Denmark: A Scandinavian Comparison*

Short-term changes in party membership figures have hypothetically been attributed to a connection between electoral success and membership effort. In the long-term, however, mass party organizations may be doomed to oudive themselves, since elections can be won by utilizing modern mass media techniques. Both assertions could more easily be falsified than confirmed in my study of Scandinavian party membership. After World War II. party membership in Scandinavia has steadily been increasing, except in Denmark where membership has continuously shrunk. Findings show that most rank-and-file party members are superfluous in electoral campaigns. But Die main function of party members is no longer campaigning. Instead, they are holding seats in a multitude of municipal councils, boards, and committees. This change is made possible mainly by two factors public party subsidies and the politicization of municipal elections. The causal link between these two factors is, however, not mechanical. Instead it depends on how many public subsidies are offered, the platforms of parties, and the number of seats needed in running the municipalities. In Denmark, public subsidies are unheard of and expensive public elections are held at least annually. Also, the number of supplied seats are few. Thus, if costs are high and rewards are few, then a membership decline is probable.     

Challenging the Leadership: The Party Conference as a Platform for Dissenting Membership Voice in British and Danish Parties of the Left

According to A. O. Hirschman, party members who are dissatisfied with their party's policy have two options: they can either leave the party (exit) or try to change party policy (voice). Research has shown that leadership control over policy is extremely high, leaving membership influence virtually non-existent. On that basis, exit seems the only viable membership reaction to dissatisfaction with party policy. Nevertheless, research has also shown that voice is of great importance to members; hence it is voice that will be the main focus of this article, which examines the circumstances under which party members are likely to opt for voice over exit and what factors are likely to hamper voice. Using a study of the Danish Socialist Peoples Party, the Danish Social Democrats and the British Labour Party, the article shows that despite the odds stacked against them, some party members do make use of the opportunities for voice offered by the party conference, but also that they often face significant obstacles in exercising it.     

Power in the Swedish Parliament

This article is based on a mail questionnaire sent to members of the Swedish parliament (the Riksdag) in 1988. To increase our understanding of how the institution works, an analysis of members' perceptions of the distribution of power within the Riksdag is undertaken. Members were asked (1) how influential various groups and bodies are, and (2) how influential these groups and bodies should be. The results show that members want more power to be given to parliamentary party groups, committees and MPs as individuals, and less power to the party leaders and the chiefs of staff, Differences in perceptions along partisan lines are small. However, members of the Greens - an anti-establishment party - are more oriented toward strengthening the influence of individual MPs and toward weakening the power of party leaders than are members of the established parties.     

The construction of party membership

While the collapse of party membership in the last half‐century has consumed much of the focus of party scholarship, the notion of membership itself is surprisingly under‐theorised. This article presents a tripartite framework for understanding party membership as a constructed concept: from the perspective of the state, the individual and the political party. As organisational mediators and strategic electoral actors, political parties construct varying notions of membership in order to mobilise resources and gain legitimacy, while balancing the participatory demands of citizens with the legal and normative expectations imposed by the state. Using a number of illustrative examples from Europe and beyond, the article analyses the development of supporters' networks and the extension of participatory opportunities to non‐members. Designed in part to address this membership decline and to offer individuals a different way of engaging with political parties, these initiatives are seen as a crucial step in the evolution of modern parties towards looser, more individualised and amorphous networks of affiliation.     

The polymorphic nature of party membership

Abstract. The article argues that party member activity differs in terms of the degree, type and quality of organizational involvement, a fact often ignored in comparative studies of party membership as well as in arguments about the democratic potential of political parties. The article first presents different perspectives adopted in the literature on party membership. Distinctions are made on the one hand between research treating membership as an independent or as a dependent variable, and on the other between research focusing on different levels of analysis - the country, the organization and the individual. To develop some empirical implications of these points, a survey of Norwegian party members is discussed in the second part. The emphasis here lies on the members'level of party activity and how to explain it. The conclusion is that whether or not the low level of member activity found in Norwegian parties is seen as a problem depends on which normative model of democracy is taken as a point of reference.     

The Local Party Organization and Its Members: Between Randomness and Rationality*

In this article we shall argue the importance of approaching the relationship between party organizations and party members by analyzing the interaction between characteristics of the national party system, the party organization as a more or less open or closed system, and the resources of individuals particularly conducive to party membership. We shall mainly discuss the organizational level, taking as a starting point different models from organizational theory: the rational behaviour model, the survival model, the bureaucratic model, and the symbolic action model. We apply these models in our search for how political parties seek to mobilize members. Examples illustrating the relevance of the different models are a warning to those who wish to develop a general theory of party organization.     

Between Opinion Leadership and 'Contract of Disagreement': The Norwegian Labour Party and the European Issue (1988-1994)

The Norwegian Labour Party elite advocated European Union membership in the 1994 referendum, but the party's members and voters were divided. This article examines the party leadership's conflict management strategies. The possible tradeoff between, on the one hand, seeking a given policy outcome (in this case, Norwegian membership of the EU), and, on the other, maximising votes and maintaining party cohesion, is focused upon. In the 1972 referendum on Norwegian membership of the European Community, Labour had failed to achieve any of these objectives. Electoral losses and party splits were avoided in 1994, but the main policy objective – EU membership — was still not reached. It is difficult to argue, however, that the Labour elite chose one goal at the expense of the others. This case study suggests that parties may try to reconcile seemingly incompatible objectives and to avoid choosing between goals. In addition, the results underline the importance of organisational learning and indicate that the strategies of both leadership and internal opposition should be included in research on party behaviour.     

Raising a big tent: Internal party composition and leadership selectorate expansion

The trend amongst many parties toward the inclusion of rank-and-file members in the leadership selection process has often been attributed to opposition status and electoral defeat. However, these explanations are typical events for parties and hardly seem sufficient for party elites to willingly cede their authority over the selection of party leaders. This paper proposes that the electoral regionalization of the party contributes to the decision to expand the leadership selectorate. In the event a party is defeated to an extent in which their support is reduced to its regional base, this situation necessitates the bringing in of new voices to avoid further marginalization. This paper finds that regionalization plays a significant role in the decision of parties to expand leadership selectorates and that the role of opposition status and electoral setbacks have been overstated.     

Labour's Lost Youth: Young People and the Labour Party's Youth Sections

Falling levels of membership and activism are threatening the Labour Party's status as a mass party. This problem has to be seen in the context of growing disillusionment with formal politics in Britain, especially among young people. If Labour continues to fail in socialising future generations of members and activists into its mission, its fate will be sealed. This article examines Labour's relationship with young people, with particular attention to the organisation of the Party's youth sections. It utilises the results of original research into the attitudes of young members to diagnose the problem of young people in the Labour Party, and assesses the prospects of meaningful reform.     

The effects of membership decline on party organisations in Europe

On election day, voters’ commitment is crucial for political parties, but between elections members are an important resource for party organisations. However, membership figures have been dropping across parties and countries in the last decades. How does this trend affect parties’ organisation? Following classics in party politics research as well as contemporary organisational theory literature, this study tests some of the most longstanding hypotheses in political science regarding the effects of membership size change. According to organisational learning theory, membership decline should induce an expansion of the party organisation. However, threat‐rigidity theory and the work of Robert Michels suggest that parties are downsizing their organisation to match the decline in membership size. To test the hypotheses, 47 parties in six European countries (Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom) are followed annually between 1960 and 2010 on key organisational characteristics such as finances, professionalism and complexity. A total of 1,922 party‐year observations are analysed. The results of multilevel modelling show that party membership decline triggers mixed effects. Declining membership size induces the employment of more staff, higher spending and a higher reliance on state subsidies. At the same time, it also triggers lower staff salaries and a reduction in the party's local presence. The findings indicate that today's parties are targeting an organisational structure that is custom‐made for the electoral moment every four years. Faced with lasting membership decline, the party organisation retracts its organisational resources and focuses more on election day. Members matter to parties, but votes matter more.     

A Wider Range of Friends: Multi‐speed Organising during the 2015 Labour Leadership Contest

The British Labour party's recent adoption of a partially open primary for the selection of its leader conforms to a trend seen across many European political parties of increasing rights and privileges in internal party decision‐making and expanding opportunities for more loosely affiliated supporters to participate in party activity. This dual trend can be seen as a response to changes in the membership environment, greater individualisation of political participation and growth in social movement politics and online activism. Yet as much as parties are responding to a changed membership environment, they are also driving that change, increasingly blurring the distinction between members and supporters. This article examines the recent impact of this change within the British Labour party and argues that, in line with Susan Scarrow's theory of ‘multi‐speed’ membership, the Labour party's experiment in expanding affiliation options has led directly to a tension in locating the source of authority within the party, creating a challenge for its new leader in accommodating his new supporters within his party's representative traditions.     

Building party organisations and the relevance of past models: The communist and socialist parties in Spain and Portugal

This article explores the development of the party organisations of the communist and socialist parties in contemporary Spain and Portugal. An attempt is made to answer the question of whether these parties resemble the western European mass party model of organisation, which is characterised by the representation and integration of a particular segment of society within the organisational structure. From the contrasting western and southern European paths towards democracy, a hypothesis is generated contending that the limited opportunities and the lack of necessity diminish the likelihood for southern European working‐class parties to build mass organisations. The empirical findings, analysing the nature and size of individual membership, as well as the nature of the linkages between parties and trade unions, reveal that, with the possible exception of the Portuguese communists, the classic mass party is not reproduced in southern Europe. At the same time, however, the model of the party as a membership organisation apparently has not lost its legitimacy.     

PARTICIPATION AND APATHY IN TRADE UNIONS

Abstract: Trade union concern with participation in industry and in public decision-making has stimulated further interest in unions' own internal decision-making processes. This paper notes the low level of active membership involvement in the formal democratic procedures of most unions notwithstanding the very extensive legal framework and regulatory machinery on which these procedures rest. It also notes the higher degree of participation that sometimes exists on a more informal level, particularly in matters which directly affect terms and conditions of employment. Conditions conducive to membership participation or apathy are discussed and the implications of stability of incumbent leaders for participation by rank and file members are considered.     

Buying Negative Agenda Control in the U.S. House

We explore the foundations of the legislative party cartel, as theorized by Cox and McCubbins (1993, 2005) , to determine how majority‐party moderates who suffer net policy losses from the majority leadership's use of negative agenda control are kept from defecting from the cartel arrangement. First, we identify formally the group of majority‐party members who are net policy losers. We find that those members occupying the initial 30% of the space within the majority‐party blockout zone—that space closest to the floor median—are hurt on a pure policy basis by the cartel arrangement. Second, we find that members in this “30% zone” are rewarded disproportionately by majority‐party leaders (relative to members in other intervals on the same side of the floor median) via side payments in the form of campaign contributions. In addition, majority‐party members within the 30% zone receive side payments commensurate with their particular policy loss.     

Are Party Activists the Party Extremists? The Structure of Opinion in Political Parties

In re-examining May's law of curvilinear disparity, this article analyzes the structure of opinion of political parties. May suggests that voters, party leaders and party activists have different incentives to participate in politics, and therefore voters and leaders have more moderate positions on issues than party activists. This article is based on the extensions of May's law made by Kitschelt, who argues that curvilinear disparities, although not general phenomena, are bound to occur in specific circumstances. We have focused on the level of cleavage conflict in the system, the variable that Kitschelt himself found to be critical for explaining party radicalism among sub-leaders. Using the Norwegian multiparty system as a test case, we propose that radicalism among party activists is conditioned by the relative saliency of different policy dimensions. The empirical analysis, which is based on surveys of MPs, party members and voters in connection with the general election of 1993, gives very little support to our proposition.     

I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends: Leveraging Campaign Resources to Maximize Congressional Power

Central to the study of Congress is the study of relationships among members. Electoral collaboration is a function of a member's position in the broader congressional power network. It allows members to leverage their campaign resources to achieve the four classic goals of members of Congress: reelection, making good public policy, obtaining power within the institution, and having one's party in the majority. Using nearly 3.2 million FEC records from 2010 to 2016, we explore the dynamics that influence electoral collaboration. We find members are most likely to collaborate electorally with other members from the same state, party, and committee, and the most electorally vulnerable. Further, party leaders share most frequently with the rank and file. These findings build upon our expanding understanding of congressional collaboration, the networks members of Congress form, and the congressional power structure members operate within.     

Why do only some people who support parties actually join them? Evidence from Britain

What makes people join a political party is one of the most commonly studied questions in research on party members. Nearly all this research, however, is based on talking to people who have actually joined parties. This article simultaneously analyses surveys of members of political parties in Britain and surveys of non-member supporters of those same parties. This uniquely enables us to model the decision to join parties. The results suggest that most of the elements that constitute the influential ‘General Incentives Model’ are significant. But it also reveals that, while party supporters imagine that selective benefits, social norms and opposing rival parties’ policies are key factors in members’ decisions to join a party, those who actually do so are more likely to say they are motivated by attachments to their party’s values, policies and leaders, as well as by an altruistic desire to support democracy more generally.     

New members as party modernisers: The case of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland

Amid the literature on members of political parties, surprisingly little has been written on the potential or actual impacts that can be made upon party strategy or policies by a rapid influx of new members. New joiners may have different outlooks and desires than long-standing members. Although already sympathetic to the party they are joining, new arrivals, if signing up in large numbers, may hold sufficiently revisionist views to be able to re-orientate a political party in a direction not previously taken. Using data from the first-ever membership survey of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland, the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly since 2003 and the fourth largest UK parliamentary party since 2005, this article analyses whether more recent joiners of the Party have brought greater pragmatism and moderation to an organisation previously dominated by hardline political, religious and ethnic attitudes. Modernisation from outsiders who become insiders can be a key aspect of party development. The DUP offers one of the stiffest tests of modernisation, given its history of opposition to moderation. This article shows that newer members have tempered beliefs in one of the most robustly ethno-religious parties in Europe.     

Demassified Mass Parties or Overloaded Cadre Parties? The Impact of Parties on Electoral Outcome in Finland*

This article examines the frequently cited hypothesis of the changes in modern party organizations towards the catch-all model, and of the attempt of political parties to counter threats of electoral failure by intensifying membership support. The results indicate that in Finland former mass parties have been demassified and cadre parties have been overloaded. However, there are differences in party alignments and in the internal organizational structure of the parties that make a strict application of the catch-all concept problematic The findings also give evidence of a threat of declining electoral success that has implications for the membership support in the parties in very special situations. The threat from other parties seems to have only little or no effect on the membership figures. But when this threat is combined with a steady erosion in the traditional social bases of the parties, then the party response can be strong for the purpose of widening the electoral market by personal influence, as was the case with the rural Center party in Finland.