In return for the varied participatory opportunities granted to their members, political parties typically ask little of them, and very few political parties impose any obligations upon their members to actually participate in intra-party processes or contribute resources (monetary or otherwise). Two exceptions are the Israeli Labour Party, which obligates its members to volunteer and make financial contributions to the party and the CSU in Germany, which expects its members to get involved and work for the party. However, it is unclear how these obligations are actually enforced.
The two areas of internal decision-making in which members are able to intervene the most at some point in the process are candidate and leadership selection. Most parties grant their members some kind of say, mostly via a formal active role (e.g. amendments) or by direct vote. It is less common for members to have a direct say in policy-making or the decision to participate in power-sharing arrangements, such as coalition governments. However, with the introduction of primaries in which supporters may also vote – for example, the Canadian Liberals’ 2013 leadership contest and in Israel, where open primaries for the selection of party leaders are now common, the impact members can have on party decisions vis-à-vis non-members is effectively diluted.
Despite being granted more rights in some decision-making processes, members’ attitudes towards the functioning of their party and intra-party democracy varies across both democracies and political parties. For example, party members in the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium hold generally positive attitudes, whereas members in Spain, of the larger catch-all parties in Germany and the PD in Italy are more sceptical of the functioning of internal party processes. Nevertheless, the most common sentiment expressed by party members is the desire for greater intra-party democracy – despite the increased participatory opportunities on offer. Whether we interpret this sentiment as a suggestion that members’ rights are ineffective, or marginalizing, or as an aspirational statement that intra-party politics ought to be done democratically – connecting membership rights in party statutes and membership satisfaction expressed in surveys tends to confirm the paradox of contemporary political parties, participation and democratic reforms.
2. Do Political Parties Still Have Members?
Party membership decline has been identified as a pervasive trend since the middle of the twentieth century. The consequences for political parties as representative agents are potentially severe, as falling membership numbers could potentially indicate a weakening of the role of parties as mechanisms of linkage between societies and the state. On the other hand, falls in membership could also be the product of more accurate record-keeping on the part of political parties, as occurred in Norway, perhaps also accompanied by an abandonment of the practice of over-inflating membership figures. In any case, the country experts warn of the dangers of using ‘objective’ membership figures, often uncritically provided by the parties.
While decline is certainly the general picture, our data reveal a far more complex and nuanced pattern of membership fluctuation in each of the ten democracies. For example, the steepest periods of decline have not all occurred simultaneously. In the UK and Israel, the greatest losses have occurred since 2000, whereas in Norway, Belgium and Germany the most significant period of decline started a decade in earlier. In the Netherlands, party memberships have stabilized and have even experienced some growth since 2006, whereas in Spain they have been increasing since the restoration of democracy (late 1970s). Israeli political parties have seen a moderate increase in their memberships since 2012.
It is also misleading to assume that this decline has affected all political parties equally. The German and Belgian Greens are two examples of political parties that have managed to stabilize, if not increase their membership. Smaller political parties, regional parties (the SNP and the Regionalists in Belgium), parties of the extreme right (UKIP), and newer political parties (such as DF and EL in Denmark) have experienced membership increases in recent years. Perhaps indicating changing patterns of support and citizen engagement with parties, it is the traditional ‘mass parties’, such as the social democrats and the Christian democrats, which are suffering from the most pervasive membership declines.
Shorter-term patterns of membership fluctuation also say something of the changing nature of party membership in certain democracies. For example, since the adoption of party primaries for leadership selection in Canada and Israel, we observe significant cyclic fluctuations in membership numbers, with thousands of citizens joining political parties in the lead up to leadership contests and then letting their memberships lapse afterwards. In these countries party membership appears to take on a more instrumental character – as an expression of support for a particular leadership candidate and the opportunity to influence a leadership contest – rather than a signifier of a shared political ideology.
Finally, when looking at membership numbers in the longer term, large membership parties might be regarded as the exception rather than the norm. As Scarrow (2014) notes, they were rare before WWII, and as the cases under study in this paper demonstrate, mass membership parties have largely disappeared again since the 1990s. Hence their development in the 1960s and 1970s would appear to be an outlier in this more general longitudinal pattern. Yet, assessments of party decline all tend to refer to this period of inflated membership numbers as the yardstick, most probably under the normative influence of the mass party model. A more critical examination of longer-term trends in membership, detached from the normative perspectives held by parties, citizens and political scientists, suggests that current membership numbers could be a sign of normalization rather than decline.
3. Why Join Political Parties?
Despite the diversity of formal conditions for party membership, as well as the significant variations in membership numbers, those who join political parties – often regardless of the party that they join – share much in common. The first of these similarities can be found in the reasons for joining. Party members everywhere are generally motivated by policy incentives and political values, rather than by private benefits and to a lesser extent, social norms. In each of the democracies surveyed in this paper, ideological incentives dominated party members’ reasons for joining. This was the case for members of all party types, with only a few exceptions, for example the PS in Belgium – where less than 50% of members joined for ideological reasons.
Overall, process incentives take second place to ideology as a motivating factor and (as a reasonably wide ranging category) also reflect a greater diversity of motivations for political involvement. For example, social reasons (for example, the maintenance of social networks and family traditions) are more important for members of the older, larger parties in Denmark and the Netherlands – demonstrating the continuing influence and effect of the historical links between political parties and social groups in these democracies. In contrast, while process incentives were also more important for Green Party members in the UK (in contrast to the other UK parties), this was seen by members in terms of the rewards gained from being part of the process of politics. Except for the PSOE in Spain (of which 85% of members reported joining for such reasons) and the Belgian pillar parties, material incentives (personal rewards such as career advancement) were – amongst all democracies – not a significant motivating factor in the decision to join a political party.
Motivations for joining have been at the heart of the research on party membership. This is probably the area that has been most theorized under the influence of the literature on political participation and rational choice models. Today, explanatory models of the reasons for joining a party go well beyond narrow rational choice models (Whiteley and Seyd 1996). These models have been successfully tested, and the results definitely shed some light on why citizens may choose to join a political party. Yet, these models are not safe from methodological issues linked to recall problems, social desirability of some answers, and biases related to response rates and lack of information on non-joiners or ex-joiners. Furthermore, in a political landscape shifting from popular representation (via relatively fixed party ideologies) to ex-post forms of accountability (van Biezen 2014), it may be worthwhile re-interrogating the nature of ideological incentives as a motivating factor for joining parties. Looking ahead, this topic could benefit from a renewal, for example by mobilizing alternative data collection methods such as interviews, biographies, or social network analysis.
4. Who are Party Members?
In addition to their motivations for joining political parties, members are remarkably similar in their social characteristics. A typical party member, irrespective of the country in which they reside, or the party to which they belong, is an older male who is more highly educated and better off financially than the general population (Table 4). Nonetheless, an aggregate level analysis obscures some of the diversity that is found within particular party systems. The socio-demographic characteristics of party members raise important issues regarding the representativeness of this body of citizens.
The political parties covered in this paper count on average a third of female members, which is a comparable result to Scarrow and Gezgor’s findings based on population surveys (2010). Nevertheless, this hides significant differences across countries and parties. In the UK, Canada, or Norway, women make up about 40% of party members, 35% in Israel and only 26% in Italy or 28% in Germany and the Netherlands. Across the democracies, we see that gender imbalance is greatest amongst the parties to the right of the political scale, whereas parties on the left tend to have a higher proportion of women. In the UK, for example, the Liberal Democrats perform best – at about 50% women – and the SNP perform worst (at about one third). In Norway, the Socialist Left members are younger and more likely to be female (53%). In the Netherlands, the PvdA and the GL have more women, but the Political Reform Party SGP are almost entirely male (5% of female members) – reflecting the party’s belief that women shouldn’t play a role in politics and public life.
The average age of party members in our sample of parties is 53 years old. About a third (29%) is above 65 years old, which means that retirees are over-represented in political parties and very few members could be described as young. The Italian Democratic Party counts the highest proportion of retired members, with 88.1% of members over 65. On average, parties covered in this paper count less than 15% of members below 35 years old (13.4%). For example, in Canada fewer than 5% of party members are under 30, and in the Netherlands, two parties count only 2% of members under 35 (the Christian Democratic Party and the Democrats ’66). In Belgium this trend is driven by the mass-based pillar parties, and in Norway those parties with a higher proportion of younger members tend to be on the periphery of the political system. Interestingly, and as we might expect, the M5S in Italy has a relatively young membership (almost 30% of party members are under 35). Some of the party’s unique organizational features, such as a strong online presence and flexible membership, may well serve to attract a younger group of supporters. The Danish Red-Green Alliance is another exception, with 33.2% of members under 35, which makes it an exceptionally young party.
Although party members are generally better educated (56.5% with higher education) and have a higher income than the general population, these characteristics vary between political parties, from 24.6% of members with higher education degrees among the Italian M5S, to 87.5% among the Danish Social Liberals.
Predictably, religious attendance and identification is also a point of diversity within party systems, with conservative and faith-based political party members having a stronger religious orientation. Occupation is tied closely to party membership: public sector employment is greater in political parties of the left, and private sector employment is tied more closely to parties of the right.
Our comparative analysis of the profile of party members confirms that fact that they are not socially representative of the larger population. It also provides further evidence for the law of increasing disproportion (Aberbach, Putnam, and Rockman 1981), which states that social discrepancies increase with political responsibilities and involvement. Clearly, in this regard, members belong to a social elite if not fully to a political elite (Seyd and Whiteley 1992). As Anders Widfeldt (1995) points out, this may have consequences for party campaign strategies, as unrepresentative members could face difficulties in acting as ambassadors to a community they don’t fully belong to, or in communicating with people who they don’t usually interact with. More generally, it potentially threatens the ability of political parties to form policy positions that relate to and reflect the wishes of a diverse electorate – if we assume that members play some role in the process.
5. What do Party Members Think?
In each of our cases, surveys provide information on the attitudes and opinions held by party members. As the various national surveys used different attitudinal scales, a full comparison across all 57 parties on the positions and cohesiveness of party members is not possible at this stage. Nonetheless, some key general trends are apparent and are of significant comparative interest.
In contrast to the literature on policy convergence between political parties (Klingemann and Volkens 2002; Keman and Pennings 2004) and in rebuttal to some of the concerns regarding the consequences of a lack of representativeness of party members expressed above, the membership surveys analyzed in this paper suggest that party members hold diverse political and policy views, which span the political spectrum. Parties have distinct ideological bases and therefore continue to offer members and voters a choice between competing political programs. The views and opinions of party members continue to reflect traditional cleavages and the ideological origins of the parties, as well as their descendants (for example, in Italy). How members position themselves on a left-right scale is consistent with how their parties are placed within the party system (see also Krouwel 2012). Differences between parties on important issues vary by country and by issue. In Spain for example, moral issues are the most polarizing, whereas difference on immigration, law and order, welfare, and the environment are smaller. Therefore, if we cross our findings concerning low levels of social representativeness with these results on the high political representativeness of party members, we can say that, based on an analysis of their membership, most parties covered in this paper are idealistic parties, rather than demographic or (un)representative parties (Widfeldt 1995: 144).
Furthermore, engaging with both the debates on representativeness and on party membership decline, if we look at trends over time, Scarrow and Gezgor (2010) emphasize that membership decline did not create less socially representative parties. Similarly, Widfeldt (1999) found that membership decline did not generate politically unrepresentative parties: parties are no ‘insular sects’ in terms of political attitudes of their members. Our findings go in the same direction: party membership decline does not necessarily imply a break in representative linkage via party members.
Moving beyond mere positions (means on attitudinal scales), the results of the membership surveys also reveal something on the degree of cohesion within political parties, via the standard deviations. Parties are not homogeneous ideological blocs, and members sometimes find themselves at odds with other members’ views or their party’s official position on certain issues (van Haute and Carty 2011). It appears to be more so the case for certain party families. In the countries covered in this paper, the parties from the Green family tend to display higher levels of cohesiveness. This is the case in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, the UK, and Norway. To a lesser extent, it is apparent in some (centre)-right parties in Norway or Canada. On the other end of the scale, some families display lower levels of internal cohesion. This occurs most frequently within nationalist or ethnic and regional parties, but also within populist parties. In Italy, for example, M5S members are far more heterogeneous than the SEL or the PD. It is sometimes also the case of social democratic parties, such as the Socialist Party in Belgium or the NDP in Canada. The level of cohesion also varies significantly depending on the issues at stake. For example, the Dutch Political Reform Party is the most cohesive Dutch party on moral issues, but the least cohesive on issues connected to the environment.
These findings on the level of cohesiveness of parties complement the growing literature on legislative cohesion (Andeweg 2013) and ideological congruence (Golder and Stramski 2010), highlighting the potential synergies between these fields. Within legislative studies, more and more research is being undertaken on group cohesion in terms of attitudes (Close 2014), which is then used to explain voting behavior in parliament (Kam 2001; Andeweg and Thomassen 2011). Similar arguments concerning the variability of issue-related cohesion are also made (Pennings and Keman 2002; Willumsen 2010). Utilizing these research synergies could usefully expand the scope and relevance of party membership studies. More comparative membership surveys using common scales would add to the debates on intraparty cohesiveness, policy development and elite decision-making, and to the literature on ideological factionalism (Bettcher 2005; Boucek 2009; Close 2014).
6. What do Party Members Do?
One of the most paradoxical characteristics of party members is that they are, for the most part, inactive. On average, for the parties and countries covered in this paper, 47.9% of their members are classed as inactive: they declare that they dedicate no time at all to party activities. Again, however, this hides large variations across parties, from 17.6% of inactive members amongst the German Linke, to 79.0% of inactive members among the Dutch Reform Party (SGP). The activity level seems to be correlated to the age structure of the party, although it would require more systematic comparable data to support the argument. Coupled with the limited amount of time spent on party activities, there is a general preference amongst party members for non-time consuming activities. In Israel, for example, party members are less active in high intensity activities: party meetings, attending rallies and fundraising.
This low level of activity is in direct contradiction with several membership trends that we previously discussed, which in our opinion, forms the basis of the paradox of modern political parties. Whilst party members may have been given more participatory opportunities (Krouwel 2012), successive membership surveys indicate that they typically do not take them up. At the same time, surveys also indicate that many party members are not satisfied with intra-party democracy and the functioning of their party, and that most want greater intra-party democracy and participatory opportunities. Does dissatisfaction with intra-party functioning lead to disengagement, or are inactive members more critical whilst never having been actively involved in the party? This is a paradox that can only be disentangled through future membership studies and the collection of more dynamic data (such as ethnographic research) that can shed let light on the causal mechanisms at stake.
Although the majority of party members could be described as inactive (that is, they attend few, if any, party meetings and spend less than 10 hours per month on party activities), nevertheless, there is also a strong core of active members. In Norway and Denmark, for example, a majority of party members talk to non-members about party policies, acting as party ambassadors. In Norway almost 20% hold public office, meaning that Norwegian party members constitute a fairly active link between state and society. In Italy, all party members report spending between 2-5 hours on party activities each week. In the Netherlands, 36% of the VVD members consider themselves fairly active. Given that only party delegates were surveyed in the Spanish party member surveys, we might expect higher levels of participatory activity amongst these individuals. This expectation is borne out by the survey evidence, which shows that only 10% of Spanish party delegates spend no time at all on party activities. Furthermore, around 70-80% attend local party meetings every month, which is very high by international comparison. Here too, we need better and more systematic common tools to measure the various types of activities members engage in. This is a prerequisite if we want to go beyond a mere description of activity levels, to reflect newer and arguably more relevant participatory modes and activities (such as internet-based activism), and if we want to develop multilevel explanatory models of party activism.
Finally, analysis of the data provided highlights that there are important differences between political parties as to the level of membership participation, reflecting organizational differences, ideology and the legislative position of a political party. In Canada, for example, Liberal Party members were most active at the time at which the survey was conducted – a finding that reflects the fact that their party was in government. Cross-nationally, higher levels of membership activity are typically found in parties of the left (socialist, social democratic and green), reflecting the ideological ethos of these organizations. The structures themselves also shape opportunities for membership activity: in Italy, for example, whilst PD and SEL members are more active in what could be described as traditional activities (such as meeting attendance and leafleting), M5S members are engaged more in web-based activities. Again, these results emphasize that, with more comparable data, we could bring better explanations of these country and party differences.
7. The Future for Political Parties and Party Membership Research
Political parties have been recruiting members for over a century, but only relatively recently has this become an object of scholarly study. Most of the interest in party membership as a research topic has been generated in the last two decades – and has fuelled, and been fuelled by – a large theoretical debate on party decline and the subsequent challenges for representative democracy. Yet, there are numerous aspects of the dynamics of party membership that are still not well understood today. This paper has been an attempt to consolidate and analyze what we already know about party membership, and to evaluate what we don’t know in order to pave the path for new research and new perspectives on party membership. What is the best way forward for party membership research in this dynamic context? What should be revised or done differently? What could be the new avenues for research and the next research priorities? Which new theoretical perspectives could be brought in? How might the next round of data on party engagement best be collected?
Today, we have a good idea of who party members are and what they think, although our knowledge is largely limited to advanced industrial democracies. We know that members are not necessarily socially representative of the population, but that they are ideologically representative of their party. Across all parties, they cover the width of the ideological spectrum. Therefore, party members and activists tend to perform better as tools of ideological linkage rather than achieving social representativeness. Yet, even on the ‘who joins’ and ‘what opinion’ questions, we need more comparable survey data in order to further explore the implications of these conclusions for a broader range of democracies. This is especially the case regarding political attitudes, where there is a need to go beyond positions and attitudes per se – looking to intra- party cohesion to shed further light on ideological conflict, factionalism and intra- party divisions.
We also have a better understanding of why people join political parties. The General Incentives Model is one of the rare theoretical developments specific to the study of party membership and activism, which has been successfully tested and replicated in various contexts. However, it does not fully uncover the dynamics of membership involvement. In this regard, alternate data collection methods could bring additional insights into the phenomenon of joining parties and being active – such as interviews, biographies and social network analysis. These methods might shed greater light on some of the causal mechanisms at play in paradox of parties as participatory organizations, and allow for the testing of complementary explanations that depart from the individual-level perspective and investigate meso-level factors, for instance how mobilization occurs and the role of social networks or satellite organizations.
Lastly, existing membership surveys provide some insights on what party members do, including the fact that a large proportion of party members are inactive. However, if surveys provide a rather good picture of the intensity of intra-party participation, they do not provide a systematic account of the nature of that participation, as well as the type of activities that members engage in. Do members of different profiles (for example, younger members) engage in different activities? Do parties create different incentives or baits to attract different types of members (Ware 1992)? Furthermore, because of the lack of comparable data on the nature of intra-party participation, existing data is often only used for descriptive purposes rather than to test explanatory models. More comparable data would help us go beyond the mere description of activism and allow us to develop multi-level explanatory models of party activism.
In order to bring party membership surveys into the future, we need to consider a more diverse array of participatory activities that better reflects both the nature of contemporary party organizations and changing patterns of participation – moving, for example, beyond attendance at local branch meetings, which has stood a key measure of partisan engagement for three decades. Theoretical perspectives and research methods from the fields of online and social movement activism would be invaluable in rethinking forms of partisan activity.
Finally, the existing data does not facilitate a dynamic analysis of party membership. Do members join, become increasingly active and then withdraw from partisan activity? Do political parties always host two types of members (active and inactive)? A dynamic, longitudinal perspective would allow for a better connection between attitudes and behaviours – also allowing for a more thorough analysis of inactivity. How do members react to dissatisfaction? Do they voice it or do they react with silence and disengagement?
If our knowledge of party membership has greatly improved in the last two decades, there are still large areas of unknown territory. As Heidar (2007) has pointed out, our knowledge is still kaleidoscopic and suffers from the three shortcomings. In our opinion these have not significantly changed in the intervening years since the observations were made. First, the existing studies are generally one-party or one- country studies, at one point in time. This paper has been the fist attempt to bring these various studies together in a systematic way. Very little comparative or longitudinal work has been done so far. As shown above, party membership surveys would gain tremendously by being developed in a consistent way – with an eye to comparative and longitudinal analysis. Obtaining better comparative membership data would also allow us to better utilize existing datasets. There has been a recent increase in comparative large-scale data collection projects on political parties, with new datasets covering the system-level (comparative data on party law, party regulation and party financing), and the party-level (party organization, leadership and candidate selection) (see Scarrow and Webb 2013; Pilet and Cross 2014). Connecting the individual-level data from membership surveys and mixing datasets would bring our understanding of parties and their members and activists several steps further.
Second, comparatively, the use of alternative, more qualitative data collection methods is much less developed in the study of party membership and activism. The survey method as the dominant methodological tool does not allow us to fully grasp party membership as a relationship or dynamic process involving both a demand-side (parties) and a supply-side (members). In addition to comparative longitudinal surveys, qualitative research may be one avenue to further explore the changing nature of participation within political parties – bringing insights into the demand side of party membership, how mobilization occurs and into the relationship between the attitudes and activities of members and the organizational structures that encapsulate them. Interviews, ethnography, social network analysis and observation could be developed for data collection and analysis. New insights could be gained by adopting some of the ethnographic methodologies that have constituted the mainstream of French party scholarship (see for example, Aït-Aoudia et al. 2010; Faucher-King 2005), and which have subsequently been applied to studies of extreme right activists in Italy (Dechezelles 2008) and party rallies in Latin America (Szwarcberg 2014). These studies have shown how diverse events such as party conferences and rallies contribute to organizational building, the circulation of information, grassroots mobilization, the socialization of activists and the construction of experiences through rituals. These more qualitative methods are very well suited to study the microscopic foundations of parties as political institutions, as well as the practices, processes, rituals, construction of images and communities, or the implicit meanings, skills, desires and emotions of party actors.
Third, most of the existing work is only weakly theoretically grounded, or repetitively anchored in theories of political participation. The direct consequence is that existing models do not shed light on what is happening inside parties once members have joined: How does the relationship work? Do parties and members remain loyal to each other? Do they face conflicts? How do they cope with tensions? How and when does the story end up in a divorce? The primary focus is on the individual act of joining, and it does not contribute significantly to the understanding of parties as organizations. Party organization scholars, on the other hand, have for long only given party membership a passing attention. Recently, however, interest has emerged for the study of recruitment strategies of parties (Scarrow 1994; Childs and Webb 2011), on intra-party democracy and the role of members and activists (Cross and Katz 2013), especially in the leadership and candidate selection processes. However, little comparative empirical work has been done in these areas. Integrating the new comparative datasets on these topics (mentioned above) could re-join the literature on institutions, party organizations, with membership as a form of participation. Multi- level explanatory models could be developed. New questions could be investigated, such as whether regulation (at the system or the party level) impact membership levels and activism, or whether looser conception of affiliation impacts membership attitudes (Kosiara-Pedersen, Scarrow and van Haute 2014).
What we have presented here is an ambitious list of topics, approaches and synergies to be developed in the field of party membership. This paper has shown us that while members and activists still matter in modern day politics, they are both playing different roles and interacting with their respective parties in a way that no longer matches the expectations of the mass party model of politics. In an era that is often portrayed as heralding the terminal decline of political parties, understanding the nature of party membership and engagement provides crucial insights – not only into the adaptive capabilities of political parties – but also into the relationship between modern day citizens and their representative and participatory institutions. It is our hope that scholars working in the fields of comparative party politics and participation will take these challenges for research forward into the future.
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Appendix
Table 1. List of parties
Country Acronym Full name Translation Party family Belgium PC Parti Communiste Communist Party (Former) Communist Christian Democratic / Belgium (FL) CD&V Christen- Democratisch en Vlaams Christian Democrat and Flemish Religious Belgium (FL) Groen Groen Green Ecology Belgium (FL) LDD Libertair, Direct, Democratisch Libertarian, Direct, Democratic Liberal Belgium (FL) N-VA Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie New Flemish Alliance Ethnic and Regional Open Vlaamse Liberalen en Belgium (FL) OpenVLD Democraten Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats Liberal Belgium (FL) SP.a Socialistische Partij - anders Social Progressive Alternative Social Democratic Belgium (FL) VB Vlaams Belang Flemish Interest National Belgium (FL) VU Volksunie People's Union Ethnic and Regional Christian Democratic / Belgium (FR) CDH Centre démocrate humaniste Democrat Humanist Centre Religious Belgium (FR) Ecolo Ecolo Ecologists Ecology Fédéralistes démocrates Belgium (FR) FDF francophones Federalists, Democrats, Francophones Ethnic and Regional Belgium (FR) MR Mouvement réformateur Reform Movement Liberal Belgium (FR) PS Parti socialiste Socialist Party Social Democratic Belgium (FR) RWF Rassemblement Wallonie-France Reunion Wallonia-France Ethnic and Regional Canada NDP New Democratic Party New Democratic Party Social Democratic Canada BQ Bloc Québécois Bloc Quebecois Ethnic and Regional Canada PC Progressive Conservative Party Progressive Conservative Party Conservative Country Acronym Full name Translation Party family Canadian Alliance (formerly Reform Canadian Alliance (formerly Reform Canada CA Party) Party) Conservative Canada Liberals Liberal Party Liberal Party Liberal Canada Conservatives Conservative Party Conservative Party Conservative Denmark KD Kristendemokraterne Christian Democrats Christian Democratic Denmark DF Dansk Folkeparti Danish People’s Party National Denmark EL Enhedslisten – de rød/grønne Red-Green Alliance (Former) communist Denmark KF Det Konservative Folkeparti Conservative People’s Party Conservative Denmark LA Liberal Alliance Liberal Alliance Liberal Denmark RV Det Radikale Venstre Social Liberals Liberal Denmark SD Socialdemokraterne Social Democrats Social Democratic Denmark SF SF Socialistisk Folkeparti Socialist People’s Party Ecology/Social Democratic Denmark V Venstre Liberals Liberal Christlich Demokratische Union Christian Democratic Union of Christian Democratic / Germany CDU Deutschlands Germany Religious Christian Democratic / Germany CSU Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern Christian Social Union in Bavaria Religious Germany FDP Freie Demokratische Partei Free Democratic Party Liberal Germany Grüne Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Alliance '90/The Greens Ecology Germany Linke Die Linke The Left (Former) Communist Sozialdemokratische Partei Germany SPD Deutschlands Social Democratic Party of Germany Social Democratic Israel Herut Herut Herut National Israel Jewish Home HaBayit HaYehudi Jewish Home Religious Israel Kadima Kadima Kadima Liberal Israel Labour Mifleget Ha'Avoda Israeli Labour Party Social Democratic Country Acronym Full name Translation Party family Israel Liberal Party HaMiflaga HaLiberalit Liberal Party Liberal Israel Likud Likud Likud National Israel Maki Miflaga Komonistit Yisraelit Israel Communist Party Communist Israel Mapai Mifleget Poalei Eretz-Yisrael Israel Workers Party Social Democratic Israel Mapam Mifleget Po'alim Meuchedet United Workers Party Social Democratic Israel Meretz Meretz Meretz Social Democratic Israel NRP Miflaga Datit Leumit National Religious Party Religious Israel Tzomet Tzomet Tzomet National Israel Yesh Atid Yesh Atid Yesh Atid Liberal Yisrael Israel Beitenu Yisrael Beitenu Israel Our Home National Christian Democratic / Italy DC Democrazia Cristiana Christian Democratic Party Religious Italy PCI Partito Comunista Italiano Italian Communist Party (Former) Communist Ethnic and Regional / Italy LN Lega Nord Northern League Populist Italy AN Alleanza Nazionale National Alliance Conservative Italy FI Forza Italia Forward Italy Liberal/populist Italy PDL Popolo della Libertà People of Freedom Liberal/populist Italy PD Partito Democratico Democratic Party Social Democratic Italy PDS-DS Partito Democratico della Sinistra Democratic Party of the Left Social Democratic Italy M5S MoVimento Cinque Stelle Five Stars Movement Other / Populist Italy SEL Sinistra Ecologia Libertà Left and Freedom (Former) Communist Social Democratic / Italy IDV Italia dei Valori Italy of Values Populist Italy UDC Unione di Centro Union of the Centre Christian Democratic Country Acronym Full name Translation Party family Netherlands 50PLUS 50plus Party for the Elderly Special issue: elderly Netherlands CDA Christen Democratisch Appèl Christian Democratic Party Christian Democratic Netherlands CU ChristenUnie Christian Union Christian orthodox Netherlands D66 Democraten ‘66 Democrats ‘66 Social-liberal Netherlands GL GroenLinks Geen Left Ecology Netherlands PvdA Partij van de Arbeid Labour Party Social Democratic Netherlands PvdD Partij voor de Dieren Animal Party Special issue: animals Netherlands PVV Partij voor de Vrijheid Freedom Party Liberal/populist Netherlands SGP Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij Political Reformed Party Christian orthodox Netherlands SP Socialistische Partij Socialist Party Socialist Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Netherlands VVD Democratie Liberal Party Liberal Norway Ap Arbeiderpartiet Labour party Social Democratic Norway FrP Fremskrittspartiet The Progress Party Norway Herut Høyre The Conservative Party Conservative Christian Democratic / Norway KrF Kristelig Folkeparti Christian People’s Party Religious Norway Sp Senterpartiet Centre party Social Democratic / Norway SV Sosialistisk Venstreparti Socialist Left Party Ecology Norway V Venstre The Liberal Party Liberal Spain AP/PP Alianza Popular / Partido Popular People’s Alliance / People’s Party Conservative Ethnic and Regional / Spain BNG Bloque Nacionalista Galego Galician Nationalist Bloc Social Democratic Ethnic and Regional / Spain CC Coalición Canaria Canarian Coalition Liberal Country Acronym Full name Translation Party family Convergència Democràtica de Ethnic and Regional / Spain CDC Catalunya Democratic Convergence of Catalonia Liberal Spain CDS Centro Democrático y Social Democratic and Social Centre Liberal Ethnic and Regional / Spain ERC Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya Republican Left of Catalonia Social Democratic Partido Comunista de España / Spain PCE/IU Izquierda Unida Spanish Communist Party / United Left (Former) Communist Ethnic and Regional / Spain PNV Partido Nacionalista Vasco Basque Nationalist Party Christian Democrat Ethnic and Regional / Spain PSC Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya Socialists’ Party of Catalonia Social Democratic Spain PSOE Partido Socialista Obrero Español Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party Social Democratic Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya / Iniciativa per Catalunya Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia / Ethnic and Regional / Spain PSUC/ICV Verds Iniciative for Catalonia Greens Communist Spain UCD Unión de Centro Democrático Union of the Democratic Centre Liberal Ethnic and Regional / Spain UDC Unió Democràtica de Catalunya Democratic Union of Catalonia Christian Democratic Spain UPyD Unión Progreso y Democracia Union, Progress and Democracy Liberal Ethnic and Regional / UK SNP Scottisch National Party Scottisch National Party Social Democratic UK UKIP United Kingdom Independence Party United Kingdom Independence Party National UK Conservatives Conservative Party Conservative Party Conservative UK Labour Labour Party Labour Party Social Democratic UK LibDem Liberal Democrats Liberal Democrats Liberal UK Greens Green Party Green Party Ecology
Table 2. Criteria and conditions for party membership - Comparative overview (N=77)
Criteria Average Fee* €45.4 Range of fee €3.3 - €299 Special reduced fee 77.3% Age limit 71.1% Range of age limit 13 – 18 Exclusivity 77.9% Principles 96.1% Probation 34.4% Sponsor 9.4% Individual membership 100.0% Collective membership 14.7% Supportership 45.8% Note: * exchange rates as of 2014/05/14; for parties applying different fees depending on the section or the level of income, the party fee reflects the average fee
Table 3. Rights and obligations of party members – Comparative overview (N=58)
Direct participation to Congress 40.0% Candidate selection No role 20.7% Formal active role and/or right to vote 58.6% Via delegation 20.7% Leadership selection No role 14.0% Formal active role and/or right to vote 54.4% Via delegation 31.6% Electoral manifesto No role 42.6% Formal active role and/or right to vote 27.8% Via delegation 29.6% Participation to power No role 55.5% Formal active role and/or right to vote 14.8% Via delegation 29.7%
Table 4. Social profile of party members – Comparative overview (N=57)
Average % Female 33.3 Range 5 – 53 Average % below 35 13.4 Range 2 – 33.2 Average % above 65 29.0 Range 2.5 – 88.1 Mean age 53 years old Average % higher education 56.5 Range 24.6 – 87.5
Table 5. Party membership cycles – Canada
Liberals Conservatives NDP Canadian Alliance/Reform Year Members Year Members Year Members Year Members
25
2002 100,000 1997 12,000 2001 57,000 1999 71,000 2003* 531,000 1998* 90,555 2002* 80,000 2000* 204,333 2004** 250,000 1999 18,682 2001 64,000 2005 92,000 2000** 30,000 2011 90,000 2002* 124,264 2006* 188,400 2012* 128,351 2003 80,000
2012 55,000 2013* 127,261 * Leadership election year ** General election year
26
Figure 1. Party membership (objective measure; absolute numbers and M/E figures) – Britain 1952-2012
4 12
3.5 10 10.6 3 9.8 8 2.5
2 6
1.5 5.5 4 1 3.9 0.9 2 0.5 2.1 1.5 0 0 1952 1962 1972 1982 1992 2002 2012
Number of party members (millions) Party members as a percentage of the electorate (M/E)
Sources: McGuiness 2012; Annual party statements of accounts, Electoral Commission (electoral commission.org.uk); media accounts; author’s own data.
Figure 2. Party membership (objective measure; absolute numbers and M/E figures) – Norway 1955 – 2012
500000 18
450000 17 15 16 16 400000 13 14 350000 13 12 300000 10 250000 8 200000 (M/E) 7 6 150000
Number of party members members of party Number 5 5 100000 4
50000 2
0 0 Party members as a percentage of the electorate electorate of the percentage as a members Party 1955 1965 1973 1981 1989 1993 2001 2012
Number of party members M/E
Source: www.projectmapp.eu
27
Figure 3. Party membership (objective measure; absolute numbers and M/E figures) – Denmark 1945-2012
Source : www.projectmapp.eu
Figure 4. Party membership (objective measure; absolute numbers and M/E figures) – Germany 1949-2013
2,500,000# 5.0#
4.5#
2,000,000# 4.0#
3.5#
1,500,000# 3.0#
2.5#
1,000,000# 2.0# (M/E)#
1.5#
500,000# 1.0# Number#of#Party#Members#(M)# 0.5#
0# 0.0# Party##Members#as##Percentage#of#Electorate#
Number#of#Party#Members# M/E#
Source: Spier 2014 (with further references).
28
Figure 5. Party membership (objective measure; absolute numbers and M/E figures) – The Netherlands 1946-2012
900,000# 16# 800,000# 14# 700,000# 12# 600,000# 10# 500,000# 8# 400,000# 6# 300,000# 4# 200,000# electorate#(M/E)#
Number#of#party#members# 100,000# 2# 0# 0# Party#members#as#percentage#of#the#
number#of#party#members# M/E#
Source: Voermand and Van Schuur 2011. www.dnpp.nl
Figure 6. Party membership figures (objective measure; absolute numbers and M/E figures) – Belgium 1946-2010 700,000# 12.00# 11.11# 600,000# 10.00# 9.64#9.70# 9.31# 9.30# 8.83# 8.88# 500,000# 8.71# 7.90# 8.00# 7.62# 400,000# 6.71# 6.84# 6.72# 6.22# 5.87# 6.00# 300,000# 5.27# 4.80# 5.03#4.81# 4.45# 4.01# 4.00# 200,000#
2.00# 100,000#
0# 0.00#
Number#of#Party#Members# M/E#
Note: Total number of party members (M) sometimes calculated with missing values (1946, 1949, 1950: French- speaking and Flemish Liberals; 1958, 1961: French-speaking Liberals; 1965: FDF and French-speaking and Flemish Liberals; 1968: FDF and French-speaking Liberals; 1971, 1995, 1999, 2003: FDF; 2007: FDF) Note: For some election years, data is an estimate based on the previous year, the next year, or an average between the two (17 cells out of 210). Source: www.projectmapp.eu
29
Figure 7. Party membership (objective measure; absolute numbers and M/E figures) – Spain 1977-2004*
1400000$ 4,0$ 3,6$ 3,7$ 3,4$ 1200000$ 3,2$ 3,5$ 2,9$ 3,0$ 1000000$ 2,6$ 2,4$ 2,5$ 800000$ 2,1$ 1,9$ 2,0$ (M/E)& 600000$ 1,2$ 1,5$
400000$ 1,0$ Number&of&party&members&(M)&
200000$ 0,5$ Party&members&as&a&percentatge&of&the&electorate& 0$ 0,0$ 1977$ 1978$ 1980$ 1981$ 1983$ 1985$ 1987$ 1988$ 1989$ 1991$ 1992$ 1993$ 1994$ 1995$ 1996$ 1997$ 2000$ 2004$
Number$of$party$members$(M)$ Party$members$as$a$percentage$of$the$electorate$(M/E)$
Sources: Méndez, Morales, Ramiro 2004; Carreras, Tafunell 2005; and data collected by the authors. See the MAPP website for more information. *Figure 1 includes, when available, data from AP/PP, PSOE, PCE/IU, UCD/CDS, UPyD, CDC, PSC, PNV, ERC, BNG, UDC and PSUC/ICV.
Figure 8. Party membership (objective measure; absolute numbers and M/E figures) – Israel 1979-2012
600,000% 18.0%
17.0% 16.0% 500,000% 12.2% 14.0% 400,000% 12.0% 9.1% 10.0% 300,000% 8.0% 6.0% 200,000% 4.8% 6.0%
4.0% electorate%(M/E)%
Number%of%party%members% 100,000% 2.0%
0% 0.0%
1979.80% 1996% 2002% 2008% 2012% Party%members%as%%a%percentage%of%the%
number%of%party%members% M/E%%
* Data for 1979-80 include members of Labour, Herut, Liberals and Maki (Israel Communist Party); for 1996 they include members of Labour, Likud, Meretz and Tzomet; for 2002 they include members of Likud, Labour and Meretz; for 2008 they include members of Likud, Kadima, Labour and Meretz; for 2012 they include members of Likud, Kadima, Labour and the Jewish Home. 30
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