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Anna Striethorst Members and Electorates of Left Parties in Europe1 Anna Striethorst The Membership of European Left Parties The success of political parties is usually judged by their ability to achieve political objec- tives, to control the social and political discourse and place their elite in government offices. The election results of parties are regarded as a measurable indicator for this ability. Election results legitimize the political activities of the parties; their parliamentary presence extends their human and financial resources and enables them to form coalitions. As a result of the general decline in party activity within the public the party membership numbers are today of less importance for the political effectiveness of parties. The French Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) or the Italian Popolo della Libertà (PdL) founded by Berlusconi in 2009, for example, no longer consider themselves to be classic membership parties. A permanent media presence is considered the most important resource by many other parties and has meanwhile replaced the priority of establishing a broad base in society through party members.2 1 This article has been published in the book Birgit Daiber, Cornelia Hildebrandt, Anna Striethorst (eds.): Von Revolution bis Koalition: Linke Parteien in Europa, Berlin 2010. Translation by Phil Hill, 2011. References in brackets refer to country studies that were published in the same publication. The data for diagrams are also tak- en from these sources, unless otherwise stated. For clarity, no detailed reference is made for freely available in- ternet sources. 2 See Peter Mair: Polity-Scepticism, Party Failings, and the Challenge to European Democracy. NIAS Uhlenbeck Lecture 24, Wassenaar 2006, p. 20. See Uwe Jun, Oskar Niedermayer, Elmar Wiesendahl (eds.): Zukunft der Mitgliederpartei, Opladen 2009, for a more detailed debate on the decline of the membership party. 1 However, with the exception of Cyprus, Norway and Iceland, the left parties in today´s Europe are either in opposition or are parties that are not represented in the parliament. Their party members and the constituencies which they work in possess significantly less financial, media and personnel resources in comparison to "media parties", large and populist parties. Thus, the membership of the left parties in Europe must still be regarded as a crucial indicator for their success. Parties with few members can also have election successes, but these successes will usually be of short duration if the left parties do not manage to gain relevant numbers of committed members with whose support they can mobilize voters and finance political activities. Normative considerations also favour a wide membership base: without members, the left parties cannot maintain their claim to be a linkage between the rulers and the ruled, representing citizens and recruiting personnel for public office. The numbers of members of the almost 60 left parties in Europe which are joined in the European Left (EL) or other European forms of cooperation, indicate a variety of very different parties. There are eight parties in the family of left European parties with more than 30,000 members and a stable parliamentary presence. (Fig. 1) Alongside these, the European Left includes several medium-sized parties with approximately 8,000 to 17,000 members which are represented in parliament or even in government. Among these are the Nordic left parties, the Greek Synaspismos (SYN) and the Portuguese Bloco de Esquerda. In addition, there are numerous small extra-parliamentary parties with 5,000 or less members, such as, for example, the German DKP or the Austrian KPÖ. The European Left (EL) consists of 26 member parties and 11 parties with observer status, which have approximately 500,000 members. More than 80 percent of these belong to one of the seven largest membership parties3. However, absolute numbers can distort the actual ratio to population size when directly comparing membership numbers. For example, the Icelandic Vinstri hreyfingin party only has 5,833 members, and is still one of the largest membership parties, since 1.8 percent of Iceland's population have joined. The Greek Communist party, KKE, with 30,000 members, has a much smaller degree of organization since its membership represents less than 0.3 percent of the total population. Nevertheless, the KKE still is above the average for other left parties in Europe. The Cypriot government party, AKEL with 15,000 members and 5.8 3 According to European Left Party figures. 2 percent of the population, is a genuine popular party with 31.1 percent of votes and represents an exception.4 Figure 1: European left parties with more than 30.000 members, in thousand5 The differences in membership size have to some extent to do with factors outside the parties. A comparison across Europe has to acknowledge that the overall proportion of party members with respect to the population varies from country to country.6 In some countries, as for example in Great Britain, the nature of the electoral system impedes the establishment of independent left parties. In other countries a specific anticommunism and a rightist conservative to extreme rightist basic trend is dominating the social climate, and membership growth of the marginalised left parties is almost impossible. This applies to almost all Central and East European countries with former communist state parties as well as to Austria and to Turkey, where another left party, the DTP, was banned recently. (Schukovits, Sey) There are two exceptions in Central and Eastern Europe. One is the Czech Republic, where the communist KSČM has more than 70,000 members. Another is Moldavia, where the PRCM enjoys a strong membership (30,000 members) and was part of government up to 2009. However, both these parties also encounter massive social opposition: membership in the KSČM can have a huge negative impact on professional careers in the Czech Republic (Holubec), and in 2010, the PRCM had to fight a state ban on its hammer and sickle symbols. 4 See Richard Dunphry, Tim Bale (eds.): Red Flag still flying? Explaining AKEL - Cyprus's Communist Anomaly, Party Politics Vol. 13, 3/2007, p. 300. 5 According to the author’s calculations. The newly formed Italian Sinistra Ecologia Libertà (SEL) should also be mentioned, which, by its own account, has nearly 42,000 members. Currently, the SEL is not represented in the Italian parliament. 6 On the varying degrees of organization in the European parties see Thomas Poguntke: Parteiorganisation im Wandel. Gesellschaftliche Verankerung und organisatorische Anpassung im europäischen Vergleich. Wiesbaden 2000. 3 The large variations in European left party membership also come from differing party histories and identities. Thus, for example, the Communist Parties of France, Italy and Spain used to consider themselves to be mass parties with large memberships and strong organizations. Only the French Communist Party PCF has succeeded in maintaining its membership at a high level. It has 134,000 adhérents (supporters)7 by its own account, but only 66,000 members pay dues.8 The Spanish Communist Party (PC) is suffering from a huge loss of membership which has declined from 200,000 members back in 1977 to 20,000 today. This membership loss, however, is partly compensated by the membership strength of the Izquierda Unida, in which the PCE participates since the 1980s. (Heilig) The loss of membership occurred much more rapidly in the PRC, the successor party to the Communist party of Italy (PCI): the PRC membership dropped from a high of 130,000 in 1997 to only 38,000 members. This coincided with dramatic election defeats at the national and European level, revealing a weak commitment from traditional voters and a very low mobilization of the remaining members. In 1992, there were 5.4 voters for each party member, in the 2006 elections there were only 4.2. (Hagemann) Three reasons were crucial for such a large PRC loss in membership and voters which had already started before the party split in 2009. Firstly, there was the lack of a common identity among the members of a party that since its foundation in 1991 had always been a "reservoir of various 'souls'". (Hagemann) Only a few unifying elements exist alongside independently acting currents. Additionally, the PRC does not have a common party programme. Secondly, the PRC has not been able to justify its claim to be a rank and file party with a strong local constituency. The party has not been able to establish a dense network of local party organisations as desired, so they could not present themselves as a "party which cares". Thirdly, the PRC claims that its party members should show their commitment by renewing their membership once every year. This has led to an even greater decline through the "resignation" of passive or temporarily disaffected party members. The Socialistische Partij (SP) of the Netherlands experienced a completely different development. From its very beginnings, this has been a cadre party, only admitting members after a probation period. Even today, the members exhibit a close cohesion and demonstrate a rigorous sense of duty towards the party. Elected members of parliament, for example, have to pass on all of their expense allowances to the SP and receive a salary amounting to the average Dutch wage. 7 According to the PCF executive board. 8 See Elisabeth Gauthier: Das politische Spektrum zwischen Dekomposition und Rekomposition. Zu den Regionalwahlen in Frankreich. In: RLS Standpunkte International 13/2010, p. 4. 4 On other issues, the SP has departed from its avant-garde tradition. Today, the SP is successful at the local political level and is characterized by high visibility, professional campaigns and effective membership recruitment. (Wirries) All these changes and measures have increased the SP membership level from 27,000 in 2000 to 50,000 in 2009.
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