This article theorises and empirically assesses some important intra‐organisational implications of maximising democratic equality in political parties both between followers and members and between members and elites. They include weak member commitment, passivity of the rank‐and‐file membership and – depending on party structure – high levels of internal conflict. To substantiate the arguments, two parties that implement principles of democratic equality in their organisations are examined: the Swedish and German Pirate parties. These cases show, first, that while organisational structures implementing norms of equality allowed them to rapidly mobilise a considerable following, the same structures systematically reduced their capacity to consolidate support in the longer term – a weakness that might eventually put these parties' survival at risk. Second, they show that differences in the extent to which subnational units provide a foundation for member mobilisation helps to explain variation in the level of internal conflict experienced by these parties.

Today many parties interact with members and supporters outside their national borders. One way parties do so is by establishing transnational party branches. However so far, there is a lack of theoretical and empirical research exploring this transnational aspect of party activity. This paper provides a first insight into why parties develop transnational branches, and how it affects their organization. It argues that the development of party branches abroad differs across countries due to the incentives provided by the national legal framework on voting and donations from abroad. In turn, the role and functions of the transnational branches vary depending on this legal framework. Looking at the two transnational branches of the two mainstream parties in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, this paper first briefly outlines the different national legal frameworks and the scope and size of transnational party branches. It then focuses on how they are organized, their role and function, and how this shapes their relationship to their homeland party. This explorative research is mainly based on legal and secondary data. The paper finds that the parties studied differ substantially in location, number and membership size for their transnational branches. Furthermore, the organizational links and the control by the national party over transnational party branches is the highest where parties have the most to gain in terms of votes in national elections and donations.

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Over the past decade, many parties have created new possibilities for affiliating and involving citizens, often rivalling the classic conception of party membership. So far, the existing literature has mainly focused on classifying these new and different types of affiliates. However, little attention has been paid to what these “non-full-membership” options imply in terms of formal rights and obligations. We explore here the opportunities that parties offer to non-members to participate and get involved in intra-party activities and we contrast them with the rights and obligations of full, fee-paying, traditional members. This article addresses this gap based on an original database consisting of membership rules in 68 parties in 13 established democracies. We not only map the current landscape of rules managing the involvement of non-members within parties, but also explore potential factors- party family and size- explaining the variation across parties. We find a strong association between party family and the range of possibilities for non-members’ involvement with parties on the left and environmental parties providing more space for the participation of non-members. We also find that smaller parties tend to involve more non-full-members by allocating more rights to them. Our findings and new database provide a first step for future research to study the regulation of the involvement of non-members in intra-party activities, what determines it, and how it affects the traditional concept of party membership and societal linkage.