Is the party over? The decline of party activism and membership across the democratic world

Abstract

The decline of party activism and membership in European democracies has been well documented, but not effectively explained. This article examines the state of party membership and activism across a wide spectrum of democratic countries and shows that membership is in decline in most of them. It tests two rival explanations of the decline using a cross-sectional multi-level analysis of data from the ISSP Citizenship survey of 2004. One hypothesis is that the decline is due to ‘state capture’, or excessive state regulation brought about by an ever-closer relationship between parties and the state which has the effect of stifling voluntary activity at the grassroots level. A second suggests that parties are being undermined by the growth of relatively new forms of participation, notably cheque book participation, and consumer and Internet participation. These provide alternative outlets for political action outside traditional forms of participation such as party involvement. There is evidence to support the first of these hypotheses, but not the second.

Labour's lost grassroots: The rise and fall of party membership

“…Our analysis of membership trends within the Labour party, just one case to be sure, appears to be at odds with the findings generated by Paul Whiteley (2010 an approach seems to be at odds with the importance that they have also placed and continued to place on recruiting members and sustaining the party's grassroots. If Labour leaders knew a declining membership would result from party centralisation, it must be explained why they have placed so much public emphasis on attempts to revive local participation.…”

“…They downplayed structural factors such as societal trends. In more recent work, Paul Whiteley (2010) has distinguished between two broad perspectives (see also Mair and van Biezen, 2001, 14). Under the first approach, parties have been undermined by state interventions.…”

New forms of political participation. Changing demands or changing opportunities to participate in political parties?

“…D. Webb, 2000). The concerted dismantling of what contributed to give meaning to party membership 14 may very well be contributing to the 'spiral of demobilisation' it is seeking to respond to (Whiteley, 2011).…”

“…During the past 30 years, electoral participation has declined more or less sharply and regularly in many European democracies (Mair et al, 2004), and partisanship (that is to say identification with and loyalty towards a party) has followed a generally downward trend (Dalton, 2008, p. 37;181;Whiteley, 2011). Figures show a decline in membership of trade unions as well as a spectacular decline in the number of members of political parties in most countries across Europe (Scarrow and Gezgor, 2010).…”

Abstención política y nuevas formas de participación política de los jóvenes: Análisis comparativo entre Chile y España

“…En cuanto a la segunda acción señalada, la militancia, los jóvenes encuestados no suelen formar parte de partidos políticos porque, una vez más, ven poca utilidad en ello. Sin embargo, esto tampoco debe entenderse como una muestra de desinterés de este segmento en particular, pues la reducción del índice de militancia es una tendencia presente en un gran número de países democráticos (Van Biezen et al, 2012;Whiteley, 2011); a pesar de que, precisamente en los países analizados, la inclinación no sea tan drástica.…”