The lost world of the British Labour Party? Community, infiltration and disunity

Participating Locally and Nationally: Explaining the Offline and Online Activism of British Party Members

“…In this regard, the general trend towards the individualization of society remarked on by sociologists such as Baumann (2000), has found a certain counterpart in the organizational evolution of parties (Faucher, 2015), including the British Labour Party, which has gradually shifted from a longstanding model of collective delegatory democracy to individual representation (Watts 2017).…”

“…With respect to the former question, our models suggest that General Incentives theory should remain central to our understanding of offline participation, although the fact that collective incentives and altruism are no longer significant might invite further reflection on the changes that have impacted on party membership in the past few decades. In this regard, the general trend towards the individualization of society remarked on by sociologists such as Baumann (2000), has found a certain counterpart in the organizational evolution of parties (Faucher, 2015), including the British Labour Party, which has gradually shifted from a long-standing model of collective delegatory democracy to individual representation (Watts, 2017). With respect to online participation, only a few of the factors included in the original GIM actually help to predict activism.…”