Types of party affiliation and the multi-speed party

Abstract

Research has repeatedly shown that formal party membership is in structural decline in liberal democracies. The same strongly negative trend, however, has not been observed for less formal forms of party attachment and authors have claimed that this leads to a pattern of multi-speed party adherence. In the current analysis, we investigate to what extent non-formalized forms of adhering to a political party have the same attitudinal and behavioural functions as formal party membership. The analysis is based on a 4-year (2011–2015) panel study in the Netherlands. The results indicate that party supporters are characterized by lower levels of commitment and stability than party members. What seems to matter, however, is the level of conviction, and a smaller group of highly motivated supporters resembles party members quite strongly. We close with some observations on how political parties might react to this deinstitutionalization of party attachment.

Direct Democracy and Party Membership: Testing the Role of Political Efficacy

“…The main purpose of this study is to examine whether direct democracy can strengthen or weaken citizens’ motivations to become party members when the indirect effect mediated by political efficacy is taken into account. Therefore, given the stronger political efficacy of formal party members than of non-formal party supporters (Hooghe and Kölln, 2020; Poletti et al, 2019), we use formal party membership as our dependent variable to adequately capture the effect of political efficacy and to distinguish from party supporters who only have lower levels of commitment and stability.…”

“…These variables are often considered as important factors for explaining citizens' political attitudes. Specifically, previous studies show that party membership and political efficacy are strongly associated with age, gender, education, political trust, political interest, as well as citizenship norms (Dahlberg et al, 2015;Fatke, 2014;Hooghe and Kölln, 2020;Magalhães, 2014;Strömbäck et al, 2013;Van Biezen et al, 2012;Whiteley, 2011). To consider the cross-country differences in political institutions and government performance and contextual backgrounds, we include several country-level variables as control variables: government quality (Government), gross domestic product per capita calculated by purchasing power parity (GDP), unemployment rate (U), the legal provision of direct democracy (Dem), the frequency of direct democracy used in making political decisions (Dem2), and party system fragmentation (Fragment).…”

“…It is noted that there are discussions in the previous literature about the measurements of formal party members and other non-formalized forms of adhering to a political party, because it may be capturing different behaviors in different countries (Hooghe and Kölln, 2020; Poletti et al, 2019; van Haute and Gauja, 2015). For example, party membership can be a by-product of primary voting or related to political donations, or partisan sympathy in the United States.…”

The failure of mainstream parties and the impact of new challenger parties in France, Italy and Spain

“…These innovations can be seen in diverging ways. Some argue for a functional similarity between party members and active party supporters (Scarrow, 2015(Scarrow, , 2018Kosiara-Pedersen et al, 2017;Hooghe and Kölln, 2018). Members and supporters could be functionally interchangeable but only if they share a similar level of loyalty to, and identification with, the party as Hooghe and Kölln (2018: 9) stress.…”

Der Gang in den Schatten der Macht

“…So ist es neben der normalen Mitgliedschaft unter anderem möglich, sich als "Unterstützer" eintragen zu lassen. Siehe dazu beispielsweiseHooghe und Kölln (2020).…”