Week 18 Flashcards
Party members
Who are party members?
- Supporters
- Members
- Activists and leaders
How are supporters defined in the context of party members?
(Usually) vote and possibly speak in favour of a party
How are members defined in the context of party members?
- Supporters with a form of formal membership status
- Often must pay membership fees
How are activists and leaders defined in the context of party members?
Members who participate in party activities, especially campaigning
Are activists ideological radicals?
- Selection: only the highly committed become activists
- Socialisation: social experience reinforces worldview
Why is the distinction between the different types of party members important?
- Different costs and benefits for the leaders and individuals
- Different actors have different preferences and expectations and receive different rewards
Why do supporters and members become party members?
- Purposive goals (join the party for a specific reason)
- Policy-seeking
- Moderate: not (as) self-selected, more diverse, less encouraged by social experience
Why do party members decide to become activists?
- Purposive and social goals (social goals being social interactions with people outside of the party)
- Mainly: policy and community seeking
- Extreme preferences: driven by purposive goals and social experience (socialisation and selection)
What is the role of leaders (like members of parliament) within the party membership?
- Vote, office, policy and community-seeking
- Material, purposive and social goals
- Moderate preferences: tamed by office goals
What is May’s Law of Curvilinear Disparity?
Activist members tend to be more ideologically extreme than both the leadership of that party and its base (the supporters and members)
How are the different types of party members categorised in May’s Law of Curvilinear Disparity?
- Party leaders - the leadership of the party - includes MPs
- Sub-leaders - the activists within the party membership
- Non-leaders - passive supporters or inactive members of a party
According to May’s Law of Curvilinear Disparity what would the political position of party leaders be?
Likely to have political values in between those of the party activists and the median voter
According to May’s Law of Curvilinear Disparity why do party leaders have the political values that they have?
- MPs have to focus on re-election and party management so they cannot have views that are too extreme
- They have to consider the mean voter and casual members
According to May’s Law of Curvilinear Disparity what political position would activists have?
More likely to have more extreme values than the rest of the categories of party members
According to May’s Law of Curvilinear Disparity why would activists have the political position they have?
- Not or much less motivated by career advancement
- Don’t want or need to cater to the general public
- Purely motivated by ideological purity
According to May’s Law of Curvilinear Disparity what political position would non-leaders have?
Likely to have political values that are closer to the median voter
Why do parties want members?
- Reliable voters
- Financial contributions
- Legitimacy (signals a broad social base to others)
Why do parties want activists?
- Campaign resource
- Local ambassadors (spread information to and from party)
- Candidates for elected office
- Policy ideas
What are the main costs of too many activist members of a party?
- Hinder moderate policy progress and demand “purist policy”
- Activists (and members) require resources and time
How does activist members desiring purer policy cost the party?
Desiring “purist policy” hinders the progress of moderate policy
- Moderate voters dislike this (vote costs)
- Pragmatic coalitions become unlikely (office costs)
- Changing problems are being ignored (policy costs)
—> Creates an image of internal disarray and weak leadership (vote costs)
What resources do activists (and members) require?
- Demand to be heard (meetings, consultations, etc.)
- Basic administrative costs (but they pay fees)
Why do citizens not want to join a party?
Few reasons for membership
- Very long path to secure paid office (sometimes more than 10-15 years)
- Individual members lack influence for shaping policy
- Other people can make the party work
- Collective action problem
How does the collective action problem cause people to not want to join a party?
- Supporters want the party to benefit from having many activists
- But there are strong free-riding incentives
- Let others become activists and still benefit from the success of the party
Why do citizens want to join a party?
Selective benefits only for members are a strategy against free-riding
- Material benefits: financial (individual-level benefits)
- Social benefits: status, friendship, inclusion (individual-level benefits)
- Purposive benefits - policy influence and outcomes (individual and collective level benefits)
What main two reasons may explain the general decline in party membership?
- Reduced supply of people joining parties
- Reduced demand from parties
What contemporary issues are there membership extremism in?
- Trade
- European integration
- Globalisation
- Migration
Why might there be a reduced supply of people joining parties?
- Political market is less competitive
- People have less time for parties
- Social/demographic changes
Why might the political marketplace being more competitive contribute to the reduced supply of people joining parties?
- Wide range of single-issue pressure groups
- (Less relevant): convergence of major parties
Why may people have less time to join parties?
- Work/life balance
- Private forms of entertainment (e.g., media)
Why might social/demographic changes cause the supply of people joining parties to reduce?
- Partisan dealignment
- Decline of working class communities and trade unions
- Sub-urbanisation
Why might there be a reduced demand for member from parties?
- Media campaigning (rise of political marketing reduces the need for activists)
- Different sources of party funding
- Party leaders do not want extremists joining (need more moderate policies)
What are the different sources of party funding might cause parties to have a lower demand for party members?
- Greater reliance on wealthy individual donors
- Greater availability of state funding
