Political Party Membership In New Democracies

Political parties have traditionally aimed to create large memberships to sustain and advance the objectives of their political platforms. This way parties became the main vehicle for political activism and the gatekeepers for political representation. Membership was based on active participation in the activities of the party and in some cases on paying a fee to finance the party. Today, many parties still boast large traditional memberships, yet a trend of decreasing numbers is observed globally. While formal membership is decreasing, new forms of political party membership are being introduced. These new forms involve new types or levels of membership that require less commitment, or do not include any payment of fees. This Primer analyse these new forms of political party membership and presents how different parties and contexts have given birth to different ways of engaging citizens in the party’s life.

This book explores the impact of electoral rules on political party development in Central and East Europe. It finds that ‘high district magnitude’ proportional electoral systems encourage centralised organisational development and campaigning – where communication with voters is conducted primarily via mass, social and digital media – while small electoral districts stimulate grassroots campaigning. As a result, low magnitude electoral systems are more likely to create an active role for party members, stimulating membership recruitment. The book further examines how parties organise and campaign on the ground. The analysis of in-depth surveys and interviews with party elites in Estonia, Lithuania and Slovakia sheds light on areas of party life that are rarely examined, including party fundraising. Overall, the effects of electoral systems on party organisation and campaigning reflect patterns previously observed in Western Europe, demonstrating that a degree of convergence has occurred.

Ingrid van Biezen provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of party formation and organizational development in recently established democracies. She focuses on four democracies in Southern and East-Central Europe and addresses political parties from a cross-regional perspective. Featuring a wealth of new information on party organization, this book provides a valuable theoretical and empirical contribution to our understanding of political parties in both old and new democracies.

Political parties are central to democratic politics, but where does the power lie within them, and how is it exercised? The Political Party in Canada explores the inner workings of these complex organizations through an examination of the composition and roles of key party actors, as well as the interactions between them. The authors reveal the activities and power-sharing relationships that characterize Canadian parties. It focuses not only on which groups are included in decision-making but on what authority rests with each level of the parties’ respective structures. This comprehensive examination provides important insights into a fundamental institution that makes modern democracy possible.

What chiefly distinguishes this work is the inclusion of considerable material on American partics in a comparative context to the analysis of British, Scandinavian, European, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand political parties.

This book is the sequel to Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Oxford 2002). It offers a systematic and rigorous analysis of parties in some of the world's major new democracies, focusing on Latin America and postcommunist Eastern Europe.

Beginning with a penetrating analysis of party shortcomings in developing and post-communist countries, Thomas Carothers draws on extensive field research to diagnose chronic deficiencies in party aid, assess its overall impact, and offer practical ideas for doing better.

A new and wide-ranging empirical overview of party policy in 47 modern democracies, including all of the new democracies of Eastern Europe. It updates and radically extends Policy and Party Competition (1992), which established itself as a key mainstream data source for all political scientists exploring the policy positions of political parties. This essential text is divided into three clear parts: Part I introduces the study, themes and methodology Part II deals in depth with the wide range of issues involved in estimating and analyzing the policy positions of key political actors. Part III is the key data section that identifies key policy dimensions across the 47 countries, detailing their party positions and median legislators, and is complemented by graphical representations of each party system. This book is an invaluable reference for all political scientists, particularly those interested in party policy and comparative politics.