Party Membership and Intra-Party Democracy: How Do Members React to Organizational Change within Political Parties? The Case of Belgium

Facing a crucial legitimacy crisis, many Western European political parties have recently undergone various forms of organizational changes by adopting procedures for increasing intra-democracy: internal ballots, internal referenda, primary elections and so on. Direct democracy is now used in a wide...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Partecipazione e conflitto 2015-01, Vol.8 (1), p.190-214
Main Authors: Sandri, Giulia, Amjahad, Anissa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitude surveys
Ballots
Belgium
Candidates
Case studies
Decision making
Democracy
Democratization
Direct democracy
Elections
Grass roots movement
Humanities and Social Sciences
intra-party democracy
Leadership
leadership selection
Legitimacy
Membership
Memberships
Organizational change
party membership
party politics
Political leadership
Political parties
Primaries & caucuses
primary elections
Referendums
Satisfaction
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Summary:Facing a crucial legitimacy crisis, many Western European political parties have recently undergone various forms of organizational changes by adopting procedures for increasing intra-democracy: internal ballots, internal referenda, primary elections and so on. Direct democracy is now used in a wide range of decision-making procedures such as candidate and leadership selection (Cross and Katz, 2013). These reforms have pro-vided new opportunities for participation to party members. What happens to more traditional elements of party internal structures when such instruments of intra-party democracy are adopted? And more specifically, how are such changes perceived by the party base? This paper explores the attitudes and behaviors of members with regard to intra-party democracy procedures. On the basis of a case study (Belgium) and of an original dataset, the paper explores the political consequences of intra-party democracy. We show that members’ satisfaction with the party and their degree of previous internal activism affect the level of involvement in intra-party democracy activities. However, the dissatisfaction of the party base vis-à-vis of the membership role is growing. Intra-party democratization seems to limit the organizational function of the grass-roots membership to a ‘cheerleading’ role.
ISSN:1972-7623
2035-6609
DOI:10.1285/i20356609v8i1p190