Do contemporary political parties still need members? Conclusions from the empirical study into Polish political parties
Abstract
Research on political party members started on a grand scale at the beginning of the 1990s and it has gone in three main directions: (1) members and activists as a resource for the parties; (2) members as constituting “the party on the ground”; and (3) political participation of the members (van Haute, Paulis & Sierens 2017). In this article we are drawing from all three traditions of the research. The paper is based on empirical investigation from the project “Political Parties and their Social Environment. An Analysis of the Organization and Communication Activities of Polish Political Parties”, in which in-depth interviews with the parties’ leaders and parliamentarians were conducted and questionnaires were collected from the grassroots members and activists. To structure our research we put forward the following theses:
(1) The parties’ elites declaratively appreciate the role of rank-and-file members in the organizations, but in practice rarely undertake activities to encourage people to join the parties or to engage the members they already have in party work.
(2) The grassroots members would like to have more influence on party decisions.
(3) The factor that is more important in differentiating the parties on their roles and expectations towards the organizations is the party age rather than its parliamentary or extra-parliamentary status.
Key words:
political parties, membership, grassroots members, party elite and party leadership
References
Andeweg, R. (1996). Elite-Mass Linkages in Europe: Legitimacy Crisis or Party Crisis? W: J. Hayward (red.). Populism and European Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Collins, R. (2013). Building a One Nation Party Interim Report. London: Labour Party.
Crotty, W. (2006). Party Origins and Evolution in the United States. W: R. Katz & W. Crotty (red.), Handbook of Party Politics. London: Sage.
CBOS 18/2016. Zaufanie społeczne. Komunikat z Badań nr 18/2016. Warszawa: Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej.
CBOS 66/2017. Ogólny stosunek do partii politycznych. Komunikat z Badań nr 66/2017. Warszawa: Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej.
Churska-Nowak, K. & Drobczyński, S. (red.) (2011). Profesjonalizacja i mediatyzacja kampanii wyborczych. Poznań: WSNHiD.
Delwit, P. & Jacquemain, M. (red.) (2010). Engagements actuels, actualité des engagements. Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia-Bruylant.
Duverger, M. (1976). Les partis politiques. Paris: A. Colin.
Dz.U. 2017, Nr 1089, poz. 876. Ustawa o partiach politycznych.
Gibson, R. & Römmele, A. (2009), Measuring the Professionalization of Political Campaigning, Party Politics, 15(3), 265–93.
Grabowska, M. (2006). Partie polityczne w Polsce po 1989 roku. W: J. Wasilewski (red.), Współczesne społeczeństwo polskie, dynamika zmian. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar.
Kasprowicz, D. & Sobolewska-Myślik, K. (2015). Partia: struktura w permanentnym kryzysie. Liberté! , nr XX.
Katz, R. S., Mair, P., Bardi, L. et. al. (1992). The Membership of Political Parties in European Democracies, 1960–1990. European Journal of Political Research, 22, 329–45.
Kopecký, P. (1995). Developing party organizations in East-Central Europe. Party Politics, 1(4), 515–34.
Kuzawińska, B. (2013). Relacja z seminarium Fundacji Batorego: Polskie partie polityczne: czy spełniają swoje funkcje? 15 stycznia.
www.batory.org.pl/programy_operacyjne/debaty/2013/polskie_partie_polityczne_czy_spelaniaja_swoje_funkcje (22.03.2013).
Lawson, K. & Merkl, P. (1988). When Parties Fail? Emerging Alternative Organizations. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Liberal Party (2009). Advancing Change Together: A Time to Act. Report of the Change Commission of the Liberal Party of Canada. Vancouver. http://vancouverquadra.liberal.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/457/2011/08/change-commission-report.pdf (7.11.2017).
Lipset, S. M. (2000). The Indispensability of Political Parties. Journal of Democracy, 11 (1), 48–55.
Łozowska, A. & Szymczak, D. (2015). Outsourcing w działalności polskich partii politycznych. W: S. Wawak & M. Sołtysik (red.). Współczesne trendy w outsourcingu. Kraków: Mfiles.pl
Marczewski, P. (2017). Partie polityczne a jakość polskiej demokracji. Warszawa: Fundacja im. Stefana Batorego.
Materska-Sosnowska, A. (2013). Partie w kryzysie. W: A. Pacześniak & M. Wincławska (red.). Partie polityczne w Polsce i w Europie. Struktury, funkcje, strategie w zmieniającym się otoczeniu. Wrocław-Toruń: Echo.
Milliband, E. (2014). Members are… https://inkphy.com/media/2G2DVTsI6L (15.11.2017).
Pacześniak, A. & De Waele, J-M. (red.) (2011). Ludzie partii - idealiści czy pragmatycy? Kadry partyjne w świetle badań empirycznych. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar.
Pacześniak, A. (2014). Europeizacja polskich partii politycznych. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar.
Rafałowski, W. (2017). Opisywanie i wyjaśnianie systemu partyjnego. Metody pomiaru. Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza ASPRA-JR.
Scarrow, S. (2010). Aktywność partyjna i członkostwo partyjne. W: R. Dalton & H-D. Klingemann (red.). Zachowania polityczne. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Schattschneider, E. (1942). Party Government. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.
Sobolewska-Myślik, K. (2016). Niepartyjne inicjatywy polityczne jako nowy sposób politycznego zaangażowania obywateli? Czechy, Polska, Słowacja. Studia Środkowoeuropejskie i Bałkanistyczne, XXIV, 121–32.
Totz, D. (2011). Ready for Change? The Party Reforms Planned by the Social Democratic Party in Germany. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Study. http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/id/ipa/08704.pdf (15.11.2017).
Uchwała Zarządu SPD (2011). Party on the Move: The SPD’s organizational policy program. Democracy in transition.
van Biezen, I., Mair, P. & Poguntke, T. (2012). Going, going… gone? The decline of party membership in contemporary Europe. European Journal of Political Research, 51 (1), 24–56.
van Biezen, I. (2000). On the Internal Balance of Party Power. Party Organization in New Democracies. Party Politics, 6(4), 395–417.
van Biezen, I. (2013). The decline in party membership across Europe means that political parties need to reconsider how they engage with the electorate. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/05/06/decline-in-party-membership-europe-ingrid-van-biezen/ (18.11.2017).
van Haute, E. (2009). Adhérer à un parti. Aux sources de la participation politique. Bruxelles: Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles.
van Haute, E. (red.) (2011). Party Membership in Europe: Exploration into the anthills of party politics. Bruxelles: Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles.
van Haute, E., Paulis, E., & Sierens, V. (2017). Assessing party membership figures: the MAPP dataset. European Political Science, doi:10.1057/s41304-016-0098-z
Whiteley, P. F. (2010). Is the party over? The decline of party activism and membership across the democratic world. Party Politics, 17 (1), 21–44.
Wiatr, J. (2006). Europa pokomunistyczna. Przemiany państw i społeczeństw po 1989 roku. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar.
Wincławska, M. (2010). Unia Wolności. Partia polityczna w okresie transformacji. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar.
Wincławska, M. & Brodzińska-Mirowska, B. (2016). Niewykorzystane szanse? Polskie partie polityczne w działaniu. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK.
Uniwersytet Wrocławski,Katedra Studiów Europejskich Poland
Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu Poland
The Copyright Owners of the submitted texts grant the Reader the right to use the pdf documents under the provisions of the Creative Commons 4.0 International License: Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA). The user can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose.
1. License
The University of Silesia Press provides immediate open access to journal’s content under the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Authors who publish with this journal retain all copyrights and agree to the terms of the above-mentioned CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
2. Author’s Warranties
The author warrants that the article is original, written by stated author/s, has not been published before, contains no unlawful statements, does not infringe the rights of others, is subject to copyright that is vested exclusively in the author and free of any third party rights, and that any necessary written permissions to quote from other sources have been obtained by the author/s.
If the article contains illustrative material (drawings, photos, graphs, maps), the author declares that the said works are of his authorship, they do not infringe the rights of the third party (including personal rights, i.a. the authorization to reproduce physical likeness) and the author holds exclusive proprietary copyrights. The author publishes the above works as part of the article under the licence "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International".
ATTENTION! When the legal situation of the illustrative material has not been determined and the necessary consent has not been granted by the proprietary copyrights holders, the submitted material will not be accepted for editorial process. At the same time the author takes full responsibility for providing false data (this also regards covering the costs incurred by the University of Silesia Press and financial claims of the third party).
3. User Rights
Under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, the users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) the article for any purpose, provided they attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
4. Co-Authorship
If the article was prepared jointly with other authors, the signatory of this form warrants that he/she has been authorized by all co-authors to sign this agreement on their behalf, and agrees to inform his/her co-authors of the terms of this agreement.
I hereby declare that in the event of withdrawal of the text from the publishing process or submitting it to another publisher without agreement from the editorial office, I agree to cover all costs incurred by the University of Silesia in connection with my application.
