Party guests or party crashers? Non-members’ political engagement across party organizations

Over the past decade, many parties have created new possibilities for affiliating and involving citizens, often rivalling the classic conception of party membership. So far, the existing literature has mainly focused on classifying these new and different types of affiliates. However, little attenti...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Giulia Sandri, Felix-Christopher von Nostitz
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Firenze University Press 2021-01-01
Series:QOE-IJES
Subjects:
Online Access:https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/qoe/article/view/9712
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849431974931857408
author Giulia Sandri
Felix-Christopher von Nostitz
author_facet Giulia Sandri
Felix-Christopher von Nostitz
author_sort Giulia Sandri
collection DOAJ
description Over the past decade, many parties have created new possibilities for affiliating and involving citizens, often rivalling the classic conception of party membership. So far, the existing literature has mainly focused on classifying these new and different types of affiliates. However, little attention has been paid to what these “non-full-membership” options imply in terms of formal rights and obligations. We explore here the opportunities that parties offer to non-members to participate and get involved in intra-party activities and we contrast them with the rights and obligations of full, fee-paying, traditional members. This article addresses this gap based on an original database consisting of membership rules in 68 parties in 13 established democracies. We not only map the current landscape of rules managing the involvement of non-members within parties, but also explore potential factors- party family and size- explaining the variation across parties. We find a strong association between party family and the range of possibilities for non-members’ involvement with parties on the left and environmental parties providing more space for the participation of non-members. We also find that smaller parties tend to involve more non-full-members by allocating more rights to them. Our findings and new database provide a first step for future research to study the regulation of the involvement of non-members in intra-party activities, what determines it, and how it affects the traditional concept of party membership and societal linkage.
format Article
id doaj-art-7a752738546e4fbca96b2c1467e6de94
institution Kabale University
issn 0392-6753
2724-4679
language English
publishDate 2021-01-01
publisher Firenze University Press
record_format Article
series QOE-IJES
spelling doaj-art-7a752738546e4fbca96b2c1467e6de942025-08-20T03:27:28ZengFirenze University PressQOE-IJES0392-67532724-46792021-01-0183210.36253/qoe-9712Party guests or party crashers? Non-members’ political engagement across party organizationsGiulia Sandri0Felix-Christopher von Nostitz1Université Catholique de LilleUniversité Catholique de LilleOver the past decade, many parties have created new possibilities for affiliating and involving citizens, often rivalling the classic conception of party membership. So far, the existing literature has mainly focused on classifying these new and different types of affiliates. However, little attention has been paid to what these “non-full-membership” options imply in terms of formal rights and obligations. We explore here the opportunities that parties offer to non-members to participate and get involved in intra-party activities and we contrast them with the rights and obligations of full, fee-paying, traditional members. This article addresses this gap based on an original database consisting of membership rules in 68 parties in 13 established democracies. We not only map the current landscape of rules managing the involvement of non-members within parties, but also explore potential factors- party family and size- explaining the variation across parties. We find a strong association between party family and the range of possibilities for non-members’ involvement with parties on the left and environmental parties providing more space for the participation of non-members. We also find that smaller parties tend to involve more non-full-members by allocating more rights to them. Our findings and new database provide a first step for future research to study the regulation of the involvement of non-members in intra-party activities, what determines it, and how it affects the traditional concept of party membership and societal linkage. https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/qoe/article/view/9712Party politicsparty membershipintra-party democracypolitical participationcomparative politics
spellingShingle Giulia Sandri
Felix-Christopher von Nostitz
Party guests or party crashers? Non-members’ political engagement across party organizations
QOE-IJES
Party politics
party membership
intra-party democracy
political participation
comparative politics
title Party guests or party crashers? Non-members’ political engagement across party organizations
title_full Party guests or party crashers? Non-members’ political engagement across party organizations
title_fullStr Party guests or party crashers? Non-members’ political engagement across party organizations
title_full_unstemmed Party guests or party crashers? Non-members’ political engagement across party organizations
title_short Party guests or party crashers? Non-members’ political engagement across party organizations
title_sort party guests or party crashers non members political engagement across party organizations
topic Party politics
party membership
intra-party democracy
political participation
comparative politics
url https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/qoe/article/view/9712
work_keys_str_mv AT giuliasandri partyguestsorpartycrashersnonmemberspoliticalengagementacrosspartyorganizations
AT felixchristophervonnostitz partyguestsorpartycrashersnonmemberspoliticalengagementacrosspartyorganizations