Jumping on the Bandwagon? Explaining fluctuations in party membership levels in Europe

[en] This paper explores how party-specific contextual factors explain variations in membership levels. Based on a subset of MAPP data that includes 2898 yearly membership data points for 262 parties in 24 countries over a period from 1990 to 2014, it examines three sets of explanations: the lifecycle model (party age), the bandwagon model (electoral performances and governemental participation), and the competition model (effective number of parties). Our results confirm that membership ratios present an overall decreasing trend across parties over time. At the same time, we show that this trend is flattening and that there are important variations across parties. Fluctuations of membership are part of a party’s lifecycle. Our results also point toward a bandwagon effect whereby party membership levels increase or decrease according to electoral performances, and to a patronage boost linked to governmental participation. Finally, we show that party system fragmentation decreases individual parties’ membership ratios. Overall, our findings complement the story on party membership decline and calls for further investigations of party-specific explanations.

Disciplines :

Sociology & social sciences

Author, co-author :

Sierens, Vivien; Department of Political Science, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

van Haute, Emilie ; Department of Political Science, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

PAULIS, Emilien ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Humanities (DHUM) > Philosophy ; Department of Political Science, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

External co-authors :

yes

Language :

English

Title :

Jumping on the Bandwagon? Explaining fluctuations in party membership levels in Europe

Publication date :

2023

Journal title :

Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties

ISSN :

1745-7289

Publisher :

Routledge

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

300 - 321

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17457289.2022.2080213

Funders :

FNRS

Funding text :

This work was supported by the FNRS [Grant 19483403].

Available on ORBilu :

since 22 November 2023

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