Decline in Levels of Membership of Political Parties in Western Democracies - Essay Example

Task Decline in levels of membership of political parties across most western democracies Decline in levels of membership of political parties across most western democracies Introduction Political parties are the core institutions in any given society, it is disappointing that membership in the parties, and activism is declining in the western advanced democracies over the years. This is a threat to a weakened democracy when political parties are undermined (Biezen Van, Mair & Poguntke, 2008, p.82). This piece of work explains the development and growth in the state regulation of parties over time that has reduced incentives for citizens to form active political rallies and parties. A closer and cordial relationship between the countries and the existing political barely exists. Individuals receive support from the state at the expense of accepting an increase in regulation, mostly with respect to the exercise of conducting elections (Albertazzi,D. & McDonnell,D. 2010)This piece of work permits an extensive investigation about the levels of party membership across vast democracies in Europe. Along with a robust exploration on the difference in the patterns of party association existing between older democracies and the newly created ones along with the post-communist democracies as well (Rozenvalds, 2005, p.163). According to Crouch (2008), Party membership levels in the post communist democracies have remained substantially below those in the established Western politics Definitely the novelty of these democracies, the weakening or elimination of traditional cleavages that resulted from the attempt by communism to construct a classless society along with the fact that party organizations surged in a perspective in which they could already gain the benefits of modern communications networks in their efforts of seeking support, are likely to have dispirited their efforts to put up mass organizations for a longer term (Putnam, Robert 2000) This is also probable and obvious to be the same case in the southern European polities that surged from authoritarian rule in the 1970s (Crouch 2008) we will continue to anticipate that the newer the democracy, the smaller is likely to be the membership level. Based on the recent data available from many sources, party membership in contemporary European democracies produce figures of total party membership expressed in raw numbers and as a percentage of electorate (M/E) which is an indicator which is more suitable for cross-national comparisons. Activists are authorized to monitor and implement heavy burden of regulations who end up being uncompensated for their (Whiteley, 2014, p.102). These advances have turned political parties to public utilities to say that fulfill critical functions in representing the state interests to the citizens rather than the interests of the citizens to the state. Dramatic changes have occurred in the political economies of some of these states along with an influence of the regulatory environment in which the parties operate. I have based my analysis on political parties at three levels that include membership, activism and partisanship along with three political models of participation which include ‘civic voluntarism’; ‘social capital’, ‘cognitive engagement’ and ‘valence’ models of participation (Poguntke 2005). Party Activism, Membership, and Partisanship Analysis to some number of western countries revealed that party membership and party activism has declined greatly in Switzerland, Poland, Ireland, and Portugal. Both Portugal and Ireland suffered rather badly from the economic crisis in the Euro zone which was not the case in Switzerland (Clarke, Harold D, David Sanders, Marianne C. Stewart and Paul Whitely. 2004). However, party activism did not always follow the same trend as party membership. Theoretical Models of Party Support Civic voluntarism model of party support provides the best known explanation of political participation in the political field. Social capital model on the other hand focuses on community resources. Social capital entails the features of a social organization such as norms, trust and networks that enhance the effectiveness of an organization through facilitated coordination. When individuals are involved in an extensive set of social networks that necessitate frequent interactions not based on financial relationships, interpersonal trust is fostered that builds social capital (Putnam, 2000, p.98). Trust acquired by individuals encourages them to cooperate with strangers that are outside their immediate family or society. Communities with individuals who have high levels of social capital seem to possess better health, attainments in education and subjective well-being that makes them more likely to venture into politics (Putnam, 2000, p.123). Consequently, they are expected to be more prone to supporting and participating in political parties. Cognitive engagement theory takes a diverse advancement to explaining participation in politics so different from the previous two models. The central idea in this case is that participation depends on the ability of individual’s access to political information and the willingness to use it to comprehend politics and government (Clarke, 2011, p.69). Cognitively betrothed individuals are clued-up members of the community who are likely to participate and to comprehend the processes of governance. These individuals have a great knowledge in politics, take a dedicated interest in current affairs and are critical thinkers. We might suppose them to support a political party and in some cases join it and become active. Finally is the valence model that originated from Donald Stokes’s work about party competition (Downs, 1957, p.200). It emphasizes on the important issues where there is broad agreement about what should be done, rather than issues which divide the electorate. He argued great majority desire a buoyant economy where unemployment and inflation are low with improved standards of living rather than stagnating. Likewise, large majorities prefer efficient and effective public services to poorly performing ones; a situation in which voters will advocate for a party which they believe is most likely to bring such outcomes (Clarke, 2013, p.57). Contrarily, the spatial model emphasizes on the importance of conflict-ridden issues assuming that voters will hold a party that takes a similar position to their own views. The valence model for political parties implies that effective performance ought to strengthen support for the current parties along with weakening the impact of the opposition parties. Currently serving parties should recruit more members and party activists. The success for the opposition will weaken if incumbents succeed. Additionally, if incumbents perform poorly, electoral opportunities will pop up in favor of the fringe parties. Thus, economic crisis may influence the shape of party systems. Countries in European polities show a long-term decline in the ratio of party members to the electorate with exemptions of Greece and Spain with regards to democratizing in the 1970s. In extreme cases like for Austria and Norway, the decline is greater than 10% suggesting that party membership has changed in both its character and its significance. The members themselves seem a relatively unrepresentative group of citizens, socially and professionally if not ideologically. Large majority are dormant and inclined to be older and better-off than an ordinary citizen, with a higher educational status, more likely to be associated with collateral organizations such as churches or unions, and more likely to be male than female. However, it is also critical to realize that they now seem less likely than before to be ideologically more extreme (Scarrow & Gezgor, 2010, p.127), implying that a shrinking membership has developed into something that is more politically representative than was originally imputed by May. The memberships also include a number of political professionals and a large minority of younger members has clear political-professional ambitions (Bruter & Harrison, 2009, p.321). There is scattered evidence that further suggests that members are more likely than non-members to be associated in some way to the public sector and to state service. State sector constitutes a large proportion of party members, mainly teachers, civil servants, professors, social workers, etc. Large majority of parties seem to be quite unbothered about their memberships and are instead focusing much more on reaching out to a broader public through professional campaigning and marketing techniques. This translates to an enormous decline in party membership which in many cases is a matter of indifference to many of the party organizations concerned. This implies that levels of party membership have now dropped to such a stumpy level that membership itself no longer confers a meaningful indicator of the capacity of party organization. We can also conclude that party organizations more generally have now faded that the formal organizational level is itself time and again no longer an appropriate indicator of party capacity (Weldon, 2006, p.230). This case calls in a questioning into the way we think about a party as a powerful organizational linkage between the mass public and the institutions of government. From this perspective, a party’s own membership organization is but a special deviation from the association between parties and the broader society, and hence a good motive to assess the strength of party organization that has worked for most of democratic mass politics. Thus, it is an ideal measure to complement this analysis with a scrutiny of how the membership of these collateral organizations has developed over time (katz, 1995, p.231). Although this scrutiny is undoubtedly beyond the scope of this study, existing literature gives evidence that supports that taking two principal sets of collateral organizations that have proved most relevant for the mass party like trade unions and traditional churches, and then the decline in evidence of membership seems almost as theatrical as that in the political parties. In the typical case of membership in trade unions, for example, the strongest traditionally and most obvious of the party collateral organizations, there has been a substantial decline in membership over the past decades (Ebbinghaus & Visser, 2000, p.194) dominantly in the 1990s. The reaching to the organized Christian religions has also declined considerably across Europe. Political parties and traditional Christian religions particularly link as the churches could act as conduits between the parties and the religious communities. Party activists keep party organizations running at the local level as well as campaigning in elections. When an excessive regulatory burden is imposed on them, their incentives to participate in politics are reduced. A decline in the influence of activism has a likelihood of a knock-off effect on the membership of parties since the activists are involved significantly in recruiting and retaining party members (Scarrow & Gezgor, 2010, p. 267). This point is explained when examining the regulatory burdens which were imposed by the UK Electoral Commission, the independent body that regulates parties and elections in Britain, to party volunteers. In one of its publications: ‘Overview of Party Campaign Spending’ spelled out the reporting requirements imposed on party activists with relation to election spending. The regulations covered: “advertising of any kind; unsolicited material sent to voters; market research; press conferences and dealing with the media; rallies and party meetings; and any transport connected with the campaign” (House of Commons Library, 2009). Local parties are prompted to outline the names of specific individuals who are tasked to record, verify and report on any spending associated with these activities otherwise if they don’t comply, their organization will be subject to criminal or civil servants. The Leiden Database on Party Laws avails a record of all laws that govern the regulation of political parties in 33 democracies since the Second World War showing the quite onerous regulatory burdens many countries. This necessitates the states to regulate political parties along with aid and also ensure that elections are conducted in fairly and freely manner which is in line with the requirements of law (Biezen ,2009, p.130). The World Bank index of regulatory effectiveness published in the same years as the European Social Survey also covers the effects of regulating parties.(Whiteley, 2011, p.120). Unfortunately, this index is never used since it is not available over time. Highly regulating parties appears to discourage individuals and deterring them from joining and being active in political parties over time. Party membership and activism are clearly weakened in countries like Greece and Portugal which were seriously affected by the financial crisis. In instances for inatance Zech Republic, the decline in party membership can be attributed to sustained membership loss suffered by the Communist Party and its satellite. The membership of the parties that ruled earlier corroded rapidly following the fall down of the communist power monopoly. Many of the parties in these recently established democracies are now struggling to maintain whatsoever remains of an already limited presence of an organized structure on the ground (Paul, 2011, p.198). The difference between old and new democracies aids in explaining a more permanent and structural disparity in the levels of party membership however does not relate the changes in the initial levels over time. Size also exerts a substantial negative effect among small countries having an electorate smaller than 20 million who show a further decline in the levels of party membership by 1.26 per cent. The countries which have greater initial levels have more possibility for higher rates of decline than in the countries with lower initial levels of party membership. The post-communist countries include Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic (Bruter & Harrison, 2009, p.62). Declining Levels of Party Membership It should be noted that the evidence of change over time is probably meaningful only in the cases of the democracies which were long-established, to a lesser extent, in the cases of Greece, Portugal and Spain. The inadequate trends that can result from membership figures in the post-communist democracies are as yet of doubtful value. Party membership data in post-communist democracies are generally distorted in that the parties are very new and still volatile formations which began their organizational lives with almost no real presence on the ground (van Biezen, 2000, p.362) and the levels of membership in the polities as a whole are sometimes initially exaggerated by the organizational legacy of the former ruling communist parties and their satellites which notwithstanding in reformed versions, continued within competitive politics. The combination of both these factors make it difficult and less meaningful to try to institute and interpret changes in party membership levels over time. Comparing the early 1960s to the late 1980s, Katz et al. (1992: 332–3) observed no European-wide trend in this measure, with the number of countries recording a decline in overall numbers being more or less matched by those recording a growth. Indeed, the relative decline in the M/E ratio which was then noted in all but two countries was explained by the failure of membership levels to grow at the same rate, as did the national electorates. By the late 1990s, in each of the long-established democracies the absolute number of party members has now fallen, and sometimes substantially. What is important to recognize here is therefore not only the sheer scale of the decline, but also its consistency. Not only have national levels of party membership across all of the long-established democracies failed to keep pace as with the M/E ratio, with the only countries to counter to record a substantial increase in absolute numbers of members according to M/E ratio are the more recently democratized polities (Poguntke 2005). This report has briefly presented an overview and an update of party membership levels in contemporary European democracies; however it is not the place to derive a far-reaching conclusion as to why the role and style of party membership has changed over time or to come up with an hypothesis that explains the patterns I have explained. Political parties along with the other traditional and hierarchical organizations seem to be suffering from the issue of the individualization of social and political preferences, as well as from a more general unwillingness to rely on existing institutional structures to represent and articulate what appear to be increasingly particularized demands implying that parties lack their own specific story. A more passive membership is likely to be welcomed by party leaders and unlikely to prove attractive to ordinary voters in an increasingly depoliticized environment hence it is crucial to learn more about specifically who is remaining within the parties, since it is this now much reduced constituency that will do much to define party identities in the future (Poguntke 2005) As it has already been noted with regard to patterns of electoral participation in terms of party membership levels, it is quite an evident in the 1990s witnessed the first considerable and aggregate evidence with consistency in the growth of disengagement from conventional politics across Western Europe. Citizens in Western Europe appear to be as supportive of the idea of democracy as ever they were. However, at the moment, they do not appear to be quite so eager and ready to engage themselves in enthusiastically maintaining the very institutions that are required by democracy if it is to thrive (Lewis, 2000, p.190). . Discussion Among the factors explaining the trend in decline of voluntary parties across the western democratic world is the government regulation, which is the product of an ever closer relationship between the state and political parties. The closer relationship between the state and political parties always comes at a cost (Rozenvalds 2005) The more the state funds and regulates political parties, the more likely it is that the voluntary party organizations will experience a decline. State regulation influencing voluntary activity beyond parties serves to weaken partisanship in the wider electorate. Parties are the most significant institutions that link the state and the civil society and state regulation may damage the social capital more in society (Biezen & Ingrid, 2009, p.284). Political parties play a major role in elections and institutions modern European democracies, but it seems that they have all but deserted any affectations to being mass organizations. However, there some few parties those continue to emphasize the need to form a strong membership which necessitates a close organizational link to local communities and constituencies such as The Dutch Socialist Party and the right-wing Italian Lega Nord. Political parties in some countries tend to maintain a very large membership that sets both policies ever more evidently as being unified opposed to the normal patterns of party organizational development in contemporary Europe (Borz & Gabriela, 2009, p.332). However, taking into account these exceptions, what is seen in these membership data is a very solid evidence of the complete extent of party transformation in Europe since the 1980s. Members earlier supported mass parties by contributing a large proportion of their incomes and other organizational resources that offered a valuable input in making party policies that led to national party congresses (Lewis, 2000, p.235). They maintained party’s presence in the ground and helped to legitimize party organizations and campaigning. Conclusion By offering commitment and loyalty, these members constituted a fairly limitless reservoir for candidate recruitment and obligations of office holding, and these benefits were evidently increasing party membership. Today’s figures look differently complete, as the average M/E ratio across Europe is just 4.7 per cent with only two polities. Cyprus and Austria – scoring above 10 per cent it is evident that a decline in mass organizations and unions consequently affects membership in parties as they are losing their broad-based connection with the wider society. This means that the world of collateral organizations may no longer be able to offer a refuge to parties, offering little potential for the parties to make up for their declining memberships The conditions that fostered the age of mass party passed have ceased to prevail as well as its age, a projection that has led to massive decline in party membership and activism. References Albertazzi,D. & McDonnell,D. (2010). The Lega Nord back in government. West European Politics 33(6): 1318–1340. Biezen, I. van (2003).Political parties in new democracies: Party organization in Southern and East-Central Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Crouch, C. (2008). Change in European societies since the 1970s. West European Politics 31(1–2): 14–39. 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