Which party members participate in direct political action? A cross-national analysis
| Author | Bram Wauters |
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512116667730 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
International Political Science Review
2018, Vol. 39(2) 225 –241
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512116667730
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Which party members
participate in direct political
action? A cross-national analysis
Bram Wauters
Ghent University, Belgium
Abstract
As a reaction to the erosion of political parties, citizens increasingly engage in participation independently
from parties (such as boycotts, petitions and street demonstrations). Looking beyond the often-stated
contradiction between party membership and these forms of non-institutionalized participation, we tried
to determine whether party members participate in non-institutionalized participation as a complement or
an alternative to their party membership activities. Based on the relative deprivation and civic voluntarism
model, three party variables were selected: activity rate in the party, government status and ideological
orientation of the party. The results of our analysis conducted on party members in 22 European countries
show that the government status and the ideological position of a party have the largest effects on the
propensity to participate in direct action. Activity rate does not have a significant effect, except a positive
one for street demonstrations. In sum, direct action is not an alternative for dissatisfied party members, but
rather a complement.
Keywords
Party members, direct action, participation, petition, boycott, street demonstration
Introduction
Political parties in Western democracies are often considered to have been in a state of crisis for
several decades. Although there is no clear consensus on this overall trend (e.g. Dalton et al., 2011),
parties’ ties to the broader society appear to have weakened seriously. Aspects of this crisis include
increased electoral volatility (e.g. Drummond, 2006), as well as a decline in the number of party
members (e.g. Van Biezen et al., 2012). These tendencies put pressure on the traditional linking
function of parties. Citizens no longer recognize parties as trustworthy intermediaries for channel-
ling their demands to the government. As a reaction, citizens have increasingly resorted to other
Corresponding author:
Bram Wauters, Ghent Association for the Study of Parties and Representation (GASPAR), Faculty of Political & Social
Sciences – Ghent University, Universiteitstraat 8 - 9000 Gent, Belgium.
Email: Bram.wauters@ugent.be
667730IPS0010.1177/0192512116667730International Political Science ReviewWauters
research-article2016
Article
226 International Political Science Review 39(2)
forms of participation to influence public policy, such as boycotting products, signing petitions and
participating in street demonstrations. These forms have been labelled as, for example, non-insti-
tutionalized participation, unconventional participation, direct action or cause-oriented participa-
tion (Barnes and Kaase, 1979; Hooghe and Mariën, 2013; Hustinx et al., 2012; Norris, 2007). In
the last few decades, the number of participants in these kinds of direct actions has risen enor-
mously (Dalton, 2009).
In general, these non-institutionalized forms of political participation can be contrasted with
traditional, institutionalized forms of participation such as party membership. Many researchers
distinguish between these two (or more) types of participation activities, with the most notable dif-
ference lying in the type of participants (e.g. Hooghe and Mariën, 2013; Li and Marsh, 2008; van
Deth, 2014; Webb, 2013). Participants in demonstrations, petitions and boycotts (i.e. non-institu-
tionalized participation) undertake this kind of action as an alternative to joining a political party
(i.e. institutionalized participation).
However, other studies (Parry et al., 1992) have found that party membership increases the
chance that people undertake this kind of direct action, as the same skills and resources needed
for participation apply to both institutionalized and non-institutionalized forms of participation.
In other words, the two kinds of participation are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.
Whiteley (2011), for instance, found no negative effect of consumer participation (boycotting
products) on party membership and intra-party activity, and Galais (2014) even found a positive
effect of protest behaviour on voter turnout (which is another form of institutionalized participa-
tion). Norris et al. (2005) indicate that party members are more likely to take part in street dem-
onstrations, but that this also depends on what they are demonstrating against. Finally, in their
study of university students, Hustinx et al. (2012) detected a specific category of participants,
called ‘civic omnivores’, who combine traditional forms of participation with more unconven-
tional ones.
The present paper aims to go beyond the alleged mutual exclusiveness between party member-
ship and direct action by investigating what kind of party members engage in these forms of
participation.
First of all, we will examine whether direct political action could be considered as an alternative
or as a complement to party membership activity. To this end, a comparison is made between party
members and non-members, but also between active and passive members. Active members are
supposed to consider non-institutionalized participation as a complement to their party member-
ship, while passive members regard it as an alternative to party membership activity.
Next, we will study the effect of a party’s government status. Party members of opposition par-
ties are expected to engage more often in direct action, since they tend to be more dissatisfied with
(government) policies and they lack more direct channels (such as personal contacts) to influence
government policy.
In addition, we will investigate whether the ideological orientation of a party plays a role. It is
not entirely clear what to expect in this respect. While people from the right in general possess
more resources to participate (Jennings and van Deth, 1990), the post-materialist topics that are
often promoted by non-institutionalized participation (e.g. pacifism) are more in line with leftist
concerns (Teorell et al., 2007).
Rather than conducting an analysis on the whole population – which is the most common
approach – we have restricted our research population to party members. We use a subset of the
2004 International Social Survey Programme on citizenship (ISSP Research Group, 2012).
This paper is structured as follows. First, we will discuss the current crisis of political parties
and initiatives that have been taken to overcome problems associated with it. Next, we will con-
sider theoretical explanations for participation in non-institutionalized forms of participation and
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