New Forms of Party Affiliation

Session Submission Type: Created Panel

Session Description

New forms of party affiliation. One of the most important themes in comparative politics over the last three decades has been the gradual decline of political parties as effective vehicles to link citizens and the state in representative democracies beyond Election Day. Among the key catalysts for this diagnosis of crisis has been the organisational transformation of political parties, away from mass membership organisations rooted in civil society to increasingly professionalised entities inseparable from the state. While this transformation has profoundly influenced the empirical and normative direction of comparative research into the future of political parties, how political parties are themselves adapting to this transformation is not yet known. The papers in this panel will engage with one of the most significant empirical developments in parties across the globe: the transformation of opportunities for, and patterns of, affiliation with political parties as organisations. Both new and established parties claim to be inventing new forms of party membership and affiliation. Whether through supporters’ networks, cyber members or movement-style politics, these opportunities have captured the attention of researchers working across the fields of party politics, media and communication, internet politics and social movement studies for their potential to reinvigorate collective mobilisations.

Sub Unit

• Partner Associations / IPSA Research Committee on Political Sociology

Individual Presentations

• Can the Mass Party be Revived? Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party - Max Kiefel, Harvard University

• Party Membership vs. Other Participation Options: Choices and Representativeness - Susan Scarrow, University of Houston; Jamie M. Wright, University of Houston

• New Types of Party Affiliation and Representation - Karina Kosiara-Pedersen, University of Copenhagen

Chair

• Karina Kosiara-Pedersen University of Copenhagen