New parties, new movements: but how much say do party members get?

Political Party Database Project
The Political Party Database Project is a cross-national initiative to establish an online public database as a central source for key information about political party organisation, party resources, leadership selection, and partisan political participation in many representative democracies. The research team is also preparing a party statute archive as a resource to assist students, scholars, and practitioners. The Political Party Database Project has analysed the workings of 122 political parties in 19 parliamentary democracies. Remarkably, the vast majority share a common model of subscriber democracy: members join at a local level and enjoy a certain amount of say in the party’s direction. But in recent years a wave of new political movements, such as République en Marche and the Italian 5 Star Movement, have challenged this template. Yet the vast majority continue to make decisions at an assembly level rather than by consulting the whole membership. Paul Webb, Susan E Scarrow and Thomas Poguntke explain their findings.

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Website: Political Party Database Project http://www.politicalpartydb.org/

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