Between love and hate: party members and the new forms of participation

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study of party membership is a traditional sub-field of the literature on political parties, especially studies based on internal party organization. Among other things, research on party members has focused on why people join parties and how to increase members’ opportunities for participation. The decline in party membership has contributed enormously to the growth of these studies. This article will investigate the relationship between the party and its members by focusing on two organizational innovations introduced by the Italian Democratic Party: a) the selection of candidates through open primaries; b) the organization of spaces for discussion open to party members and sympathizers (the so-called Agorà). What opinions do the party members have of these participation tools? What factors determine the different views of the party members? Is it possible to build a typology of party members based on their attitudes to these tools? This article answers these questions by employing an original dataset from a survey administered to Italian Democratic Party members between January and February 2022 (about 4,500 respondents).