Conceptualising party-driven movements

James Muldoon,Danny Rye

doi:10.1177/1369148120919744

Abstract

This article contributes to scholarship on the relationship between political parties and social movements by proposing the concept of ‘party-driven movements’ to understand the formation of a new hybrid model within existing political parties in majoritarian systems. In our two case studies – Momentum’s relationship with the UK Labour Party and the Bernie Sanders-inspired ‘Our Revolution’ with the US Democratic Party – we highlight the conditions under which they emerge and their key characteristics. We analyse how party-driven movements express an ambivalence in terms of strategy (working inside and outside the party), political aims (aiming to transform the party and society) and organisation (in the desire to maintain autonomy while participating within party structures). Our analysis suggests that such party-driven movements provide a potential answer to political parties’ alienation from civil society and may thus be a more enduring feature of Anglo-American majoritarian party systems than the current literature suggests.

Highlights

An important body of literature seeks to bridge the divide between the study of political parties and social movements, examining the interface between the two (Kitschelt, 1993; Kruszewska, 2016; McAdam and Tarrow, 2010; Schwartz, 2010)
We argue that the differing dynamics of two-party systems has resulted in the appearance within existing parties of an alternative form of hybrid organisation, 1Department of Politics, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK 2Department of History and Politics, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, Merseyside, UK
Forming a movement was a means by which actors, within the party, could harness it to serve longer-term left-wing goals, drawing in new support from new, non-traditional sources. This party-movement dynamic, we argue, is the basis of a potentially transformative relationship, producing a new kind of organisation. We argue that this latest evolution in political party organisation is one avenue through which political parties could seek to reconnect with civil society

Summary

Introduction

An important body of literature seeks to bridge the divide between the study of political parties and social movements, examining the interface between the two (Kitschelt, 1993; Kruszewska, 2016; McAdam and Tarrow, 2010; Schwartz, 2010). Donatella Della Porta et al (2017) have analysed new ‘movement-parties’, hybrids which have emerged from left-wing, anti-austerity movements and shaken up the party system in Greece, Italy and Spain. A more fruitful strategy for movements in these systems has been to form mutually beneficial relationships with existing party organisations (Schlozman, 2015). We argue that the differing dynamics of two-party systems has resulted in the appearance within existing parties of an alternative form of hybrid organisation, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 22(3). We aim to provide a conceptual framework for understanding the emergence of this new organisational hybrid. Two questions guide our research: first, under what specific conditions do party-driven movements emerge? Two questions guide our research: first, under what specific conditions do party-driven movements emerge? Second, what are their key features and to what extent are they a distinctive kind of organisation?

Objectives

Findings

Conclusion