New Adventures in Membership: Primary Elections and the Italian Case

Abstract

Primary elections have become a relevant aspect of Italian politics, where participation of the whole citizenship, in disregard of party affiliation, is allowed. On one side, they can be considered a tool that political parties set up in order to react against the crisis of legitimacy they are suffering from. On the other, perhaps more importantly, primaries may be understood as a new participative dimension in which the nature of party membership is refurbished and redefined. Indeed, through primaries, the incentives to participation are reallocated in a way that members share the same commitment and engagement of those who intervene in party life only ‘on and off’ sporadically. Given these premises, this paper focuses on how Democratic Party (PD) members perceive such an instrument. We distinguish between old-style members, who come from a militant experience within a party structure oriented and focused on members and their key role, and new-style members, who join a party for the very first time. While the former understand primaries as a return of the party, for the latter primaries give the opportunity for a new mode of participation. Using data from a web survey submitted to PD members, we find that both types give quite a positive opinion of primaries, though new-style members are slightly happier than old-style members. Although members conceive primaries as a new opportunity for participation, the latter are also perceived as a lighter way of participating in party life, as the members’ positive opinion declines when the level of involvement within the party increases. However, when intra-party democracy procedures are at stake, the distinction between membership styles seems to disappear in favour of a division between internal members and external supporters. In fact, there still is a consistent group of reluctant and sceptical members who interpret primaries, as well as more inclusive methods of candidate and leader selection, as an instrument aiming at putting members and supporters on the same level.