Mass Membership Research Articles

Muslim Organizations and Colonialism in Africa

Muslim organizations have long played an important role in shaping African societies and cultures. Prior to the colonial era in the late 19th century, traditional Muslim institutions governed religious doctrine and practice, administered religious endowments and supported cultural and educational activities across the continent. However, the imposition of European colonial rule disrupted these indigenous structures and systems of authority. Colonial powers sought to undermine the influence of Muslim leaders and control how Islam was practiced. They imposed restrictions on many Muslim organizations and activities.In response, new reformist and revivalist movements emerged to defend Islamic identities and practices against colonial interference. Cultural and educational associations also grew to promote Muslim knowledge and identity. Some organizations began espousing early strains of anti-colonial nationalism. As African states gained independence in the mid-20th century, Muslim organizations regained legitimacy and restored many traditional institutions. New mass membership bodies emerged focused on social and political empowerment. Today, Muslim organizations play an active role in communities through education, social services and representing Muslim interests to governments, though debates continue around modernization, identities and the relationship between religion and politics.

Lost in translation? WIZO and international feminism c.1920–1940

ABSTRACT WIZO's founders in 1920 included several Anglo-Jewish feminists and former suffragists. The organisation supported the female franchise in the Jewish institutions of Mandate Palestine, but incorporated many, sometimes conflicting, approaches to developing women's roles. Attempting mass membership in hopes of influencing the male-dominated world Zionist movement, WIZO represented women with widely differing views, both within and between national branches. Disagreements were particularly open between British and Czechoslovak WIZO leaders regarding the provision of welfare services as opposed to establishing training for economic independence, particularly in agriculture. Deep rifts and resignations by 1930 were healed as the rise of Nazism demanded a new focus. The embedding of a formal party-political system in the Mandate and State of Israel, together with the consolidation of an orthodox Rabbinate, left little space for these pioneers to speak on women's issues.

Picking the PM

Picking the <scp>P</scp><scp>M</scp>

Bolshevik Bargaining in Soviet Industry: Communists between State and Society in the Interwar Soviet Union

AbstractThis article examines a little-studied aspect of the Soviet Union’s history, namely, the activities of the mass membership of the Communist Party during the interwar period. Based on origin...

Цифровые политические партии — зарубежный опыт и возможности его реализации в России

The development of information and communication technologies in the context of declining confidence in traditional parties focused on mass membership has led to the emergence of a new model of political parties — digital parties. The article analyzes their essence, distinctive features and methods of activity. The reasons for the failure to create digital parties in Russia are explained by the lack of conditions for their existence, as well as the focus of Russian legislation on the model of mass parties with formal membership, an extensive structure and a large bureaucratic apparatus. The article analyzes the prospects for changes in legislation that will favor the formation of a model of digital political parties in Russia, while noting that in our country this model will have differences from foreign ones.

Providing Evidence and “Voice” During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Online Rapid Response Surveys: Lessons from the UJ/HSRC COVID-19 Democracy Survey

ABSTRACT COVID-19 presents significant challenges to society and to social scientists in their attempts to understand the unfolding consequences of the pandemic. This article examines how the UJ/HSRC COVID-19 Democracy survey responded to these challenges by conducting a series of rapid-response non-probabilistic surveys using a mass membership online data-free platform, known as the Moya messenger app. While not without its limitations, we argue that the narrowing “digital divide” in South Africa means that online survey research is of increasing utility to researchers under the conditions of the pandemic and beyond. By offering insight into the technicalities of designing, translating and fielding the survey we aim to share insights into best practice that can further develop online survey research in South Africa. In particular, we reflect upon why the river sampling offered by the Moya messenger app was favoured over online panel data. This leads into a discussion of the process of weighting the data to replicate the national population, and the potential biases among participants versus non-participants in the surveys. The article then moves on to illustrate how the findings were used to provide evidence to policymakers and “voice” to adults living in South Africa about their experiences of the pandemic and their views on policy responses. The article considers how the research contributed to the public discourse around the pandemic response in 2020, including the public’s views on various pandemic policy decisions, school closures and pandemic fatigue.

From Komsomol to the Republican Youth Union: Building a Pro-presidential Mass Youth Organisation in Post-Soviet Belarus

Based on extensive and diverse primary material, this article provides a detailed analysis of the development of Belarusian government-affiliated youth organisations from the late 1980s until 2002. Using a historical institutionalist approach, it examines the transformation of the Belarusian Komsomol into an independent association and the emergence of new, proactive pro-government youth organisations. The article demonstrates that, contrary to common assumptions, building a mass membership pro-presidential youth organisation in Belarus was a complex project that took years to complete. When the Belarusian Republican Youth Union finally emerged in 2002, it was a result of an interplay of many structural and agency-related factors.

From unionism to youth activism: Taiwan’s politics of working hours

This article examines two major protests related to working-hour reforms in Taiwan in 2000 and 2016–18, paying particular attention to the shift in the composition of protesters from union members to youth activists. The decline in mass membership and the failure to consolidate a national federation have diminished the political presence of labour unions. The emergence of youth protest movements, both before and after the 2014 Sunflower Movement, made possible the advent of Taiwan’s youth as political actors. The reconfiguration of Taiwan’s working hour politics has paralleled the global transition from the classical organization-based collective action to the digitally enabled ‘connective action’. The concluding section provides reflections on the impacts as well as the limitations of this newer form of labour politics.

Sokolstvo u Leskovcu i Vlasotincu

The Sokol movement originated in Prague on February 16, 1862, under the then Habsburg Monarchy, as a form of awakening Czech national consciousness through sporting activities. The conceptual creator of this concept was Miroslav Tirsh, and together with him the founders of the Exercise Organization ''Soko'' were Jindrich Finger and Emanuel Toner. Serbian sokolism developed later, on several sides, according to circumstances and circumstances in which the situation was different in the free Principality, then in the Kingdom of Serbia, and differently in the areas where Serbs under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy lived. Sokolism in the south of Serbia arose from gymnastics, which was the ,,key point'' of the work of both the Gymnastics and later Sokol society. A special impetus for mass membership in southern Serbia was given by Uros, son of Proka Crnilovic, from Vlasotince at Belgrade studies, who in 1911 participated with the sokols from Belgrade at the AllSokol Slet in Zagreb, and even more by participating in the All-Sokol Slet in Prague 1912, when he won the medal in the long jump. The aim of this research was to find out and present historical facts about the occurrence of sokolism in the south of Serbia, especially in Leskovac and Vlasotince.

Utilising trade unions in business continuity management to create resilience

Purpose Trade unions are the political arm of the working class, economically active masses, whilst industrial action is a demonstration of the will to reach their objectives. However, the crippling of systems through such contradicts business continuity. Yet, the opposite is true for a natural disaster that traumatises the union member and has a direct impact on their well-being. Inculcating a service continuity and resilience in government, with trade unions as majority stakeholders, may be a challenge. Moreover, it is further complicated by the African perspective, which will become prevalent in the author’s deliberations, as the trade union landscape is open to revolutionary Marxism, Socialism and Capitalistic precepts and concepts. Testing the problem and solutions with the period model produces evidence that purports a future praxis for business continuity management (BCM) that involves trade union representatives and their members. Ultimately, trade unions, cumbersome as they may seem, have much to offer as far as human resources, mass membership, knowledge and skill are concerned. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach An action learning approach linked to the period model to answer five research questions, namely: What is the actual modus operandi of trade unions with regard to business continuity and resilience?; What is the actual interest of union representatives in the understanding and implementation of BCM and resilience standards and concepts?; What would be required to utilise trade union platforms for the purposes of BC induction and awareness?; How will BCM certification for trade union stewards affect or impact on their industrial actions or campaigns?; How can the BCM fora develop a theory and possible praxis, to involve trade unions as part of the business continuity and resilience programme of an organisation? Findings The findings are as follows: the period model works as an agent of action learning. The likelihood of trade unions to participate in business continuity outside of labour action is commendable. Trade union representatives are keen on being certified as BCM practitioners. BCPs are inclined to fail with industrial action when involving trade union representatives. The BCM Policy and ISO 22301 standards bring about a good understanding of the roles of BC practitioners and union representatives in a crisis period. Research limitations/implications Research was limited to the pilot site, i.e. The Government Pensions Administration Agency – South Africa. Originality/value The paper brings about a new dimension to a business continuity programme, where the trade unions are no longer an interested party but rather they become active members of a business continuity team.

In participatory budgeting we trust? Fairness, tactics and (in)accessibility in participatory governance

ABSTRACTParticipatory budgeting (PB) is a significant innovation in democracy and local development. PB provides the opportunity for citizens to engage in processes of deliberation and decision-making upon the allocation of public funds. As new critical discourse emerges surrounding this model of local government spending, a significant area warranting investigation concerns how trust, and indeed mistrust, factor into PB. Through an analysis of interviews with residents and Council staff engaged in PB processes in a county in the north of England, we highlight the ways in which issues of trust can impact on participation in these initiatives, and also strengthen relationships between voting delegates, project teams and local government. This paper argues that increasing the perceived accessibility, and reconsidering the inclusion of mass membership groups in PB, might help to create progressive, effective and trustful participation.

Knights across the Atlantic: The Knights of Labor in Britain and Ireland by Steven Parfitt

<i>Knights across the Atlantic: The Knights of Labor in Britain and Ireland</i> by Steven Parfitt

The potential downstream effects of proposed changes in Australian private health insurance policy: The case for naturopathy

The Australian government has recently announced major reforms to the private health insurance (PHI) system. Amongst the changes are the removal of government-subsidised PHI rebates for consultations with most unregistered complementary medicine practitioners, including naturopathy. However, there are several doubts about these reforms, as this commentary explains, which primarily relate to (1) the basis of the decision, and (2) the consequences of the proposed changes. In terms of the former, an insufficient clinical evidence base was claimed to be the main driver of this decision. However, the evidence informing this decision had several limitations, and in the case of naturopathy, was somewhat contradictory. The absence of enforceable standards (from statutory registration) was another factor contributing to the decision; yet, for naturopathy, this has largely been the product of government inaction, rather than a lack of action from the profession. In terms of the downstream effects of these reforms, these could be considerable, including mass membership withdrawal from ancillary (extras) cover and cost-shifting to the public health sector; potentially leading to a rise in PHI premiums, increased demand for general practice services, and a rise in the number of avoidable hospitalisations. The proposed changes also deviate from international standards and declarations, and contravene key performance indicators of a quality health care system. In light of these concerns, the commentary calls for an immediate rethink of the intended PHI reforms, at least for naturopathy.

Post-Communism and the South African Communist Party

In what ways does the trajectory of the South African Communist Party correspond with general features of post-communist politics? This paper will show how the party remains far from being reconstituted as a post-communist formation. The party’s leadership remains inspired by Leninist precepts and its own historic strategic perspectives, and draws purpose from its proximity to power. But it struggles to maintain a vanguard function in a political economy in which the industrial working class has weakened and its own mass membership, recruited from unemployed rural youngsters, is motivated by office-seeking rather than solidarity.

The re-emergence of asymmetric labour relations: two campaigns that have abandoned traditional labour tactics in favour of community organising

Employee voice in English-speaking jurisdictions is often characterised as being exercised via union or non-union channels. The present terrain has come about as a result of more than three decades of the gradual fragmentation of work forms and a related decline in union voice. This nomenclature does not account for the emergence of forms of voice that blur this distinction: third-party worker advocacy which may be led by unions or by other groups. Relative to mass membership unions, these groups are characterised by a paucity of resources and often an open, network organisational structure instead of a hierarchical structure, leading to inclusion of non-labour community groups and a broadening of their agenda beyond traditional workplace relation matters. This paper borrows the notion of asymmetry to explain the success of these groups when facing much more powerful adversaries. Two case studies are examined in detail, both in the retail industry.

When new party X has the ‘X factor’

There is no single, correct answer to the question ‘what type of party is new party X?’ nor is there a foolproof way of gauging new-party X’s prospects of survival as a parliamentary actor. The recent literature on new parties predicts a relatively low survival rate for ‘entrepreneur parties’, defined as parties formed without a measure of support from an external ‘promoter’ organisation. Charisma alone, the argument goes, is unlikely to be sufficient for party ‘sustainability’. This article, however, identifies a sustainable type of new party in which the founding entrepreneur, acting without specific external group support, combines charismatic leadership and organisational leadership to create a stable mass membership party. The article’s empirical section focuses on the evolution of one such ‘charisma plus’ or ‘resilient entrepreneurial party’ — the True Finns — and, based on personal interviews with its long-serving leader, it does so from the express standpoint of the party entrepreneur.

How and Why Parties Respond to Membership Decline: The Case of the SPD and the CDU

A dominant assumption in the existing literature on party organisation in Western Europe holds that parties acquiesce in membership decline because modern campaigning is capital- rather than labour-intensive. This article studies eight reform attempts, from 1989 to 2011, by two paradigmatic membership parties, the German SPD and CDU. The examined party documents show that the two parties still value and seek mass membership. Indeed, most of the proposed reforms are not attempts at organisational innovation, but have the intention of consolidating the existing membership organisations. Surprisingly, the parties are concerned about membership decline not mainly for electoral reasons, but because they value and wish to preserve their legacy as membership organisations. Secondly, both the SPD and the CDU documents suggest that the legal-normative imperative of the German Basic Law requiring parties to sustain democratic linkage necessitates a membership organisation. Furthermore, the SPD views mass membership as inherent to social democratic ideology.

More than 13 million: mass mobilisation and gender politics in the Vietnam Women's Union

This article focuses on the Vietnam Women's Union (VWU): one of the oldest and largest machineries for women's issues in the world. This article explores how this mass membership organisation in a socialist state is currently addressing the realities of women's daily lives and gender relations in Vietnam. It considers the extent to which a mass state-led organisation triggers feminist solidarity. Our research, in one of the local branches of the VWU, examined the organisation's membership rates, programmes and activities, and its gender-equality objectives. We found that the VWU fails to challenge traditional gender norms, actually emphasising women's responsibilities in maintaining a ‘happy family’. However, solidarity with the poor is a key concern of the district offices’ agenda and many women do actually benefit practically from their projects. We conclude that the VWU's main weaknesses emerge from its hierarchical structure and a centrally planned gender policy, which avoids addressing critical power issues.

Polls and Elections: Two Paradigms of Presidential Nominations

The time frame at which presidential nominations can be forecast accurately provides us with a clue about when a winning nominating coalition coalesces in a political party, which in turn provides insights about political power in the nomination process. This article uses updated forecasts of the contested vote in presidential primaries to assess competing hypotheses from different theoretical approaches to the study of presidential nominations. One theoretical perspective holds that presidential nominations are largely determined during the invisible primary (e.g., Cohen et al., 2003, 2008; Hadley 1976; Haynes et al. 2004; Mayer 1996; Steger 2000). In this scenario the caucuses and primaries play a plebiscitary role, confirming the results of the campaign occurring before the primaries when party elites, activists, donors, and groups evaluate candidates and coordinate among themselves in order to unify behind a presidential candidate--before the mass membership of the party weigh in on the selection of the nominee. The other theoretical approach focuses on candidates' campaign momentum during the caucuses and primaries (e.g., Aldrich 1980; Bartels 1988; Norrander 1993, 2006; Popkin 1991). We can get a sense of which argument is correct by assessing the accuracy of presidential primary vote forecasts that use information from different points in time. Forecasts of the presidential primary vote differ from general election forecasts and other kinds of static explanatory models in a critical respect. Since presidential nominees are chosen through a sequential process that begins years before and continues through a series of caucuses and primaries, the process can be thought of as a Bayesian updating model (e.g., Morton and Williams 1999). In Bayesian terms, the nomination campaign leading up to the caucuses and primaries establishes an expectation for the outcome of the campaign, and this baseline expectation is updated through successive caucuses and primaries. As such, it is possible to use forecast models to assess the relative impact of conditions and events at different points in time to determine which phases of the campaign are critical to the determination of the outcome. This article estimates forecast models using information known at the end of the invisible primary period and compares these with forecast models using information from the earliest caucuses and primaries--the events considered to have the greatest impact on subsequent primary vote. If the nominee can be predicted accurately using information from the invisible primary, then the caucuses and primaries would appear to confirm the results of the earlier processes. However, if pre-primary forecasts have substantial error and that error is reduced by information about the results of the earliest nominating elections, then the caucuses and primaries can be said to have an independent influence on the outcome and thus campaign momentum affects the outcome. Rather than affirming one perspective or the other, this study shows that both patterns exist in different presidential nomination campaigns. One pattern is evidenced by substantial coalescence of party elites and mass partisans during the invisible primary behind a front-runner who goes on to win the nomination. Party elites, activists, and groups, however, do not always unify behind a candidate before the caucuses and primaries. These campaigns are distinguishable in forecasting models by larger errors in the prediction of candidate vote shares. In these nomination cycles, models incorporating information from the results of early caucuses and primaries substantially improve predictive accuracy. The occurrence of both patterns raises an important question about why political party elites and mass identifiers unify during the invisible primary period in some election cycles more than during others. The next section briefly reviews models of presidential primary vote forecasts. …

White Heat, Guide Blue: The Girl Guide Movement in the 1960s

This paper examines the reinvention of Britain's largest uniformed youth organisation, the Girl Guides Association, during the 1960s. It will be argued that the movement's leaders initiated a successful reform process that both analysed and assimilated predominant social mores and tastes amongst British youth. In doing so, they forged a modern, voluntary organisation with mass membership that has remained an integral part of mainstream youth culture. Recent historiography has questioned many perceived orthodoxies regarding the social and moral revolutions associated with the 1960s. The renaissance of Guiding, a movement designed as a rampart for the social order, casts doubt on popular portrayals of the 1960s as a decade of youthful radicalism.