Ups and Downs: Danish Party Membership Figures

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2 Ups and Downs: Danish Party Membership Figures Denmark had well-established, democratic, membership-based parties on both sides of the left-right ideological spectrum already in the interwar period where the membership figures totaled more than In this period Social Democrats had around 200,000 members and organized thereby more than a quarter of their electorate. The other major class based mass party, the agrarian Liberals, had around 130,000 members, while the Conservatives had around 70,000 and the Social Liberals 30,000. Declining party membership figures is the common trend across the part of the Western world which previously had a tradition for mass membership based political parties. This is also the trend in Denmark. At the aggregate level, party membership figures peaked in the 1950s at a little less than 600,000 members and 28 percent of the electorate. The Social Democrats and Liberals had by far the largest shares of this with, respectively, around and members. Since then the aggregate party membership has declined in Denmark as well as elsewhere. The decline was most staggering till the 1980 s; afterwards it has been more moderate. In an international comparison the Danish decline is drastic due to the high level of party membership figures at the outset. Turning to the party level, looking, first, into the two old and historically largest parties, the Social Democrats (SD) and Liberals (V) both peaked in the 1950 s and has experienced a similar decline even though the Social Democrats started off at a higher level than the Liberals. The Liberals actually overtook the Social Democrats markedly in the period from 1993 to around The Conservatives (KF), which is also among the four old parties, have had a slightly other development with a peak in 1967 at which they rose almost to the levels of the Liberals and Social Democrats. However, they had a more drastic decline in the following years, after which they have experienced a moderate decline along the lines of the other two parties. The development in the membership figures of these three parties are depicted in Figure 1. 1

3 Figure 1. Party membership figures for SD, V and KF SD KF V Turning to the smaller parties, their membership figures are, as depicted in Figure 2, much more of a rollercoaster ride. The smallest of the four old parties, the Social Liberals (RV), never reached the levels of the other old parties. Actually, the Social Liberals peaked in 1960 with 35,000 members. They have also experienced a decline, in particular in the period However, their membership figures stabilized in the 1990 s, rose in , and has been going up and down since then. These four parties made up the core of the Danish party system until 1960 when the Socialist People s Party (SF) entered the party system. The membership figure of SF has had ups and downs in the period from 1960 to Afterwards the ups and downs have continued at a less frequent pace: the trend was upwards until 1990, and then downwards till In the period between the general elections of 2001 and 2011, SF tripled their number of members. However, since 2011 their membership figure has declined. The Christian Democrats (KD; originally named the Christian People s Party) was very successful at the outset and grew markedly within their first years in the early 1970s. However, since then their membership figure has declined slowly but steadily. Even though they have not been represented in parliament since 2005 they retain a membership of more than

4 The Red-Green Alliance (EL), established in 1989, increased their membership at a slow pace in the beginning but have in particular since 2010 seen a more drastic increase almost doubling their membership figures. Danish People s Party (DF) has had increasing party membership figures since their creation in 1996, as a splinter party from the Progress Party, and they have reached the levels of Socialist People s Party and surpassed Social Liberals. The newly created Liberal Alliance (LA) has had increasing figures at the outset, similar to those experienced by the Danish People s party in their first years. Figure 2. Party membership figures for EL, SF, CD, RV, KD, DF and LA EL SF RV KD DF LA

5 The newer parties have not been able to establish membership organizations that come close to the sizes of the membership organizations of the Social Democrats and Liberals but some of the newer parties have overtaken the Social Liberals and Conservatives. At the aggregate level Danish party membership has been in decline even if the number of parties has increased because these newer parties have not been able to compensate for the declining membership figures of the older parties. In sum, aggregate Danish party member figures are in decline. However, Danish party membership figures are not only about decline since several parties have experienced increases in their membership figures in the period since Furthermore, even with declining membership figures, parties still enroll new party members but they are not able to enroll at the same pace as they lose members. Table 1. Danish party membership figures Party EL SF SD RV KD KF V DF LA Year

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7 Sources for all parties: ( ): Niels Thomsen (1992) Det politiske rodnet. In: Jørgen Goul Andersen, Hans Jørgen Nielsen, Niels Thomsen & Jörgen Westerståhl (eds) Vi og vore politikere. København: Spektrum. ( ): Lars Bille (1997) Partier i forandring. Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag. (parliament)www. [parliament]. ( ): (parliament). ( ): Stated by the party secretariats. Notwithstanding the membership figures parties have a central role to play in representative democracy since they in practice have a monopoly on candidate election at the national level and to a large extent dominate the candidate election both at the local, regional and European level. Since parties nominate candidates, they have crucial say on who gets elected. They decide whom the voters may choose from. Furthermore, through their (almost) monopoly on parliamentarian representation, they dominate policy formulation whereby their interest aggregation processes becomes interesting and relevant for democracy at large. Even though less than four percent of the Danish electorate enroll as party members, party members are central in a representative democracy as the Danish, and it is therefore both relevant and interesting to ask: Who are the party members? Are they representative for the voters in regard to their characteristics and their opinions? How are members participating in and for their parties? Does it make a difference who participates or not? These and other questions are explored in these publications on the current state of Danish party membership: 6

8 Karina Kosiara-Pedersen (2015) Danish Party Membership in Anika Gauja & Emilie van Haute (eds) The current state of party membership. Routledge. Political parties play a central role in Danish politics, and all parties have membership organizations. The Danish case follows the general West European trend of declining membership figures. But all parties recruit members, and some have increasing membership figures. This chapter provides, first, a status on party membership criteria and party members rights and obligations. On the basis of a party member survey conducted in 2012 the chapter then proceeds to show who the Danish party members are in regard to gender, age, education, political opinions, enrollment and activism. Amongst other things this chapter shows that party members enroll primarily for political reasons; that they are not representative in regard to gender, age and education, as they are to a larger extent than the electorate male, older and longer educated; that their political opinions are dispersed along the political spectrum, and that party members are spread out along the passive-active continuum from those only paying their fees to the ambassadors, campaign activists and fiery souls spending most of their spare time on their party membership. Karina Kosiara-Pedersen (forthcoming 2015) The Impact of Children on Party Member Activism. The Copernicus Journal of Political Studies. Party member activism varies in type and intensity, and it is necessary to take this into consideration when explaining the degree of participation. One potential explanation for the level of party member participation is the extent to which there are children in the household. Based on the Danish party member survey of 2012, analyses show: First, the cost of having children is more important when explaining more demanding activities than the less demanding activities, and, second, the impact of the cost of having children in the household is larger when including the intensity of participation in the dependent variable. Third, the smaller the children, the larger the cost and the larger the negative impact on party activism no matter what type or intensity. Furthermore, there are only limited gender differences in the impact of having children so that children, in particular in the young age group, do not have a larger impact on women than men, except when it comes to meeting attendance. In sum, children do have an impact on party member activism, and the gender gap in this effect is very limited. Karina Kosiara-Pedersen (2014) Partimedlemmernes deltagelse og syn på partidemokrati [Party member participation and view on party democracy ]. Politica, Vol. 46, No. 3. Parties increasingly apply new information- and communication technologies, professionalize campaigning, party organizations and membership administration, allow for new forms of attachment and blurs the line between members and other party supporters. This alters the conditions for party membership. The question is whether party members participation and their perception of their own influence have 7

9 changed. Two surveys among Danish party members in 2000 and 2012 show: First, that both members with intra-party office and new members to a larger extent seek political influence within their parties in 2012 compared to Second, the dissatisfaction with intra-party democracy is larger in 2012 than in 2000 for members with intra-party office. Thirdly, the satisfaction with intra-party democracy is larger for the new members in 2012 than it was for the new members in Karina Kosiara-Pedersen (2014) Partimedlemmer i valgkamp [Party members campaigning] in Kasper Møller Hansen & Karina Kosiara-Pedersen (2014) Folketingsvalgkampen 2011 i perspektiv. København: Jurist- og Økonomiforbundets Forlag. This chapter shows how party members according to the party member survey of 2012 participated in the general election in The chapter shows that all parties have a high level of campaign ambassadors among their members, but that the level of campaign activists are lower and varies more among the parties. Karina Kosiara-Pedersen (2013) Partimedlemskab i et demokratisk perspektiv [Party membership in a democratic perspective] in Karina Kosiara-Pedersen, Gustav P. Nedergaard, Emil Lobe Suenson (eds) Statskundskab i praksis. Klassiske teorier og moderne problemer. København: Karnov Group. This chapter shows whether the number of party members, their characteristics and participation contributes to parties democratic role. The first part of the chapter shows what democratic role the two democratic perspectives of Alf Ross and Hal Koch attributes to parties. On this basis party member figures, characteristics and participation are analyzed. Party members contribute to parties democratic roles in both the participatory and competitive perspective but parties and their members are still at some distance from the prescription of these two perspectives. Karina Kosiara-Pedersen & Kasper Møller Hansen: Danske Partimedlemmer Dokumentationsrapport fra projektet Moderne Partimedlemskab, [Danish party members Documentation report from the project Modern Party Membership ], Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. This report documents on the method and data collection and presents the first, basic results of the survey. It is available (in Danish) at: 8