Giulia Sandri, University of Oxford

Transcription

1 Perceptions of intra-party democracy and their consequences on activism: a comparative analysis of attitudes and behaviours of grass-roots party members Giulia Sandri, University of Oxford (giulia.sandri@politics.ox.ac.uk) Paper presented at the 22 nd world congress of political science Madrid, July Panel: party activists and intra-party democracy: attitudes, opinions and behaviour Chairs: Dr. Astrid Barrio; Dr. Montserrat Baras 0

2 1. Introduction. Most recent literature that analyzes parties from an organizational perspective focuses often on the concepts of intra-party democracy and party organizational democratization (Scarrow, 1999a; Scarrow and Kittilson, 2003; LeDuc, Niemi and Norris, 2002; Bosco and Morlino, 2007). Le Duc (2001) and Rahat and Hazan (2007) underline that the most used instrument for implementing this democratization process is the enhancement of the inclusiveness of the methods for candidate and party leadership selection. At the moment, the most inclusive method identified by the literature for selecting candidates for elections or the party leader is represented by party open or closed primaries, i.e. internal direct elections by party members and, in the case of open primaries, supporters and voters (Cross and Blais, 2011; Kenig, 2009b). Direct elections of party leaders are a recurrent theme in the debate about parties and their organizational changes (Mair, 1994; Katz and Mair, 1995 and 2009; Scarrow, 1999; Seyd, 1999; Katz, 2001; Bolleyer, 2011). These instruments represent a new pattern in the relationship between parties, members and their supporters (Hopkin, 2001; Rahat and Hazan, 2007). On the one hand, the adoption of internal direct elections contributes to incentive the internal mobilization of members already enrolled in the party. On the other hand, the open and inclusive character of this instrument encourage new typologies of political participation, which in some cases do not require any formal affiliation to the party, but instead develop an intermittent participative behaviour that concern in particular voters interested by cognitive mobilization (Dalton, 1984 and 2002). In this perspective, direct elections of party leader seem to strongly affect the role of grass-roots members within party organizations. Nevertheless, very few studies have explored to what extent leadership direct selection procedures have affected the role of grass-roots members and how this role is perceived by members themselves (Kittilson and Scarrow, 2003: 65; Allern and Pedersen, 2007; Van Holsteyn and Koole, 2009; Lyons, 2009). Hazan and Rahat (2006; 2010) describe four dimensions for evaluating the functioning of leader selection methods: participation, representation, competition and responsiveness. These authors stress that the most important dimension to be examined is the one of participation, and not only in terms of internal elections. The literature on the political consequence of leadership and candidate selection processes is nowadays quite varied (Ranney, 1972; Obler 1974; Rapaport, Abramowitz and McGlennon 1986; Hazan, 1996; Rahat and Sher-Hadar 1999; Meirowitz 2005; Cermel 2007; Maravall 2008; Barnea and Rahat 2007; Rahat et al. 2008, Rahat 2009; Kenig, 2007 and 2009; Hazan and Rahat, 2010). Nevertheless, it seldom concerns analyses conducted at individual level. The formal inclusion of party members at some point in the overall leader selection process (Lisi, 2009), such as with direct elections (Kenig, 2009), represent a crucial aspect in party democratization even according to parties themselves (Kavanagh, 2003; Faucher-King, 2008). It contributes in creating a direct, almost emotional, link between the party grass-roots base and the leadership (Scarrow, 2005; Seddone and Venturino, 2011). In this study, we explore two specific dimensions of party politics: membership and internal activisms, on the one hand, and on the other hand the internal democratization processes and in particular those dealing with broadening the inclusiveness of leadership selection procedures. Therefore, this study integrates in particular the debate on the nature and consequences of party organizational democratization. The debate finds its origins both in the influential work of Michels on the iron law of oligarchy thesis but has been more recently 1

3 boosted by the theories of Mair (1994) and also the studies on intra-party democracy in the British Labour (Shaw, 1994; Russell, 2005). 2 Theoretical framework. Michels analysis of the organizational structures of the German SPD led to an evaluation of the impossibility to develop democracy within parties. The iron law of oligarchy that Michels formulated while studying German social-democracy (Michels, 2009[1911]) hypothesized an organizational evolution of political parties build on the concept of elite manipulation of party internal democracy. The basis argument developed by Michels was that the more the party grows in size and organizational complexity, also by making more inclusive its decision-making procedures, the stronger will be the office-seeking goals of party leadership and thus the greater the tendency of the latter to bend party organization to its interests. Michels rose thus for the first time the question of the possible trade-off between party organizational inclusiveness and centralization of powers. In addition, Mair (1994) contributed to the debate on the real nature and consequences of party internal democratization by insisting particularly on the will of party leaders to seek ever greater autonomy from members and on the hypothesis that organizational reforms enfranchising individual, ordinary members through the use of internal ballots were in practice instruments adopted by the elites to achieve specifically this goal of decreasing leadership accountability. The empowerment of individual members (rather than organized party units and internal groups) and the enfranchising of ordinary, less active members is therefore considered desirable by party leadership because less active members are more likely to be docile and to endorse the policies (and candidates) proposed by the party leadership (Mair, 1994: 16). Internal democratization reforms that broaden the party organizational boundaries to include all individual party members, even those that are less socialized within the party or are less active, could correspond to a strategy for emasculating activists and increasing in the end elites control over party decision-making (Mair, 1994; Webb, 1994: 120). Therefore, the organizational changes in the sense of an apparent internal democratization could be considered as examples of Michel s iron law at work (Russell, 2005: 267). This study, consequently, integrates theoretically and empirically the scholarly debate on democracy within parties. We try to contribute in determining the nature and consequences of party organizational changes in contemporary parties that seem to move towards greater internal democratization. However, we are interested in the point of view of members themselves on the consequences of internal democratization. Very few studies have explored intra-party democracy and its consequences from the point of view of the actors mainly concerned by these reforms, namely rank-and-file ordinary members (Scarrow, 2005; Lyons, 2009; van Holsteyn and Koole, 2009). We are interested on how members perceive these organizational changes, in whether they are frustrated form the actual consequences on their role and powers and whether they perceive them as a potential threat that could undermine their organizational position within the party. In order to respond to the debate on the consequences of intra-party democracy at individual level, we rely mainly on two theoretical questions. The first research concerns the extent to which these organizational changes affect members perception of their own position within the party. The second research question that arises here concerns the political consequences of party organizational democratization mainly in terms of political participation. Participation, in fact, is often seen as an important indicator for measuring the democratic degree of elections, both within and between parties (Norris, 2002; Franklin, 2002; Wauters, 2009). In 2

4 particular, we are interested in those specific aspects of internal party organization dealing with the selection of party leaders. The main research questions of this study are thus the following: How are party organizational changes in the sense of greater democratization perceived by members? To what extent members perceptions of their own role affect their behaviors and in particular their internal activism? The aim of this study, thus, is to empirically assess the impact on members activism of party internal democratization and in particular of the perception of membership role. This is a study of how (and whether) perceived roles affect behaviour. The independent variable is constituted by the members perception of their own role within party organizational structures and in particular with regard to the leadership selection methods, whilst the dependent variable is represented by the level of activism of party members, in terms of participation to party activities in general. In fact, the impact of party rules at individual level will be addressed, as well as how the perception of organizational rules affects individual attitudes and behaviors. In particular, the focus is on leadership selection methods that integrate party members at some point in the overall process (Lisi, 2009), such as direct elections (Hazan and Rahat, 2006). The basic assumption of this paper is that the rules managing party organization impact on the perception that members have about their own role (Abramowitz, McGlennon and Rapaport, 1986; Kirkpatrick, 1972). Two different domains of the literature on party politics will be thus integrated in the study: the approach studying intraparty democracy and the approach studying party activism at individual level. The study compares the consequences of different leadership selection methods among different parties at a certain point in time. We argue that the perception of the position within the political organization structures of each individual affect his or hers attitudes and behaviours. The study also attempts at linking the individual-level analysis of party mobilization with the meso-level dimension of organization. Our explanatory scheme for exploring activism s antecedents on the basis of party organizational structures is built on the social-psychological approach for the study of political participation. This approach is used for exploring, on one hand, the effect of organizational structures on the self-perception of the members, and, on the other hand, the relation between the perception by members of own role and capacities of action within the organization and their degree of activism (Gamson, 1968: 40; Barnes and Kaase, 1979; Norris, 2002; Granik 2005; van Haute, 2009a). Within the social-psychological approach for the study of political participation, the main theory exploring the relationship between individual behaviour and the organization s structural features is the one revolving around the concepts of trust and political efficacy. The latter, in particular, links the way the individual perceive his/her role within the organization he/her belongs to and the way he/her exploits the opportunities for mobilization provided by the organization s structural features. Thus, the analytical model of our study is built upon the efficacy and trust model developed by Craig and Niemi (Craig, et al, 1990; Niemi, et al, 1991). In this model, the individual s perceptions of their own capability to understand politics and of their competence (defined as internal political efficacy), their satisfaction with party performance as well as their attitudes towards the responsiveness of (party) authorities and procedures to citizen inputs (external political efficacy) are considered to be the main antecedents to political activism. In this study the specific support for the party is measured as the satisfaction with intra-party democracy (van Haute, 2009b). We apply thus the political efficacy and trust model to party membership mobilization s antecedents. If we consider the intra-life of parties as comparable to a system on its own, as suggested by Eldersveld (1964: 1), it is possible to expect the sense of (internal and external) political efficacy of party members to vary, as well as their level of satisfaction with intra-party democracy. These two variables may thus be affecting the members level and quality of intra-party participation. 3

5 According to Craig and Niemi, citizens endowed with high sense of political efficacy, but showing a low level of political trust, are more likely to participate. The definition of role of membership is drawn not only from the literature on party organization (Michels, [1911] 2009; Duverger, 1951; Janda, 1980; Panebianco, 1988), but more particularly from the core studies on cartel party. Katz and Mair elaborate the concept of the character of membership for describing the relationship between party leadership and members and the role of grass-roots members within party decision-making procedures (1995: 20). The character of membership or membership boundaries is a dimension also analyzed by Bolleyer (2009: 560) in order to tackle the distinction between members and non members, which, according to the author, becomes nowadays rather blurred because parties reach often to all supporters and involve them in party activities, most often in the selection of the party leader, whether formally enrolled or not. Abramowitz, McGlennon and Rapaport (1986) have analyzed at individual level the attitudes towards the distinction between non-committed newcomers and older, more committed party activists. Members attitudes towards the role of membership are considered here as being the independent variable because this concept grasps the perception of own role of party members. It represents a proxy for measuring, at the individual level, the perceived functioning of membership role and in particular with regard to the leadership selection methods. If the efficacy and trust model allows to theoretically associate members attitudes with their behaviors, the concept of role of membership contribute in explaining the link between party organizational features and members attitudes. 3. Hypotheses. We argue that the adoption of open primaries for selecting the leader may entail a blurred, weak distinction between members and non-members (or between activists and passive members, in the case of closed primaries) and a limited role reserved to party affiliates. By integrating non-enrolled supporters and sympathizers within crucial internal party decisionmaking procedures, such an organizational democratization instrument appears to weaken the privileges attached to membership and to deteriorate the boundaries of party s societal reach. Thus, some affiliates may perceive the role of membership as undefined, blurred in the sense that their position and functions within party structures are not defined clearly enough. There seems to be no practical advantage in being an enrolled member rather than an interested but not affiliated sympathizer. These members may thus show negative attitudes towards the integration of party voters and supporters within party decision-making through an open and direct election of the leader. These attitudes may exert a negative effect on members beliefs about the responsiveness of party leadership bodies to grass-roots members demands. Thus, for those affiliates that perceive the role of membership as blurred, the level of perceived political efficacy is argued to be lower, because party affiliates that see their role as diminished by the integration of party simple supporters within the internal decision-making will feel more powerless than the others. Moreover, the same negative attitudes of affiliates towards the role of party membership may affect also their degree of specific support for the party, which in this study is operationalized on the basis of the degree of satisfaction with intra-party democracy. Members perceiving their role as undefined and negatively affected by the presence of supporters and voters may show low levels of specific support for party organization. Arguing that members perceived political efficacy and specific support for the organization affect their participation to party activities, the study hypothesizes that the affiliates unsatisfied with their role (and with open primaries for selecting the leader in particular) will 4

6 generally show lower level of participation in party internal activities. In a party holding open and direct elections to choose its leader, party membership will be divided between a highly active avant-garde and a larger mass of inactive affiliates, feeling inefficacy, frustrated with intra-party democracy. As a consequence our model relies on political efficacy and specific support (in terms of satisfaction with intra-party democracy) as mediating variables in the relationship between perceived roles and behaviors. In conclusion, the two main hypotheses at the basis of our model will be as following: Hypothesis 1: The perception of the role of party membership by affiliates in terms of (lack of) distinction between members and non-members affects inversely their level of satisfaction with the internal functioning of the party and their degree of perceived political efficacy. The stronger the perception of the blurred role of membership, the lower will be the level of political efficacy and satisfaction with intra-party democracy. Hypothesis 2: The levels of satisfaction with intra-party democracy and political efficacy of party members impact directly on their level of activism. The lower the level of political efficacy and satisfaction with intra-party democracy, the lower will be the degree of activism of all members. Figure 1 presents the explanatory model of the study. [Figure 1 about here] The research is developed in two steps. In the first part, we explain variations in the level of political efficacy and political support through the perception of membership role. In the second part, we investigate the consequences of these variations in political efficacy and trust on the level and nature of intra-party participation. In this study, we assessed to what extent the perception of membership role affects individual satisfaction with internal democracy and members sense of efficacy. We consider that individual s views about party membership and party democracy should be the main determinants of other views about the party. Consequently, this study aimed at assessing empirically and systematically the original question developed by Michels (1911[2009]) of the possible effects on participation of organizational centralization and of the relationship between party members and elites. We integrated the research questions developed on the basis of Michels theories with the democratization as [membership] emasculation thesis elaborated by Mair (1994). Mair s thesis of democratization of parties as a strategy of empowering while decapitating the membership (Katz, 2001: 293), provided in fact a pertinent theoretical framework to understand the possible trade-off between decision-making inclusiveness and decentralization identified by previous literature on party internal democracy since Michels work. 4. Methods and data. The unit of analysis of the independent variable of this study is the individual party. Nevertheless, this study is built upon a cross-national approach, because at the moment it seems rather difficult to compare and to evaluate the effects of varying leadership selection methods on political participation within the same party system. National party systems where it is possible to find both open and closed primaries for selecting party leaders are rather uncommon (Kittilson and Scarrow, 2003; Valbruzzi, 2008; Cross and Blais 2008 and 2009, Wauters, 2009; Lisi, 2009; Kening, 2009). The case selection is thus implemented on the basis of the research question: the comparison is developed across parties (and not across time) using different instruments for enhancing intra-party democracy. We select empirical cases that allow us to explore the consequences in 5

7 participatory terms of functioning rules that allow some formal position to party members. Firstly, the study focuses on parties having adopted inclusive selectorates for selecting their own leaders. Secondly, the selected cases have been chosen between the parties belonging to the same ideological family. The study focuses thus on social-democratic parties. Therefore, we analyze the role perception, attitudes and behaviors of grass-roots members of three contemporary Western European parties: the Belgian French-speaking socialist party (Parti Socialiste, PS), the British Labour and the Italian Democratic Party (Partito Democratico, PD). Among the selected parties, one (PD) holds primaries open to all voters for selecting their leader and one (Belgian PS), on the contrary, has chosen the closed primary (OMOV) system. The British Labour Party uses an electoral college for electing its leader since The Electoral College method refers to a system in which specific groups are allocated a specific share of the leadership vote. In the case of the UK Labour, the votes are equally divided among its constituency members, the parliamentary caucus and the trade union members. By including this case, the assessment of the hypotheses would not be limited at the differences in the effect produced by closed and open primaries but would be extended to less inclusive selection methods. In empirical terms, we collected data on party members attitudes and behaviours in the three selected parties on the basis of quantitative surveys. Two different mail-back surveys of randomly selected grass-roots members of one Belgian party and one Italian party were conducted between 2009 and The surveys are based on simple random samples drawn from the membership lists of each political party, namely the Francophone Socialist party (PS), and the Italian social-democrat party (PD). The frame population of our study is represented by the overall group of enrolled members of the two parties that would have been directly surveyed by us at the moment of the implementation of the survey in , namely enrolled individuals for the Italian PD (in 2009) and individuals for the Belgian PS (in 2007). The database at the basis of this analysis is also composed by nonoriginal survey data on UK party members. This third case, represented by grass-roots members of the British centre-left democratic socialist party (Labour party), has been studied through a panel survey realized between 1997 and 1999 by the University of Essex. A survey of a randomly selected sample of 3000 PD party members has been carried out in 2010 in order to measure grass-roots members attitudes towards membership role, intra-party democracy and their own perceived efficacy. The paper questionnaire survey has been conducted between December 2009 and May A first mail-out of questionnaires to the selected addresses was completed on December 28, A reminder mailing (containing a second mail-out of the questionnaire) to the same randomly selected addresses was completed on May 21, A mail-back survey of 5000 randomly selected grass-roots members was conducted between July and November 2010 following a very similar procedure than the one used for the PD survey. Moreover, in order to guarantee the comparability of the survey data, except for language translation and slight adaptations to national cultural and political system specificities, the two PD and PS core questionnaires are perfectly matching, particularly in terms of questions wording, sequence and format of the response categories. Although the survey methodology chosen and implemented by the Essex team is slightly different than the one we have adopted, the difference is minimal and is mainly due to financial constraints we have experienced and to practical constraints imposed by the PD and PS headquarters. The questionnaires for our original surveys of PD and PS grass-roots members have been constructed in order to produce data as comparable as possible to those obtained concerning the British labour party members by Prof. Seyd and Whiteley and the Essex University team. Nevertheless, some differences still subsist because the goals and core variables of the Essex survey were rather different than 6

8 ours. The response rate for the UK survey was 63%, yielding 5771 respondents. A total of 448 PD respondents have returned their questionnaires, generating thus a response rate of 14,9%. With a total 809 surveys returned, the PS survey generated a total response rate of 16,2% Results and discussion Role perception and satisfaction with intra-party democracy. Concerning the first research question of our study, the empirical results underline that in the three selected cases grass-root members perceive very clearly the impact that organizational changes exert on their status and organizational rights, obligations and privileges. When grass-roots members evaluate their role within the party, in particular with regard to the procedure for selecting the leader and the involvement of non-members and passive members within party organization, we consider that their perceptions take into account their organizational power as defined, among other factors, also by their share of votes in leadership selection. Thus, we expect that PD members perceive their role as more blurred than Labour members and particularly than PS members. In the case of parties, such as the PS, adopting direct elections of the party leader only by the affiliates, the majority of the members are expected to perceive clearly the distinction of the position, privileges and functions between members and non-members and the extensive role reserved for the affiliates. Conversely, in the case of parties using open primaries for selecting their leader such as the PD, because of the blurred distinction between members and non-members and the limited role reserved to the party affiliates, the majority of the latter is expected to perceive their role as rather blurred, undefined and dissatisfying. In the case of parties, as the Labour, adopting mixed methods for selecting their leader such as the Electoral College, members are expected to assume positions somewhat in between with regard to the other two cases in terms of role perception. [Figure 2 about here] The perceived role of membership was measured here by the respondents evaluation of the integration of passive members, voters and supporters within the party and by their perceived difference between the role of supporters and of registered members 2. Figure 2 shows that the perception of own role vary among members, but also that many members perceive their own role as being rather blurred. They display in fact nuanced but generally negative attitudes towards the integration of passive members, voters and supporters within the selection of party leader. A higher proportion of PD surveyed members declare to perceive their role as blurred, while smaller proportions of PS and particularly labour respondents share this evaluation. Membership role perceptions vary significantly among the respondents of the three selected parties. The great majority of PD members perceive their role as undefined and as not clearly differentiated from non-members, while only 1/4 of PS members and Labour members share 1 An annex detailing the operationalization of each variable, the items included in the questionnaires, the construction of the scales and indexes, the exploratory factor analyses performed and providing an explorative analysis of non-response rate and non-response bias was not included in the paper for space reasons but can by obtained from the author upon request. 2 All nine questionnaire items dealing with attitudes towards the role of membership (presented as Likert scales) loaded highly on one factor and constituted a one-dimensional scale. A simple additive scale was then constructed and the discretized into 4 categories for simplicity purposes. 7

9 the same role perception. With regard to the first research question of this study, therefore, we have assessed that members perception of their own role is indeed affected by organizational changes. More than half of PD members perceive their role as blurred and almost 80% of them consider that this is due precisely to the adoption of primary elections for selecting the leader. It appears that members are not that satisfied with the implementation of instruments of internal democratization as the direct election of the party leader or primary elections. A relevant share of respondents perceives in fact their rights as substantially diminished by the adoption of such instruments. For example, more than 35% of PD members consider that primary elections did not gave members more instruments to make their voice heard, while 49 % of PS members share this vision with regard to the OMOV system adopted by their party 3. Labour members seem on the contrary to be more satisfied with such organizational changes. In general, party members do not evaluate positively the fact that these formal privileges are extended not only to all individual members, not only to activists but even to passive ones, but also to party voters and supporters. Mair s activists disempowerment thesis (Mair, 1994) seems to be supported by our data, at least in terms of individual perceptions. Moreover, our data show that the degree of general satisfaction with intra-party democracy significantly (and thus the specific support for the party) vary among parties and is generally not nearly as high as could be expected on the basis of party politics literature 4. If in the British Labour survey the responses of grass-roots members seem to form a more positive picture, for instance with a great majority of member declaring that the party leader is not too powerful, the level of dissatisfaction with party functioning is rather higher. Figure 3 shows that more than 1/3 of PD members and 1/4 of PS members are overall dissatisfied with the degree of intra-party democracy existing within their respective political organization. Nevertheless, PS members are fairly more convinced than PS members that the party internal decision-making is democratic. Less than 1/4 of the Labour respondents showed low or weak satisfaction with internal democracy. [Figure 3 about here] This is what we expected to find on the basis of our first hypothesis. Among PD members the perception of the blurred, undefined role of members is rather high and so is the degree of dissatisfaction with intra-party functioning. On the contrary, within the other two parties and especially within the Labour, the role perception by grass-roots members is rather positive and well-defined and the level of satisfaction with intra-party democracy is also higher. The expectations formulated on the basis of our first hypothesis appear to be supported by the empirical data also with regard to the variations in the sense of external political efficacy of members. This variable, dealing with the beliefs that own participation matters, is measured on the one hand, by the general satisfaction with influence exerted within the party, and on the other hand, by the perception of procedural opportunities for participation provided by the 3 Frequency tables concerning the various items measuring role perception, satisfaction with intra-party democracy and external efficacy (as well as the dependent variable) are not reported in the paper, but can be obtained from the author upon request. 4 This variable is operationalized in order to tackle the satisfaction with the actual functioning of the party rather than members general support for intra-party democracy (Rüdig, 2005; Baras et al., 2010). Seven items (presented as Likert scales) were submitted to the respondents attention and then recoded so as to range from 1 (lowest level of satisfaction) to 4 (highest level of satisfaction) and, loading highly on one factor, were merged in one scale (discretized into 4 categories for simplicity purposes). 8

10 party 5. Figure 4 shows that a substantial amount of PD grass-root members are not at all satisfied with the influence they consider to exert over party decision-making. More than 2/3 of the PD respondents are dissatisfied with the influence they feel to exert in general over party functioning. With regard to PS respondents, almost half of them do not think that there are enough instruments at membership s disposal for affecting party leadership decisions. Even more respondents are positive that members do not have the final say within party organization nor that they have any say on what the leadership does. Moreover, more than 85% of them are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the overall influence they think they exert over party decisions. [Figure 4 about here] Actually, if the overall low sense of external efficacy of PD members was expected on the basis of our first hypotheses, we did not expect to find such a high level of dissatisfaction with opportunities for participating and party responsiveness to members demands among PS respondents. This seems to be mainly due to the high level of dissatisfaction with the influence exerted on the choice of the party leader. If PS members do approve of the direct elections instrument in itself, the low level of satisfaction with the perceived influence over the process might be explained by the political context in which the procedure has been carried out: in 2011 and in 2003, for example, the internal elections of the leader have been transformed in a coronation, given that only one candidate was running, while in the previous recent elections, such as for example those of 2007, only two candidates were running. Consequently, PS members perceived their choice and actual impact on the decision as rather limited. Conversely, the perceived responsiveness of Labour elites to members demands seems not to be as low as it was in the other two cases. As expected on the basis of our model, grass-roots members of parties using less inclusive methods for selecting the leader but defining more clearly the role of ordinary affiliates are not only overall more satisfied with intra-party democracy, but also are characterized by higher levels of external political efficacy. In the case of parties adopting direct elections of the party leader only by the affiliates, the majority of the members are expected to show high levels of external political efficacy. This expectation is not fully confirmed on the basis of our empirical data. Only 1/3 of PS members show high levels of external political efficacy. On the contrary, this expectation is fully confirmed for the case of the Labour respondents: almost 80% of Labour members are characterized by high levels of external efficacy. Table 1 and 2 show the relations between perceived roles, satisfaction with internal democracy and external efficacy. The data reported in the two tables seem consistent with the hypothesis, developed by several scholars (Katz and Mair, 1995; Carty, 2004; Bolleyer, 2009), that expanding the leadership selectorate and granting formal powers to party members and supporters may hide, on the other hand, the perception by enrolled members to be actually loosing power. Grass-roots members seem to be aware of the possibility of a trade-off between extreme inclusiveness of decision-making procedures and actual centralization of organizational power in the hands of party elites. A stronger perception of the blurred role of 5 Eight items were proposed to the respondents as Likert scales (to which respondent could fully agree, partly agree, partly disagree or fully disagree with) and loaded highly on two factors, one dealing with the perceived influence and the other dealing with party s structures responsiveness. The two groups of items were merged in a cumulative scale ranging from 1 (lowest external political efficacy) and 4 (highest external political efficacy) as shown in Figure 4 (the variable has been discretized into 4 categories for simplicity purposes). 9

11 membership corresponds to a lower level of political efficacy and of satisfaction with internal democracy. [Table 1 about here] [Table 2 about here] The results of our statistical analyses (logit estimations) are shown in Table 3 and 4 and emphasize the existence of an inverse relationship between the perception of the blurred role of membership on external efficacy and satisfaction with intra-party democracy in all the three selected parties. Even taking into account the high level of non-response and the less than satisfactory levels of variance explained by the three logit models, it seems that a high level of blurred perceived role of membership best predicts a low level of external efficacy and also a low level of satisfaction with intra-party democracy, controlling for age, gender, professional status and educational attainment in all the three parties. [Table 3 about here] [Table 4 about here] The differences among parties are not in the overall results but rather in the degree of fit of the statistical models for predicting the determinants of specific support and external efficacy: the fit of the logit models elaborated for PD and PS data is quite stronger than the one computed on Labour data. In conclusion, we can assert that, in all the three cases, the perception of the blurred role of party membership by affiliates affects inversely and significantly their degree of perceived political efficacy as well as their satisfaction with intraparty democracy. The more some affiliates perceive the role of membership as undefined, blurred (in the sense that their position and functions within party structures are not defined clearly enough), the lower will be their perceived political efficacy and their satisfaction with intra-party democracy Members attitudes and internal mobilization. With regard to the second research question of this study, our results confirm that indeed members perceptions of their own role, in relation to internal democratization, affect their behaviors and in particular their internal participation. Firstly, we have assessed and confirmed the presence of important variations in the overall degree of internal activism in the three parties, and also in the quality of party activities as well. The three parties appear to have different features in terms of internal activism, at aggregate but in particular at individual level. [Table 5 about here] 10

12 Table 5 shows that the degree of activism 6 does vary significantly across individuals and across parties: the total share of overall active members pass from 48% within the PD, to 40% within the PS, to 38% within the Labour. Contrary to our expectations, though, the degree of self-reported activism seems to be higher in the case of the PD members in comparison to the other two parties. In fact, at party level, we expected to find higher internal participation in parties using OMOV and Electoral College systems for selecting their leader than in parties using open primaries. In the case of parties adopting direct elections of the party leader only by the affiliates, the majority of the members are expected to show high levels of internal activism. Besides, in the case of parties using open primaries for selecting their leader, because of the blurred distinction between members and non-members and the limited role reserved to the party affiliates, the participation of the affiliates to party activities is expected to be generally low. If the perception of role of membership varies as expected among the three cases, on the contrary the overall levels of internal activisms are higher in the case of PD respondents and lower in the case of PS and Labour respondents than we expected. [Table 6 about here] Nevertheless, the level of activism greatly varies among the respondents. Table 6 shows that within the three selected parties, the type and quality of internal activities carried out by members also vary significantly among the respondents and between parties 7. For instance, PD members appear to assume polarized patterns of behaviour: they either perform low cost activities (very rarely getting involved in more traditional campaign or canvassing or administrative tasks) or representative ones. Besides, also the patterns of behaviour of PS and Labour members vary significantly at individual level: among the former, the great majority of the respondents is involved mainly in low cost activities, while among the latter a significant share of respondents seems to be involved mainly in low cost activities, although more than 1/3 of Labour members are regularly perform campaign duties. Secondly, not only the overall level of intra-party activism of grass-roots members vary between and within the three selected parties, but appears to be influenced by members attitudes towards the party. In fact, our second hypothesis postulated that the levels of satisfaction with intra-party democracy and political efficacy of party members impact directly on their level of activism. The study hypothesizes that the affiliates unsatisfied with their role (and in particular with open primaries for selecting the leader) will generally show lower level of participation in party internal activities. Consequently, dissatisfied or low efficacy members are argued to participate less, which appears to be a rather logic implication: it would be really surprising if they did not participate less. 6 A cumulative index of party activism is constructed and measures the intensity of participation to intra-party activities. It includes 7 items dealing with time devoted to party activities, with frequency of contact with the local section of the party, with participation in internal elections and with frequency of participation to meetings. 7 Eleven items included in the questionnaire for measuring the frequency of participation to different party activities were recoded into four dichotomous variables, one for each of these typologies of activities: Low cost activities (participate to party demonstrations and public events, sign a petition supported by the party, financing the party, help fundraising for the party), Campaign activities (delivering election leaflets, door-to-door canvassing), High cost activities (doing administrative work for local branch, organize meetings or party events, speak in party debates or events), Representative activities (Stand for an internal office or for an elected office). Then, these dummies were merged into a single index of the quality of participation. 11

13 However, this is a study of how perceived roles affect behaviour. Even though we hypothesize that the relationship between these two variables is structured through the effect of two mediating variables, namely the perceived efficacy and satisfaction with intra-party democracy, we argue also that there might be a direct effect of the perceived role of members on the degree of party activism. Table 7 shows that the results concerning this association are somewhat nuanced. The relationship between role perception and membership behaviours appears to be quite more complex than expected. This is why we introduced in our model two intermediate variables which contribute in explaining the impact of the independent variable, namely the role perceptions, on the dependent variable. [Table 7 about here] In all the three parties a higher proportion of members perceiving their role as blurred are passive in terms of involvement in party activities, but these differences are rather small and statistically significant only in the case of the Labour respondents. Membership role perception and activism appear to be indeed associated, but it is not really clear how this association works. The level of mobilization of members, in fact, is weakly and not significantly correlated with the perceived nature of membership role in two of the three cases. The correlation coefficients between role perception and activism in the three parties are negative as expected, but not statistically significant. The direct effect of the role of membership on the degree of activism also disappears when integrated in the regression models-either logit or OLS estimations- because the relationship is not significant. In order to explore the impact of the perceived role of membership on the type and intensity of intraparty participation it seems to be necessary to apply the model using political efficacy and specific support as intermediate variables. Moreover, with regard to this second hypothesis, our data only partially support the expectations. In fact, the impact of the sense of external efficacy is clear and strong in all the three cases, while on the contrary the relationship between satisfaction with internal democracy and intra-party activism is less clear-cut than expected. The results are therefore nuanced with regard to the expectations formulated in the second hypothesis of this study. The explanatory power of external efficacy and satisfaction with internal democracy in terms of internal mobilization is only partially supported by our data. [Table 8 about here] The results of our analyses show that internal efficacy and external political efficacy substantially affect the degree of members intra-party mobilization of the three parties. The logit estimations are reported in Table 8. In all the three cases, in fact, the regression coefficients for these two variables are statistically significant and strong. A high level of sense of external efficacy best predicts a high level of members activism, controlling for internal efficacy, party linkage, age, gender, professional status and educational attainment. The empirical data collected in this study seem to confirm that the evaluation of the responsiveness of party structures and elites to members demands explains the variation in the levels of activism of party members in all the three cases, whereas the dependent variable appears not to be significantly predicted by the satisfaction with internal democracy. The expected effect of satisfaction with intra-party democracy on internal mobilization of party members is not completely supported by our data. In fact, the level of satisfaction with 12

14 intra-party democracy for the party displayed by members does not contribute in explaining the variation in the levels of their participation in terms of intensity of mobilization. This is because the regression coefficients and the exponentiations of the latter (in logit estimations) are not significant in two cases over three (PD and PS logits). Moreover, in the case of PD and Labour analyses, the specific support for the party seems to be negatively associated with the level of activism. The extent to which participation is normatively justified by the satisfaction with intra-party democracy does not contribute in explaining intra-party activism, whilst individuals perceptions of his or her personal political influence within the party affect indeed the degree of activism of grass-roots members. Conversely, the picture is less clear in terms of quality of participation to intra-party activities. The OLS estimations are shown in Table 9. With regard to the quality of participation, here too the best predictor of high quality activities carried out by members is represented by external efficacy. On the contrary, the satisfaction with intra-party democracy plays a relevant role in determining PS members behaviour, while the relationship between specific support and quality of participation is less clear than expected in the case of Labour and PD respondents. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that 1/3 of the sampled PD individuals, ¼ of PS respondents and 15% of Labour members declared their engagement in representative activities such as being held as candidate for internal office or elections. The differences among the three parties are striking and unexpected. [Table 9 about here] Our data seems thus to be consistent with previous analyses on Italian party membership (Bardi and Ignazi, 2006; Mulé, 2007), which suggested that the decline of party membership in Italian parties is limited mainly to the overall dimensions of the grass-roots party strata, but does not affect that strongly the quantity and quality of mobilization of party members. Even considering the possible non-response biases, given that most active members might be more likely to respond to this kind of survey, PD members appear to be somewhat frustrated and unsatisfied of their own role, but remain nonetheless reasonably active within the organization. On the contrary, the intensity and quality and participation within the Belgian PS seems to follow more traditional patterns, with a great majority of members weakly involved and relevant shares of traditional campaign tasks being carried out. Socialist affiliates are also quite dissatisfied with the party functioning and, given the important role of the members-party linkage in explaining the overall degree of intra-party activism, seem to participate mostly out of habit. This indicates that the grass-roots base of the main membership party in Belgium is not that strongly implicated in party affairs. Labour members appear to be the most passive ones, although more satisfied with their party functioning. 6. Concluding remarks. The model developed in this study for explaining variations in intra-party mobilization and for predicting the impact of members attitudes towards the mechanisms enlarging leadership selectorate is only partially supported empirically by our data. The first hypothesis concerning the relationship between the perceived role of membership and members attitudes towards external political efficacy and satisfaction with intra-party democracy is, with some caution, empirically supported by our data in all the three selected parties. On the other hand, the 13