You are not currently logged in. Please create an account or log in to view the full course.
Why Do Parties Still Need Party Members?
- About
- Transcript
- Cite
Party Members
In this course, Professor Paul Webb (University of Sussex) explores party membership in the UK. In the first module, we ask why, if at all, parties still need party members, listing in detail the various purposes party members still serve in 2022. In the next module, we move on to explore the demographic composition of party membership in the UK, and outline the key features of Seyd & Whiteley’s ‘general incentives’ model for why people still join political parties. In the third module, we explore party membership activity in the UK’s key political parties, answering the question: “What do party members actually do?” using Professor Webb’s own primary research. In the fourth module, we analyse trends in party membership in the UK, before finally, in the fifth module, concluding with an evaluation of the extent to which the internal organisation of British political parties can be described as ‘democratic’.
Why Do Parties Still Need Party Members?
In this module, Professor Paul Webb asks why, if at all, parties still need party members, focusing in particular on: (i) the use of party members in demonstrating a party’s legitimacy; (ii) the informal service provided by party members as "ambassadors in the community"; (iii) the voluntary labour provided by party members, e.g. in campaigning; (iv) the financial benefits provided by party members, particularly for smaller parties; (v) the use of the party membership in providing a source of potential candidates for office; (vi) the minor role party members may have in shaping party policy.
Hello, I'm Paul Webb. I'm professor of politics at the University of Sussex
00:00:05and I'm going to do a talk today about political party
00:00:10organisations and especially about the role
00:00:13of party members within organisations.
00:00:16I want to start by just talking a little bit about the reasons
00:00:20why political parties might actually need and want members in the first place.
00:00:24And there are a number of reasons which
00:00:29are commonly attributed to parties in these terms,
00:00:32first of all to demonstrate their general legitimacy to the wider electorate.
00:00:35So I mean something that you will find that parties are always very keen to do is
00:00:41trumpet the fact that they might have enjoyed
00:00:46recently a surge in recruitment to the parties.
00:00:48It's a way of saying, Look, we're popular, were relevant.
00:00:51We appeal to significant numbers of voters in the electorate.
00:00:54So look at us seriously, take us seriously.
00:00:59It's about demonstrating that kind of public
00:01:02legitimacy which the parties might have.
00:01:05Secondly, there is a term which is sometimes used, which is that parties
00:01:08like to have members because they act as ambassadors in the community.
00:01:13In other words,
00:01:18this isn't about kind of formally undertaking
00:01:19election campaigning on behalf of the party,
00:01:22although that is something that will come to
00:01:24as well.
00:01:26But this is about that kind of informal thing whereby
00:01:28to the extent that you've got lots of followers, lots of party members who
00:01:31who might be embedded in local constituency and social networks, you know,
00:01:36with their friends and their family in pub discussions and so on and so forth,
00:01:44If politics comes up,
00:01:48it's useful that you've got somebody there who might be on the side
00:01:50of your party and who might make the case for your party.
00:01:53So the ambassador in the community role is a significant one.
00:01:56Then, of course, there is the voluntary labour aspects of things.
00:02:01So during election campaigns in particular,
00:02:05it's really important to have party members.
00:02:08And again, you know, if you're sceptical about this, you might say Yeah,
00:02:12but in the modern world,
00:02:16the way that party's campaign is through television and
00:02:18radio and the Internet and social media media,
00:02:21they make use of professional, um, smart campaign consultants,
00:02:25advertising agencies, PR specialists.
00:02:30Do you really need people going around knocking on doors in local constituencies?
00:02:34And the answer to that question is, Well,
00:02:40you need all of those things and all those things are true,
00:02:41but you still need the members as well.
00:02:44Whenever people in this country have done research on the impact of
00:02:46local constituency party organisations in election times,
00:02:52they have always found that it can make a significant difference to actual election
00:02:57outcomes.
00:03:05The more that you have people who are willing volunteers
00:03:06who are going to go and knock on doors,
00:03:11we're gonna canvass view, we're gonna attend meetings
00:03:12and so on and so forth. The more likely you are to do well
00:03:15in close races that could make the difference between winning and losing.
00:03:21So the voluntary campaign labour aspects of party membership is significant.
00:03:25Then there's funding.
00:03:31If you look at the major parties,
00:03:32the larger part of the money that comes into the party organisations
00:03:35comes not from the membership but from other sources.
00:03:41So the Labour Party still gets most of its income from the affiliated trade unions.
00:03:44The Conservative Party still gets most of its money
00:03:48from corporations from companies
00:03:51and from rich donors, rich individuals that want to donate.
00:03:55But even the major parties would say
00:03:59that the membership offers some kind of financial benefit,
00:04:02which is not to be sneezed at.
00:04:05And in the case of the smaller parties, then it can be very,
00:04:08very significant because they don't tend to have the
00:04:12same kind of corporate or trade union backing.
00:04:14So the membership at the lifeblood of those parties
00:04:17to a very significant extent,
00:04:20then, of course, you need candidates for office,
00:04:23where our candidates to standards,
00:04:27MPs or two standards local council is going to come from.
00:04:29If they're not going to come from the membership,
00:04:32you need people who are close committed, adherence of the parties.
00:04:36In other words, party members. You also need
00:04:39some process for selecting candidates for office.
00:04:43And, as I'll be saying a little bit later on, actually,
00:04:47the membership increasingly play an important role in the process
00:04:50of selecting candidates for parliament or for local councillor positions.
00:04:54And then, finally,
00:05:00the membership can provide some kind of an input to policy formulation for parties.
00:05:02Now this varies from case to case how much it happens,
00:05:09and I would say it's probably the area in
00:05:13which members have least direct input and influence,
00:05:15but that doesn't mean to say they have no influence again.
00:05:21I'll be coming back to this a little bit later on.
00:05:24But they act in a sense, the membership as a kind of broad sense of constraint.
00:05:26And they give a sense of the mood of the mood on the ground, which the leadership,
00:05:34while expecting to have quite a lot of independence to
00:05:39establish party policy the way that it wants to do,
00:05:42has to listen to.
00:05:45It still has to be aware of what people on the ground, what the party membership want
00:05:47and what might not be acceptable and what might be acceptable.
00:05:51So those are the kinds of reasons why parties still need
00:05:56and want members.
00:06:01And there is good evidence to suggest that the parties are only too well,
00:06:02well aware of this.
00:06:07If you ever go in the course of research, I've done whenever I've gone
00:06:08two party politicians or officers
00:06:12and said you really still need members,
00:06:14do you actively recruit them in the same way that you used to?
00:06:16They all make it absolutely clear that
00:06:20the membership is extremely important to them.
00:06:21
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Webb, P. (2022, July 10). Party Members - Why Do Parties Still Need Party Members? [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/uk-politics-party-members
MLA style
Webb, P. "Party Members – Why Do Parties Still Need Party Members?." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 10 Jul 2022, https://massolit.io/courses/uk-politics-party-members