Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This study examines a long-standing concern in democratic theory: the relationship between polity size and democratic participation. Size is thought to have a direct effect on the individual's proclivity to take part in collective action, as well as indirect effects through increased bureaucratic complexity and group heterogeneity – two factors often related to group size. The study operates at two levels. At the nation-state level, it examines the relationship between size and party membership rates in 27 representative democracies. It then extends the analysis to the party organization level, examining the effect of party size on members' activism in 29 parties across 5 advanced industrial democracies. The results show that increasing size strongly diminishes participation at both levels.

Keywords

party activism party membership size

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Dahl, Robert Alan and Edward R. Tufte (1973) Size and Democracy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press .

Delury, George E. , Deborah A. Kaple and Facts on File Inc. (1999) World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties, 3rd edn. Facts on File Library of World History. New York: Facts On File .

Franklin, Mark (2002) ‘The Dynamics of Electoral Participation’, in Lawrence LeDuc , Richard G. Niemi and Pippa Norris (eds) Comparing Democracies 2. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage .

Hansen, Steven, Thomas Palfrey and Howard Rosenthal (1987) ‘The Downsian Model of Electoral Participation: Formal Theory and Empirical Analysis of the Constituency Size Effect’ , Public Choice 52: 15–33 .

Harmel, Robert and Kenneth Janda (1982) Parties and Their Environments: Limits to Reform? New York: Longman .

Huckfeldt, Robert and John Sprague (1995) Citizens, Politics, and Social Communication: Information and Influence in an Election Campaign. New York: Cambridge University Press .

Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair et al. (1992) ‘The Membership of Political Parties in European Democracies’ , European Journal of Political Research 22: 329–345 .

Kitschelt, Herbert (1989) The Logics of Party Formation. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press .

Lawson, Kay (1976) The Comparative Study of Political Parties. New York: St. Martin's .

10.

Mair, Peter and Ingrid van Biezen (2001) ‘Party Membership in Twenty European Democracies, 1980–2000’ , Party Politics 7: 5–21 .

11.

Michels, Robert (1962) Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Collier Books .

12.

Mueller, Wolfgang C. (1989) ‘Party Patronage in Austria’, in Anton Pelinka and Fritz Plasser (eds) The Austrian Party System, pp. 327–356. Boulder, CO: Westview Press .

13.

Norris, Pippa (2002) Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing Political Activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

14.

Oliver, J. Eric (2000) ‘City Size and Civic Involvement in Metropolitan America’ , American Political Science Review 94: 361–373 .

15.

Olson, Mancur (1965) The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .

16.

Panebianco, Angelo (1988) Political Parties: Organization and Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

17.

Putnam, Robert D. (2000) Bowling Alone. New York: Simon and Schuster .

18.

Riker, William and Peter Ordeshook (1968) ‘A Theory of the Calculus of Voting’ , American Political Science Review 62: 25–42 .

19.

Scarrow, Susan E. (2000) ‘Parties without Members?’ in Russell J. Dalton and Martin P. Wattenberg (eds) Parties without Partisans. Oxford: Oxford University Press .

20.

Tan, Alexander C. (1998) ‘The Impacts of Party Membership Size: A Cross-National Analysis’ , Journal of Politics 60: 188–198 .

21.

Whiteley, Paul and Patrick Seyd (2002) High-Intensity Participation: The Dynamics of Party Activism in Britain. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press .

22.

Whiteley, Paul, Patrick Seyd and J. J. Richardson (1994) True Blues: The Politics of Conservative Party Membership. Oxford: Oxford University Press .

Downsize My Polity? The Impact of Size on Party Membership and Member Activism

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References