An alternative to the party? Australia’s movement for community independents

Abstract

Political parties as the sole vehicle for collective organising in the electoral arena are coming under increasing pressure in systems of representative democracy. A serious disruptor to party dominance has emerged in Australia where local community groups are self-organising to replace their federal party representative with a ‘community independent’. Collectively these groups are referred to as the “Community Independents Movement” (CIM), whose broad goal is to provide voters with an alternative to the “broken” party system. This article asks: what in practice is the alternative form of political organising offered by the CIM? An analysis finds that the CIM performs many conventional functions of political parties, but its localised approach affords greater flexibility and local autonomy. The case of the CIM speaks to global debates on the conceptual and functional differences between parties and other modes of political organising.

Introduction

In many democratic systems around the world political parties are in decline. This is a story not just about declining memberships (see Heidar and Wauters, 2019; Van Haute and Gauja, 2015), but also about declining popular support and legitimacy for parties and the functions they traditionally perform in systems of representative democracy. Political parties have long provided an institutional means for large-scale collective organising, interest articulation, participation, facilitating representation, and legitimate power (Dalton and Weldon, 2006; Webb 2002). Yet the capacity of parties to perform these democratic functions in contemporary politics has come into question (see Mair, 2013). Today, parties are much maligned, and according to Fabio Wolkenstein (2019: 1) they are “[…] perhaps the most discredited institutions in the democratic world”.

As popular support for parties weakens, a central task for political science is to make sense of the emerging alternatives (not necessarily replacements) for collective organising. In the electoral realm research on alternatives to mass parties has centred on the emergence of novel parties, such as digital, movement or anti-establishment and populist parties, that claim to be more attuned to the values and interests of voters than “out of touch” traditional parties (e.g. Della Porta et al., 2017; Gerbaudo, 2019). Far less is known about forms of non-party political organising that are surfacing in some electoral systems to compete with parties, such as the rise of “independent local lists” (ILL) in Europe (see Jankowski et al., 2022), and the growth of independent (non-party) candidates in Ireland (Weeks, 2017), and more recently in Australia (Hendriks and Reid, 2023, 2024; Riboldi et al., 2024).

In this article we advance knowledge on forms of non-party political organising that are disrupting the stranglehold of parties. We draw empirical insights from a recent challenger to party politics in Australia. “Community independents” (CI) are non-party candidates that have been selected or endorsed by a local community group in their electorate, promising to deliver a more engaged and place-based style of political representation. Collectively these local groups, and the networks that support and resource them, have come to be known as Australia’s Community Independents Movement (CIM). ¹ A central narrative of the CIM is that it offers an “alternative” to parties, arguing that the party system is “not working” or even “broken.” At the 2022 federal election eight CIs were elected to the House of Representatives (HoR) forming part of the largest crossbench ever in the lower chamber (on the six new CI MPs see Saville (2022)), with a further CI elected to the Senate. Several more CI candidates were the primary challenger, coming second after preferences, and thereby putting on notice a number of MPs in formerly “safe” seats (see Turner, 2022). Since 2022, the movement for community independents has grown in numbers and reach. At the time of writing local groups had self-organised in almost one third of the nation’s federal electorates – all aspiring to have a community independent as their federal member (CIP, 2025a). In the federal election held on 3 May 2025 there were CI candidates in 38 diverse electorates around the continent (CIP, 2025b); seven were elected to the HoR and one in the Senate.

Australia provides an excellent case for exploring how non-party modes of political organising can emerge in a democratic system where parties are highly institutionalised and accepted as the primary actors in electoral politics. Political organising in Australia has long been understood and described as all about “party politics” (Jaensch, 1994); its majoritarian two-party system has remained remarkably stable despite a couple of rare moments of constitutional or parliamentary crisis (Gauja, 2015). Yet the 2022 federal election saw “a large-scale abandonment of major party voting” with almost one in three voters preferring minor party or independent candidates (Cameron et al., 2022: 7); a trend which continued at the 2025 election. 2022 was an election in which the parties had to reckon with a novel set of non-party challengers – CI candidates – who were affiliated with a diffuse political movement that began in 2013 with the election of independent Cathy McGowan in the federal electorate of Indi (see Voices For Indi, 2023).

Our aim in this article is to explore the non-party political organising that underpins Australia’s CIM. By looking at the CIs through a collective lens, our analysis overcomes a common analytic challenge in studies of non-party actors whereby individual independents are compared with parties (as collective bodies) (see Bolleyer and Weeks, 2009: 304). ² Our inquiry expands on nascent research on the novel electoral campaign activities of some CI candidates (see Hayman, 2024), on how CIs and small party candidates compare over time (Riboldi et al., 2024), on the CIM’s community-led approach to democratic renewal (Hendriks and Reid, 2024), and, the parliamentary voting behaviour of CIs in Australia’s HoR (Leslie, 2025).

Drawing on extensive qualitative empirical material we ask: if and how the CIM performs the democratic functions conventionally ascribed to political parties? To this end we analyse the CIM against the core functions of parties, as summarised by Paul Webb (2002):

i) organising the governance of the state and recruiting for political office;

ii) articulating the interests of voters and bringing various interests together into a policy platform enacted by party representatives;

iii) providing channels for political participation; and,

iv) informing and educating citizens about governance and public affairs.

Our goal here is to consider the extent to which the CIM, as a non-party form of political organising, can fulfil the conventional democratic functions of a political party. To be clear we are not seeking to “test” if the CIM is a political party nor to argue that the CIM will displace political parties in Australia. Instead, we contend that the case of the CIM holds important empirical insights for global debates on modes of political organising that are emerging in the electoral realm as support for parties declines. More broadly our analysis raises conceptual questions, from a functional perspective, about the boundaries between party and non-party forms of political organising.

Our functional analysis centres predominantly on the CIM’s political organising for the 2022 Australian federal election. We draw on diverse qualitative data sources including:

• over 40 semi-structured interviews conducted by the authors between 2019 and 2024, which included elected community independents; unsuccessful community independent candidates; and diverse community participants, campaign volunteers, and organisers affiliated with the CIM; and,

• text and visual analysis of CI campaign materials, digital sources, and media reporting.

Our original data is complemented by secondary evidence derived from research articles on aspects of the CIM in the 2022 election (e.g. Cameron et al., 2022; Hayman, 2024; Riboldi et al., 2024) and the impact and behaviour of CIs in the subsequent Parliament (Leslie, 2025).

The article is structured in four parts. First, we provide a brief overview of the CIM and how its locally nominated community independent (CI) (non-party) candidates are disrupting Australia’s federal party system. Second, we analyse if and how the CIM performs each of Webb (2002)’s four core functions of political parties, as listed above. In the Discussion section we argue that the CIM performs many but not all party functions and we reflect on the differences in how the CIM performs these functions. We draw out three key non-party characteristics at the heart of the CIM’s approach: first, the centrality of place-based political organising; second, the flexibility and autonomy of local groups and candidates; and, third, an emphasis on social, connective, and empowered citizen engagement. To conclude we reflect on the practical and conceptual implications of this research for current debates on parties in contemporary politics.

The party “disrupter”: Australia’s Community Independents Movement

At the federal level in Australia the two major party blocs – the Australian Labor Party (ALP), and the Coalition (consisting of the Liberal Party of Australia (senior partner) and the National Party of Australia (junior partner)) – have dominated the electoral landscape since the Second World War. Yet there are increasing signs that Australia’s enduring two-party system is under strain: the membership of major parties in Australia is in decline (Gauja and McSwiney, 2019) and they are also losing electoral support (Cameron et al., 2022: 17; see also Gauja et al., 2023). Levels of popular trust in parties are low – in the 2022 Australian Election Study, only 21% of respondents felt that political parties cared what voters thought (Cameron and McAllister, 2023). The overall decline in support for major political parties is generating opportunities in federal and sub-national elections for candidates from smaller parties and independent (non-party) candidates (Riboldi et al., 2024).

Particular features of Australia’s democratic system at the federal level provide both opportunities and challenges for non-party candidates – “independents” – to enter parliament. Single-member electoral districts allow place-based campaigning by independents but also limit representation to one elected MP (see Riboldi et al., 2024). The challenge is compounded by the existence of compulsory voting, which has supported comparatively high levels of party identification in Australia (see Gauja, 2020: 135), yet at the same time mandatory voting requires that everyone votes, even those disaffected with the major parties (see Riboldi et al., 2024: 274).

The dominance of the established political parties has meant that independents have had limited success in winning seats in the Australian HoR. However, with increasing partisan dealignment and party fragmentation (Riboldi et al., 2024), independent candidates have benefited from Australia’s preferential voting system for seats in the HoR. In recent federal elections, several independent candidates for the lower house have won their seats on preferences, even though their primary vote has been lower than that of party candidates (see Raue, 2023: 351–352). As support for major parties declines, Australia’s preferential voting system is providing opportunities for independent candidates and candidates from smaller parties to be competitive in electoral contests.

A potential watershed moment for non-party political organising occurred in the lead-up to the 2022 federal election when local community groups formed in 33 of Australia’s 151 HOR federal electorates seeking to strengthen the quality, integrity, and impact of political representation. In 22 of these electorates a local community group selected or endorsed a “community independent” candidate. CI candidates run on strong anti-party platforms, particularly the notion that if elected they would be a representative who would listen to, and be engaged with, the local community because they are not bound to a party, its policy positions, and its internal discipline. ³ This position sits in contrast to the established principles and practices of party government (see, e.g., Mair, 2008).

In the 2022 election the 22 self-described CI candidates, and the community groups that supported and endorsed them, were interconnected in a loose political network, which became known as the “Community Independents Movement” (CIM). While the number of these local groups, and the candidates they supported, increased dramatically at the 2022 federal election, the genesis of the movement started a decade earlier, with the election of independent Cathy McGowan to the electorate of Indi in 2013. While voting support for CI candidates in the 2022 federal election has been characterised as a protest/tactical vote (Cameron et al., 2022: 18) – the CIM did not emerge spontaneously, but developed as an expansion of a model of organising that had proved successful in local contexts, first in Indi (since 2013), and then in Warringah (since 2019).

During the 2022 federal election campaign period, some commentators and opponents began to label the CIM as a “pseudo political party”. For example, the Coalition treasurer at the time, Josh Frydenberg, is reported to have said “These are independents that are running as a political party, that are organised as a political party and are funded as a political party” (quoted in Millar, 2022). Following the 2022 election, the metaphor of the party continued to provide a powerful lens for sense-making of the CIM’s non-party political organising. Scholars, for example, point to the CIM’s “party-like” behaviour such as explicit endorsement and resource sharing (Riboldi et al., 2024).

The success of the CIM at the 2022 Australian federal election, its impact, its growth, its critique of the party system, and ongoing claims of its “party-like” organising and behaviour, motivated us to analyse if and how the CIM performs the functions conventionally attributed to political parties in a democratic system. These include: (1) governance and political recruitment; (2) interest articulation and aggregation; (3) political participation; and, (4) political communication and education (see Webb, 2002). Drawing on our original qualitative data as well as secondary studies as evidence of organisational processes, we now examine the CIM against each of these functions in turn.

Function I: Governance and political recruitment

A central function of political parties is that they administer the state and recruit the personnel needed to fill the offices of the state. For Webb (2002: 11), the question here is: ‘[…] how far is government party government?’, along with the associated question ‘[…] of how far public policy emanates from parties’. Most representative democracies have party government which, for Peter Mair (2008: 25), is

[…] when a party or parties wins control of the executive as a result of competitive elections, when the political leaders in the polity are recruited by and through parties, when the (main) parties or alternatives in competition offer voters clear policy alternatives, when public policy is determined by the party or parties holding executive office, and when that executive is held accountable through parties.

In such a type of government parties are inextricably intertwined with the administration of the state. While we recognise that there are other forms of representative democratic government, we focus in this section on whether the CIM does, or even can, perform these functions of governance and political recruitment.

Let us deal first with the more straightforward of these functions: political recruitment. CIM performs the function of political recruitment in terms of identifying, supporting, and recruiting candidates for political office. Within the CIM, the processes for identifying and selecting suitable candidates is determined by a local group in each electoral district. This results in diverse selection processes emerging across groups. For example, our interviews reveal that to identify candidates for the 2022 election some community electorate groups advertised for expressions of interest via local papers, others used their own social and professional networks to identify suitable people who are then asked to nominate. The selection process was also diverse among community electorate groups: some conducted interviews by a sub-committee akin to a job recruitment process, while other groups delegated the decision to their broad member base, seeking preferences via a deliberative forum or a voting process (see Hendriks and Reid, 2023, 2024).

Notwithstanding this diversity there are two defining features of the CIM’s candidate selection processes. The first is that the recruitment process is not only locally-led but the rules are also locally-determined, which differs from parties where it is typically the case that central party rules outline selection processes. The second important point of distinction from many parties is that most prospective CI candidates need to live in the electoral district but they do not have to be a member of the local CI group (although in several cases they are). Parties in Australia have a mixed record on selecting candidates that are resident in their electoral district at the time of selection. It is not uncommon for parties to “parachute” in a non-local candidate. ⁴

While the CIM performs a central function of political parties in identifying and recruiting candidates for political office, it does face diversity and inclusion challenges when it comes to political recruitment. In the 2022 election CI candidates were predominantly well-educated, middle-aged, professional, white women. Diversity is also a challenge for Australian political parties. For example, although at the 2022 election there was an increase in ethnic minority MPs elected, the proportion of the House of Representatives from ethnic minority backgrounds was still significantly lower than in the Australian community (9% of the House of Representatives compared to 28% of the Australian population) (see Guan and Pietsch, 2024).

In terms of government formation and the administration of the state, the CIM’s capacity is limited. CI groups and their candidates have no commitments with regards to either working together in the process of government formation, or indeed with any particular party. ⁵ Indeed, government formation is not a goal of the CIM; rather in the case of a minority government, their aim would be to influence government formation, most likely through supply-and-confidence arrangements (rather than formal coalition) or in the context of a single-party majority government to influence government policy through their work in the legislature and in broader public debate.

At the 2022 election, eight CIs were elected to the HoR, however, the Australian Labor Party was able to form a majority government, consequently excluding CIs from government formation processes. Their role was therefore on the crossbench. Within the crossbench the CI MPs are a tight network working alongside MPs from smaller parties and other independent MPs. Our interviewees explained there was regular and close coordination between the CI MPs and their parliamentary offices, particularly with respect to legislative amendments, matters of public interest, and media engagement. For most policy issues the CI MPs sung (and voted) from the same song sheet, except for a few policy issues (see Leslie, 2025). Analysing parliamentary voting records, Leslie (2025) found CI MPs were highly cohesive. The cohesion shown by CI MPs is particularly interesting given that a core critique of the party system by the CIM is the tightness of party discipline in Australia – a theme we discuss further below.

Function II: Interest articulation and aggregation

The second key function of political parties is their role in articulating the interests of either the country as a whole or of particular groups within it. For Webb (2002: 12),

The articulation of interests refers to the role played by parties and other institutions (typically single-interest groups or social movements) in publicly expressing and pursuing the political demands of particular social groups. The aggregation of interests refers to a related but broader process by which parties bundle together the demands of a variety of social groups. This task is not quite so straightforward as the articulation of a narrower set of interests, since it requires the prioritization of demands and the maintenance of coalitions of support whose component elements may be in tension with each other.

In other words, this function refers to parties speaking for, advocating for, campaigning for particular interests in combination with their role in aggregating a range of policy preferences into a broad governing agenda that is presented to voters. It is, however, important to note here, as has been demonstrated in the “constructivist turn” in political representation, that this does not necessarily mean that the interests of groups or individuals are given prior to the process of representation. ⁶ Rather this includes the function of parties in co-constituting political preferences through their representative claim-making (see Saward, 2010).

Major parties in Australia have traditionally had identifiable sets of issues, constituents, and even ideologies. This has led to “brand recognition,” for example the Australian Labor Party is traditionally associated with blue-collar workers and those from disadvantaged economic backgrounds, and the Liberal Party is traditionally associated with individualism, free enterprise, and a middle class set of values and interests. Consequently, voters can identify parties with recognisable values, constituencies, and policy preferences which they would pursue following an election. This is despite the fact that Australian parties do not publish policy manifestos prior to an election that are comparable to their European counterparts. However, while in practice such “brands” are challenged and contested, and in some instances the major parties are criticised for lacking any real differentiation in particular policy areas, there is still an emphasis on bringing together a range of policies for proposed government action. Under the party model candidates must at least largely accept the positions of their party which can sometimes put in tension the pursuit of particular interests and the need to form a broader policy platform and agenda.

In terms of interest articulation the CIM performs this function in so far as political parties do. A central claim of the movement is that community independents can represent the interests of their local communities without any of the constraints of party discipline. As CI MP Sophie Scamps articulates on her website:

An Independent MP can genuinely represent their community in Parliament. This is very different from MPs in the major parties who are required to vote a certain way […] While every vote I have taken in Parliament has been informed by our community and aims to reflect the values and wishes of our community – unlike a party politician who gets told how to vote. (Scamps, 2025)

The CIM takes a place-based localised approach in identifying, understanding, and articulating interests. Key policy issues for the CI candidates to present to voters are typically identified through participatory and listening activities convened by the CI group where local constituents are asked about what issues concern them and what they would like from their local MP. These take diverse forms such as structured consultative forums, “Kitchen Table Conversations,” pop-up community events, surveys, informal events at the local pub and online surveys (see Hendriks and Reid, 2023, 2024). Once elected, CI MPs, like many party MPs, continue these listening activities so they can claim to be representing the values and interests of their local communities.

On the face of it the CIM would appear to celebrate a delegate style of political representation – where the elected representative acts as a mouthpiece for constituents. However, in practice both CI candidates and CI MPs have wrestled with the complexities of trying both to understand and represent the diverse values and interests of their communities. While local CI groups (and their candidates) acknowledge and celebrate the diversity within their electorate, there is a tendency for CI candidates and MPs to collapse their electorate’s heterogeneity by using singular notions of the community and its interests and values. For some CI actors “the community” is singular but also diverse. Consider, for example, how CI MP Kylea Tink refers to the “community” of North Sydney in her first speech in Parliament (emphasis added):

And so, today, I stand before you, not as a politician per se but as a proud parliamentarian elected by the people of North Sydney to ensure our community’s voice is heard loud and clear […] I stand before you today as the elected representative of a vibrant and diverse community that draws in people from all backgrounds and ages. We are the thinkers, the doers, the feelers, the leaders, the believers and the achievers. ⁷

Early in their term, some of the newly elected CI MPs spoke directly about the challenge they faced in trying to articulate the interests of their diverse communities. For example, CI MP Kate Chaney, from the electorate of Curtin in metropolitan Perth, reflected:

It’s an honor and a huge responsibility to be a community independent and I think in some ways it is a bigger responsibility than it is to run with the party because it is all on you and it is all up to you to be ensuring that you are listening to your community and delivering on their expectations. For me it’s all really about that accountability and acting in a way that’s consistent with your conscience but also consistent with your community’s views and that’s going to be difficult because there isn’t ever only one community view. (CIP, 2022, emphasis added)

Moreover, political preferences are co-constituted dynamically through representative processes; thus the types of representative claims made by CI candidates or CI MPs about “community views” are continuously shaping local policy preferences.

When it comes to interest aggregation the CIM is only able to make a partial contribution and it struggles to perform this function fully. As discussed above, while CI local groups have in place participatory listening activities that would rival parties’ branch meetings as policy-making venues, CI MPs openly struggle with the diversity of voices in their communities. In addition, although the CIM’s place-based approach is intertwined with broader national issues, CI candidates do not provide full policy platforms covering all issues. This is a natural effect of the CIM’s focus on place-based representation which means that CI candidates have no clear broader national policy platform beyond a small number of policy areas (e.g., Allegra Spender’s focus on tax reform, see Spender, 2025).

While campaigning as independents, some CI candidates in the 2022 election were keen to demonstrate that they were not “alone.” A key example of this were the combined appearances of Sydney-based CI candidates, which also added to the critique that they were behaving like a political party (see Hendriks and Reid, 2023: 298). While the groups and candidates within the CIM share ideas and collaborate, and since the 2022 election elected CI MPs work together on a range of issues, they make no commitments to act in unison. This is in stark contrast with the approach of political parties with a core tenet being their commitment to work together following an election.

Function III: Political participation

In examining parties and political participation, Webb (2022: 12) speaks of “[…] the capacity of political parties to foster mass political participation through their members’ activities and/or through mobilizing electoral turnout.” The CIM fulfils this function. At the heart of the CIM is its attempt to get local people mobilised, engaged – active – in their political system. To this end the CIM adopts an emergent approach to participation. It relies on a local group to form and lead their own participatory work. Local volunteers are involved in a range of activities including group administration, candidate selection, policy information forums, and a raft of campaign activities. Like in political parties there are a range of actors within the CIM from highly active supporters (similar to party members), to financial donors through to those who may only attend a single activity run by their local CI group. The CIM’s volunteering is centred on empowering and mobilising people in ways that are meaningful and fun, and its relative success can be seen in the large numbers of volunteers in many of the local CI campaigns in the 2022 election (see Hendriks and Reid, 2023). From our interviews with local CI group leaders, we learnt that CI volunteers are typically managed via horizontal structures at the local level. In some campaigns during the 2022 election volunteers exercised considerable agency and autonomy – often because they had strong relational networks and local knowledge of a place or suburb or town in the electoral district. Volunteer programs within local CI groups enabled the movement to enact its commitment to the principle that in order to strengthen democracy people need to get involved (see Hayman, 2024; Hendriks and Reid, 2023, 2024). ⁸

This emphasis on grassroots volunteering and engagement should not be equated with “low tech” or “low budget.” A number of CI candidates ran very high-budget campaigns with political advertising in high profile places, and professionalised social media campaigns at their heart (see Hayman, 2024; Hendriks and Reid, 2023, 2024). These approaches are informed by the professional skillsets and experiences of talented local volunteers with backgrounds not in politics but in the corporate, public or NGO sectors. However, other campaigns are less resourced and rely on less sophisticated communications approaches, further reflecting the place-based and volunteer-led variation across the CIM (see Hendriks and Reid, 2024).

This focus on participation and mobilisation within the CIM speaks to the significant concern within the party literature on the effects of the declining party memberships of traditional “mass” parties. We acknowledge that while local branches of political parties may have a strong attachment and understanding of place, they tend to have limited power and autonomy in setting campaign directions and party rules. While there is variation across parties, for example the continuing role of Liberal Party branches in selecting election candidates, and that due to the federal structure of Australian political parties there is variation between states within parties, it is also fair to say that political parties are much more centralised, hierarchical, and leader-led than the CIM (on party organisation in Australia, see Gauja, 2015). In addition, and connected to the earlier government formation function, Australian political parties focus their participation efforts on ensuring national electoral success with a focus on “marginal” seats which are central to the aim of government formation. While the CIM is unable to perform the government formation function it consequently has more freedom to undertake place-based, flexible, and autonomous political participation.

Function IV: Political communication and education

Another core function attributed to political parties is their role in “[…] helping to inform and educate citizens about public affairs” (Webb, 2002: 13). The CIM fully performs this function conventionally attributed to political parties in democratic systems. Many local CI groups focus on increasing citizen understanding of political issues and processes, to the point where some local groups chose to focus on information and education rather than formally engaging in supporting a community independent candidate (e.g. Voices of North Sydney, Voices of Wentworth).

The approach of local CI groups to political communication and education is influenced by ideas of empowerment and linked to our discussion above on participation. The idea is that people have good ideas to share and contributions to make, and that they need to be listened to and empowered through their involvement and active engagement. If they are active and included, it is argued that they will learn more about their political system and the issues it faces and mobilise others. ⁹ As such, the entire campaign effort is an educative process for local community groups interested in democratic renewal and the volunteers they recruit to assist them with their efforts. This involves mentoring, networking, and upskilling by key actors within the CIM.

In addition, since the 2022 election CI groups and CI MPs continue to engage in political education and communication activities. A sample of practices include: newsletters and social media activity, Canberra “catch-ups” where the MP updates interested community members about what’s happening in Parliament and hears their views, Community Indepdendents Project (CIP) conventions and other online seminars and networking opportunities, “community catch-ups,” podcasts, and many others. These practices are not exclusive to CI groups and CI MPs as many party MPs engage in similar activities, however the argument here is that the CIM does perform this conventional “party function” of political communication and education.

Discussion: The approach of the CIM and “doing things differently”

The preceding four sections demonstrate that, through its organisation and processes, the CIM is able to perform many of the functions conventionally attributed to political parties in democratic systems. The CIM performs the function of political recruitment, although like many parties it faces issues with candidate diversity. The CIM however does not perform the governance function as community independents make no commitments to work together in any government formation process, and even though they might in future enter into varying degrees of support for a minority government this would be as individuals rather than as a group. However, community independents do engage more broadly in governance due to their legislative work and exhibit high levels of cohesion. With regards to the second function – interest articulation and aggregation – the CIM performs the function of interest articulation through the participatory listening activities that local groups coordinate to determine relevant policy issues. The CIM is, however, more limited in interest aggregation as community independents have less developed policy platforms across the gamut of public policy areas. On the third “party function” – political participation – the CIM can be considered to perform this function fully with participation at the core of the movement. Finally, the CIM can also be seen to perform the functions of political communication and education, both engaging in dialogue with constituents and local communities and providing opportunities for discussion of a range of policy areas and issues.

While the CIM performs many of the functions conventionally attributed to political parties in representative democracies, it is important to consider the implications of the two functions which the CIM is unable to perform fully – governance and interest aggregation. In contrast to parties, CI MPs, while clearly sharing many political values and working closely together, remain independents. As the 2022 election in Australia resulted in a majority Labor government, it is unclear what role community independents might play in a minority government scenario, and the extent to which they would “move together” in supporting a minority government. Consequently, while community independents could not form a government, and consequently not fill the offices of the state, they could play a role in government, although it would likely be limited to supporting a government dominated by a major party.

This limitation with regards to performing the party function of governance is linked to the CIM’s partial performance of interest aggregation. A central tension can be seen in Webb’s (2002) second function – interest articulation and aggregation – and it is a tension that plagues political parties. The tension is between the role of MPs, in single-member district systems like Australia, to represent the interests of their district while at the same time being members of political parties with an expectation of some degree of party discipline on the broader range of issues and policy positions. For party MPs this tension must be navigated whenever a policy of their party is unpopular locally – and this is at the heart of interest aggregation. The independent status of community independents enables them to avoid this tension but consequently also means that they only partially perform the function of interest aggregation.

Our analysis thus far has viewed the CIM through the lens of party functions. From this party perspective, we see that the CIM is “party-like” with respect to certain functions. But to view the CIM only through a party lens would be to miss the different ways in which CIM performs these functions, as well as alternative functions CIM performs that parties do not. We contend that the “alternative” offered by CIM lies in how it performs party functions. We identify three key “non-party” characteristics at the heart of CIM’s approach to collective organising. First, the centrality of place-based representation. Place is central to CIM (see Hendriks and Reid, 2024). The very foundation of the movement is to ensure that the local – its people, its issues, its interests, and its values – is given more prominence in the political process. The local electorate is the undisputed focus of all efforts.

Second, autonomy and flexibility. In contrast to parties, groups and candidates within the CIM are not required to follow party positions or approaches. CI groups and candidates have maximum flexibility and autonomy in how they self-organise, how they select candidates, and the form and approach of their campaigns. In the 2022 election, the Australian media struggled to make sense of the CIM particularly its seeming lack of top-down leadership. Journalists searched for a leader of the movement, and happily fixed on key CI political donors such as the founder of the fundraising organisation, Climate 200, Simon Holmes à Court. ¹⁰ But the CIM’s leaderless approach marks the movement out from parties, particularly in an era where the latter are becoming ever more personalised (Rahat and Kenig, 2018). While Cathy McGowan and Zali Steggall were high-profile figures and were prominent in making the case for independents before and during the 2022 election, they were not a substitute for a leader (see Hendriks and Reid, 2023). This lack of a national leader further emphasises the electoral district focus of CI groups and candidates; while CI candidates were seeking to be part of a broader “wave” of independents, they were in no way fighting a cohesive national campaign.

Third, social, connective, and empowered citizen engagement. The emphasis of the CIM on volunteering and local engagement is part mobilisation, part educative, but it is also about building social connections within and across the electoral district (see also Hayman, 2024). Demand for connection was especially high in the lead up to the 2022 election when many communities were emerging from strict COVID-19 lockdowns. The CIM taps into this desire for people to connect, and it creates volunteering activities and events that are social, fun – enjoyable; an attractive kind of political engagement, especially for women. This emphasis of local CI groups being playful and enjoyable contrasts with the characterisations of traditional party politics as adversarial and election-winning focused. ¹¹ In contrast to parties, which are to a degree confined by their understanding of membership, the CIM involvement starts out by including everyone who wants to be involved, rather than privileging “members.” This connects with the CIM’s broader promise of citizen-led democratic reform (see Hendriks and Reid, 2024).

As adaptive actors, political parties may learn from, and adopt, some of these functional approaches, but there would be trade-offs. Localism could become a greater focus of campaigns and policy-making processes, but this would have to stand against the longer-term trend of centralisation (see e.g., Mills, 2014). Parties could entertain more autonomy from their MPs, but at the risk of jeopardising the party “brand.” Participation could be broadened beyond the membership, at the expense of silencing party activists and undermining the “point” of joining a political party (Gauja, 2017).

Conclusion

Traditional political parties remain central organising institutions in contemporary systems of representative democracy, but their domination and legitimacy are being disrupted by novel alternatives. To date studies of these alternative modes of political organising have focussed mostly on the emergence of movement and anti-establishment parties. Our goal here was to advance knowledge of non-party forms of political organising that are challenging parties in some democratic systems. For empirical insights we analysed the Community Independents Movement (CIM) which is disrupting Australia’s strong two-party system. Our analysis examined if and how the CIM performs core party functions, as identified by Webb (2002). We find that the CIM performs many of these functions, but does so in ways that differ from political parties.

Overall this research highlights how new forms of political organising in the electoral arena are disrupting parties. In the case of the CIM, political organising is founded on flexibility and local autonomy which sits in stark contrast to the discipline and hierarchy of parties. While community independents might be on the rise in Australia, it is unlikely that they will ever replace parties and party government. For now, they are putting forward alternatives for voters, making “safe seats” marginal, and increasing electoral competition.

The CIM is an internationally significant case that speaks to debates on the current and future role of political parties in representative democracy, as well as to discussions on non-party political organising. Importantly the CIM demonstrates that alternatives to parties can form around place or procedural demands, rather than around traditional or pre-determined cleavages or issues. However, our analysis of the CIM also identifies its weakness in performing the governance and interest aggregation functions of political parties. In time, parties may learn from the approaches, but to implement many would require a radical revision of accepted ways of organising members and policy development, blurring the distinction between these two political forms.

The case of the CIM also raises important questions about the conceptual boundaries between political parties and other forms of political organising, particularly from a functional perspective. For if non-party forms of political organising can perform many of the functions of parties, what are the specific functions that makes a form of political organising “party” organising? For example, are the functions of governance and interest aggregation, the functions which the CIM does not fully perform, somehow connected to the form of organising offered by political parties? Clearly, many parties, particularly small, single-issue parties, are also unlikely to perform these functions.

From a functional perspective the conceptual boundaries between party organising and non-party organising requires further theorising and empirical investigation. We encourage future research to examine whether there are unique functions of parties in contemporary representative democracies, functions which only parties can perform. Or, from a functional perspective, are political parties just one form of political organising the functions of which could be just as well performed by other, non-party forms of political organising?