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Do Parties Still Represent?: An Analysis of the Representativeness of Political Parties in Western Democracies [1 ed.]
 9780815362944

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Notes on contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Party membership as linkage
Party members and their relevance
Is descriptive representation in parties important?
Our approach to descriptive representation of party members
Empirical studies of party member representativeness
Study design
Book outline
Bibliography
2 Descriptive representation in local party associations and its implications for representation in parliament: findings from the Canadian case
Introduction
The Canadian context
Data
The descriptive representation of parties
Party members
Active party members
Local party presidents
Local party inclusiveness and gender in the candidate nomination pool
The nomination process
Discussion and conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
3 Not exactly a mirror image: British parties’ members and voters compared
Introduction
Mapping the terrain: recent ups and downs in British party membership
Are British parties’ members descriptively representative of their supporters in the electorate?
Are British parties’ members substantively representative of their supporters in the electorate?
Potential consequences: personnel, policy – and office?
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
4 Do Australian parties represent?
Introduction
Existing literature on the representativeness of Australian parties and their members
Data on Australian party members
Assessing the representativeness of party members
Possible consequences
Candidate selection
Representation
Policy development
Conclusion
Note
Bibliography
5 Germany: the politicization of party membership
Introduction
Membership decline in Germany
Descriptive representation: do German parties mirror society?
Gender
Age
Education
Social status
Religion
Trade union membership
Substantive representation: political motivations and political attitudes of party members
Political activism of party members
Political attitudes of party members
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
6 Belgium: parties as distorting mirrors – descriptive and substantive representativeness in Flemish parties under scrutiny
Introduction
Party members and political representation
Empirical studies on party membership profiles
Methodology
Descriptive congruence: the socio-demographic profile of Flemish party members
Active participation as compensation strategy?
Substantive congruence: being different, thinking different?
Conclusions: does it matter?
Notes
Bibliography
7 Something for everyone? Political parties, party members and representation in the Netherlands
Introduction
Data and methods
Descriptive representation
Substantive representation
Concluding remarks
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
8 Norwegian parties at work: representative capacities and political trust
Party change and representative party members
Data and research design
Trends in party membership
Member–voter congruence
Voters’ trust in political parties
Summary and conclusions
Notes
Bibliography
9 A skewed channel of participation in Denmark – and an even more skewed recruitment pool
Introduction
Parties as channels of policies, participation and political recruitment
The Danish case and data
Party members are more often men, older, with longer education and higher income
Party members are more extreme than party voters
The recruitment pool is also skewed
Discussion and conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
10 Representativeness of parties: old problems, new challenges
Main findings
Are parties representative in descriptive characteristics?
Does declining or low membership lead to more unrepresentative parties?
Does low descriptive representativeness have political consequences?
Party representativity in Western democracies
Perspectives for the future
Further research
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

DO PARTIES STILL REPRESENT? AN ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESENTATIVENESS OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN WESTERN DEMOCRACIES Edited by Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters

Do Parties Still Represent?

This book examines the representativeness of party membership and analyses the potential consequences of changing representativeness. Parties with high membership ratios, as well as those experiencing severe decline, are compared and examined across countries with varying constitutional arrangements and party systems. The book discusses whether changing representative capacities lead to declining political representation of (group) interests, less representative party candidate selection processes and declining legitimacy for the political system. The book bridges two subareas that are usually not in conversation with each other: literature on the decline of party membership and that on group representation (gender, ethnic minorities and other social groups). This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of party politics, political parties, representation and elections, and more broadly to people interested in European and comparative politics. Knut Heidar is Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo, Norway. Bram Wauters is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science of Ghent University, Belgium.

Routledge Studies on Political Parties and Party Systems Series Editors: Ingrid van Biezen Leiden University, the Netherlands

and Fernando Casal Bértoa

University of Nottingham, UK

This new series focuses on major issues affecting political parties in a broad sense. It welcomes a wide-­range of theoretical and methodological approaches on political parties and party systems in Europe and beyond, including comparative works examining regions outside of Europe. In particular, it aims to improve our present understanding of these topics through the examination of the crisis of political parties and challenges party organizations face in the contemporary world, the increasing internal complexity of party organizations in terms of regulation, funding, membership, the more frequent presence of party system change, and the development of political parties and party systems in under-­researched countries. The Regulation of Post-­Communist Party Politics Edited by Fernando Casal Bértoa and Ingrid van Biezen Party Systems in Young Democracies Varieties of Institutionalization in Sub-­Saharan Africa Edalina Rodrigues Sanches Opposition Parties in European Legislatures Conflict or Consensus? Edited by Elisabetta De Giorgi and Gabriella Ilonszki Party Members and Their Importance in Non-­EU Countries A Comparative Analysis Edited by Sergiu Gherghina, Alexandra Iancu and Sorina Soare Party System Change, the European Crisis and the State of Democracy Edited by Marco Lisi Do Parties Still Represent? An Analysis of the Representativeness of Political Parties in Western Democracies Edited by Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters

Do Parties Still Represent?

An Analysis of the Representativeness of Political Parties in Western Democracies

Edited by Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters to be identified as the authors of the editorial matter, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-­in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-8153-6294-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-11095-2 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Contents



List of figures List of tables Notes on contributors Acknowledgements

  1 Party membership as linkage

vii viii x xiii 1

K nut H eidar and B ram W auters

  2 Descriptive representation in local party associations and its implications for representation in parliament: findings from the Canadian case

15

W illiam  C ross

  3 Not exactly a mirror image: British parties’ members and voters compared

31

T im B ale , M onica P oletti and P aul  W ebb

  4 Do Australian parties represent?

47

A nika G au j a and Jordan M c S winey

  5 Germany: the politicization of party membership

66

K laus D etterbeck

  6 Belgium: parties as distorting mirrors – descriptive and substantive representativeness in Flemish parties under scrutiny R obin D evroe , B en j amin de V et , N icolas V an de V oorde and B ram W auters

86

vi   Contents   7 Something for everyone? Political parties, party members and representation in the Netherlands

105

Jos j e den R idder , R uud K oole and Joop van H olsteyn

  8 Norwegian parties at work: representative capacities and political trust

126

K nut H eidar

  9 A skewed channel of participation in Denmark – and an even more skewed recruitment pool

149

K arina K osiara - ­P edersen

10 Representativeness of parties: old problems, new challenges

169

K nut H eidar and B ram W auters



Index

182

Figures

5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 8.1

Membership figures in German parties, 1961–2016 Party members with university degrees, 1998 and 2009 Occupational groups in German parties, 2009 Share of trade union members in German parties, 1998 and 2009 Share of active party members, 1998 and 2009 Left–right positions of German voters and party members, 2009 Orientation towards members versus voters, 1998 and 2009 Policy preferences on the moral-­ethical dimension: mean per party and then split up for female, young and low-­educated party members Policy preferences on the socio-­economic dimension: mean per party and then split up for female, young and low-­educated party members Policy preferences on the globalization dimension: mean per party and then split up for female, young and low-­educated party members Ideological self-­positioning on a left–right scale: mean scores for party voters and party members, and then split up for female, young and low-­educated party members Number of party members and M/V-­ratio in election years, 1948–2017 Number of party members for parties in PMS, 1980–2018 M/V-­ratios for parties in PMS (in election years), 1981–2017 Common area under the curve and congruence score (CDA, issue of euthanasia, 1998/1999, 2008/2006) Total party membership and M/E-­ratios, selected years 1955–2015

68 72 73 75 78 80 81 96 97 98 99 108 110 111 116 131

Tables

2.1 Age of party members and party voters 2.2 Demographic characteristics of party members and party voters 2.3 Demographic characteristics of active party members 2.4 Characteristics of local party association presidents 2.5 Percentage of women in each of the following categories in the 2015 federal election (by party) 2.6 Candidate political ambition and recruitment by gender 2.7 Gender of local party president/executive committee and presence of a female nomination candidate 3.1 Membership ratio of the six main UK parties 3.2 Socio-­demographic characteristics of party members, as compared with the British electorate as a whole and to each party’s voters 3.3 The left–right dimension positions of party members and voters in 2015 and 2017 3.4 The liberty–authority dimension positions of party members and voters in 2015 and 2017 3.5 ‘To what extent do you believe that more MPs in Parliament should come from the following backgrounds’ – the views of party members and voters in 2017 4.1 Descriptors: party members, voters by party and general public, Australia 4.2 45th Parliament of Australia, gender, by party, 2016 4.3 45th Parliament of Australia, age, by party, 2016 5.1 The share of women in German parties, 1998–2016 5.2 The share of older members (60 plus) in German parties, 1998–2106 5.3 Religious affiliation in German parties, 1998 and 2009 6.1 Overview of the survey: number of respondents, response rates, percentage online responses and period of questioning 6.2 Gender, age and highest diploma of the Flemish party members compared to the parties’ voters (in parentheses) and the population in the Flemish region

19 19 21 22 23 25 26 34 36 39 39 41 54 58 59 70 71 74 91 91

Tables   ix 6.3 6.4 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 A7.1 8.1 8.2A 8.2B 8.3A 8.3B 8.4A 8.4B 8.5A 8.5B 8.6A 8.6B 8.7 8.8A 8.8B 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7

Frequency and factor loadings for nine party activities Odds ratios for logistic regressions explaining activity rate for three kinds of party activities Similarity of party members and party voters, 1986–2017 Direction of change in party membership, M/V-­ratios and mean similarity scores between party members and voters, 1986–2017 Congruence between party members and party voters on political issues, 1986–2017 Left–right orientations of party members and voters, 1986–2017 Direction of change in party membership, M/V-­ratios and left–right ideological distance between members and voters, 1986–2017 Information on the Leiden Party Membership Surveys, 1986–2017 Changing membership in Norwegian parties 1955–2015 Profile: percentage male membership Congruence: gender Profile: average age for party members Congruence: age averages Profile: members’ care of children Congruence: care of children Profile: education Congruence: education Profile: occupational sector Congruence: public sector occupation Votes and trust in political parties, 2004 and 2014 Summary: congruence points for all parties, 1991 and 2017 Summary: change in congruence points per party, 1991–2017 Danish parties included in the analysis Share of men among members (2000 and 2012) and voters (2011) Average age among party members (2000 and 2012) and voters (2011) Share of members (2012) and voters (2011) with high school degree Party members’ and voters’ political opinions Recruitment potential among Danish party members, 2012 Recruitment potential

94 95 112 114 117 118 119 122 133 135 135 136 136 138 138 140 140 142 142 143 145 145 152 154 156 157 159 162 163

Contributors

Tim Bale is Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London. His research focuses on political parties, and has covered a range of topics, including coalitions, membership, links with interest groups and how parties on both the left and the right have coped with the challenge posed by mass migration and the populist radical right. His latest, co-­edited book is Left-­ofCentre Parties and Trade Unions in the Twenty-­First Century, and he is the author of a widely used textbook, European Politics: A Comparative Introduction. William Cross is the Bell Chair in Canadian Parliamentary Democracy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. His work focuses on party organization and intra-­party democracy. His recent books include The Personalization of Democratic Politics and The Promise and Challenge of Party Primary Elections. Klaus Detterbeck is Senior Researcher at the University of Göttingen. His research focuses on parties and multi-­level politics. He has published in journals like Party Politics, Regional and Federal Studies and German Politics. His most recent publication is the Handbook of Territorial Politics (co-­edited with Eve Hepburn). Robin Devroe is a Junior Researcher at the Department of Political Sciences of Ghent University. Her main research interest is the study of political representation, voting behaviour and gender. She has recently published on these topics in Acta Politica, the Journal of Women, Politics and Policy and Political Research Quarterly. Anika Gauja is Associate Professor in the Department of Government and International Relations, Sydney University. Her research interests focus on party organization and adaption. She is the author of Party Reform. Knut Heidar is Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo. His main interests are parties and parliaments. He has published in journals like West European Politics, Party Politics and Representation. His most recent book (with Allern and Karlsen) is After the Mass Party.

Contributors   xi Joop van Holsteyn is Professor of Political Science at Leiden University, the Netherlands. His research focuses on voting behaviour, public opinion and opinion polling, right-­wing extremism and party membership in the Netherlands. He has published articles (in English) in Acta Politica, Electoral Studies, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Party Politics, Public Opinion Quarterly and West European Politics. Ruud Koole is Professor of Political Science at Leiden University. His research concentrates on political institutions, political legitimacy, Dutch political history and the functioning of political parties. Among others, he was a member of the Royal Commission on the Dutch Parliamentary System, which presented its final report in December 2018. Karina Kosiara-­Pedersen is Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen. She studies parties, party membership, candidate recruitment, campaigning, elections and party systems, sometimes with a focus on gender. Her recent work is published in West European Politics, Party Politics, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties and the Danish book Demokratiets Ildsjæle. Jordan McSwiney is a PhD student and Postgraduate Award holder at the Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney. His research interests include far-­right politics, party organization and social network analysis. His research has been published in the Australian Journal of Political Economy. Monica Poletti is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London on the ESRC Party Members Project. Her main interests are political participation and party membership. She has published in journals like West European Politics, Electoral Studies and International Political Science Review. Josje den Ridder works as a Researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Social Research. Her research focuses on public opinion and party membership in the Netherlands. She wrote a PhD thesis on party members, called ‘Links or obstacles? Dutch political parties and the cohesion, division and representativeness of party members’. Benjamin de Vet is a PhD student at the research group GASPAR, Department of Political Science, Ghent University. His research focuses on political parties and legislatures. He has recently published on these topics in The Journal of Legislative Studies and Party Politics. Nicolas Van de Voorde is a PhD student at the Centre for Local Politics at Ghent University and focuses on the relation between local and national politics. He has recently published in journals such as West European Politics and Lex Localis. Bram Wauters is Associate Professor at Ghent University where he leads the  research group GASPAR. His research interests include intra-­party

xii   Contributors d­ emocracy, elections and representation. He has recently published on these topics in journals such as Party Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Political Studies and Acta Politica. Paul Webb is Professor of Politics at the University of Sussex, researching party and electoral politics. A Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, his most recent book is Organizing Political Parties: Representation, Participation and Power, which he co-­edited with Susan Scarrow and Thomas Poguntke. He is editor of the journal Party Politics.

Acknowledgements

This book project started with a short informal talk we had during the ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops in Salamanca back in 2014. We both agreed there that the representativeness of political parties was a very relevant topic in contemporary politics that deserved more research attention. The next step was the organization of a workshop at another ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, in 2017 in Nottingham. Here, a number of party scholars met to present papers and discuss the topic of ‘Political Parties as Arena for Descriptive Representation’. The papers mapped descriptive representation within different strata in parties, and investigated causes and consequences for underrepresentation (or overrepresentation) of particular social groups. We would like to thank again all the participants to this workshop for their input and comments and the very fruitful discussions, which definitely improved the quality of this project. We decided there that the papers and the discussions gave good reason to pursue these themes in a suitable publication based on a selection of the papers. The editors of the Routledge Studies on Political Parties and Party Systems series, Ingrid Van Biezen and Fernando Casal Bértoa, were immediately very excited about our plans and agreed to our proposal for an edited volume. We are grateful to them and to the two anonymous reviewers for their support and advice from an early phase in the book project onwards. Sadly, our good colleague Tim Spier of the University of Siegen, who was very enthusiastic about this book project and who would be writing on German party members, later died. This was a great loss to the community of scholars regularly meeting for discussions on comparative party research. Tim was not only a great scholar, but also a very nice colleague. Klaus Detterbeck from the University of Göttingen (and friend of Tim) agreed to write instead on German party members in order to honour Tim’s memory. To broaden the country scope of the book, we recruited some extra authors after the Nottingham workshop. We would like to thank all the authors for their efforts to deliver work of very high quality and to meet the deadlines we set. They, like us, think that party members are central actors in modern democracies, even if their numbers and role in party politics is changing. We thank also our respective departments and universities for the necessary infrastructure to produce research and to make it accessible to others.

xiv   Acknowledgements Finally, we are grateful to our families for their comprehension about our involvement in this project (and about our absence from home when discussing these interesting topics at conferences) and for their love and continued support for our work. Oslo/Ghent, November 2018 Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters

1 Party membership as linkage Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters

In recent years, parties and party organizations have been put under pressure: party membership is declining, voters are more volatile and the party leadership is increasingly taking their cues from public (and social) media debates (e.g. Dalton and Weldon 2005; Drummond 2006; van Biezen and Poguntke 2014). Debates on the decline of mass parties, the rise of ‘cartel parties’ and the changing types of party affiliation are indicative of this change (Katz and Mair 1995; Scarrow 2015). In this book, we ask whether the linkage mechanism as offered by the party organizations today – through its members – is as weak as suggested by recent literature. We investigate whether party organizations in Western democracies are (still) providing linkage between voters and political elites. Party members are supposed to channel voter opinions into political institutions offering a broader and more continuous policy base than the link provided by elections alone. But the question arises to what extent they fulfil this function and to what extent all layers of society are included in this process. In other words, we will dig deeper into the question of whether party membership is a way to connect diverse groups in society to politics and government. The decline in membership figures has been extensively documented in several studies (e.g. van Biezen et al. 2012). But one aspect that has been underexposed in this kind of research is to what extent party membership decline has also affected parties’ representative capacity (for an exception, see e.g. Scarrow and Gezgor 2010). One would expect party members and parties to become less representative of the population at large with low membership ratio and/or declining bases of members over time. Party members would to a lesser degree share the characteristics of those they intend to represent. In other words, the expectation is that the extent to which women, blue-­collar workers, young people, ethnic minorities, etc. are present within the party will have declined. More generally, a crisis of representativeness is – as indicated by the political participation literature (e.g. Hibbing and Theiss-­Morse 2002; Marien et al. 2010) – intrinsic to all high-­intensity participation modes (including party membership). However, the few studies that have been published question the general assumption of an automatic link between declining party membership figures and declining representativeness (Scarrow and Gezgor 2010; Allern et al. 2016). Therefore, this volume aims to give more insights in the extent to which parties

2   Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters represent voters. At the same time, we bridge two research fields that are usually not in conversation with each other, the literature on party membership decline on the one hand and the literature on group representation on the other. Representativeness is a central issue in discussions on how parties contribute to democracy. The macro-­debates on party democracy look both at the governability of democratic systems (Schattschneider 1942; Cox and McCubbins 1993) and at the democratic qualities of party systems (Duverger 1954/1972; Sartori 1976). A weakening of the linkage function carries a threat to party-­based democracy in general if parties rule more than they represent (Mair 2013). This development could have far-­reaching consequences for the political system in terms of legitimacy as weaker links with society could lead to less-­informed and less-­ accepted government decisions. And it could be a danger to parties themselves, who risk being out of tune with the opinion and visions of the population, resulting in unpopular decisions, electoral defeats and being displaced by new parties. Our main point of interest is descriptive representativeness (i.e. the extent to which party members mirror (party) voters on a number of relevant characteristics), not representativeness in general. The importance of party member congruence rests on the claim that descriptive representation has a number of consequences, more in particular for party policies, candidate selection and democratic legitimacy (Kittilson 2013). Factors generating representative party membership are hardly touched upon in the literature, but is seems evident that the number of party members is a central factor. It is not possible for a one-­man party to be representative of his/her voters, and it is a valid assumption that the higher the member/voter ratio, the stronger the likelihood of a representative membership. Therefore, we will focus on three questions in this volume: 1 2

3

To what extent is the party membership representative of – or congruent with – the party voters in terms of descriptive background? Is there (following the general membership decline) a decline in member– voter congruence over time? And do parties with declining or low member– voter ratios show a lower member–voter congruence than parties with stable or high member–voter ratios? What are the consequences of low descriptive representativeness for substantive representation, candidate selection, political trust and legitimacy?

These questions will be answered in eight country chapters. The chapters include parties from countries with high and low levels of party membership, as well as parties that have experienced membership decline and rise. The countries are all democracies but they differ in their constitutional arrangements and in their party systems. Mapping the descriptive congruence between members and party voters is the empirical core of the book. We aim to test the universality of the claim that low levels of party membership make for low representative capacity by looking at very diverse countries. The consequences that are investigated differ from one chapter to another (depending on data availability). In some chapters, we study

Party membership as linkage   3 the impact of differing degrees of descriptive congruence on who is actually selected (or not selected) as candidate for political office, while in other chapters the focus is on the impact on substantive representation (the party’s policies) and/or on levels of legitimacy/political trust in political institutions. Given the data availability, however, the discussions on causes and consequences will mostly be suggestive as only a few alternative causal relations can be analysed in-­depth. In the following, we will take stock of the general debate and spell out the analytical and methodological issues faced in this research. We start by discussing the relevance of party members in contemporary party organizations. Next, we discuss the importance of descriptive representativeness of political parties. We also summarize some existing empirical studies of member–voter congruence in Western European parties. We end with an outline of the chapters that follow.

Party members and their relevance In the European tradition, the notion of the ‘mass party’ has always had a central place. As presented by Maurice Duverger in his classic study, the ‘mass party’ is a political instrument at the service of the voters (Duverger 1954/1972). Parties organize the political will of engaged citizens, alias members, and bring forward policies and candidates at elections. Parties provide linkages between voters and elites, and the members function as intermediaries in this respect. Parties serve democracy by supplementing elections in bringing voter preferences into the institutions. In this way, party members add to electoral democracy by bringing the voters into the party chain of government. Thus, parties are there for the members. In the literature, an ‘Atlantic divide’ is often pointed to in views on what role parties play in democracies (Wright 1971). In the European tradition, parties are considered to be supplementary channels of voter influence. Voters cannot express their wishes on all issues and at all times, and party members must therefore do it for them in the meantime. The main US parties do not have members in the European meaning, i.e. dues-­paying participants allowed to have a say in internal decision-­making on candidates and policies. US parties are only vehicles for the candidates’ electoral ambitions: registered voters have the option to take part in party primaries and some political activists also engage in a candidate’s campaign organization. Therefore, in the US, parties are not there for the members, but ‘members’ are there for the parties. This does not mean that the US polity is not democratic, but it is not a party democracy. US voters also wire their Congress representative (today probably by email or social media) but this is a linkage outside the organized party context. Also other supplementary ‘civil society linkages’ through individual actions, voluntary organizations and lobby activities do not include an organizational linkage through party member organizations. Clearly, much has changed since the early post-­Second World War resurgence of the mass parties, also in Europe (Katz and Mair 1995; Allern et al.

4   Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters 2016). The way West European parties are organized today, however, as well as how they are conceived as democratic instruments, still owes much to the mass parties evolving during the late 1940s and the 1950s. Member representativeness does, however, not have the same importance or meaning in ‘candidate-­driven’ parties. Such candidate parties are also present in Europe; the Dutch Freedom party is one example. This ‘party’ has only one member, its leader Geert Wilders (van der Pas et al. 2013; Mazzoleni and Voerman 2017). Other parties may also be more candidate driven (or leader-­run) than most parties used to be in the past. Parties created around figures such as Macron (in France) and Berlusconi and Grillo (in Italy) provide cases in point here. These new kinds of parties with no members or with only a limited role for members have been labelled ‘business firm parties’ or ‘personalized parties’ (Hopkin and Paolucci 1999; Mazzoleni and Voerman 2017). Also in more established parties, we can refer to Roberto Michels with his ‘iron law of oligarchy’, who more than a century ago drew attention to the fact that parties over time move along a continuum from the member-­centred to the elite-­centred types (Michels 1915). Yet another threat to party membership is that some parties have introduced options for ‘softer’ types of affiliation compared to full membership (Scarrow 2015). Voters may register as ‘supporters’ and be allowed to vote in internal leadership contests and/or in the selection of party candidates for (the highest) public office (Bernardi et al. 2017). This reduces the relative value of full membership. Non-­member affiliates can participate in many of the same tasks as full members – and arguably in the most important ones. Moreover, the argument in favour of these lighter forms of affiliation is that it improves the link with the voters. Knowing the numbers and the representativeness of ‘proper’ members then becomes only one side of general party representativeness. However, this would be a relevant point only in countries where such ‘multi-­speed parties’ actually have some relevance, like the UK and possibly France and Italy, but overall these types of membership options – and in particular the extent to which they are actually practised – is far too limited to make descriptions of (full) member representativeness redundant. Moreover, it seems that many parties approach these types of non-­member affiliations as a first step towards more permanent affiliations such as party membership. Our argument here is that the practice in most European parties is still mostly member-­based, both in terms of organizational structures and with an official party ethos emphasizing membership democracy. Many parties prescribe internal party democracy in their statutes and as part of their ethos, with party members as their main demos. In these parties, the leadership cannot politically afford to disregard the members, and even if the party is prone to oligarchic tendencies, the voters’ trust may still depend on members’ representativeness. If parties say they practise member democracy, the composition of the membership will be relevant to the voters (as well as to the media). The influence and relevance of party members has even increased in the last few decades, testified by members having a larger say in the selection of the party leader and the candidate lists for parliamentary elections, and in the policy of the party (Loxbo 2013; Pilet and Cross 2014). This relevance

Party membership as linkage   5 of party members, however, does not exclude the possibility that middle-­level elites, e.g. conference delegates, also may generate congruent groups compared to voters. We do know that certain groups are more likely than others to be politically active: men, the middle-­aged, the highly educated, etc. (Whiteley et al. 1994). In the old Liberal Party in Norway, the saying was that it was a party of schoolteachers – even if the voters were mostly peasants, fishermen, craftsmen and workers (Heidar 2001). Political resources are unevenly distributed at the individual level and this is likely to create new representative imbalances (or corrections to imbalances at a lower level in the party). Similarly, parties are different in origin and organizational structure. Social-­democratic or Christian-­ democratic parties that were founded by trade unions and religious organizations will most likely recruit members disproportionally from these voter segments – even if (over time) they attract a broader voter segment. Therefore, one would be well advised to search for social, organizational and institutional differences to explain representative variance. In the broad sense, however, this general approach to explain differences and changes in party–voter congruence does not define our task here, even if we expect declining memberships to create stronger imbalances in congruence.

Is descriptive representation in parties important? Our main point of interest is the representativeness of party members. Before indicating how representativeness could be important in relation to party membership, we first have to define this concept. In order to do so, we start with the classic work of Hanna Pitkin (1967), who defines political representation as ‘making present in some sense of something which is nevertheless not present literally or in fact’. Within this broad definition, four different (but interconnected) dimensions can be distinguished. Formal representation focuses on the rules and procedures through which representatives are authorized to act as representatives (mostly by means of free and fair elections). Descriptive representation refers to the extent to which the socio-­demographic characteristics of the representatives correspond to those of the people they represent. Substantive representation, or responsiveness, is defined as acting in the interests of the represented in a manner responsive to them. Finally, symbolic representation refers to feelings of being fairly and effectively represented. As already indicated, the main focus of this book lies on descriptive representation. If the representatives and the represented share some personal characteristics (e.g. gender), it can be said that the former represents the latter in a descriptive manner. There exists a very rich literature on the importance of descriptive representatives in parliament (see e.g. Phillips 1995; Dovi 2002; Wängnerud 2009; Saalfeld and Bischof 2013). We will argue here that descriptive representativeness is also of utmost importance when it concerns party members since it has implications for party policies, candidate selection and democratic legitimacy (Kittilson 2013).

6   Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters Parties have, first of all, the power to include and prioritize certain issues of importance to societal groups (or marginalize and even ignore them) when designing government and party policies. And party members can have an impact on these choices as their formal powers in the intra-­party decision-­ making have increased in recent years (Loxbo 2013; Wolkenstein 2016). In combination with the idea that people who are sharing certain personal characteristics (and experiences) more truly understand each other’s needs and interests and tend to give more priority to these needs (Phillips 1995), the composition of the membership file is important for the kind of party policies that are developed (Wauters et al. 2018). In addition, there is an indirect effect: parties and party members can create a supportive environment for individual party representatives (members of parliament, for instance) that wish to take on the role of group representative in other arenas. Finally, parties can also use descriptive representative party members as a resource for defining policy issues and solutions, making use of their specific expertise and at the same time increasing the parties’ responsiveness to these specific groups in society. We have now argued that descriptive representation also matters for substantive policy representation. It seems logical that, owing to the general decline in membership figures, not only descriptive representation but also the substantive ‘policy-­representation’ of parties is under pressure. However, substantive representation is not the prerogative of descriptive representatives alone. Substantive representation by non-­ descriptive actors occurs and has been labelled ‘advocacy representation’ or ‘surrogate representation’ (Mansbridge 2003; Celis and Erzeel 2015). The issue is, however, whether such an ‘advocate’ can give full consideration not only to current preferences, but also to competing as well as future interests of particular social groups. Second, the selection of candidates for public office is undoubtedly also influenced by considerations about descriptive representation. When selecting candidates for parliamentary elections, parties first and foremost look at their own party members. If this pool of potential candidates shrinks, the descriptive quality of the parliamentary party representation may decline as well (Norris and Lovenduski 1995; Krook 2010). Moreover, also the presence in other arenas of the party plays a role for candidate selection: the descriptive representativeness of party selectors (Cheng and Tavits 2011) and the presence of specific organizational structures within a party, such as women’s sections (Wiliarty 2010; Kittilson 2013), have been found to be important in this respect. Finally, advocates for descriptive representation also stress the demand for ‘political legitimacy’, ‘political trust’ and for ‘just influence’ (Phillips 1995; Young 2002; Ruedin 2013). Indeed, it can be argued that parties and their decision-­making procedures will be considered more legitimate by particular groups in society if members of these groups have had at the least the opportunity to mould these decisions or to air their grievances – for instance, by participating in internal debates (Williams 1998; Michels 2011). This might be true for parliamentary decision-­making and citizen participation, and also for political parties. But here again, also non-­descriptive actors can bring the interests of

Party membership as linkage   7 particular groups into the debate. But who you trust and consider a legitimate representative for your political preferences might also have a descriptive element, and then ‘surrogate representation’ does not solve the question of political legitimacy. Throughout this volume, not only descriptive representativeness of parties, but also the three consequences of it (data availability permitting), namely party policies, candidate selection and democratic legitimacy, will be scrutinized.

Our approach to descriptive representation of party members Before starting the analyses, we have to explain how a number of crucial concepts have been operationalized in this volume. We start by explaining what we understand by ‘party membership’. The delineation of party members is quite straightforward. In the surveys on party members reported in this book, a party member is a citizen who is formally registered in the party organization and who has, as a consequence of this registration, full statutory rights and obligations in that party. In general, the practice is that a member must pay a (yearly) fee in order to obtain (and keep) his or her rights within the party (van Haute and Gauja 2015). In order to assess the representativeness of party members, we need a point of reference to compare with. In this book, we will compare party members’ profiles and opinions with those of party voters. Member–voter representativeness (or congruence) is the degree to which party members and party voters mirror each other as groups. If the party has 60 per cent male members and 60 per cent male voters, the party has a perfect congruence on the gender variable. The way we use these terms here does not involve an interaction between members and voters, only the degree of congruence on important characteristics is at stake here. However, the degree of party–voter congruence is not necessarily only a question of how members match voters. In the Canadian chapter, the authors target the congruence of parties’ candidates for public office compared to voters. Congruence may therefore be measured at different levels in the party – at the level of grassroot party membership, activists, local leaders, party elites, etc. A final question that arises is on what descriptive variables we should compare members with voters. The answer is on whatever characteristics that are considered politically important within a particular political culture. These characteristics may differ over time as well as between countries. Owning property, for instance, was once a decisive criterion for suffrage and by default considered politically important, but is no longer relevant today. Gender, age, religion, education, occupation, residence, ethnic origin, sexual orientation and class are now generally considered important. The reason is that they reflect different life experiences and interests, and consequently are politically relevant. Clearly, as will become clear in the country chapters, the analysis of member– voter congruence levels is also restricted by data availability. There are three variables that appear in all chapters: gender, age and education. These are

8   Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters v­ ariables that have proven to be very relevant in studies on parliamentary representation (Goerres 2008; Wängnerud 2009; Krook 2010; Bjarnegård 2013; Bovens and Wille 2017) and for divisions in personal networks (McPherson et al. 2001). Moreover, these three socio-­demographic characteristics are quite easily identifiable (unlike religion, sexual orientation and ethnic origin), they do not change when taking up a political mandate (unlike social class and profession) and they are relevant in all countries at stake here (unlike language groups). This does not mean that only these variables are analysed. Variables that are relevant in a particular country can be included in specific country chapters (but not in others), as well as variables for which interesting data are available in some countries (and not in others).

Empirical studies of party member representativeness Several single-­country studies have demonstrated that party members are not (and probably have never been) an accurate mirror of the population (Whiteley et al. 1994; Cross and Young 2004; Gallagher and Marsh 2004; Gauja 2013; van Haute et al. 2013). Also a (more limited) number of cross-­country studies have investigated the representativeness of party membership. In an early study, based on population surveys in 15 West European countries, Widfeldt (1995) found that members were older than average, predominantly male and had higher educational levels compared to voters, and that working-­class citizens were underrepresented. Survey data from 36 countries showed party members to be older, more likely male and with higher social status than voters (Whiteley 2009). Whiteley did find a difference, however, between conventional forms of participation, like party membership, and non-­institutionalized forms, like signing petitions and demonstrating. Non-­institutionalized participation had a stronger presence of women and the young, although with inequalities based on education. This pattern has been confirmed in several studies that focused specifically on these non-­institutionalized forms of participation (Dalton 2007; Li and Marsh 2008; Marien et al. 2010; Sloam 2013). As for evolutions over time, we can refer to a study on Swedish party members and activists (1960–1994) in which Widfeldt (1999) found little evidence of decreasing descriptive representativeness, apart from on the age variable. More recently, Scarrow and Gezgor (2010) analysed the consequences of reduced party memberships since 1989 based on European Social Survey and Eurobarometer data. They found that party membership decline had ‘not meant that parties’ grassroots had become some kind of odd subculture, no longer able to provide legitimacy because they were too different from the rest of society’ (Scarrow and Gezgor 2010, p. 839). Party members had become older relative to voters, but in terms of income, union membership and religiosity, they were actually more alike to voters in the 2000s than in the 1990s. The relative increase of female party members, as noted by Widfeldt, was found in seven out of twelve West European countries between the 1990s and the 2000s (Childs 2013, p. 85). Other research also found the low recruitment of young party members,

Party membership as linkage   9 which is part of a trend in political participation away from its traditional forms (Young 2013). We must of course be careful in interpreting these figures based on population surveys. As long as party members typically constitute only 3 to 6 per cent of the electorate, the total N for party members in population surveys is rather small and the self-­identification as a party member is not always correct. In contrast, the study by Allern, Heidar and Karlsen on changes in member and MP representativeness in Norway from 1910 to 1990 was based on both membership and voter surveys. They found that, in the period with strong membership decline and increased public party subsidy, the ‘representative capacity of party organizations in terms of intra-­party activity and social and political congruence’ had not decreased (Allern et al. 2016, p. 119). Taken together, the few studies that exist suggest that party members – although still a high-­status group and shrinking in number – are increasingly becoming more similar to the voters, in particular when looking at the presence of women. The exception is the rather stable (or even slightly increasing) discrepancy in terms of age. Another conclusion is that longitudinal and comparative studies of party members and activists (based on specific and large-­N surveys) are scarce. By bringing together the analyses of parties in different Western countries mostly based on party membership surveys and mostly adopting an over-­time perspective, this book aims to fill this lacuna. Only in this way will we be able to determine whether party members are ‘the outer ring of an extended political class’ (van Biezen et al. 2012) or rather intermediary actors connecting citizens and politicians.

Study design The book looks primarily at stable democracies in Western Europe, but investigates also a few Anglo-­Saxon countries such as Canada and Australia. These eight countries are all central in the debates on party change and party crisis. Although all stable party democracies, they vary in their institutional setups, political cultures and party systems, making discussions on degrees of party representativeness, its causes and consequences challenging but also realistic. With the ‘very different systems’ design, an ‘all high’ or an ‘all low’ in member–voter congruence would prospectively be a very strong finding in terms of generalizability. The respective authors have all conducted party member surveys in these countries. In their chapters, they explore the degrees of descriptive representativeness of party members (and mostly also evolutions over time) and discuss likely consequences of member–voter congruence, being in terms of impact on policy issues and/or on candidate selection and/or on legitimacy/trust in the (party) system. The specific empirical basis for these presentations will be presented in the various chapters. The selected countries are not included in this book on the basis of one overarching analytical design. If that were so, we definitely would have included

10   Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters countries from East and Central Europe (new parties without institutionalized linkages to civil society), and France and Italy (both experiencing the breakdown of established parties with soft membership organizations). We have included countries with party membership surveys allowing us to study the party linkage in old, stable party democracies only. These old democracies, however, also experience the rise and challenge from new parties, less loyal voters and the rise of social media – all factors that may weaken the linkage to civil society. Admittedly, the data-­driven approach to selecting cases, reduces the generalizability of our findings. We repeat the textbook story of ‘looking for our lost car keys under the lamp-­post’ given that it is easiest to see clearly there. We do think, however, that the time is ripe for a more general, comparative approach to the issue of party linkage – even if the best design options are not available.

Book outline In Chapter 2, William Cross looks at the congruence between party voters and different layers of Canadian parties – grassroots party members, activist members, local party presidents and candidates for public office. Men, the better educated, the financially well-­off and older Canadians at all levels of the party are overrepresented, increasingly so at the higher party levels. Cross also investigates consequences for candidate selection: he clearly finds that women are more likely to contest for a party nomination when women are present in decision-­ making positions in the local party. Tim Bale, Monica Poletti and Paul Webb test in Chapter 3 the hypothesis that British parties with relatively low and/or falling memberships are less representative than parties with high and/or increasing membership. They find that, although some parties are more representative of their voters than others, any relationship between size/growth and representativeness is at best marginal. In general, however, women, the under-­35s and ethnic minorities are underrepresented among members, whereas university graduates, middle-­class people and people living in the South of England and Scotland are clearly overrepresented. In terms of policy preferences, members are in line with the party’s voters (although members tend to be a bit more radical in their opinions). In Chapter 4, Anika Gauja and Jordan McSwiney study Australian party membership. They examine the implications of declining membership for parties’ representative capacities – not only in terms of descriptive representation and the composition of the membership, but also in their ability to integrate a variety of diverse perspectives and voices into key party functions, such as candidate selection and policy development. Women and young voters are underrepresented in Australian parties, prompting the parties to experiment with ways to open up their organization to new groups. In Chapters 5–7, we present studies of parties in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Klaus Detterbeck looks at changes in demographic structures and political attitudes of German party members over time. These members have skewed social profiles (gender, education, social status) compared to their social

Party membership as linkage   11 environment, patterns that have remained relatively constant over a 20-year period. Contrary to expectations, members have become more politically active over time (and especially young members tend to be more active). Moreover, members demand stronger participatory rights, and emphasize programmatic clarity more explicitly and less pragmatic policies. In the chapter on Belgian party members, Robin Devroe, Benjamin de Vet, Nicolas Van de Voorde and Bram Wauters analyse the descriptive representativeness of Flemish party members, the degree to which underrepresented groups compensate their limited presence in the parties by engaging more in party activities than others and the possible substantive consequences of a lack of diversity among party members. They find that parties perform poorly with regards to descriptive representation. The already underrepresented groups (women, young and lower educated) are even less active in terms of intra-­party participation, and parties therefore reproduce inequalities. But even if members of underrepresented groups have different policy preferences than the average party member, this only explains a small part of the overall policy incongruence between members and voters. In the Netherlands, Josje den Ridder, Ruud Koole and Joop van Holsteyn find that in socio-­demographic terms (e.g. age, gender, educational level) party members do not reflect the voters. From a substantive perspective, however, party members and voters are much more alike. Moreover, a decline in party membership for individual parties is not associated with a decrease in socio-­ demographic similarity or substantive congruence. As an explanation, they point to the openness of the Dutch electoral and political system, allowing quite easily the emergence of new parties when other parties fall short in their linkage function. Finally, Knut Heidar and Karina Kosiara-­Pedersen write on Norwegian and Danish party members, respectively. In Chapter 8, on Norway, Heidar looks at change in descriptive congruence and voters’ trust in parties during the time-­ span from 1991 to 2017. There is a declining congruence in terms of education and ‘children at home’, and women are still not present in Norwegian parties in sufficient numbers for the members to be representative of civil society. These evolutions in representativeness, together with a general party membership decline, do however not impact on the legitimacy enjoyed by parties. The Danish study by Kosiara-­Pedersen finds that party members to a larger extent than party voters are men, older, longer educated and with higher income. The members also place themselves more to the extreme on the left–right dimension. The skewed descriptive representation among party members is further skewed among these potential candidates for office. In the last Chapter 10, the editors sum up the main findings and discuss likely answers to the three questions presented above. The conclusion is that the parties today – in spite of declining membership – face more challenges than before but not an increased crisis in representation. Many of the challenges are intrinsic to political organization, and parties are driven towards finding new ways to handle the challenges presented by a changing social and political environment.

12   Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters

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14   Knut Heidar and Bram Wauters Scarrow, S. and Gezgor, B., 2010. Declining memberships, changing members? European political party members in a new era. Party Politics, 16, 823–843. Schattschneider, E. E., 1942. Party government. New York: Rinehart. Sloam, J., 2013. ‘Voice and equality’: Young people’s politics in the European Union. West European Politics, 36, 836–858. Wauters, B., Eelbode, F. and Celis, K., 2018. Colorful or colorless? Which local parties defend ethnic minority interests? Lex Localis, 16, 413–430. Whiteley, P., 2009. Party membership and activism in comparative perspective. In: J. Debardeleben and J. H. Pammett, eds. Activating the citizen. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 131–150. Whiteley, P., Seyd, P. and Richardson, J., 1994. True blues: The politics of Conservative Party membership. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widfeldt, A., 1995. Party membership and party representativeness. In: H. D. Klingemann and D. Fuchs, eds. Citizens and the state. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 134–182. Widfeldt, A., 1999. Losing touch? The political representativeness of Swedish parties, 1985–1994. Scandinavian Political Studies, 22, 307–326. Wiliarty, S. E., 2010. The CDU and the politics of gender in Germany: Bringing women to the party. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, M. S., 1998. Voice, trust, and memory: Marginalized groups and the failings of liberal representation. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wolkenstein, F., 2016. A deliberative model of intra-party democracy. Journal of Political Philosophy, 24, 297–320. Wright, W. E., 1971. A comparative study of party organization. Columbus: Merrill Publishing Company. Wängnerud, L., 2009. Women in parliaments: Descriptive and substantive representation. Annual Review of Political Science, 12, 51–69. Young, I. M., 2002. Inclusion and democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Young, L., 2013. Party members and intra-­party democracy. In: W. Cross and R. Katz, eds. The challenges of intra-­party democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 49–64.

2 Descriptive representation in local party associations and its implications for representation in parliament Findings from the Canadian case William Cross Introduction Political parties are meant to connect governing institutions with civil society (Schattschneider 1942; King 1969; Katz and Mair 1995). Regardless of how one views the relative merits of representative and direct democracy, the reality is that governance in the modern democratic state is shaped by representation. Population size, geographic scope and the increasing complexity of public policy inevitably lead to systems of representative government. In Canada, as in most of the democratic world, political parties play a key role in this representational structure. As William Chandler and Alan Siaroff have written, ‘Parties operate as the crucial intermediaries linking rulers and ruled. The most basic party function is that of representation involving the translation of public opinion to political leaders’ (1991, p. 192). Indeed, fulfilling the representation mandate is one of the central functions of modern parties. Beyond simply acting as a conduit, however, the representational imperative ascribed to parties also entails inclusivity. As political parties play a key role in structuring and executing election campaigns, in organizing our legislatures and governments and in playing a gate-­keeping role to political office, it is important to consider who constitutes the political party and whether they are inclusive of the various segments that together form civil society. In this sense, we are interested in how well parties fulfil their mandate for ‘descriptive’ representation. While there is some debate as to whether parties need to balance democratic norms, such as the relative weight given to inclusiveness versus participation (see Cross 2008; Rahat et al. 2008; Hazan and Rahat 2010), there is widespread agreement that representational concerns regarding party organization are a legitimate component of the democratic measure of any modern state (Cross and Katz 2013). This is perhaps most true in terms of gender (see Childs 2013; Pruysers et al. 2017). In considering how representative and inclusive political parties are, it is imperative to acknowledge that parties are not unitary actors. There are different

16   William Cross faces of the parties fulfilling different tasks, offering unique democratic opportunities and influencing various aspects of party life.  Comparative work by Katz and Mair (1994), building on the work of Key (1964), highlights three different faces of parties: in elected office, in central office and on the ground. They observe that each has different tasks and objectives and that the balance of influence among them differs both within and across party systems.  (Cross 2016, p. 602) This volume is focused on parties as arenas for descriptive representation and this chapter makes use of the case of Canada’s political parties to examine who makes up the different faces of the political party. Several studies exist focusing on demographic and/or ideological composition of one discrete part of the political party. For example, there are studies of party members (Cross and Young 2004; Cross 2015), candidates for public office and Members of Parliament (Docherty 2004). None of these, however, offers a holistic view of the demographic makeup of the political party and the interrelationship between the different levels. This chapter focuses on the party on the ground and isolates party members, activist party members, local party presidents and those chosen as general election candidates. There are, of course, other important groups within the party, such as the national leadership of the extra parliamentary party, the central campaign team and the parliamentary party and its leadership. However, the objective of this chapter is to provide descriptive data relating to the composition of the parties at the grassroots level and to illustrate the relationship between this and the presence of diversity at higher levels of the party. After reviewing the data sources and the context in which Canadian parties operate, the chapter reviews the demographic characteristics of the identified constituent groups within the parties. These include age, gender, family income, education and whether native born. This analysis finds that, in all but one of these categories, the parties, at all levels, are unrepresentative of their voters. They are disproportionately male, old, economically well off and better educated. The chapter then turns its attention to how this is manifested in the parties’ parliamentary caucuses where the same general patterns of malrepresentation exist. Here, the case of gender is highlighted and the argument advanced is that better representation of women at the local level of the party, together with greater local efforts to recruit female candidates (which appear highly correlated), would significantly increase the representation of women in parliament.

The Canadian context The Canadian party system is comprised of five major parties that are represented in the national parliament: the Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats (NDP) (a social democratic party), Bloc Quebecois (a regionalist, Quebec-­based

Descriptive representation in Canada   17 party) and the Greens. The first three dominate party competition, electing 97 per cent of MPs in the 2015 election, and are the focus of this chapter. Canada uses a single member plurality electoral system and, for the most part, candidate selection is devolved to the local level, with candidates chosen through a plebiscite of the local membership (Cross 2002; Pruysers and Cross 2015). At the time of this study, all three parties were membership organizations. This has changed as, beginning in 2016, the Liberals have done away with the concept of party ‘membership’ and instead allow affiliation only as ‘registered supporters’ of the party. Membership in the Canadian parties is easily attained. The parties set general membership conditions, such as a minimum age of 14, requirement of Canadian residency but not citizenship, attestation of agreement with the party’s general philosophy, not belonging to another party and payment of a nominal membership fee (see Cross 2015). There is no requirement for activism or attending party meetings. The Liberals and New Democrats have designated intra-­party groups for particular demographic cohorts such as youth, women and Indigenous persons, while the Conservatives do not (Cross 2009). Parties are organized through local branches called Electoral District Associations. All of these parties have one association in each of the country’s 338 districts. Members generally join through their local association and it is at this level that they participate in party affairs. Local associations typically organize the constituency-­based components of electoral campaigns (for example, canvassing and get-­out-the-­vote efforts), select general election candidates, send delegates to party conferences and participate in intra-­party policy processes. Each local association elects their own executive body. Similar to many Western democracies, rates of party membership in Canada are relatively low. While membership rates fluctuate dramatically, the best estimates are that approximately 2 per cent of Canadians belong to a party at any point in time (Cross 2015). While the parties are not required to disclose their membership numbers, news reports in 2016 suggest that the governing Liberals had approximately 300,000 members, the Conservatives 100,000 and the New Democrats 65,000. These can double or more during party leadership elections or contested local nominations as the easy accessibility of membership facilitates significant mobilization of new members for these elections, many of whom exit the party after the contest (Cross 2015).

Data The data utilized in this chapter primarily are derived from three online surveys and a review of publicly available information from Elections Canada, the non-­ partisan body that oversees Canada’s electoral framework. Separate surveys were conducted of party members, presidents of local party associations and of candidates in the 2015 general election (the first two as part of the Members and Activists of Political Parties project). All three surveys were conducted within several months of each other from November 2015 to April 2016. This followed the October 2015 national election.

18   William Cross The party members survey was sent to 2,586 individuals who had recently self-­identified as party members in an online 2015 election study conducted by the firm Research Now. There were 932 completed responses received, including 345 Liberals, 330 Conservatives and 156 New Democrats. For the survey of local party presidents, contact information was gleaned from local association reports to Elections Canada. The response rate for the three parties examined here, for those with valid email addresses, is 14.1 per cent for the Conservatives (39), 27.6 per cent for the Liberals (91) and 28 per cent for the New Democrats (81) for an overall response rate of 23.5 per cent. The candidate survey was conducted online between November 2015 and January 2016. Email addresses were provided by the parties. Usable responses were received from 41.2 per cent of Conservative candidates (138), 23.3 per cent of Liberals (78) and 44.3 per cent of New Democrats (113) for an overall response rate of 35.6 per cent.1 This chapter also makes use of a unique dataset relating to the parties’ general election nomination contests created primarily from the reports parties file with Elections Canada. This includes data on every party nomination contest conducted for the 2015 election, in all 338 electoral districts, and includes the number of candidates, gender of candidates, presence of an incumbent and district level characteristics. Data on the parties’ voters are from the 2015 Canadian Election Study. Data from both the pre and post-­election studies are used.2

The descriptive representation of parties Party members In terms of the general influence of members in party affairs, beyond local candidate selection, they also play a direct role in organizing election campaigns and choosing party leaders and an indirect role in influencing their party’s policy positions (Carty et al. 2000). Their most consequential role, however, is in personnel selection. It has often been noted that members have little say in setting their parties’ policy manifestos but can influence this through their selection of like-­minded candidates and leaders (Carty 2004). The last comprehensive survey of party members in Canada was conducted by Cross and Young (2004) in 2000 and they found that members were not generally representative of Canadian society. Instead, they were disproportionately male, old, well-­educated and economically well off. That study, however, was conducted just prior to a general election and would not have captured those ‘transient’ members who join solely to participate in a personnel selection contest and then leave the party. Nonetheless, as shown in Tables 2.1 and 2.2, data collected shortly after the 2015 election present a portrait very similar to that from more than a decade-­and-a-­half ago. The mean age of a party member remains 59 and fewer than one-­in-ten is age 35 or younger. As Table 2.1 illustrates, all of the parties’ memberships are

Descriptive representation in Canada   19 Table 2.1 Age of party members and party voters (percentages reported by cohort)

Liberals

Members (315) Voters Conservatives Members (299) Voters New Democrats Members (144) Voters Overall Members (758) Voters

18–29

30–44

45–59

>59

Mean age

5.4 14.8 4.0 8.8 4.9 15.3 4.7 18.7

14.0 25.4 14.1 21.4 17.3 24.5 14.7 26.0

23.8 27.4 24.0 29.2 22.9 28.6 23.7 26.0

56.8 32.4 57.9 40.6 54.9 31.6 56.9 29.3

58.0 49.4 59.9 53.6 57.8 49.2 58.7 47.8

Table 2.2 Demographic characteristics of party members and party voters (percentages reported) (Ns reported for party members)

Gender Education1

Family income1

Born in Canada

Male Members Voters High school or less Members Voters Trade/vocational training Members College/university Members Postgraduate degree Members Voters 100,000 Members Voters (>110,000) Members Voters

Liberals Conservatives New Democrats (315) (299) (144)

All (758)

62.7 47.0

69.0 56.7

56.9 48.3

64.1 48.5

7.3 21.8

13.1 25.6

7.7 22.1

9.7 27.4

10.2

11.4

7.0

10.1

56.5

56.4

60.8

57.3

26.0 13.8

19.1 9.5

24.5 12.4

23.0 10.8

11.3 14.9

2.7 12.7

8.5 20.0

7.4 19.8

22.3 26.6

21.4 25.6

35.5 29.8

24.4 27.9

30.3

33.9

41.8

33.9

36.1 24.2

42.0 26.6

14.1 17.2

34.3 20.0

81.6 89.5

81.6 90.5

87.9 92.1

82.8 90.2

Note 1 Data for education and income were not identically collected in the party member and voter studies. Thus, for some categories only party member data are reported.

20   William Cross significantly older than are their electoral supporters. For example, the Liberals received 40 per cent of their vote share from those between 18 and 44, while one-­in-five of their members belongs to this age category. The New Democrats have a slightly younger membership profile, but even here 55 per cent of their members are over age 59, while the same is true for 32 per cent of their voters. Almost two-­thirds of party members are male. While the Liberals and New Democrats receive a majority of their votes from women, men make up a sizable majority of the membership in both parties. Reflective of the gender difference in Canadians’ voting behaviour, Conservatives receive a majority of their votes from men, but even here there is a significant underrepresentation of women in the party’s membership as women provide 43 per cent of general election votes but comprise only 31 per cent of the membership. Party members are also significantly better educated than are the parties’ voters. On average, with little difference among the parties, voters are almost three times more likely to have only a high school education and party members twice as likely to have a postgraduate degree. Related to this, party members are significantly financially better off than are their parties’ voters, with one-­third reporting a family income in excess of $100,000. Similarly, all of the parties’ memberships include significantly fewer low income individuals than does their pool of voters. The one characteristic where the parties’ members and their voters are generally in line with one another is place of birth. Across the parties, more than eight­in-ten members were born in Canada while the same is true for approximately nine-­in-ten of their voters. Parties have long reported significant involvement in intra-­party personnel selection contests by members of immigrant communities and this appears to be reflected in their membership profiles (Scarrow 1964; Cross 2004). Active party members Many party members are generally inactive. Young and Cross (2002) found that a significant proportion joined the party to participate in a personnel selection contest but were otherwise largely inactive. The more recent data suggest similar findings as about half of party members report they are generally inactive. When asked how many hours they devote to party activity in an average month (outside of election campaigns), 48 per cent responded zero. The remaining half of members then are the ones who are at least somewhat active in the local association and may influence its activities beyond participating in candidate and leadership selection events. These are the individuals who are the public face of the local party on an ongoing basis and who may participate in policy discussions and, for example, serve on candidate recruitment committees. We can expect these individuals to have more influence in intra-­party decisions than their non-­active counterparts. Thus, it is important to consider whether this group of party members is more representative of civil society generally than is the membership as a whole. To do so, this section examines the demographic

Descriptive representation in Canada   21 c­ haracteristics of the subset of party members (52 per cent of all members) who report having devoted, on average, at least some time each month to party activity. The portrait of active party members is no more representative of Canadian society than is that of members generally. In fact, as shown in Table 2.3, compared to all members, they are even more likely to be male and to have a postgraduate degree, while less likely to have only a high school education. They are equally likely to be born in Canada and to have above average family income. Only on the age dimension do they (very slightly) better reflect civil society. However, on average they are almost 57 years old, making them skew considerably older than both Canadians generally and each party’s general election voters. Local party presidents In terms of local party members, the most elite group may be the local association presidents. These individuals play a key role in organizing the local party, represent it at regional and national party meetings and are meant to play a central role in both candidate recruitment and facilitating the involvement of local party members in policy study and development. The data, shown in Table 2.4, suggest this group of party members is the least representative of all. Nearly eight-­in-ten local party presidents are male, nine-­in-ten have attended a post-­ secondary educational institution and the average age is almost 59.

Table 2.3 Demographic characteristics of active party members (percentages reported) Liberals (149)

Conservatives New (161) Democrats (79)

All (389)

Gender

Male

69.1 (+6.4)

67.1 (–1.9)

Education

High school or less 5.4 (–1.9) Trade/vocational 9.5 (–0.7) training College/university 55.4 (–1.1) Postgraduate 29.7 (+3.7) degree

12.5 (–0.6) 13.8 (+2.4)

5.1 (–2.6)   8.3 (–1.4) 7.7 (+0.7) 10.9 (+0.8)

53.8 (–2.6) 20.0 (+0.9)

61.6 (+0.8) 55.9 (–1.4) 25.6 (+1.1) 24.9 (+1.9)

10.2 (–1.1) 22.4 (+0.1) 33.3 (+3.0) 33.9 (–2.2)

1.3 (–1.4) 25.6 (+4.2) 33.1 (–0.8) 40.0 (–2.0)

6.5 (–2.0) 35.1 (–0.4) 39.0 (–2.8) 19.5 (+5.4)

80.4 (–1.2)

80.8 (–0.8)

88.2 (+0.3) 82.1 (–0.7)

55.4 (–2.6)

58.7 (–1.2)

55.9 (–1.9)

Family income

100,000

Born in Canada Mean age

Years

63.3 (+6.4) 67.1 (+3)

  5.7 (–1.7) 26.3 (+1.9) 34.4 (+0.5) 33.7 (–0.6)

56.8 (–1.9)

Note Numbers in parentheses reflect difference, in percentage points, with all members of given party.

22   William Cross Table 2.4 Characteristics of local party association presidents (percentages reported)

Gender

Male

Education

High school or less Trade/ vocational training College/ university Postgraduate degree

Born in Canada Mean age

Years

Liberals (86) Conservatives New (33) Democrats (72)

All (191)

80.2 (+17.5)

75.8 (+6.8)

73.2 (+16.3)

76.8 (+12.7)

2.3 (–5.0)

9.4 (–3.7)

5.6 (–2.1)

4.7 (–5.0)

2.3 (–7.9)

3.1 (–8.3)

7.0 (0)

4.2 (–5.9)

56.9 (+0.4)

68.7 (+12.3)

39.5 (–21.3)

52.3 (–5.0)

38.4 (+12.4)

18.8 (–0.3)

47.9 (+23.4)

38.6 (+15.6)

80.0 (–1.6)

84.4 (+2.8)

82.9 (–5.0)

81.9 (–0.9)

58.2 (+0.2)

56.7 (–3.2)

60.1 (+2.3)

58.7 (0)

Note Numbers in parentheses reflect difference, in percentage points, with all members of given party.

Thus, what we see is that the more involved in party affairs, and likely more influential the cohort of party members is, the more likely they are to differ from both Canadians generally and from the parties’ voters, by overrepresenting traditionally empowered groups – men, the economically well-­off and the best educated. For example, as reported above, while non-­active members are about 60 per cent male, this increases to 67 per cent among active members and 77 per cent among association presidents. Similarly, while 23 per cent of party members have a postgraduate degree, this number increases to 39 per cent for association presidents. This is reminiscent of the findings of Bashevkin (1993) decades ago. She reported that women were disproportionately found in ‘housekeeping’ and administrative roles in the Canadian parties when compared to positions with real decision-­making authority.

Local party inclusiveness and gender in the candidate nomination pool There are many implications of the distorted representativeness of groups within Canada’s political parties. One of the most profound is the likely effect this has on the representation of women in elections and ultimately in the House of Commons. To appreciate the context for the examination of the local parties’ composition and its relationship to the nomination and election of women, it is necessary to begin with the end point: that is, the data relating to the representation of women in parliament, then, working backwards in time, as candidates nominated by the parties to contest the general election and finally as contestants for a party nomination.

Descriptive representation in Canada   23 After the October 2015 general election, 26 per cent of the 338 members of the Canadian House of Commons were women. This represented an historic high. Among the three major parties, the percentage of women in their parliamentary caucus varied significantly: New Democrats 18/44 (40.9 per cent), Liberals 50/184 (27.1 per cent) and Conservatives 17/99 (17 per cent). Each of these three parties ran a candidate in all 338 single-­member electoral districts and their share of female candidates offered to voters in the general election reflected a similar range: the New Democrats nominated 145 female candidates (42.8 per cent), Liberals 105 (31.1 per cent) and Conservatives 66 (19.5 per cent). These general election candidates were chosen from among 1,560 party members who sought their parties’ nominations (Cross 2016). Women comprised approximately 44 per cent of all candidates for New Democratic nominations, 30 per cent for the Liberals and 22 per cent of Conservative nomination contestants. Thus, as illustrated in Table 2.5, there is some slippage along the way between the rate at which women contest party nominations and the rates at which they succeed in these contests and ultimately are elected. Nonetheless, what is clear is that the real challenge for those interested in having more women in parliament is to increase the number contesting for a major party’s general election nomination – in other words, to increase the supply. The nomination process All three parties require that candidates for nomination are members of the party. Not only do members form the pool from which candidates are drawn, they also play a crucial role in selecting local candidates. In all three parties, the norm is for local party members to gather at a single place to collectively choose the candidate for an upcoming general election (see Pruysers and Cross 2015). The central party sets the overall rules and framework for candidate selection; however, with occasional exceptions, the process is decentralized with local party members making the choice in each electorate. Many join solely to participate in a nomination contest. There is, of course, considerable literature on the processes and institutions that affect the relative degree of representation of women in democratic legislatures. While there is broad consensus that parties play a crucial role in this as gatekeepers (see, for example, Lovenduski and Norris 1993; Caul 1999; Krook Table 2.5 Percentage of women in each of the following categories in the 2015 federal election (by party)

Liberals Conservatives New Democrats

Candidates for nomination

Nominated candidates

Parliamentary party

30 22 44

31.1 19.5 42.8

27.1 17.0 40.9

24   William Cross 2010), there are other factors beyond the political party that have significant effect. Most prominent among these are the electoral system (Matland and Studlar 1996) and state-­imposed quotas (Krook 2014). Within parties, organizational features such as hard or soft quotas (Childs 2013; Krook 2014), degree of centralization of the nomination process (Gauja and Cross 2015) and the presence of women-­only sub-­organizations (Kittilson 2011; Childs 2013) have all been identified as potentially impacting on women’s legislative representation. In this chapter, consistent with the theme of this volume, the analysis is focused on considering whether the descriptive representation within local party associations has an impact on the likelihood of a woman contesting for the local nomination. This line of enquiry follows in the tradition of Cheng and Tavits (2011), who considered whether the gender of the local party president is related to the gender of the candidate ultimately nominated by the local members. Almost all of the research in this area uses the gender of the nominated candidate as the dependent variable. However, as illustrated above, the underrepresentation of women begins long before this. Women are dramatically underrepresented in the pool of candidates for each party’s nomination. And, as most studies suggest and the data presented in Table 2.5 indicate, once women enter the nomination contest, they compete fairly well against men (Erickson 1991; Cross 2016), the real challenge is to get more women to stand for party nominations. With the use of the unique dataset created for this project, we are able to use the presence of a female candidate for the local party nomination as the dependent variable and thus begin an exploration of whether the degree of descriptive representation within the local party has an effect on the likelihood of a woman contesting for the nomination. This eliminates the vagaries of any effects of the nomination campaign itself. As suggested above, the local parties play the key role in candidate recruitment and selection. All three parties’ central offices require that local associations conduct a candidate search before holding a nomination meeting. The Liberals and New Democrats have specific gender-­related requirements dictating that local associations document efforts to attract female candidates. None of the parties have what we consider ‘hard’ quotas and there are no state regulations regarding party candidate selection. The data suggest that recruitment efforts at the local level may be very important in encouraging female candidacies. There is considerable literature suggesting that men are more likely to offer themselves for public office while women may need more encouragement and prodding (for example, Lawless and Fox 2005). This is borne out in the 2015 candidate survey data. Candidates were asked about their political ambition and, as illustrated by the data in Table 2.6, a significant gender difference emerged. Male candidates were significantly more likely to see seeking a party nomination as the next logical step in their political career and were significantly more likely to describe themselves as a ‘political junkie’. These men needed little prodding to seek public office. They are what we might call ‘political entrepreneurs’.

Descriptive representation in Canada   25 Table 2.6 Candidate political ambition and recruitment by gender (percentages reported)

Political ambition

Party recruitment

Male (171)

Female (99)

All (270)

38.6

28.3

34.8*

67.3

52.0

61.7**

Encouraged to run by 38.0 local party official/search committee Encouraged to run by 23.4 national party representative

50.5

42.6**

35.4

27.8**

Seeking nomination was next logical step in my political career Before seeking nomination considered self a political junkie

Note **p