Party Membership and Intra-Party Democracy: How Do Members React to Organizational Change within Political Parties? The Case of Belgium

Facing a crucial legitimacy crisis, many Western European political parties have recently undergone various forms of organizational changes by adopting procedures for increasing intra-democracy: internal ballots, internal referenda, primary elections and so on. Direct democracy is now used in a wide range of decision-making procedures such as candidate and leadership selection (Cross and Katz, 2013). These reforms have pro-vided new opportunities for participation to party members. What happens to more traditional elements of party internal structures when such instruments of intra-party democracy are adopted? And more specifically, how are such changes perceived by the party base? This paper explores the attitudes and behaviors of members with regard to intra-party democracy procedures. On the basis of a case study (Belgium) and of an original dataset, the paper explores the political consequences of intra-party democracy. We show that members' satisfaction with the party and their degree of previous internal activism affect the level of involvement in intra-party democracy activities. However, the dissatisfaction of the party base vis-a'-vis of the membership role is growing. Intra-party democratization seems to limit the organizational function of the grass-roots membership to a 'cheerleading' role.

面对严峻的合法性危机，许多西欧政党近期通过采用提升党内民主（intra-democracy）的程序，经历了多种形式的组织变革：内部投票、内部公投、初选等。直接民主（direct democracy）如今被广泛应用于候选人选拔、领导层选举等各类决策程序中（Cross and Katz, 2013）。这些改革为党员参与提供了新的契机。当采用此类党内民主工具时，政党内部结构中更传统的元素会发生什么变化？更具体地说，政党基层如何看待这些变革？本文探讨了党员对党内民主程序的态度与行为。基于比利时的案例研究与原创数据集，本文分析了党内民主的政治后果。研究发现，党员对政党的满意度及其以往的内部活跃程度（activism）会影响其参与党内民主活动的水平。然而，政党基层对党员角色的不满情绪正逐渐升温。党内民主化似乎将基层党员的组织功能局限于“啦啦队”角色。