Parties – what is the future?

No need for mass membership, replaced by donations, spin doctors, focus groups & media

http://www.demos.co.uk/A_offers.htm ( article on decline of party politics)

In the UK, US, Sweden and a growing number of other industrialised countries, political commentators no longer restrict their analysis to the performance of individual parties and politicians. Low turnout, voter apathy and discontentment with traditional politics increasingly attract comment and cause concern. Milestones in political disengagement, such as turnout in US Presidential elections dipping below 50 per cent of the electorate, generate headlines. Many also claim that, during a period of disenchantment, the power of single issue campaigning organisations is rising so fast that politics is becoming unbalanced.

Interest in social and political issues

Over the last ten years one story about public interest in politics has found resonance, especially in the US. It suggests that people are no longer interested in political issues. In particular, it is claimed that Generation X – the cohort brought up in the 1970s and 1980s – cares primarily about itself. Surveys show, for example, that more young people than ever before report an interest in becoming wealthy and owning their own businesses. The rise of individualism, the values of the 1960s, television, economic change and a host of other factors are blamed for fostering an atomised world in which people feel less social connection and less interest in common issues or collective solutions.

When set against the available data, this relatively simplistic story appears difficult to substantiate, for several reasons.

First, reported interest in political issues is not falling. The latest Eurobarometer survey of European public opinion concludes that ‘the often-reported decline in political interest is not apparent from these…results.’ Less than a third of the public in 15 European countries say that they never talk about politics.

In America, although more report being bored by events in Washington DC, the number reporting interest in national and local affairs remained constant or even rose slightly during the early 1990s.

In Britain, recent research similarly concludes that young people are not fundamentally uninterested in political issues.

Secondly, within the broad range of social and political activities, some forms of engagement are increasing. For example, during the 1980s people’s participation in unconventional political action rose slightly

In general, surveys show an enduring correlation between interest in politics and education. As educational levels have increased, so has reported political interest. In particular, people are increasingly engaging with social issues through their consumption. For example, about a third of the British population say that environmental considerations influence their purchasing patterns

Thirdly, volunteering and giving to charities has also remained steady in most industrialised countries

According to one US survey, those born in the 1970s were twice as likely to volunteer as those born in the 1960s at the same age. In Britain, 65 per cent of the population report giving to a charity, while in Spain the figure is 71 per cent.

Affiliation to parties

Within this landscape, the first major shift common to most countries is the decline of attachment to individual parties.

The most comprehensive survey of 19 industrialised countries shows that identification with a party fell, on average, among 17 countries between the 1960s and 1990s. The average annual fall is usually less than 1 per cent, but over thirty years this amounts to a significant shift. For example, in Sweden those claiming party ties fell from 64 percent in 1968 to 48 percent in 1994.

The same survey also measured strong attachment to parties, which fell in every country. For example, between the 1960s and 1990s the percentage of strong partisans decreased by 26 per cent in Britain, 15 per cent in Sweden, Austria and Australia, 9 per cent in Norway and 7 percent in the United States.

Why?

The decline of single ideologies and broadening of the issues base

There is consistent evidence that the number of issues which people are concerned with has increased.

Most people are still concerned about core economic issues. For example, job security has remained a consistent concern for three quarters of the American population over the last twenty years. But other areas have simultaneously become more important. For example, concern for the environment, women’s rights and animal welfare have shown consistent increases.

This diversification has arguably been compounded by an increasing fuzziness in what parties stand for over time. The all-encompassing ideologies which dominated twentieth century politics have broken down during the last three decades.

These changes have both driven and been accelerated by a growing emphasis on candidate-focused politics

A second, sometimes related, development is the decline of organisations that linked people both to parties themselves, and to traditional forms of political engagement.

For example, across the industrialised world Trade Union membership has slightly declined, apart from in Scandinavia and Belgium.

2 Implications

More volatile elections

The first effect of these changes is to increase electoral volatility. Spectacular volatility has been evident in elections such as the 1993 Canadian election, in which the conservatives fell from a clear majority to just two MPs. Overall, volatility has increased in 15 of 18 nations. Large majorities in one parliament are no indication of winning at the next election. Ticket splitting is also becoming more familiar, as evidenced by extended periods of cohabitation in France, and by the division of control between Republicans and Democrats in the US presidency, House of Representatives and Senate. More people are also splitting their votes at different levels of the political system, preferring to put different parties into power at local, regional and national levels. As part of the same broad shift, more voters defer their decision about who to vote for until election campaigns are well under way.

Declining membership

A related trend is the decline of membership and activism in many parties.

As figure ten indicates, party membership in all European countries except Germany is lower than in the 1960s. Countries have, however, experienced declines at different times. For example, Switzerland experienced the main decline in the 1960s and 1970s. In contrast, Sweden and France experienced slight increases in the 1960s and 1970s which were followed by larger falls in the 1990s.

Turnout

The second broad shift in the landscape of political engagement is declining turnout.

Greatest concern about turnout has been shown in the United States. In the 1968 Presidential election 61 per cent of registered citizens voted. That declined to 50 per cent in 1988, rose to 55 per cent in 1992 and then declined to 49 per cent in 1996, the lowest level since the early 1920s.

This trend was not apparent in many European countries or Canada until the late 1980s and early 1990s. For example, turnout increased in West Germany from 1950s to the1970s and did not really decline until 1987.

However, the trend is now relatively well established in most countries. Overall, 18 of the 20 most industrialised countries have experienced decline since the 1950s, of an average 10 per cent.

Declining trust

The third broad area of concern is focused on evidence that politicians and political institutions are trusted less. Of thirteen countries for which data are available, twelve show decline in levels of confidence expressed in politicians. The World Values survey in the early 1990s found that in 8 advanced industrial societies, only 22 per cent of the public expressed confidence in political parties as institutions. Less than half the population of European countries report confidence in politicians, apart from in the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Why?

Government irrelevance and failure

The most comprehensive recent analysis suggests that the problem lies primarily in the relevance and performance of politicians and government. Alongside this analysis runs the suggestion that the power of governments to influence economic and cultural conditions has declined with the increase in global trade and communications