Political parties with activists are in decline due to various external shocks. Societal changes, like the emergence of new technologies of communication have diminished the role and number of activists, while party elites increasingly can make do without grassroots activists. However, recent scholarship concerning different democracies has shown how activism still matters for representation. This book contributes to this literature by analyzing the unique case of the Uruguayan Frente Amplio (FA), the only mass-organic, institutionalized leftist party in Latin America. Using thick description, systematic process tracing, and survey research, this case study highlights the value of an organization-centered approach for understanding parties' role in democracy. Within the FA, organizational rules grant activists a significant voice, which imbues activists' participation with a strong sense of efficacy. This book is an excellent resource for scholars and students of Latin America and comp
In Finding Allies and Making Revolution, Tony Saich shows how a Dutchman helped launch the Chinese Communist Party and devised the key strategy of the united front to work with the nationalists to promote revolution.
This accessible, rigorously researched and highly revealing book lifts the lid on political party membership. It represents the first in-depth study of the UK's six biggest parties – Labour, the Conse
A long-standing debate in American politics is about the proper structure for political parties and the relative power that should be afforded to party professionals versus issue activists. In this book, Byron E. Shafer and Regina L. Wagner draw systematically on new data and indexes to evaluate the extent to which party structure changed from the 1950s on, and what the consequences have been for policy responsiveness, democratic representation, and party alignment across different issue domains. They argue that the reputed triumph of volunteer parties since the 1970s has been less comprehensive than the orthodox narrative assumes, but that the balance of power did shift, with unintended and sometimes perverse consequences. In the process of evaluating its central questions, this book gives an account of how partisan alignments evolved with newly empowered issue activists and major post-war developments from the civil rights movement to the culture wars.
