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ST ANTONY’S SERIES

Political Party
Membership in
New Democracies
Electoral Rules in
Central and East Europe
Alison F. Smith
St Antony’s Series

Series Editors
Dan Healey
St Antony’s College
University of Oxford
Oxford, UK

Leigh Payne
St Antony’s College
University of Oxford
Oxford, UK
The St Antony’s Series publishes studies of international affairs of contem-
porary interest to the scholarly community and a general yet informed
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Antony’s College and Palgrave Macmillan has produced about 400
publications.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15036
 Alison F. Smith

Political Party
Membership in New
Democracies
Electoral Rules in Central and East Europe
Alison F. Smith
Political Developments
Landsmeer, The Netherlands

ISSN 2633-5964     ISSN 2633-5972 (electronic)

St Antony’s Series
ISBN 978-3-030-41795-6    ISBN 978-3-030-41796-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41796-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
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 Contents

1 Parties and Members in the Twenty-First Century  1

2 Electoral Institutions and Party Membership 23

3 The Role of Party Members in Estonia 57

4 The Role of Party Members in Lithuania 87

5 The Role of Party Members in the Slovak Republic117

6 Electoral Systems and the Roles of Members147

Index173

v
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Legislative power and party membership 35

Fig. 2.2 Party membership and district magnitude 39
Fig. 6.1 Ambassadors in the community. (Source: Author survey) 149
Fig. 6.2 The most important function of members (six party average).
(Source: Author survey) 151
Fig. 6.3 Prior affiliation of municipal candidates. (Source: Author survey) 156
Fig. 6.4 Spreading the party’s message. (Source: Author survey) 158
Fig. 6.5 Door-to-door campaigning. (Source: Author survey) 159

vii
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Political party membership in 11 central and east European

countries (1999–2019) 24
Table 2.2 State funding of political parties in central and east Europe 30
Table 2.3 Membership trends and the availability of direct state funding 31
Table 2.4 Payout principles for state subsidies (1999–2008) 33
Table 2.5 Predicted effect of electoral systems on roles of members 51
Table 3.1 Spreading the party’s message 61
Table 3.2 The most important role of members 62
Table 3.3 Attracting new members 71
Table 3.4 Length of prior affiliation required to stand for public office 73
Table 3.5 Qualities of candidates 74
Table 3.6 Participation of members in grassroots activities (national
elections)76
Table 3.7 Participation of members in grassroots activities (local elections) 77
Table 4.1 Perceptions of the most important role of members 91
Table 4.2 Spreading the party’s message 92
Table 4.3 What attracts members? 101
Table 4.4 Length of prior affiliation 102
Table 4.5 Participation of members in grassroots activities (national
elections)106
Table 5.1 Spreading the party’s message 123
Table 5.2 Perceptions of the most important function of members 127

ix
x List of Tables

Table 5.3 Attracting new members 129

Table 5.4 Length of prior affiliation 134
Table 5.5 Participation of members in grassroots activities (national
elections)137
Table 6.1 Electoral systems, municipal districts and membership 166
 CHAPTER 1

Parties and Members in the Twenty-First

Century

Political party membership is often viewed as an anachronism, a relic from

bygone days before the mass media and state subsidies rendered the com-
munication and fundraising roles of members obsolete. Scholars have ana-
lysed the declining role of members in political parties since the 1960s,
when ‘mass parties’ evolved into, or were superseded by, ‘catch all parties’
(Kirchheimer, 1969). Linkages between parties and society have since
weakened, while the relationship between parties and the state deepened
(Mair & Katz, 1997). By the beginning of the twenty-first century, van
Biezen, Mair and Poguntke argued that party membership in Western
democracies had reached ‘such a low ebb that it may no longer constitute
a relevant indicator of organisational capacity’ (2012, p. 24).
Against such a backdrop, it was predicted that membership parties
would not develop in the post-communist democracies of central and east
Europe (Kopecký, 2008; van Biezen, 2003). These countries were democ-
ratising in an age where party members had little value. They also had
fundamentally different social structures from their western European
counterparts after decades of communist rule. However, as the post-­
communist democracies consolidated, considerable cross-country varia-
tion in membership levels appeared. By 2008, the percentage of the
population across 11 central and east European democracies that claimed
to be a political party member ranged from 0.8% in Latvia to 6% in
Romania (European Values Survey, EVS).

© The Author(s) 2020 1

A. F. Smith, Political Party Membership in New Democracies,
St Antony’s Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41796-3_1
2 A. F. SMITH

This book demonstrates that electoral systems contribute to cross-­

country variation in membership levels. Presenting surveys and interviews
from three central and east European democracies, it examines elite strate-
gies in detail, showing the causal mechanisms driving electoral system
effects. In Western European democracies, high magnitude proportional
electoral systems provide strong incentives for party-driven, centralised
campaigning (Bowler & Farrell, 1992); similar patterns were observed in
central and east Europe, with communication via mass and digital media
at the fore. Low magnitude proportional electoral systems encouraged
specific patterns of ‘personal’ vote-seeking (Carey & Shugart, 1995);
however, they also stimulated grassroots campaigning, creating a role for
members. The single member district section of mixed electoral systems
also stimulated grassroots campaigning, this time with activism concen-
trated in ‘marginal’ districts (Cox, 1990). This meant that members played
an active role in party campaigning where electoral systems were ‘decen-
tralised’, stimulating higher levels of party membership.
Presenting detailed fieldwork from three central and east European
democracies—Estonia, Lithuania and Slovakia—this book provides rare
insights into aspects of party organisation and campaigning that are often
hidden from view, including voter contacting and fundraising. In doing
so, it examines the causal link between party membership and electoral
systems, analysing how electoral systems influence party elites’ demand for
members. As a result, this book makes an original contribution to the
scholarly literature on electoral system effects, political campaigning, party
membership, party institutionalisation and, ultimately, democratic
consolidation.

Members and Campaigning

in the Twenty-First Century

The role of members has evolved significantly since the 1950s, when
Duverger (1954) posited that the value of members varied according to
political party ideology. He noted that ‘mass parties’ were usually socialist
parties: their members helped their party’s cause by raising money and
providing a political education to the working class. Meanwhile ‘cadre
parties’, typically conservative or classical liberal parties, valued quality
rather than quantity of members. Prestige, connections and the ability to
secure votes were prized. However, no sooner had Duverger noted these
differences than the dynamics of party competition started to change.
 1 PARTIES AND MEMBERS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 3

From the 1960s onwards, structural changes in society and the develop-
ment of mass communication technologies revolutionised how parties and
voters communicated with each other.
Noting these changes, Otto Kirchheimer (1969) predicted the domi-
nance of ‘catch-all parties’, which would prioritise electoral success over
programmatic coherence. In this context, membership parties would suf-
fer an ‘evolutionary disadvantage’, being less ideologically nimble than
their unencumbered competitors. They would, therefore, downgrade ‘the
role of individual membership, a role considered a historical relic which
may obscure the newly built-up catch-all image’ (Kirchheimer, 1969,
p. 360). Building on Kirchheimer’s theory 20 years later, Angelo
Panebianco (1988) argued that the blurring of class cleavages, combined
with the influence of mass media on Western societies, had led to the
emergence of ‘electoral-professional’ parties. Such parties had professional
strategists, rather than members, at their core. Rapid developments in
technology and communications allowed strategists to reach beyond tra-
ditional class cleavages which were, in any case, becoming blurred.
Technological developments and the increased role of ‘electoral profes-
sionals’ also changed the dynamics of organisational power (Panebianco,
1988, p. 266), and the role of members was further downgraded.
By the 1990s, the environmental factors identified by Panebianco had,
it was argued, pushed parties into a closer relationship with the state.
Richard Katz and Peter Mair noted that the rising costs of campaigns,
combined with the increasing difficulty of recruiting members, encour-
aged parties to turn to the state in search of resources (Mair & Katz, 1997,
p. 96). They posited that parties increasingly operated as ‘cartels’, using
laws on media access and public financing, along with electoral system
thresholds, to constrain the entry of new parties. The ‘cartel party’ theory
describes a form of politics that is increasingly self-referential, with party
representatives less concerned with reaching out to society than with their
own self-perpetuation. With financial resources coming from the state and
communication with the public mostly channelled through the mass
media, ‘cartel parties’ would value members for their ‘legitimising func-
tion’ only (Mair & Katz, 1997, pp. 110–111). van Biezen (2004) later
argued that political parties were becoming ‘public utilities’, providing a
service of public decision-making with minimal linkage to wider society.
In these accounts of the changing nature of political parties, voters are
presented as passive recipients of parties’ tactical manoeuvring. However,
in recent years, voters have made their discontent clear. As new (often
4 A. F. SMITH

anti-system) competitors emerged in the early 2000s, illusions of a cosy

cartel were shattered. Mair, Müller, and Plasser (2004) noted that the
most pressing problem now faced by established political parties was how
to deal with popular disengagement and dissatisfaction, which was feeding
support for their new populist rivals. The economic crisis of 2008–2012
further fuelled cynicism and discontent. However, re-building connec-
tions with society in the volatile world of twenty-first century politics
would be far from simple for ‘traditional’ political parties. A variety of
tactics have been adopted: in 2017, Scarrow, Webb and Poguntke found
that ‘only a minority [of parties] can meaningfully be assigned to the types
of cadre, mass, catch-all or cartel party’ (ibid., p. 319).

Political Parties in Central and East Europe

Against the backdrop of increasingly distant relationships between voters
and their elected representatives in the established democracies of Western
Europe, the countries of central and east Europe began democratising in
1989–1991. From a starting point of ‘floating parties and floating voters’
(Rose, 1995), during which party elites were unable to focus on any goal
beyond short-term survival (Lewis & Gortat, 1995, p. 601), they would
have to find a way of stabilising both their party systems and their indi-
vidual parties. However, given the context of declining party membership
in established democracies, the chances of membership parties forming in
the new democracies of central and east Europe were thought to be
remote. If Western European parties maintained membership bases
through ‘organisational inertia or nostalgia’ (van Biezen, 2003, pp. 43–46),
no such path dependency or sentimentality would apply in post-­communist
democracies.
Biezen argued that low levels of party membership were likely to persist
in central and east Europe for three reasons. First, the sequencing of
organisational development meant that parties acquired public office
immediately after their creation and, as such, were ‘internally created’. In
Biezen’s view, this emphasis on institution-building in the early stages of
transition would encourage a long-term orientation towards the state (van
Biezen, 2003, pp. 31–33). Second, the lack of social differentiation after
decades of communism would push parties further towards the ‘electoral’
model of political communication, with the communist past a ‘thwarting
experience for the structural consolidation of both political and civil soci-
ety’ (ibid., p. 50). Third, Biezen argued that the availability of state
 1 PARTIES AND MEMBERS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 5

funding created an organisational disincentive for political parties to invest

in membership recruitment. Access to state funding from an early stage of
their development would, it was argued, allow central and east European
parties to bypass the need to raise funding from membership, while the
mass media offered parties the opportunity to communicate directly with
voters (van Biezen, 2003, pp. 43–46; Kopecký, 2008, p. 3).
Low levels of party membership were not, at least initially, viewed as a
problem for central and east European political parties. Although ‘elec-
toral mobilisation’ would be more ‘feeble’ than the development of a
membership base, it was expected to be ‘relatively quick and easy to
achieve’ (van Biezen, 2003, pp. 43–46). Moreover, it was argued by Petr
Kopecký (2008) that legacies of communism would make the ‘supply side’
of party membership recruitment, already difficult in established democra-
cies, particularly challenging in central and east Europe. The very notion
of party membership was, he argued, tarnished by association with the
communist past. Indeed, with party membership seen as a ‘vestigial func-
tion’ in established democracies, Herbert Kitschelt claimed that, by avoid-
ing the need to expend resources on mass organisations, central and east
European political parties would enjoy ‘the advantages of backwardness’
(Kitschelt, Mansfeldova, Markowski, & Tóka, 1999, p. 396).
The key to avoiding investment in membership development was access
to state funding. Petr Kopecký (2008, p. 3) noted that ‘once in possession
of state resources, parties are significantly less compelled to engage in
party-building strategies based on popular mobilisation and extensive
organisational development’. This implied that state funding would be
sufficient to cover the organisational and campaigning expenses of politi-
cal parties and that members had little to contribute beyond money.
However, a growing body of literature has cast doubt on whether parties
can thrive—and even survive in the long term—without investing in their
organisational capacity.
In Bulgaria, Maria Spirova found that party elites believed that mem-
bers were essential for long-term electoral success in turbulent party sys-
tems (Spirova, 2005, pp. 601–622). In Lithuania, Raimondas Ibenskas
(2014) found that party membership was an important predictor of ‘elec-
toral persistence’. A four-country comparison of the Czech Republic,
Estonia, Hungary and Poland found that strong organisations helped par-
ties to improve their vote share over time (Tavits, 2012, pp. 83–97). This
contrasted with ‘live fast, die young parties’, which appeared and disap-
peared within two or three electoral cycles (Deegan-Krause & Haughton,
6 A. F. SMITH

2012). Deegan-Krause and Haughton called membership parties the

‘hardy perennials’ of central and east European political parties, drawing
on their roots in society to recover from electoral setbacks. Gherghina
(2015, p. 161) found that, by building a membership base, political par-
ties can ‘model their own electoral stability over time’. In summary, there
is an increasing consensus that party members improve stability, both of
individual political parties and of party systems.

The Costs and Benefits of Members

Membership recruitment is, however, no easy task. In modern times,
when societal cleavages are blurred, old loyalties have broken down,
potential members have no shortage of alternative leisure options and dis-
trust in political parties prevails, it takes significant effort to seek out
potential members, recruit them and keep them motivated. Building a
membership base is a long-term continuous commitment: in addition to
expending scarce resources recruiting and maintaining a membership
base, re-distribution of power from elites to members is usually required
to keep members motivated and involved (Tavits, 2013, p. 11). In order
to attract and retain members, organisations (including political parties)
offer a combination of material incentives, that is, access to jobs or patron-
age; solidary incentives, that is, group membership and the company of
like-minded people and purposive incentives, that is, working together to
achieve change (Clark & Wilson, 1961, pp. 134–136). These incentives
are, by definition, scarce (ibid., p. 131).
In the context of a political party, purposive incentives usually include
the opportunity to help shape a party’s ideological direction through
involvement in the policy-making process. However, this comes at a cost.
At minimum, it involves a re-distribution of intra-party power (Tavits,
2013, p. 7), fettering the discretion of party elites and reducing ideologi-
cal flexibility. Since the 1960s, ideological nimbleness has been considered
necessary to survive in the modern political environment (Kirchheimer,
1969; Panebianco, 1988). This pressure has only grown with the advent
of digital media. Worst of all, if members do not reflect the interests of
wider society, their involvement in the policy-making process risks impos-
ing vote-losing policy commitments on political parties (May, 1973).
Thus, in addition to the ‘opportunity cost’ of the time and effort spent
recruiting and retaining members, party elites might doubt whether mem-
bers help or hinder the policy-making process.
 1 PARTIES AND MEMBERS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 7

However, members can also bring important advantages to political

parties. Even in the glory days of ‘spin doctors’, qualitative studies from
Western democracies showed that political parties found practical uses for
their members. Susan Scarrow’s detailed investigation of British and
German parties found that members acted as ‘ambassadors in the com-
munity’, a socialising mechanism for future elites, grassroots campaigners,
loyal and reliable voters, and a useful source of additional income.
Members’ input into the policy-making process was also seen as helpful
(Scarrow, 1995, p. 133), and even the biggest sceptics of the value of
members agreed that they provided ‘legitimacy benefits’ for parties (Katz
& Mair, 1995). Whiteley and Seyd (2002) argued that parties without a
membership base would be at a disadvantage vis-á-vis membership parties,
since they could not supplement their national media campaign with a
physical presence in communities, and that ‘the absence of a significant
permanent organisation, a cadre of activists and a coherent set of values to
sustain [a party] through hard times eventually counts against them’
(ibid., p. 209). Karina Pedersen (2004) noted that Danish political parties
had upgraded the benefits they offered to members in the hope of increas-
ing their grassroots capacity.
After initial scepticism about whether membership parties would form
in central and east Europe, the roles of members in the region are increas-
ingly being researched. In addition to the benefits of stability described
above, Gherghina (2015) argued that weak cleavage structures and low
levels of trust in politics made membership recruitment more, not less,
important in central and east Europe. ‘Ancillary structures’, including
local party branches and youth organisations, were employed to overcome
difficulties building trust through electoral-professional communication
(Gherghina, 2015, p. 4). Image was also important in the context of low
trust. As far back as 2003, Allan Sikk noted that Estonian parties engaged
in a public battle to recruit the most members, suggesting that members
projected an image of success and were valued for ‘legitimacy benefits’
(Sikk, 2003, p. 14). Gherghina (2015) concurred that high levels of party
membership were seen as an indicator of popular legitimacy. Tavits (2013)
noted that members were particularly valued by parties seeking to over-
come ‘environmental hostility’ and parties appealing to rural or poor elec-
torates. The latter were ‘less likely to be persuaded by a distant—even if
nationally known—candidate than by their friends or neighbours or locally
known candidates’ (ibid., p. 12).
8 A. F. SMITH

The notion that central and east European political parties could rely
on state funding has also been challenged. Dobrin Kanev pointed out that
there was ‘no danger of “étatization” of political parties’ in Bulgaria since
the resources of the state ‘would be unequal to such a task’ (Kanev, 2007,
p. 50). In neighbouring Romania, state funding has been referred to as
‘pocket money’ (Gherghina, Chiru, & Bértoa, 2011, p. 3). Although state
funding in Croatia, Poland and Slovakia is more generous, these countries
are no strangers to corruption scandals. In 2013, four Polish political par-
ties divided PLN 54.4 million (€13 million) between them, yet Bértoa and
Walecki (2017) noted that it remains difficult to deter breaches in laws
regulating business funding, and even harder to secure a conviction. As
Michael Pinto-Duschinsky observed, ‘a party or candidate who obtains
public monies, knowing full well that such monies are equally available to
competitors, will not […] stop looking for money with which to outspend
and outmanoeuvre political opponents’ (2002, p. 78).
Increasingly, party membership in central and east Europe is also ‘con-
structed’ by the state in the form of ‘party laws’ (Gauja, 2015). Some
governments require registered political parties to have a minimum num-
ber of members (Bértoa & van Biezen, 2018; Gauja, 2015; Mazzoleni &
Voerman, 2017). In Lithuania, for example, the minimum number of
members required for registered political parties was raised from 1000 to
2000 in 2015. In Poland, Croatia, Latvia and the Czech Republic, inter-
nal party democracy is a legal pre-requisite for the foundation of a political
party (Bértoa & van Biezen, 2018). Whether established parties are engag-
ing in ‘cartel-like’ behaviour by squeezing out rivals and new competitors
or genuinely seeking to improve linkages between parties and society, the
recruitment of a modest membership base is now, in some countries,
legally mandated. ‘Memberless parties’ are either being outlawed or being
threatened with increased regulation.
In summary, recent scholarship has posited three main benefits of mem-
bers for central and east European political parties. First, party members
improve stability, helping parties to survive in a volatile environment
(Deegan-Krause & Haughton, 2012; Gherghina, 2015). Second, there is
the notion that membership parties are ‘constructed by the state’ (Bértoa
& van Biezen, 2018). Third, members help parties to improve their vote
share over time (Tavits, 2012), and to reach specific types of voters (Tavits,
2013). However, it is unlikely that the any of these theories fully explain
the extent of the variation in membership levels observed across the
region. In order to consider why membership levels in the region vary
 1 PARTIES AND MEMBERS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 9

between 0.8% and 6% of the population, we now turn to an institutional

factor that has influenced how parties organise and campaign in Western
Europe, but has received relatively little attention in the central and east
European context: electoral systems.

Electoral Systems and the Role of Members

Electoral systems convert votes into seats. They establish the geographi-
cal size and location of electoral districts, and the number of representa-
tives that will be elected from each district (i.e. district magnitude). Since
political parties usually aim to win as many seats in parliament as possi-
ble, they have a strong incentive to allocate their scarce resources where
extra effort will have the greatest impact. Under proportional represen-
tation (PR), a vote is a vote regardless of its geographical origin.
Conversely, under majoritarian systems, the spatial distribution of voters
is critical. As a result, proportional electoral systems provide strong
incentives for party-­driven, centralised campaigning (Bowler & Farrell,
1992), while single member districts encourage localised campaigning
with resources concentrated in ‘marginal’ districts (Cox, 1990). High
magnitude electoral systems encourage ‘centralised’ organisational struc-
tures and campaigning, while low magnitude electoral systems encour-
age ‘decentralised’ organisational structures and campaigns (Carey &
Shugart, 1995).
Under the most centralised electoral systems, the whole country is a
single electoral district. Individual candidates focus primarily on the
national campaign. They rely on their parties for their position on the
national list, and their chances of getting elected are usually depend on the
success of the party as a whole. Even where lists are ‘open’, candidates
rarely win enough votes to move up the ranking entirely through their
own individual efforts. Media profile, which is largely co-ordinated by the
party at the national level, is an important mode of communication. Where
candidates create ‘linkages’ with society under high magnitude PR, this
tends to be via interest groups at the national level (Bawn & Thies, 2003).
Pure proportional representation systems are relatively rare: the
Netherlands and Slovakia are the only two examples in Europe.
Under decentralised electoral systems, including majoritarian systems,
mixed systems and low magnitude PR, candidates have an incentive to
cultivate personal reputations within the specific constituency or region
where they are competing (Carey & Shugart, 1995). Shugart (2001)
10 A. F. SMITH

noted that low magnitude proportional representation creates specific

incentives for candidates to cultivate networks in their region or district in
order to avoid open competition with their own co-partisans. This might
not always be beneficial to the party organisation as a whole since there is
a risk that candidates focus on their personal campaigns rather than work-
ing collegially with co-partisans who are also competitors (Scarrow, 2014).
Nevertheless, decentralised electoral systems usually mean smaller elec-
toral districts, and smaller electoral districts encourage political participa-
tion (Weldon, 2006) and individual voter contacting (Karp & Banducci,
2007). An organised local campaign can contact a high enough propor-
tion of voters in a district of 50,000 people to feel that they have made a
difference. This is not the case under proportional representation, where
votes are tallied as a percentage of the voting population as a whole, and
there is no sense that a single vote might make the difference between suc-
cess and failure. As a result, communication via the mass media is deemed
a more efficient way to reach voters (Bowler & Farrell, 1992; Swanson &
Mancini, 1996). Large electoral districts encourage the use of ‘electoral
professional’ campaigning, with personal contact mediated by organised
groupings, while small electoral districts make it advantageous to contact
voters individually (Bawn & Thies, 2003). Overall, decentralised electoral
systems are ‘candidate-based systems’, while centralised electoral systems
are ‘party-based systems’ (Karp & Banducci, 2007).
In single member districts, the average boost to a party’s vote from
intense grassroots activity is around 3% (Denver & Hands, 1997; Fisher,
Cutts, & Fieldhouse, 2011; Johnston & Pattie, 2004), although the
impact of local campaigning shows greater variation when a party is
unpopular at the national level (Fisher et al., 2013). As a result, individual
voter contacting is likely to be concentrated in specific ‘marginal’ constitu-
encies where the pay-off is likely to be greatest (Cox, 1990). Analysing the
British election campaign of 2010, Fisher et al. (2013) found that intense
activity only occurred in 160 of the 632 districts. The remaining 75% of
British seats saw either less vigorous activity or little activity at all.
In the new democracies of central and east Europe, no country adopted
a fully majoritarian electoral system. However, ‘mixed’ electoral systems,
which combine elements of majoritarian and proportional systems, are
found in several countries. Researchers have investigated the impact of the
mixed system on political campaigning in Germany and found that it
incentivises a combination of ‘electoral professional’ and ‘grassroots’ cam-
paigning strategies. At the national level, the mass media, political
 1 PARTIES AND MEMBERS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 11

advertising and large-scale rallies are used. In individual districts, cam-

paigning also takes place at the local level through stalls on market squares,
social events and knocking on voters’ front doors. Candidates seeking
election in single member districts adopted individualised campaign strat-
egies, which candidates on the party lists focussed on the national cam-
paign (Zittel & Gschwend, 2008).
The effect of electoral systems on political party campaigning strategies
has received scant attention in central and east Europe, at least in the com-
parative context. Case studies, however, suggest that the effects of elec-
toral systems on party campaigning and organisation may be similar to
those observed in Western Europe. In Slovakia, Marek Rybář (2006)
observed that party membership numbers, and also levels of activity,
declined noticeably from the late 1990s onwards, following the adoption
of a high district magnitude proportional electoral system. In Romania,
the adoption of a decentralised electoral system in 2008 had a swift impact
on the types of candidates recruited, with local roots of candidates empha-
sised under the new system (Chiru & Ciobanu, 2009). These case studies
that suggest that the impact of electoral systems on central and east
European political parties might be similar to those described in the extant
literature.

Electoral Systems and the Roles of Party Members:

Developing Hypotheses
If, as previously established, electoral systems influence how and where
political parties communicate with voters, with centralised electoral sys-
tems encouraging electoral-professional communication while decentral-
ised electoral systems stimulate individual voter contacting, we would
expect the roles of members to vary accordingly. Other than sharing par-
ty’s messages on-line, potentially helping to improve the party’s image,
and, for the most active minority, standing for public office themselves,
party members have relatively few opportunities to contribute to party
campaigns where the focus is on electoral-professional communication.
On the other hand, individual voter contacting is extremely labour-­
intensive; other grassroots campaigning activities found in decentralised
electoral systems, such as organising and manning street stalls and deliver-
ing leaflets door-to-door, also provide an active role where members can
contribute to the success of a party. Decentralised electoral systems also
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