title: The expanding party universe: Patterns of partisan engagement in Australia and the United Kingdom
creator: Gauja, Anika
creator: Grömping, Max
subject: ddc-320
subject: 320 Political science
description: Although membership is declining, parties continue to perform roles central to democratic governance in modern societies. Given this seeming paradox, we suggest that partisan identification, in complementing studies of formal membership, is a promising way of assessing the strength of parties’ democratic linkage. Using data from an original survey of voters in Australia and the United Kingdom, we analyse the participatory and demographic profiles of party supporters. We show that there are significant differences between supporters and those not committed to any party, as well as between supporters based on the strength of their party identification, substantiating the idea that parties can be conceptualized as a series of concentric circles of increasing engagement but declining representativeness. Stronger supporters are more likely to engage with parties online, volunteer and donate, but are older, more likely to be male and less likely to be foreign-born. Our findings have important implications for democratic practice as parties seek to expand and rejuvenate their networks of affiliates.
publisher: Sage Publishing
date: 2020
type: Article
type: info:eu-repo/semantics/article
type: NonPeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
identifier: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserverhttps://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/29131/1/10.1177_1354068818822251.pdf
identifier: DOI:10.11588/heidok.00029131
identifier: https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068818822251
identifier: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-291319
identifier:   Gauja, Anika ; Grömping, Max  (2020) The expanding party universe: Patterns of partisan engagement in Australia and the United Kingdom.  Party Politics, 26 (6).  pp. 822-833.  ISSN 1354-0688 (Druck-Ausg.), 1460-3683 (Online-Ausg.)     
relation: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/29131/
rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/help/license_urhg.html
language: eng