ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the process of testing the theory and focuses on the national-level implications of the theory, first for activists' choices, and second for political parties. It argues that corporatism leads to inclusion of established groups but exclusion of niche groups. Corporatism has an important effect for high-resource groups both in Proportional Representation and Single Member District systems. Party systems are an important place to start because of the prominent place parties occupy both in democratic theory and in empirical research. The theory of organizational choice claims that there are institutional circumstances under which party formation is the optimal choice, but there are also circumstances under which it is a sub-optimal choice. The important point is that just because a country has a successful Green party, there is no guarantee that it will also have successful environmental interest groups. There is no evidence that interest groups and parties are, for instance, created in parallel by some underlying environmental sentiment.
