ABSTRACT
In the book, we ask whether the linkage mechanism as offered by party organizations today – through its members – is as weak as suggested by recent literature. The country experts investigate whether party organizations in eight Western democracies are providing linkage between voters and political elites. In this introduction, three questions are singled out as essential. First, to what extent is the party membership representative of – or congruent with – the party voters in terms of descriptive background? Second, is there (following the general membership decline) a decline in member–voter congruence over time? Third, do parties with declining or low member–voter ratios show a lower member–voter congruence than parties with stable or high member–voter ratios? In this introduction, we take stock of the general debate and spell out the analytical and methodological issues faced in this research. We start by discussing the relevance of party members in contemporary party organizations. Next, we discuss the importance of descriptive representativeness of political parties. We also summarize some existing empirical studies of member–voter congruence in Western European parties before presenting an outline of the chapters to follow.
