ABSTRACT
Here we reiterate our main findings and arguments, recalling what they look like, what they believe, why they join, what they do for their parties, what they think about how they’re run, why they sometimes leave and how the parties themselves see membership. But we conclude with a warning about the difficult balancing act that parties must perform between their parliamentary and extra-parliamentary wings. It might not always seem so to those who belong to them, but British parties are actually among the most internally democratic political organizations in the world, their members having acquired notable rights over matters of personnel-selection during the past few decades. While these reforms represent important incentives for political participation, they nevertheless present a democratic and strategic dilemma for leaders who inevitably seek to maximize their political room for manoeuvre: to whom should they be primarily responsible and responsive in a parliamentary democracy - their grassroots members or the wider electorate? Therein lies a notable potential for tension between parliamentary elites and party members.
