For more than a century party members have played a central role in many parliamentary democracies, helping political parties to mobilize voters, and visibly linking party leaders with their grassroots supporters. Yet in the twenty-first century, party membership is undergoing rapid changes. In many parties, memberships are becoming numerically smaller at the same time that individual members are becoming more politically powerful.
Beyond Party Members investigates two questions connected with these changes. First, when and why did party memberships start falling, and what does this...