(Re-)Join the Party! The Effects of Direct Democracy on Political Party Involvement in Europe

Over the past decades, political parties in Western Europe have shown to be in decline. Levels of party membership have dropped, electoral volatility has increased, voter turnout has declined, trust in political parties has dropped, and people seem to feel less strongly attached to any particular political party. Taken together with the observation of the rise of more anti-establishment and populist parties, traditional political parties seem increasingly incapable of translating citizens’ preferences and needs into governmental policy. Moreover, it has been claimed that this trend is highly problematic for the functioning of democracy.

At the same time, however, democracies have seen structural changes partly in an attempt to ‘democratize’ democracy. In this paper I aim to connect one such structural modification, the institutionalization of direct democracy, to the role of political parties. I argue that this additional avenue for institutionalized political participation and influence could not just offer more channels for popular involvement. It may also offer political parties a possibility to occupy one of their traditional roles of mobilizing and representing citizen interests, placing themselves once again between the citizens and the state. I examine the link between political parties and direct democracy by analyzing party manifestos and their involvement in triggering a referendum on the one hand, while on the other hand looking more quantitatively at the effect of direct democracy on levels of party membership. I find that, to some extent, the institutionalization of direct democracy indeed has a strengthening effect on political parties.