Hostname: page-component-6b88cc9666-c4hrb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-02-18T12:12:10.140Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Assessing Party Membership Figures: The Mapp Dataset

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Emilie van Haute ,
Emilien Paulis  and
Vivien Sierens
Emilie van Haute*
Affiliation:
Centre d’étude de la vie politique, Université libre de Bruxelles, Avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50 – CP 124, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
Emilien Paulis*
Affiliation:
Centre d’étude de la vie politique, Université libre de Bruxelles, Avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50 – CP 124, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
Vivien Sierens*
Affiliation:
Centre d’étude de la vie politique, Université libre de Bruxelles, Avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50 – CP 124, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
*
E-mail: evhaute@ulb.ac.be
E-mail: epaulis@ulb.ac.be
E-mail: vivien.sierens@ulb.ac.be
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Assessments of party decline and decline of traditional forms of political participation often rely on the argument of party membership decline. Most studies analysing trends in party membership over time focus on aggregate country-level data at a few points in time. While they allow grasping general membership trends, they are not without shortcomings. This article presents the Members and Activists of Political Parties (MAPP) dataset related to the MAPP project. The dataset makes a large amount of data on party membership available to the larger public. The dataset provides 6,307 party membership data observations (M) covering 397 parties in 31 countries, mostly between 1945 and 2014. The article discusses the existing literature and data on party membership trends, how membership trends have been assessed so far, and the potential added value of the MAPP dataset.

Keywords

political partiesparty membershipparty organisations

Information

Type
Datasets
Information
European Political Science , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 366 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 European Consortium for Political Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1057/s41304-016-0098-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

References

Bartolini, S. (1983) ‘The Membership of Mass Parties: The Social Democratic Experience 1889–1978’, in Daalder, H. and Mair, P. (eds.) Western European Party System. Continuity and Change, Beverly Hills: Sage, pp. 177-220. Google Scholar
Cross, W. (2015) ‘Party Membership in Canada’, in van Haute, E. and Gauja, A. (eds.) Party Members and Activists, London: Routledge, pp. 50-65. Google Scholar
Dalton, R. and Wattenberg, M. (2000) Parties Without Partisans, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dalton, R., Farrell, D. and McAllister, I. (2011) Political Parties and Democratic Linkage, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199599356.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delwit, P. (2011) ‘Still in Decline? Party Membership in Europe’, in van Haute, E. (ed.) Party Membership in Europe. Explorations into the Anthills of Party Politics, Brussels: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, pp. 107-128. Google Scholar
Fisher, J., Denver, D. and Hands, G. (2006) ‘The relative electoral impact of central party co-ordination and size of party membership at constituency level’, Electoral Studies 25(4): 664-676. 10.1016/j.electstud.2005.10.001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, R.S., Mair, P. and Bardi, L., Bille, L. and Deschouwer, K., Farrell, D. and Koole, R., Morlino, L. and Müller, W., Pierre, J. and Poguntke, T., Sunberg, J. and Svasand, L., van de Velde, H., Webb, P. and Widfeldt, A. (1992) ‘The membership of political parties in European democracies, 1960–1990’, European Journal of Political Research 22(3): 329-345. 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1992.tb00316.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, R.S. and Mair, P. (1995) ‘Changing models of party organization and party democracy: The emergence of the cartel party’, Party Politics 1(1): 5-28. 10.1177/1354068895001001001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kölln, A.-K. (2015) ‘The effects of membership decline on party organisations in Europe’, European Journal of Political Research, advance online publication 20 August. doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kosiara-Pedersen, K., Scarrow, S. and van Haute, E. (2017) (forthcoming 2017) ‘Rules of Engagement? Party Membership Costs, New Forms of Party Affiliation, and Partisan Participation’, in Scarrow, S., Webb, P. and Poguntke, T. (eds.), Organizing Representation: Political Parties, Participation, and Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mair, P. and van Biezen, I. (2001) ‘Party membership in twenty European democracies, 1980-2000’, Party Politics 7(1): 5-21. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marien, S. and Quintelier, E. (2011) ‘Trends in Party Membership in Europe. Investigation Into the Reasons for Declining Party Membership’, in van Haute, E. (ed.) Party Membership in Europe. Exploration into the Anthills of Party Politics, Brussels: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, pp. 34-60. Google Scholar
Mazzoleni, O. and Voerman, G. (2016) ‘Memberless parties. Beyond the business-firm party model?’, Party Politics, advance online publication 25 January. doi:10.1177/1354068815627398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norris, P. (2002) Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing Political Activism, New York: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511610073CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pedersen, K. (2003) Party Membership Linkage: The Danish Case, København: Institut for Statskundskab, Københavns Universitet.Google Scholar
Scarrow, S. (1996) Parties and Their Members, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/0198279183.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scarrow, S. (2000) ‘Parties Without Members?’, in Dalton, R. and Wattenberg, M. (eds.) Parties Without Partisans. Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 79-101. Google Scholar
Scarrow, S. (2015) Beyond Party Members. Changing Approaches to Partisan Mobilization, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Seyd, P. and Whiteley, P. (2004) ‘British Party Members: An Overview’, Party Politics 10(4): 355–366.10.1177/1354068804043903CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sundberg, J. (1987) ‘Exploring the basis of declining party membership in Denmark: A Scandinavian comparison’, Scandinavian Political Studies 10(1): 17-38. 10.1111/j.1467-9477.1987.tb00058.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tan, A. (2000) Members, Organization and Performance: An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Party Membership Size, Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
van Biezen, I., Mair, P. and Poguntke, T. (2012) ‘Going, going,…gone? The decline of party membership in contemporary Europe’, European Journal of Political Research 51(1): 24-56. 10.1111/j.1475-6765.2011.01995.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Haute, E. (2009) Party Membership in Europe: Exploration into the Anthills of Party Politics, Brussels: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles.Google Scholar
van Haute, E. (2015) ‘Joining isn’t Everything: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty in Party Organizations’, in Johnston, R. and Sharman, C. (eds.) Parties and Party Systems: Structure and Context, Vancouver: UBC Press, pp. 184-201. 10.59962/9780774829571-013CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Haute, E. and Gauja, A. (2015a) ‘Introduction: Party Membership and Activism’, in van Haute, E. and Gauja, A. (eds.) Party Members and Activists, London: Routledge, pp. 1-16. 10.4324/9781315722214CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Haute, E. and Gauja, A. (2015b) Party Members and Activists, London: Routledge.10.4324/9781315722214CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Haute, E. et al. (2016) ‘MAPP Dataset’, Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.61234. Google Scholar
von Beyme, K. (1985) Political Parties in Western Democracies, York: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
Weldon, S. (2006) ‘Downsize my polity? The impact of size on party membership and member activism’, Party Politics 12(4): 467-481. 10.1177/1354068806064729CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whiteley, P., Seyd, P. and Richardson, J. (1994) True Blues. The Politics of Conservative Party Membership, Oxford: Clarendon Press.10.1093/oso/9780198277859.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Widfeldt, A. (1997) Linking Parties with People? Party Membership in Sweden 1960-1997, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

van Haute et al. supplementary material

Table 1
Download van Haute et al. supplementary material(File)
File 18.8 KB
Supplementary material: File

van Haute et al. supplementary material

van Haute et al. supplementary material 1
Download van Haute et al. supplementary material(File)
File 825.8 KB