A Reconceptualisation of the Antecedents of Party Activism: A Multidisciplinary Approach

Leading researchers are questioning the continued use of competitive model testing to explain participation within British political parties. This paper argues that difficulties with this approach have not arisen out of the use of model testing per se, but because of the shortcomings of the models currently in use. A multidisciplinary approach towards accounting for participation exposes some of the theoretical and analytical shortcomings in previous research into political party members, and identifies relevant factors underlying participation that merit investigation in greater detail. In particular, analytical frameworks derived from the disciplines of marketing, nonprofit management and organisational behaviour provide appropriate and robust instruments for measuring factors underlying participation that are generally ignored in the political science literature. Alternative models comprising appropriately theorized variables drawn from a number of disciplines are presented, and the implications of a multidisciplinary approach towards explaining party activism are discussed.