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Abstract. The article argues that party member activity differs in terms of the degree, type and quality of organizational involvement, a fact often ignored in comparative studies of party membership as well as in arguments about the democratic potential of political parties. The article first presents different perspectives adopted in the literature on party membership. Distinctions are made on the one hand between research treating membership as an independent or as a dependent variable, and on the other between research focusing on different levels of analysis ‐ the country, the organization and the individual. To develop some empirical implications of these points, a survey of Norwegian party members is discussed in the second part. The emphasis here lies on the members'level of party activity and how to explain it. The conclusion is that whether or not the low level of member activity found in Norwegian parties is seen as a problem depends on which normative model of democracy is taken as a point of reference.

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The decline in party membership in Western Europe is generally taken as an indicator of party transformation. This article looks beyond membership figures and asks whether membership decline should be interpreted to mean that the activities and motivation of the remaining members are changing. Hypotheses on changes in party activism and motivation for party membership are tested with data from the 1991 and 2000 Norwegian party member surveys. Rather than uncovering evidence of change, most analyses point to a remarkable level of stability. Active and passive members seem to have disappeared at about the same rate. The general diagnosis of party decline is neither improved nor aggravated, but the analysis casts doubt on propositions about the transformation of the grassroots organisation. The Internet is used by party office-holders and the young, but the grassroots rarely use the new technology for political purposes. The character of the representative and participatory linkages provided by parties has, however, changed as a consequence of a shrinking party membership.