This article introduces the first findings of the Political Party Database (PPDB) project, a major survey of party organizations in parliamentary and semi-presidential democracies. The project's first round of data covers 122 parties in 19 countries. In this paper we describe the scope of the database, then investigate what it tells us about contemporary party organization in these countries, focussing on parties' resources, structures and internal decision-making. We examine party-family and within country organizational patterns, and where possible we make temporal comparisons with older datasets. Our analyses suggest a remarkable coexistence of uniformity and diversity. In terms of the major organizational resources on which parties can draw, such as members, staff and finance, the new evidence largely confirms the continuation of trends identified in previous research: i.e., declining membership, but enhanced financial resources and 2 more paid staff. We also find remarkable uniformity regarding the core architecture of party organizations. At the same time, however, we find substantial variation between countries and party families in terms of their internal processes, with particular regard to how internally democratic they are, and in the forms that this democratization takes.3

We study the degree of formal influence that rank-and-file members have on the selection of party leaders in the five English-speaking Westminster countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. We find that in recent years there has been a general, though not universal, trend towards granting party members greater influence in the choice of their leader. We observe that the decision to broaden the selectorate has been made by most parties in the UK, Canada and Ireland, while parties in Australia and New Zealand have generally resisted reform. We set out a series of four hypotheses explaining the decisions made by parties in the first three countries. We show that this organizational reform is adopted by parties in opposition, in the aftermath of an electoral setback and by new parties. We also find a strong contagion effect within party systems. Finally, we offer an explanation for why the Australian and New Zealand cases have resulted in less change.

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Drawing upon the ‘satisfaction with democracy’ and ‘divisive primary’ literatures, this article examines how losers of intra-party elections respond to defeat and the consequences that these choices have on party organization and strength. In other words, do losers of intra-party elections continue to support the party or do they, like losers of general elections, feel less satisfied with democracy and withdraw their support (or even ‘exit’ the party)? Exploring rates of membership activism and satisfaction from a recent study of Canadian party members, this article demonstrates that losers of intra-party elections are more likely to exit the party, significantly less likely to remain active and engaged in party politics, and significantly more likely to report dissatisfaction with party membership. These findings suggest that parties must find a way of keeping losers engaged with the party.

Situated in the literature concerning the decline of party members, and the dearth of young party members, this article considers the factors that influence the decision of a politically engaged young person to join, or not join, a political party. Making use of a unique dataset, we examine the attitudes and socialization of a large group of politically active young Canadians, a group that includes a significant number of both party members and non-party members. The article finds significant attitudinal differences towards political parties, with non-members highly suspicious of parties in terms of their general democratic performance, their efficacy in achieving social and political change and in the ability of grassroots members to influence party decision-making. We also find important socialization effects, the most significant being that young party members are considerably more likely than non-members to have a parent who is a party member. Recruitment through family members appears to be a principal path to party membership for young voters.