Political Participation: The Vocational Motivations of Labour Party Employees

Abstract

Party employees are an under-researched group in political science. This article begins to address this oversight by examining Labour Party employees using new quantitative and qualitative data. It argues that party employment should be regarded as a form of political participation and as a consequence, existing models of political participation can be utilised to help explain why people work for political parties. After testing these propositions, the article concludes that existing models are indeed helpful in explaining the motivations for party employment.

Unsung Heroes: Constituency Election Agents in British General Elections

“…Indeed, in the case of the latter, this is becoming even more pronounced. These findings are in line with Fisher and Webb (2003), who found that Labour employees in general were most likely to be middle class and have a degree. Agents, then, like employees (or at least, Labour employees), follow the same patterns in terms of predictors of activity as other more conventional forms of political participation.…”

“…Although the numbers involved are not large, acting as an agent is an intense form of political participation (Fisher and Webb 2003) and we would expect that the demographic profile of agents would be similar to that of others having high levels of political activity. In other words, as Fisher and Webb (2003) found in their study of Labour party employees, we would expect agents to be drawn from socio-demographic groups with higher levels of resources—for example, time and experience—and also higher levels of political efficacy. Table 2 provides information about the sex and age of agents in the three elections considered here.…”

Party bureaucrats, independent professionals, or politicians? A study of party employees

“…The de-institutionalisation of the electoral-professional party, as well as the independence of professional staff, also implies weak ties. However, Fisher and Webb (2003) emphasise the importance of party ties as they treat employment in a political party as a type of political participation. They find that the vast majority of employees in the British Labour Party were very active members before they were employed by the party.…”

Party organisational change in Italy (1991–2006)

“…The sheer numbers show, even for large parties, a minimal number of people employed: these data suggest the hypothesis of an extensive resort to short-term professional experts. The numerical decline may not necessarily imply an organisational decline, rather a transformation along more flexible and professional lines, similarly to what was observed by Fisher and Webb (2003) in the case of the Labour party. Another general tendency common to every party concerns the centralisation of the decision and policy-making powers in the hands of parties' executive committees and leaders.…”