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Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the participation of the membership in newly emerged movement party, i.e. the Italian Five Stars Movement and the Spanish Podemos. In their early stages, both parties claimed to improve membership’s political participation through instruments of direct-democracy. In particular – and following the pioneering example of the Pirates parties – those two parties rely on digital platform to take crucial decisions, such as alliances, the party programs, expulsion of members and candidate-selections. While the literature has extensively dealt with several aspects of party organizations, little has been said on membership participation. Firstly, I evaluate the types of membership that these parties allow and how these types have evolved during party institutionalization. Secondly, I enquire wether these parties were able to counter the decline in party membership. Thirdly, I analyze when, under which rules and in which fields direct-democracy tolls have been used: the research question I want to answer is whether the use of digital platforms in the party-decision making have expanded members’ participation in parties’ decision-making. Fourthly, relying on a new dataset on Podemos and Five Stars Movement internal referenda, I evaluate the overall participation of the membership to internal consultations. The (partial) conclusion that I reach is that, albeit presenting different characteristics, the platform implemented by the parties have tried to expand direct-democracy in the internal decision-making. However, the low participation in several internal consultations indicates that direct-democracy risks to be an empty vessel if not coupled with a constant political mobilization.
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