The general trend across Western Europe is that membership figures decline even though trends vary both within and across countries. In light of these general trends, parties are changing the ways in which they enable affiliation by opening up for other types of party affiliation such as B-members, Facebook supporters etc. However, the variation in partisan participation and hence in how parties provide participatory linkage is not only detectable outside traditional party membership but also within. Hence, the question of analysis is what characterizes parties’ participatory linkage among all types of party affiliates, and how may this be explained? Parties’ participatory linkage is assessed across Sweden, Norway and Denmark, hence enabling a comparison between parties with variation in size, age, ideology, party culture etc. within similar political systems. The results indicate that the pattern of participation varies across types of party affiliation; this allows for a more thorough assessment of how party members and other types of affiliates through their participation contribute to their parties and hence to the role parties play within representative democracy.
