Populist Party Members in Times of Growth and Decline: Assessing the Vlaams Belang’s Relationship to the Mass Party Model

The Flemish populist radical right party the Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest, VB) is currently the second largest party in Flanders. However, the party has not always been successful. Founded in 1978, it was not until the 1990s that the VB’s membership expanded. While Belgian political parties lost 250,000 members in the 1990s and 2000s, the VB increased from 2500 in 1992 to a high of 25,000 in 2007. Shortly after this high, the VB’s membership numbers declined and the party lost many of its Parliamentary seats. In this context of decline, Tom Van Grieken emerged from the party’s youth wing and became the party’s leader in 2014. He presided over the party’s surge in the 2018 local and 2019 Belgian elections. Van Grieken’s election is indicative of a wider ‘rejuvenation’ in the party. The party is in the process expanding its party staff, revising party statutes, and renewing executive boards across the country. This paper empirically explores how Vlaams Belang elites understand the role of party members and how they organise these members in light of the party’s cycles of decline and growth. Theoretically, I consider to what extent and why the Vlaams Belang relies on the mass party model. This analysis provides a timely update to our understanding of the party in the light of the 2019 election and Van Grieken’s leadership while reflecting on wider scholarly discussions around the role of the party members and leaders in populist political parties.