Political Parties And Society: Between Connected- And Disconnectedness

While party-state relations – at least when focusing on the established players– are considered in much of existing research as increasingly close, whether parties’ connections to society have weakened, changed or transformed over the last decades is a topic of on-going debate. Answers vary as much with the types of parties and political systems looked at as with the societal actors of interest whose attitude towards and relationship with the partisan arena are assessed. Clearly, the relationships of political parties with society are extremely diverse and constantly evolving, especially in times in which political systems are exposed to crises and growing turbulence. Similarly, societal actors’ attitudes towards and relationship with parties and their representatives ranges from cooptation over competition to outright hostility. To explore this theme both from a political party and a societal perspective, this section looks at how parties relate to (or distance themselves from) different types of societal actors and, vice versa, how societal actors position themselves towards and interact with parties as (still) central representative vehicles in ‘conventional’ democratic politics. To invite a dialogue between party, interest group, movement, civil society and voluntary sector research, we equally encourage panels and papers that approach the section theme from the perspective of political parties and their representatives or, alternatively, from organizations, groups or individuals that try to achieve their (political or social) goals through establishing or cultivating different types of ties to the party political arena or, by contrast, define themselves in opposition to and try to capitalize on their distinctiveness and distance from (conventional) party politics. Essentially, this section, which is endorsed by the ECPR Standing Group on Political Parties, welcomes panels and papers that assess existing and evolving party-society connections as well as forms of disconnectedness between party politics and the societal sphere. We particularly (but not exclusively) invite panels and papers that relate to the following sub-themes: 1. What is the range of connections that political parties establish and cultivate with society (electorates at home, constituencies abroad, members and supporters, organized civil society and the voluntary sector, social movements, etc.)? What are the motivations of parties or societal actors to build and intensify some of these connections, while de-prioritizing others? How have these connections evolved over time and how are they shaped by developments such as societal individualization, the decline of trust, democratic backsliding or, more broadly, exposure to different types of internal and external crises? 2. How do different relationships between political parties and societal actors affect the internal organization and political strategies of both types of actors and what are major drivers of such changes? How (un)stable are those relationships and why? More specifically, what are the incentives of leaders and entrepreneurs within political parties and society to promote organizational or strategic changes to enhance the connectedness of or increase the distance between the party-political and societal arena? Under which circumstances do political parties converge with (or diverge from) the organizational or behavioural logics characterizing the societal organizations they relate to and vice versa? 3. How does the relationship between political parties and societal actors influence the type and quality of members and supporters that parties and societal actors recruit and what is the range of incentives offered to these members and supporters accordingly? Are the roles of members/supporters/activists in both types of actors affected by the types of relationship cultivated (e.g. competition, cooperation, cooptation) between the latter? 4. To what extent has the Covid-19 pandemic served as a catalyst to establish new types of (e.g. digital) relationships and connections initiated by political parties or their public representatives on the one hand and by societal actors to channel their demands into the public sphere and political process on the other? To what extent has this fundamental and on-going crisis led parties and/or their representatives to focus more on governing and crisis management, thereby triggering or reinforcing a disconnect between parties and societal actors? Vice versa, has it led (some) societal actors to withdraw from party politics, how and why? Our section will feature both theoretical and empirical contributions, which aim at unpacking the multitude of intersections between political parties and societies on the micro, meso and macro level in political regimes ranging from consolidated democracies to autocratic regimes. We welcome different theoretical perspectives and methodologies, including conceptual analyses, comparative and case studies that employ qualitative, quantitative or mixed-method approaches.