Leadership challenges: Do not panic, but your party membership is shrinking!

Leadership challenges: Do not panic, but your party membership is shrinking!

Since the early 2010s, we keep reading articles about the membership decline in political parties from the left to the right. All data shows that political parties lose full members as more individuals dedicate their energy to joining social movements. People are keen to engage politically or socially differently than traditional political organisation membership. But what does this mean for the political party of today? Should political parties try to revert to the massive machines where membership was the core engine, or shall political parties focus on engaging with the citizens in a different form?

Membership has always been a source of power for political parties to execute their campaigns on the ground and to cover basic operational costs from membership fees. Large memberships meant legitimacy for political parties. Stadiums full of members supporting the political leadership gave the feeling of purpose to those in the party ranks and provided an excellent image to the general public on why to support their political cause.