Membership Benefits,Membership Action: Why Incentives for Activism Are What Members Want

SUMMARY

This article identifies the benefits of political party membership and which of these benefits also operate as incentives for participation. This exploration is conducted in the context of competing relationship marketing hypotheses, and frameworks from other relevant academic disciplines.

Exploratory empirical research identifies two purposive and three solidary benefits of membership. Values functional motivations, socialization and job satisfaction are identified as having statistically significant relationships with participation. Frequency of agreement with party policies and enhancement functional motivations do not appear to have any relationship with participation.

The article concludes that members using their membership as a vehicle for realizing solidary benefits are more likely to respond to incentives for participation, whilst those merely seeking a relationship with their party are more likely be inactive.