Today 218,771 card-carrying members of the French Socialist Party (PS) will vote
I assume this is the number that may vote, because unless PS uses Diebold you can not really know in advance the number that will vote.
And launched, at the same time, a vast membership campaign the success of which [70,000 new members -- afew] upset the internal applecart.
These numbers strikes me as a rather small socialist party in a country as large as France. In Sweden all political parties has shrunk the last 15 years (maybe longer, but swedish wikipedia has a good table of the last 15), and Socialdemokraterna still has 124 789 members. And this in a considerable smaller country. Is the right wing also as small when it comes to membership? Does this has some connection with the french elite system? A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
In the UK (similar population level) New Labour (Wikipedia) : The party had 201,374 members on 31 December, 2004 according to accounts filed with the Electoral Commission. Does it still have as many, I wonder? The British Conservative Party is given at 300,000 members.
So I don't know :-) Maybe Sweden has a strongly participative democracy because... Just throwing out ideas: it's a small, well-knit society; up to now, it has been able to avoid some of the major dislocating effects of globalisation; there is in fact much less distance between the political class and the people (generally true of the Nordic countries).
The "elite system", by which I think you mean the tendency for top political personnel to come from particular grandes écoles and especially the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA), may well have something to do with the lack of participation compared to Sweden. But there's more largely a general lack of belief in the capacity of the political sphere to do anything against the economic, and more particularly globalising economic, forces in the world.
On the other hand, here in Hungary, the 30-40,000 members of the Socialists (you can't be sure of the exact number, there has been a scandal of fictious party members that is said to be the tip of the iceberg) are in line with the French or British numbers (multiply by six for population correction). Here it is seen as a low number, and interpreted as a weakness of both democracy (lack of committed political activism) and parliamentarism (parties not deeply embedded in society).
I wonder if Migeru can dig up Spanish numbers. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
SPD – Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands... With more than 600,000 members it is the largest party in Germany.
It is quite possible that smaller countries has larger percentage involved in parties. But the reason I got quite surprised is that the "death of the parties" in Sweden is quite a big subject. Using the numbers provided by wikipedia (my previous comment), in 1962 18% of the population was members of a political party. From there: 1962 18% 1970 17% 1979 19% 1991 7% 2000 4% 2006 3,3%
The big loss during between 79 and 91 was in mainly due to the right bloc governments action in untieing the links between the mayor unions and the socialdemocratic party. Until 1991, if you became member of a union belonging to LO, you also became a member of the socialdemocratic party. But since then all the big parties has lost a lot of members, giving some problems to find candidates for local elections and such. At current rate the political parties will be empty in 2020...
If this is a general trend in western Europe (or a larger area) it is worth exploring. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
By the way, can someone tell us how much dues are for a typical political party in Europe? Is it really prohibitively expensive?
But it's not strange the American parties have many members, after all, you're not allowed to vote if you are not a party member in the US, right? Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
As I understand it, in the US you are not allowed to vote in the primaries unless you are registered for the party having the primary. In the regular elections you need to be registered, but you can register as an independent. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
I have no clue what's "typical". But I did look up some figures for you.
Erm, I mean normal earners. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
