| Abstract [eng] |
Partisan activity has been the main and the most important mode of institutionalized political participation (in addition to electoral participation) in the modern democracy. Even though mass party membership is a distinct feature of modern political system (although not necessarily democratic), since 1960-ies the decline of party membership is observed in many democratic countries. Lithuania is a typical example of post-communist region, where party membership is regarded as a specific elitist activity rather than an ordinary practice of political involvement. In the article, the attitudes of Lithuanians towards party membership are analyzed to answer the question if and why people are not keen to join political parties. Public attitudes are explored using the data of a representative public opinion survey carried out in 2005 and qualitative data of in-depth interviews with ordinary people collected in 2008. Using a mixed method research strategy, the article analyses the image of political parties in Lithuania, determines the potential of party membership and investigates the dominant reasons of avoiding partisan activity. In the first part of the article, the theories explaining partisan activity are presented. In addition to Civic voluntarism model and General incentives theory used by Paul Whiteley and Patrick Seyd to explain partisan activity, the broader theories explaining changes of political culture and transformation of party models are discussed. Moreover, the theoretical arguments for the exceptionalism of post-communist societies are presented. In the second part of the article, the analysis of the qualitative data is presented. The exploration of public attitudes reveals that partisan activity can be perceived in several different ways: as a specific occupation, as a civic self-expression, as belonging to power elite, as a privilege, as dependence, and as partiality. Summing up, the analysis of Lithuanian case suggests that low party membership in post-communist countries might be explained by low demand rather than low supply. In other words, we should look for the explanation of low enrolment in the process of recruitment of party members rather than in the attitudes of people. The research do not provide any evidence for a popular theory of “communist legacy” claiming that a “bad” image of parties inherited from communist regime accounts for the low party membership in post-communist societies. On the contrary, the data demonstrate rather positive attitudes towards partisan activity among Lithuanian population. |
