Participation in political parties - An empirical analysis of the potential for mobilization of political parties and the structure of participation within parties in Germany

Why do citizens become members of political parties? And why are some party members activists and others not? These guiding questions are analyzed within the context of the general incentives model proposed by Seyd and Whiteley. The basis of the empirical analyses is a survey of the German population as well as a survey of the German party members. It is shown that soft incentives can be sufficient for the decision to become a member of a political party while hard incentives are the main predictor of the decision to become active within a party. Since soft incentives had become less widespread these findings contribute to an explanation of the declining number of party members in Germany.