Abstrakt
In this paper we study how new anti-established parties, falling into the category of the "business-firm" parties, approach party membership. We analyze what types of membership two new Czech parties, VV and ANO, practise and how does their party membership approach develop over time and how does it influence their internal functioning.
The political science theory in the area of party membership, that we rely on, points out to the changing trends in party membership towards more alternative types of members and different roles that party members nowadays fulfil in the parties.Our data are consistent with the contemporary theory of Susan Scarrow and supports the argument that nowadays parties turn to alternative membership types, such as registered sympathisers and/or an online supporters. This strategy is, in our perspective, supported by two facts.
Firstly, online supporters and registered sympathisers still add up to the legitimacy of parties and their public image, while secondly, such alternative members do not represent an organizational risk in terms of the party stability, as they have no decision-making rights, nor any impact on the internal function of parties.