Activist Model of Political Party Growth
Rebecca A. Jeffs, John Hayward, Paul A. Roach, John Wyburn

TL;DR
This paper models the growth and decline of British political party memberships using epidemiological mathematics, highlighting the roles of activists and recruitment limits in shaping membership dynamics.
Contribution
It introduces the Limited Activist model, applying epidemiological concepts to political party membership, and demonstrates its effectiveness with historical data.
Findings
Parties experience cyclical membership growth and decline.
Activist recruitment is limited to a finite period, constraining growth.
Parties are not at risk of extinction but face fluctuating memberships.
Abstract
The membership of British political parties has a direct influence on their political effectiveness. This paper applies the mathematics of epidemiology to the analysis of the growth and decline of such memberships. The party members are divided into activists and inactive members, where all activists influence the quality of party recruitment, but only a subset of activists recruit and thus govern numerical growth. The activists recruit for only a limited period, which acts as a restriction on further party growth. This Limited Activist model is applied to post-war and recent memberships of the Labour, Scottish National and Conservative parties. The model reproduces data trends, and relates realistically to historical narratives. It is concluded that the political parties analysed are not in danger of extinction but experience repeated periods of growth and decline in membership, albeit…
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