PROJECT’S BOOK

Footsoldiers: Political Party Membership in the 21st Century
Tim Bale, Paul Webb and Monica Poletti (Routledge, 2019)

Pamphlet with main project findings distributed to all MPs (pdf)
By Tim Bale, Paul Webb and Monica Poletti
Grassroots – Britain’s party members: who they are, what they think and what they do

PUBLISHED ARTICLES

Bale, Tim, Poletti Monica, Webb Paul (2019). Not exactly a mirror image: British parties’ members and voters compared. In: Do Parties Still Represent? (Eds. Heidar, K. and Wauters, B.). Routledge

de Vet Benjamin, Poletti Monica, Wauters Bram (2019). The party (un)faithful: explaining party members’ defecting voting behaviour in different contexts (Belgium and Britain). Party Politics

Webb, Paul, Bale, Tim and Poletti, Monica (2019). ‘Social networkers and careerists: explaining high-intensity activism among British party members’, International Political Science Review

Whiteley, Paul, Poletti Monica, Webb Paul, Bale Tim (2018) ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn! Why did Labour Party Membership Soar after the 2015 General Election?’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations

Bale, Tim, Webb, Paul and Poletti, Monica (2018) ‘Participating Locally and Nationally: Explaining the Offline and Online Activism of British Party Members‘, Political Studies, pp.1-18.

Poletti, Monica, Webb, Paul and Bale, Tim (2018) ‘Why do only some people who support parties actually end up joining them? Evidence from Britain’, West European Politics, 42 (1), pp. 156-172.

Bale, Tim and Webb, Paul (2018) ‘”We Didn’t See it Coming”: The Conservatives’  Parliamentary Affairs, 71 (s.1) pp. 46–58.

Bale, Tim, Poletti, Monica, and Webb, Paul (2017) ‘The same but different: Lib Dem members in 1999 and 2015’, Journal of Liberal History, 96 (Autumn), pp. 38-46.

Webb, P., Poletti, M. & Bale, T. (2017) So who really does the donkey work in ‘multi-speed membership parties’? Comparing the election campaign activity of party members and party supporters, Electoral Studies, 46, 64-74 doi: 10.1016/j.electstud.2017.02.002

Webb, P., Bale, T. and Poletti, M. (2017) ‘All mouth and no trousers?’ How many Conservative party members voted for UKIP in 2015 – and why did they do so? Politics, 1-13 doi: 10.1177/0263395717697344

Bale, T., Poletti, M., & Webb, P. (2017) The same but different: Lib Dem members in 1999 and 2015, The Journal of Liberal History, 96

CONFERENCE ARTICLES

Bale, T., Webb, P. and Poletti, M. (2019). British Party Members: Mapping the Terrain; Noting the Tensions. Paper. Presentation.
Paper presented @ Political Studies Associations of Ireland (PSAI) Annual Conference, Maynooth, Ireland.

Bale, T., Poletti, M., Webb, P. (2017) The secret of leaving: who quits their party and why?  Grassroots members in the UK
Paper presented @ Elections, Public Opinion and Parties (EPOP) Conference, 8-10 September, 2017, Nottigham, UK

Bale, T., Poletti, M., Webb, P. (2017) Twice in a row?  UK party members’ campaign activity in the 2015 and 2017 general elections compared
Paper presented:
– @ Elections, Public Opinion and Parties (EPOP) Conference, 8-10 September, 2017, Nottigham, UK
-@15th Internationale Konferenz für Politische Kommunikation, 15-16 Oktober 2017, Akademie der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Berlin.

Allen, P., Poletti, M., Bale, T., Webb, P., Campbell, R., vanHeerde-Hudson, J., and Lamprinakou, C. (2017) May’s law of curvilinear disparity: the British case.
Paper presented @ Elections, Public Opinion and Parties (EPOP) Conference, 8-10 September, 2017, Nottigham, UK

Poletti, M., Bale, T., Webb, P. (2017). Why is it only some people who support parties actually end up joining them? Evidence from six British Political Parties.
Paper presented @ European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Conference, 6-9 September, 2017, Oslo, Norway

Whiteley, P., Webb, P., Poletti, M., Bale, T. (2017). Explaining Labour’s membership surge through the lens of relative deprivation theory.
Paper presented @ Political Science Association (PSA) Conference, 10-12 April 2017, Glasgow, UK

Wauters, B., Poletti, M. and de Vet, B. (2016) The party (un)faithful: explaining disloyal party members’ voting behaviour in Belgium and the United Kingdom.
Paper presented @ 5th ‘State of the Federation’ (SoF) conference, 20 December 2016, Ghent, Belgium
TBP @ European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Joint Session Workshop, 25-30 April 2017, Nottingham

Bale, T., Poletti, M. and Webb, P.  (2016). ‘Apples and Oranges?  Labour’s members before and after Corbyn’.
Paper presented @ Elections, Public Opinion and Parties (EPOP) Conference, 9-11 September 2016, Kent, UK

Webb, P., Poletti, M., Bale, T. (2016) ‘So who really does the donkey work? Comparing the election campaign activity of party members and party supporters.’
Paper presented @:
– Political Science Association (PSA) Conference, 21-23 March 2016, Brighton, UK
– Council for European Studies (CES) Conference, 14-16 April 2016, Philadelphia, US
– Politics Department Seminar, Sussex University, 27 April 2016, Sussex University, UK
– International Political Science Association (IPSA) Conference, 23-28 July 2016, Poznan, Poland
– European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Conference, 7-10 September 2016, Prague, Czech Republic
– Politics Department Seminar, Sussex University, 4 November 2016, Sussex University, UK

Bale, T., Webb, P., and Poletti, M. (2015) ‘The report of my death was an exaggeration’. Party Membership in 21stCentury Britain, 25 November 2015, Sussex University, UK

Bale, T. and Webb, P. (2015) ‘A Dying Breed? UK Party Members in 2015’. Paper presented at the Workshop on Intra-Party Politics, 17-18 September 2015, Gothenburg, Sweden

Bale, T. and Webb, P. (2015) ‘Grunts in the ground game: UK party members in the 2015 general election’
Paper presented @:
– Conference on ‘The 2015 British General Election: Parties, Politics, and the Future of the United Kingdom’, 2 September  2015, UC Berkeley, US
– Elections, Public Opinion and Parties (EPOP) Conference, 11-13 September 2015, Cardiff, UK

Other Articles

Poletti, M. (7th September 2017) Blue Grassroots: Conservative Party Members in the Aftermath of the Brexit Referendum Huffington Post

Bale, T. (2017, 10th May) Britian’s Labour Party is seeing a flood of new members. That’s why it’s in such trouble. The Monkey Cage – Washington Post

Poletti, M. (2017, 21st April)
Who will campaign in the UK 2017 snap election? Hints from party members and supporter activism during GE2015, The Policy Space blog [Republished on the LSE British Politics and Policy and on LSE Euro Crisis in the Press]

Bale, T., Webb,  P. and Poletti, M. (2017, 16th April)
The true picture of Labour members and supporters and their election campaigning Labour List

Bale, T. (2017, 8th April) Tim Bale: A Conservative secret weapon at the last election: the non members who worked for victory Conservative Home

Bale, T., Webb, P.  and Poletti, M. (2017, 2nd April)
Fighting force? What Lib Dem members and supporters did for the party in #GE2015 Liberal Demoract Newswire

Bale, T., Poletti, M.and Webb, P. (2017, 19th January), Speed data: who are Labour’s members? Prospect magazine

Poletti, M., Bale, T. and Webb, P. (2016, November 16th), Explaining the pro-Corbyn surge in Labour’s membership LSE British Politics and Policy blog
[Republished on 22nd of November by the Mile End Institute blog]

Poletti, M. (2016, September 24th), Why Labour Party members still back Jeremy Corbyn as their leader, The Conversation blog
[Republished by the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) blog and on MyScience]
Poletti, M. (2016, 26th September), From #JezWeCan to #JezWeDid: Why Labour Party members still back Jeremy Corbyn, Mile End Insitute blog [Longer version of the same blog piece]

Bale, T., Poletti, M.and Webb, P. (2016, July 19th), Here’s what we know about Labour’s £3 supporters – and whether they’ll pay £25 to help Corbyn again, The Conversation blog
[Republished by the Independent, The Staggers blog (NewStatesman) and by the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) blog]

Bale, T. (2016, June 28th), Corbyn’s Labour: Survey of post-2015 Labour members and supporters , Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) blog

Bale, T., Poletti, M.and Webb, P. (2016, July 14th) Middle-class university graduates will decide the future of the Labour party, The Staggers blog – NewStatesman

Webb, P., Poletti, M. and Bale, T. (2016, July 12th): A “bloody difficult woman”: What does the Tory grassroots want from Prime Minister Theresa May (and here), The Conversation and the Political Studies Association (PSA) blog

Bale, T. (2016, June 28th): Jezza’s Bezzas: Labour’s New Members, Huffington Post blog

Bale, T., Webb, P. and Poletti, M. (2016, March 14th) Minority views? Labour members had been longing for someone like Corbyn before he was even on the ballot paper, LSE British Politics and Policy blog

Bale, T., Poletti, M. and Webb, P. (2016, March 8th), What Cameron activists think about Cameron’s deal…and staying in the EU, The Times – Red Box (pdf)

Poletti, M. & Dennison, J. (2016, March 3rd), The Green Surge and how it changed the membership of the Party, LSE British Politics and Policy blog

Bale, T., Poletti, M. and Webb, P. (2016, February 5th), Cameron and Tebbit are both wrong: Tory activists are not as set on leaving the EU as many imagine, ESRC Party Members Project blog  [re-posted by LSE British Politics and Policy blog on February 12th]

Bale, T., Webb, P. and Poletti, M. (2016, January 8th) ‘Ideology is in the eye of the beholder: How British party supporters see themselves, their parties, and their rivals’, LSE British Politics and Policy blog