Between love and hate. Party members and the new forms of participation

The study of party membership is a traditional sub-field of literature on political parties, especially studies based on internal party organization. Among other things, party members' research focused on why people join parties and how to increase their members' opportunities for participation. The decline of party membership has contributed enormously to the growth of these studies. This paper will investigate the relationship between the party and its members by focusing on two organizational innovations introduced by the Italian Democratic Party: a) the selection of candidates through open primaries; b) the organization of spaces for discussion opened to party members and sympathizers (so-called Agorà). What opinion do the party members have of these participation tools? What factors determine the different views of the party members? Is it possible to build a typology of party members based on their attitude towards these tools? This article answers these questions by employing an original dataset from a survey administered to Italian Democratic Party members between January and February 2022 (about 4,500 respondents).