Hollowed parties replaced member pressure with polling and consultancy.

Evidence

The result of this hollowing out of European party politics was aptly described by the Irish political scientist Peter Mair as “ruling the void.” Since parties were no longer attuned to the desires and demands of their constituents, other channels had to be tapped, most often PR consultants who relied on focus groups, opinion polls, and open primaries. New Labour under Tony Blair proved particularly adept at the strategy. Consultants, of course, cost money—but the new model was organizationally less demanding than the older system of mass membership. Instead of mobilizing thousands of supporters and party members at meetings and congresses where they could exert pressure on politicians, it was easier to treat the electorate like a black box from which one hopes to extract insight after a plane crash. — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 130

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s social capital library — Mair’s ‘ruling the void’ complements Coleman and Granovetter on how institutions transmit civic capacity. — connects to: Neoliberal parties replaced mass-member pressure with marketing to atomized voters — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 144