Member-heavy parties get locked into orthodox stances that alienate the broader electorate

Evidence

As a result, centralization also determined the potential trade-off between appealing to party supporters and the rest of the electorate. If the two groups differed considerably, reaching out to a broader electorate would mean losing the party’s core supporters. The parties’ organizational criteria regarding membership institutionalized this trade-off. The more the party relied on members for political mobilization and support, the more it had to address their concerns and give them incentives for continued support. Where the parties first retained or allowed conservative communist members, and then tailored party programs to suit their demands, the gap between party supporters and rest of the voters grew, as did the alienation of the broader electorate. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 687

Categorization

• XREF: A self-reinforcing trap parallel to the reader’s interest in threat-hardened convictions resisting correction — organizational dependence on orthodox members institutionalizes divergence between professed and electorate-facing positions. — connects to: Ideological politics destroys the very constituency the ideology claims to serve — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1070; Radical minority opinion can become mainstream party doctrine over time — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 520; An intransigent faction functions as party conscience rather than genuine alternative leadership. (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Ideological politics destroys the very constituency the ideology claims to serve #complicates (0.82) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1070
• Radical minority opinion can become mainstream party doctrine over time #contradicts (0.80) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 520
• An intransigent faction functions as party conscience rather than genuine alternative leadership. #exemplifies (0.78)