The activist-voter trade-off is endogenous and self-reinforcing, not fixed

Evidence

Thus, while existing analyses have often assumed that the trade-off between appealing to party activists and to voters24 is constant and exogenous, it was largely of the parties’ own making in the postcommunist context. It was also self-reinforcing – for example, a party with active and orthodox members, by making appeals that satisfied these members, would alienate the broader electorate. This would make the party ever more dependent on its membership and thus bound to orthodox stances. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 695

Categorization

• XREF: Central to the reader’s question: publics that never got economic reform skeptical of parties’ core beliefs, while professed egalitarian-secular commitments diverged from actual voter bias. — connects to: Election-centered organizing builds demobilization into successful activism — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 617; Low voter turnout may indicate absence of distrust rather than failure of support; Disengagement from elections benefits the right, not the left — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1780

Broader Connections

• Election-centered organizing builds demobilization into successful activism #expands (0.85) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 617
• Low voter turnout may indicate absence of distrust rather than failure of support #qualifies (0.75)