The DUP achieved electoral discipline through hierarchical control and leader deference.
Evidence
For most of its history, the DUP has been a hierarchical and disciplined party organization which displayed a considerable degree of deference towards party elites (Mitchell, 1991). Such discipline ensured that ‘the party never contradicts but only echoes the utterances of its leader’ (Smyth, 1981, p. 4). Dissent from party policy has been rare (Tonge, 2005) and to ensure that any potential internal party wrangling did not ‘spill over’ into the public domain, ‘contracts’ were issued to the DUP party candidates for the 2007 Assembly elections (BBC, 2007a). These ‘contracts’, which originally included letters of resignation and fines of up to £20,000 for any deviation from party policy, became the focus of much media attention in the build up to the election. — Cathy Gormley-Heenan and Roger Macginty, Ethnic Outbidding and Party…, 83
Categorization
- SHARE: The £20,000 fines and resignation-letter ‘contracts’ for Assembly candidates is a striking party-discipline detail worth sending to anyone into comparative party organization.
- XREF: Contrasts neatly with the reader’s threatened-privilege frame: DUP discipline is internal to the party rather than genuinely mobilized grassroots — relevant when comparing electoral machines across regime types. — connects to: The DUP disciplined internal message unity for effective outbidding campaigns. — Cathy Gormley-Heenan and Roger Macginty, Ethnic Outbidding and Party…, 94
Related
Broader Connections
- The DUP disciplined internal message unity for effective outbidding campaigns.
#expands(0.90) — Cathy Gormley-Heenan and Roger Macginty, Ethnic Outbidding and Party…, 94