Assessing Elite-Level Relations Between Citizen Groups and Political Parties: Integration or Separation?

It is generally accepted that the erosion of class identity has decreased the statutory links and elite-level contacts between the old class parties and interest groups organized along the class cleavage. This is most notably the case for traditional left parties and trade unions. One understudied corollary of this assertion is that the relationship between the old class parties and the citizen groups born out of the new social movements has grown stronger. Existing studies show that inter-organizational links and personal overlap/transfer between citizen groups and political parties exist. It remains unclear, however, whether citizen groups’ organizational consolidation has enabled them to increase such elite-level contact. Few studies take citizen groups as their starting point and ask why certain groups have closer relationships to political parties than others. We hence focus on a sample of citizen groups which have been politically active in Switzerland between 2008 and 2011. We study the evolution of inter-organizational links (joint committees, invitations to party assemblies, etc.) and personal transfer/overlap since the 1970s and compare it to the evolution of other organizational characteristics (membership, budget, etc.), relying on archival data from political parties and citizen groups, as well as interviews with current and former group leaders. In this manner we seek to assess whether the rise of citizen groups, in organizational terms, has led to an increased integration of political parties and citizen groups.