Mobilization vs. Organization: patterns of grassroot participation in Corbyn's Labour Party (2015-2020)

This paper aims at proposing a general assesment of the patterns of grassroot participation in support of the cause of the Labour left under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Distinguishing between mobiling and organizing approeaches (Han, 2010), I will argue that, in this specific case, the former has both attracted more investment by the leadership and has produced better pay offs. I will further my argument by analysing two key domains of participation populated by left-leaning activists and supporters: Momentum as an intra-party organization of the left and local sections of the Labour Party as sites for involvement and contestation. The first thing that must be noted is that the participation of the base has been the most relevant resource wielded by the corbynists. Lacking any form of entrenched power within both the party and the media, the utterly marginal faction of New Left veterans obtained the leadership in 2015 thanks to an extraordinary mobilazion fuelled by the supporters of the anti-austerity movements and the unions. From then on, the leadership has repeatedly survived threats from both within and without wielding the capacity to mobilize a very reactive base. This approach has been internalized by Momentum, the intra-party organization officially tasked with protecting the leadership and furthering the project of the left within the party. Momentum has followed a digital-based mobilizing approach both in action and organization building, promoting digital tools facilitating connective action in electoral campaigns and developing a light, stratarchised structure along the “distributed centralization” model of digital parties. The whole participatory infrastructure of the organization revolves around the resonant features of digital tools tasked with amplyifing participation at critical junctures, without however allowing a significant structuration of local groups and intermediary structures. This organizational model is a consequence of the need to mobilize large portions of the base in specific moments but with few resources and preventing risks of take-over by hostile groups. As for participation in local sections of the party, we observe a pattern of repeated activation and deactivation of the left, often with discontinuities in personnel. The rythm of these patterns has been set by highly emotional events at the national level, such as threats to the leadership from within the party and general elections. Often left-wing activists have exploited these exogenous waves of participation to get control of local party structures, but have since struggled to keep their base sufficiently active. At the local level the most significant cause of these patterns is once again Momentum’s organized neglect of local organizing which results in a lack of redistribution of resources and of the structuration of official positions: therefore the left could only count on high levels of participation when enthusiasm and stakes have been high, given the lack of incentives to participation other than purposive ones; alongside with this aspects there are two other elements explaining the predominance of mobilizing: the aversion of “movementist” members against party rotines and bureucracy and the “trench warfare” launched by right wing activists at the local level.