RECRUITED BY REFERENDUM: PARTY MEMBERSHIP ENERGISED

"Party membership in the UK and across the Western world has been in precipitous decline. Yet, since the referendum on Scottish independence in September 2014, the pro-independence parties - the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Green Party - have experienced a huge surge in membership. The scale and pace of this is exceptional. Before the referendum, the Scottish National Party (SNP) reported a membership of approximately 26,000; now the party has over 100,000 members which, at close to 2.5% of the Scottish electorate, makes it the kind of mass party that the UK has not seen for decades. The Scottish Greens have experienced a similar dramatic increase in membership, with numbers rising from 1,500 before the September vote to more than 9,000 by March 2015. In a matter of a few short months, the SNP and Greens have become parties made up predominantly new recruits. And this at a time when, at home and abroad, political engagement through parties appeared to be in irreversible decline.

Our aim in this project is to examine the causes and consequences of this surge in party membership. We will explore how both the nature of the referendum campaign and its eventual outcome combined to generate such an unforeseen development. Our research questions derive mainly from academic theories of political participation and activism and will lead us to explore the political background, identities and motivations of the party members. Why did so many apparently turn from a grassroots and often unorthodox campaign to a more conventional form of participation? Are they reshaping the experience of party membership or is it reshaping them? And what impact has the sudden influx had on the parties themselves? Through a combination of mass surveys of party members and in-depth interviews with leading figures in the parties and campaign groups, we will address these and many other questions. Surveys of members of the SNP and Scottish Greens, timed to take place just over a year from the surge in membership, will allow us to explore members' involvement in and perceptions of the independence referendum, and to explore their experiences as party members, including the ways in which members participate, and how the experience of membership has confirmed or confounded expectations. Crucially, the study will involve comparison of the new recruits with established members, allowing us to determine whether the parties have attracted a new and different generation of political activists. Interviews with party and campaigning elites will focus on the consequences of these events for party organisations and on the relationship between the national movement for change - which is more like an informal social movement - and formal party membership.

The Scottish Referendum and its aftermath have attracted widespread attention, within but also well beyond academia. We are keen to engage with as wide an audience as possible and to contribute to party and public debates on political participation and constitutional change. The parties themselves will be central to this research from the outset, via detailed consultation on the topics of the survey and then discussion and response to its findings. And the use of an online survey method will enable rapid preparation and communication of results. These will be made available to the parties, academic researchers, media observers and other interested parties via a series of briefing papers, discussion workshops, blog posts, and presentations at party meetings and academic conferences. The research team has an established record of publication with leading journals and university presses, and the climax of the project will be a co-authored book."