A few quick, random, ill-thought through and possibly contradictory thoughts on this:
On a purely anecdotal level, quite a few friends who have rejoined Labour have done so having left the party for all the reasons membership organisations often lose people - sense of alienation, powerlessness, not really wanted, disenchantment with performance - all of which remained in place and as 'true' on May 11th as they were in the years leading up to May 6th. Yet they still rejoined.
It reminded more than anything of a wake - a need of people feeling a particular emotion to be with each other to celebrate their in-commonness. Essentially, all these people were so horrified by the thought of the new Government that they wanted to do something proactive, (and I can't prove it, but wonder if there's something penitential and redemptive too in the rejoining).
What this seems to demonstrate is that values-based organisations ultimately must remember that they are values-based. It's a source of frustration for officers as the meaning of those values and the way they translate into action are subject to much more contestation than in more service-based membership organisations, but ultimately it's a source of huge strength too. Despite it all, these disaffected and disenchanteds came back. It's somewhat reminiscent of couples perennially separating then re-uniting.
Another factor is how people's sense of their own identity is reflected in an organisation. These returnees see themselves as of the left (as much as on the left) and in office, the dissonance between that sense and Labour's record seemed too great; were Labour now of the right? But the moment the party lost office, the dissonance collapsed as a new right came into position and so redefined Labour as not-right (as they've had no time to do anything that might reposition themselves, the repositioning must be an affect of another factor) which could well be a left.
In that way, it's also a nailed-on example of the truism that oppositionalism is easier to organise that support for incumbents; on the day they left office, the dissonance between one's values and Labour's performance in office collapsed. Whether its performance in opposition re-opens that is a moot point and an interesting one to follow.
It does suggest that the idea of a mass party which also holds power is almost impossible to achieve. Values-based organisations can constantly be accused of betrayal, because the mode of campaigning to achieve victory gives freer rein to the kind of passion which is less suited to the nature of holding office. An interesting case study then would be a campaigning group who maintained a membership even though in many respects, they had achieve victory.
I've been doing some work on making local newspapers membership organisations, on the basis that the cause of their problems is a double whammy caused by the downturn of their chief subsidy (local small and job ads) in the face of the interwebs at a time when many are labouring under a business model which needs them to generate excessive returns to the conglomerates who have leveraged themselves to the max in order to fund their purchase. This is hollowing out quality (offices close, reporters sacked, more churnalism), which in turns hits sales and bon's your ever decreasing circular uncle.
It's not unlike pubs where a lifestyle challenge (home drinking) is exacerbated by conglomeration (pubco leveraging) and concommitant quality dip (untrained landlords, high turnovers, scraping the literal and metaphorical bottom of the barrel). There's been several pubs opened using co-operative structures, most rceently three weeks' ago in Salford at The Star.
Dave
A few quick, random, ill-thought through and possibly contradictory thoughts on this:
On a purely anecdotal level, quite a few friends who have rejoined Labour have done so having left the party for all the reasons membership organisations often lose people - sense of alienation, powerlessness, not really wanted, disenchantment with performance - all of which remained in place and as 'true' on May 11th as they were in the years leading up to May 6th. Yet they still rejoined.
It reminded more than anything of a wake - a need of people feeling a particular emotion to be with each other to celebrate their in-commonness. Essentially, all these people were so horrified by the thought of the new Government that they wanted to do something proactive, (and I can't prove it, but wonder if there's something penitential and redemptive too in the rejoining).
What this seems to demonstrate is that values-based organisations ultimately must remember that they are values-based. It's a source of frustration for officers as the meaning of those values and the way they translate into action are subject to much more contestation than in more service-based membership organisations, but ultimately it's a source of huge strength too. Despite it all, these disaffected and disenchanteds came back. It's somewhat reminiscent of couples perennially separating then re-uniting.
Another factor is how people's sense of their own identity is reflected in an organisation. These returnees see themselves as of the left (as much as on the left) and in office, the dissonance between that sense and Labour's record seemed too great; were Labour now of the right? But the moment the party lost office, the dissonance collapsed as a new right came into position and so redefined Labour as not-right (as they've had no time to do anything that might reposition themselves, the repositioning must be an affect of another factor) which could well be a left.
In that way, it's also a nailed-on example of the truism that oppositionalism is easier to organise that support for incumbents; on the day they left office, the dissonance between one's values and Labour's performance in office collapsed. Whether its performance in opposition re-opens that is a moot point and an interesting one to follow.
It does suggest that the idea of a mass party which also holds power is almost impossible to achieve. Values-based organisations can constantly be accused of betrayal, because the mode of campaigning to achieve victory gives freer rein to the kind of passion which is less suited to the nature of holding office. An interesting case study then would be a campaigning group who maintained a membership even though in many respects, they had achieve victory.
Dave
I've been doing some work on making local newspapers membership organisations, on the basis that the cause of their problems is a double whammy caused by the downturn of their chief subsidy (local small and job ads) in the face of the interwebs at a time when many are labouring under a business model which needs them to generate excessive returns to the conglomerates who have leveraged themselves to the max in order to fund their purchase. This is hollowing out quality (offices close, reporters sacked, more churnalism), which in turns hits sales and bon's your ever decreasing circular uncle.
It's not unlike pubs where a lifestyle challenge (home drinking) is exacerbated by conglomeration (pubco leveraging) and concommitant quality dip (untrained landlords, high turnovers, scraping the literal and metaphorical bottom of the barrel). There's been several pubs opened using co-operative structures, most rceently three weeks' ago in Salford at The Star.