Die Partei im regionalen Fokus

As political parties are losing members, the reasons for this development are of growing interest. One important reason is the growing age of many party members, which leads to increasing numbers of people leaving political parties for age-related reasons. However, another reason is that the number of members who willingly withdraw from their parties is far greater than the number of people who apply to join one.
This raises the question of why political parties are becoming increasingly unattractive. On the basis of two surveys of members of the German Social Democratic Party, it can be concluded that a party’s loss of members is partly self-inflicted. Therefore, it should be possible to limit these losses if the results of this study are taken seriously. In order to achieve such results, the study makes some recommendations for action.