This book investigates changing relations between parties and their members in four major British and German political parties. By calling attention to the varied benefits members can provide for parties even in a mass-media age, this account helps to explain why some party leaders have been willing to back recent expansions of intra-party democracy.

It tells an important and interesting story of the changing balance between party organizations and their members in a comparative context. That alone makes this book a very useful contribution to recent research on party members and the complex calculations surrounding their roles as both assets and liabilities.

`It tells an important and interesting story of the changing balance between party organizations and their members in a comparative context. That alone makes this book a very useful contribution to recent research on party members and the complex calculations surrounding their roles as both assets and liabilities.' EPOP Newsletter `This is a persuasively argued, conceptually sophisticated and interesting book ... it is also surprisingly digestible.' Parliamentary Affairs `Scarrow's rigid structure is necessary for the sake of convincing political scientists, and political scientists, as Scarrow - barely concealing a smile - suggests, increasingly play an important part in the thinking of party leaders. But this does not stop the book appealing at a wider level ... The material also escapes its argumentative confines by dint of the glory of its detail, and descriptions of the idiosyncracies of envelope-licking and fund-raising, derived from Scarrow's personal research, are not only helpful but delightful. The book also makes contributions at a far wider and more popular level than Scarrow intends.' Contemporary British History `This is a persuasively argued, conceptually sophisticated and interesting book. Despite the theoretical apparatus which seems to be obligatory in comparative politics, it is also surprisingly digestible.' David Denver, German Politics, Vol. 6, No. 1, April '97 `Scarrow's work represents a valuable addition to this 'new wave' of party membership research ... Scarrow's analytical framework is relevant, and the study sticks closely to it. The perspective is electural and rationalistic ... Scarrow's book constitutes a very valuable contribution. It offers new insights into the inner lives of four major European parties, makes an important addition to our knowledge of party organizations and it shows that many assumptions about developments in political parties should not be taken at face value.' Anders Widfeldt, Journal of Party Politics, vol.3 no.4

Susan E. Scarrow teaches political science at the University of Houston. She has been a visiting scholar at Nuffield College, Oxford, at Mannheim University, and at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University.