Focus on Germany London Office The Chandlery Office 609 50 Westminster Bridge Road GB London SE1 7QY Tel 00 44 20 77 21 87 45 Fax 00 44 20 77 21 87 46 feslondon@dial.pipex.com www.fes.de/london March 2006 Report and Recommendations of the SPD’s Working Group on the Future of the Party as a Member Organisation Democratic parties that are widely anchored in society and local communities are the bedrock of parliamentary democracies. However, in all Western societies these parties suffer from dwindling membership numbers and a decline in po­litical engagement. What can parties do to stop this process and to rekindle ap­preciation of political engagement in the society, particularly at local level? The German SPD has in 2004 created a working group on this issue. The find­ings and proposals of this group could be of interest also to other Western de­mocracies and their parties struggling with falling membership and political en­gagement. Introduction Low new member figures for political par­ties in Germany are evidence that party­political commitment is retrogressive, al­though there are tangible signs of im­provement. From a poll of new members in 2004 we know that activists in other clubs and associations are more keenly inter­ested in working within the SPD than peo­ple who are not involved in inter-community activities. It makes good sense to harness this interest and to increase our efforts in this direction. Disaffection with politics and political par­ties is a much-discussed topic in the public domain. Journalists love to report on mis­demeanours by politicians, negative poll data, waves of party membership resigna­tions and so on and such news is always bound to attract interest in the media. The other side of the coin is that the hon­orary commitment and work by many thou­sands of men and women in local politics, in the democratic parties and in clubs and associations, barely gets a mention. A vig­orous and democratic sense of community would be impossible to imagine without the work of these men and women. In the past two years we have lost a great many- too many- members. The reasons for this are well known, and the number of new members has not replaced the old ones. Nevertheless, we should at least acknowledge the fact that also in the diffi-