Between Movements and Parties: Measuring Movementism in Western Democracies

Bio

Samuele Lucidi is a PhD Fellow at LUISS Guido Carli in Rome. In 2022, he earned a BA in Political Science from Sapienza University of Rome. In 2024, he obtained an MA from the University of Florence and a second-level joint Master's degree at Scuola Normale Superiore and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna. His research interests lie at the intersection of political party studies and social movement studies.

Abstract

In recent decades, the boundaries between institutional and contentious politics have become increasingly blurred, as political parties adopt organizational practices, cultural repertoires, and forms of collective action traditionally associated with social movements. Early research on this phenomenon focused primarily on a limited number of movement-parties, initially identified on the left but subsequently observed across the right and, more recently, at the centre of the political spectrum. More recent scholarship has also highlighted how traditional parties increasingly incorporate movement-like practices into their political strategies. These developments suggest that movementism should not be understood solely as a distinctive party type, but rather as a broader strategic orientation that can emerge across different parties. Yet, the extent to which movementism has diffused across party systems, and the forms it takes, remain underexplored. This project addresses this gap by conceptualizing movementism as a modular strategic orientation that parties can adopt to varying degrees and by introducing the Party Movementism Index (PMI), a continuous, multidimensional measure encompassing organization, culture, and action. The index is applied to 131 parties across 23 European countries. Drawing on party statutes, ACLED protest-event data, CHES, V-Dem, and Eurobarometer, the project investigates (RQ1) the diffusion of movementism and the configurations of its three dimensions across parties and party families, and (RQ2) the party-level and contextual factors associated with each dimension. By shifting the analytical focus from movement-parties as a distinct category to movementism as a potentially widespread party strategy, the project aims to advance comparative research on party transformation, the relationship between parties and civil society, and the hybridization of institutional and contentious politics.