Exploring Party Cohesion among the ‘Party on the Ground’: The Impact of Local Party Activists’ Social Network Embeddedness on their Levels of Satisfaction and Perceptions of Conflict

The massive and extensive nature of the “party on the ground” implies that it does not constitute a homogeneous entity. Parties integrate members who do not especially share the same attitudinal features and especially do not display the same level of satisfaction regarding how their party functionsor orientates ideological lines. As the literature on intra-party cohesion has less explored the cohesive nature of this organizational face, this paper investigates how party membershipsocial cohesion might translate into partycohesion at the local level. Framedin a Social Network Analysis(SNA)framework, we askwhether the embeddedness of a party member in the social network of the localbranch (s)he belongs to (indicator = network centrality [IV]) conditions his/her satisfactory attitudes toward the partyand his/her perceptionof conflict within the party[DV].Using individual data (N=117)collected via a party membershipsurvey led in2016 in7 Brussels’ local branches(Belgium), the empirical resultsshowthat network centrality affects differently three forms of satisfaction(organizational, social and ideological),whereasperceptions of conflict are not significantly influenced by party members’ positions in the social network structure. We observed also contrasts between parties and according to members’ profiles.More globally, the paper intends to illustratethe potential usefulness of SNA to refine the analysis of unity and cohesion within parties.