Staying connected: explaining parties’ enduring connections to civil society

The connections between political parties and civil society are central to parties’ representative performance. Several explanations exist for cross-party variations in the strength of these connections. However, nobody has compared explanatory power rival theories. This article does just that, using a novel dataset covering 149 29 elections 14 West European countries. It establishes that elites with government experience left-wing ideological orientation have strongest links society. Parties at far right least connected, particular those no governing experience. Contrary expectations, however, study shows when controlling party ideology experience, level intra-party democracy key components trajectory, such as origin strategy, not significant explaining party-society connections.Supplemental data this can be accessed online at: 10.1080/01402382.2021.1986784