Partisan dealignment in Western Europe has gone hand in hand with the decline of electoral participation and active

membership in political parties. Yet political participation and activism are not necessarily a thing of the past, and scholars

have for instance observed these characteristics in several contemporary populist radical right parties (PRRPs). Drawing on

the analysis of 124 interviews with party representatives from four European PRRPs (the League, the Finns Party, Flemish

Interest and the Swiss People’s Party), we ask what motivates PRRP elites to foster the creation of tight communities of

activists. Three reasons appear to stand out: campaigning prowess (to gain public support); legitimising the party; and

organisational survival. The final section offers reflections on the wider implications of our study and suggests avenues for

future research, questioning the assumption that parties are necessarily and uniformly shifting away from activism and

societal rootedness.