What is the impact of declining party membership size on party organiz
ations? Since existing theory is constructed with the expansion of par
ty membership in mind, one might infer that the relationships observed
during periods of growth can simply be reversed in periods of decline
; i.e. declining party membership size will lead to declining complexi
ty and decentralization of power. However, there is no a priori reason
for us to expect this relationship to be true. The paper present a dy
namic theory that explains why complexity and centralization of power
remain unchanged despite declining membership. Using time-series data
from the Party Change Project and the Party Organizations Project, the
author provides systematic tests of the impact of declining party mem
bership size. The empirical findings suggest that the impacts of decli
ning party membership size may affect complexity and centralization of
power for some but not all parties.