political parties

what is a political party?

“a political party is a body of men [sic] united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed” (Edmund Burke, 1770)

a “political party is a team of men who seek office solely in order to enjoy the income, prestige, and power that go with running the governing apparatus” (Downs, 1957: 137)

what do political parties do?

  • mobilisation of the masses

  • create links between rulers and the ruled

  • structure political world (interest aggregation)

  • provide recruitment & socialisation of political elites

  • “organise” democracy

are parties bad for democracy?

until the early 20th century, parties were generally seen as bad for democracy

  • parties try to promote only one “part” of a “general will”

  • they advance the private interests of parties’ supporters rather than the common public interest

  • parties prevent politicians from representing their constituents’ interests or making up their own minds

  • parties lead to polarisation and political instability

  • parties facilitate clientelist exchange

more recently (since the 1970s)

  • parties from ‘cartels’ to capture the state and protect their interests against society

  • e.g. state funding of parties, colluding to break electoral promises etc

are parties good for democracy?

  • selecting candidates

    • recruitment, training, and helping qualified and credible political leaders stand for election

  • aggregating preferences

    • parties aggregate citizen preferences to create policy choice and competition

  • providing information

    • party labels provide information shortcuts that help voters to meaningfully participate in elections

  • mobilising citizens

    • enhance participation, sense of ownership, and legitimacy

  • elite coordination

    • parties provide organisational mechanisms (e.g. voting rules and party branding) to make elite bargains credible

    • parties constrain their leaders

(why) are political parties important for democracy?

are parties good for democracy?

programmatic vs. non-programmatic parties

programmatic parties are those that cohesively take positions on salient issues in such a way that a party can easily be distinguished from another on positional issues (Kitschelt and Freeze 2010)

elite coordination and party-switching

  • “candidates want […] guaranteed adoption as a party candidate and financial support during a campaign. (Arriola et al. 2021)

  • “candidates with greater financial resources are the most likely to be recruited by parties as well as the most likely to defect them.” (Arriola et al. 2021)

→ the choices of political elites can induce greater electoral volatility and thereby potentially impede party system institutionalism (Smyth 2006; Tavits 2008)

the consequences of party-switching in Nigeria

  • switchers perform worse than non-switchers

→ “challenges the effects of patronage politics on voting behaviour in Africa and calls for a reassessment of the discourse on voters’ agency on the continent”

how do we measure party political positions?

the cleavage model

  • Lipset and Rokkan, 1967

  • parties are formed and sustained by social “cleavages”

  • parties are mass-based organisations

  • parties appeal to and represent particular social groups

→ parties are primarily policy-seeking (to promote the interests of their supporters) and will not compromise policy promises to win/remain in office

some predictions

1 cleavage (e.g. class) - 2 parties (e.g. UK, USA, Japan)

2 cleavages, no cross-cutting (e.g. class and religion) - 3 parties (e.g. Netherlands)

  • working class: Labour (PvdA)

  • secular middle class: Liberals (VVD)

  • religious (WC and MC): Christian Democrats (CDA)

3 cleavages, some cross-cutting (class/religion/language) - 6 parties (e.g. Belgium)

  • working class and flemish: flemish socialists (SPA)

  • working class and walloon: walloon socialists (PS)

  • middle class and flemish: flemish liberals (CD&V)

  • middle class and walloon: walloon liberals (CDH)

  • religious and flemish: flemish christian democrats (VLD)

  • religious and walloon: walloon christian democrats (MR)

the strategic actor model

  • Downs 1957

  • parties are formed by like-minded politicians (e.g., from existing parties)

  • parties are elite organisations (who would rather not have members)

  • parties appeal to “pivotal voters” (voters who will help win elections)

  • parties are primarily office-seeking (to promote the interests of their leaders) and will compromise policy promises to win/remain in office

the downsian model

some assumptions

  • credibility of party positional change → party positions are “sticky”. voters may not find a party commitment to new position credible

  • no competition from third parties → if a party moves to the centre, it might be “outflanked” by other parties entering and competing for its voters

  • single policy dimension → if there is more than one dimension of political competition, then converging on the median is not a stable equilibrium

  • perfect turnout → what if people abstain if a party moves too far away from their ideal position? may be easier to win votes by “mobilising the base” than persuading voters to switch parties

violations of any of these assumptions may lead to imperfect/non-convergence of parties’ position upon the median voter

European party families: then

family

  • radical left

  • social democrats

  • liberals

  • christian democrats

  • conservatives

  • agrarians

  • regionalists (left or right)

social group

  • low-skilled WC, students

  • skilled WC, public sector MC

  • private sector MC, small businessmen

  • religious WC & MC

  • big business, landed interests (farmers)

  • landed interests, farmers, rural regions

  • ethno-linguistic WC & MC

European party families: now

family

  • radical left

  • greens

  • social democrats

  • liberals

  • christian democrats

  • conservatives

  • radical right

  • agrarians

  • regionalists (left or right)

  • anti-europeans (left or right)

social group

  • low-skilled WC, students

  • public sector MC, students

  • skilled WC, public sector MC

  • private sector MC, small businessmen

  • religious WC & MC

  • big business, landed interests (farmers)

  • small self-employed, skilled and unskilled WC

  • landed interests, farmers, rural regions

  • ethco-linguistic WC & MC

  • low skilled WC, small businessmen etc

why parties might (not) converge

  • social cleavages

    • strong group or party identification among (shrinking number of) voters who will not vote for ‘closest’ party but on group affiliation (not all parties are purely office seeking)

  • threat of competition from other parties

    • if a party moves to the centre, it might be ‘outflanked’ by other parties entering and competing for its voters (this depends on the electoral system); niches appear and get filled

  • multi dimensions

    • if there is more than one dimension of political competition, then converging on the median on dimension 1 is not a stable equilibrium

  • it depends how party leaders and policy positions are chosen

    • if party members choose leaders (e.g. in primaries), parties will be closer to the median party member than the median overall voter

    • within parties (e.g. elected MPs)

    • via ‘primaries’ (e.g. party members, registered voters)

    • example: UK (Corbyn vs Burnham), US (Trump vs. establishment; Sanders vs. Biden)

  • electoral system

    • convergence makes less sense in PR systems

  • type of parties

    • mainstream parties are more likely to be office seekers and compromise on their policy position, whilst niche parties are more likely to be policy seekers and thus less likely to converge upon the median voter’s position

mainstream parties

  • are mainly vote- office-seeking

  • provide solutions for many issues

  • are leadership-based (→ strategically flexible)

  • try to appeal to many groups

  • willing to enter coalitions and to adapt centrist platforms to gain office

niche parties

  • are policy-seeking

  • focus on one or two core issues

  • are activist-based / grass-roots (→ uncompromising on core issues)

  • have narrow supporter base

  • often not willing to cooperate with other parties if any compromise has to be made

  • might polarise single issue

→ don’t respond to the same incentive

→ perform best under PR elections (e.g. if mainstream party has opened a niche or if the niche is large enough

what explains the number of political parties?

party systems

party systems can be characterised by several factors:

  • fragmentation → number of (competitive) parties in the system

  • volatility → age of parties in the system

  • cleavages → number of dimensions on which parties are positioned and compete

  • party type → mainstream vs. niche parties?

summary

  • political parties are central to the successful operation of representative democracy

  • changing nature of party cleavages → originally parties emerged out of traditional cleavages, today parties emerge from post-material cleavages and from strategic splits from existing parties → cleavage model vs. strategic-actor model (both can be at play at the same time)

  • convergence vs. polarisation → convergence on economic dimension could take place at the same time, and contribute to polarisation on the socio-cultural dimensions

  • composition of the party system → the number of parties that we see in a party system will depend on the number of cleavages combined with other institutional factors, e.g. electoral systems (threshold)

  • comparative methods: measuring party positions

    • party manifestos

    • expert surveys

    • roll-calls