Political Parties and Party Systems

Political Parties

Concept of a Political Party

  • A political party is a group organized to win government power through elections or other means.

  • Characteristics:

    • Aims to exercise government power by winning political office.

    • Organized bodies with formal membership.

    • Broad issue focus, addressing major areas of government policy.

    • United by shared political preferences and ideological identity.

Party Politics

  • Political parties are present in most countries and political systems.

  • They can be authoritarian or democratic, seek power through elections or revolution, and espouse ideologies of the left, right, or center.

  • The development of party systems was once seen as a mark of political modernization.

  • Upsurge of democratization since the 1980s led to a renewed flourishing of parties.

  • Political parties are part of mass politics, ushered in by representative government and the extension of the franchise in the 19th century.

  • Before the 19th century, groups were more like factions around key leaders or families.

  • Modern parties first emerged in the USA (Federalist Party).

  • Conservative and liberal parties often started as legislative factions.

  • Socialist and parties representing religious, ethnic, and language groups often began as social movements.

  • By the 20th century, parties became the political manifestation of social cleavages.

Types of Parties

  • Classifications:

    • Cadre and Mass parties

    • Representative and Integrative parties

    • Constitutional and Revolutionary parties

    • Left-wing and Right-wing parties

    • Mainstream and Populist parties

Cadre and Mass Parties

  • Cadre Party:

    • Originally a 'party of notables'.

    • Dominated by an informal group of leaders.

    • Term now denotes trained, professional, and ideologically disciplined members.

    • Examples: Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Nazi Party, Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

    • Relies on a politically active elite offering ideological leadership.

    • Joining can be driven by careerism and convenience.

  • Mass Party:

    • Emphasizes broadening membership and constructing a wide electoral base.

    • Early examples: European socialist parties (German Social Democratic Party (SPD), UK Labour Party).

    • Focuses on recruitment and organization over ideology.

    • Membership entails general agreement about principles and goals.

  • Catch-All Parties:

    • Reduce ideological baggage to appeal to the largest number of voters.

    • Examples: Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Germany, Republicans and Democrats in the USA.

    • Emphasize leadership and broad coalitions of support, rather than relying on a particular social class.

Representative and Integrative Parties

  • Representative Parties:

    • Primary function is securing votes in elections.

    • Reflect, rather than shape, public opinion.

    • Adopt a catch-all strategy, prioritizing pragmatism and market research.

    • Aligned with rational choice models (Joseph Schumpeter, Anthony Downs).

  • Integrative Parties:

    • Proactive political strategies to mobilize, educate, and inspire the masses.

    • Can include ideologically disciplined cadre parties and mass parties with mobilizing tendencies.

    • Example: UK Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher, embracing 'conviction politics'.

    • Rational Choice: An approach to politics based on the assumption that individuals are rationally self-interested actors; an ‘economic’ theory of politics.

    • Abandoning the party’s traditional distaste for ideology and abstract principle, Thatcher embraced ‘conviction politics’ in pursuing a mobilizing strategy based on firm support for cutting taxes, encouraging enterprise, promoting individual responsibility, tackling trade union power, and so forth.

    • Neumann saw the typical mobilizing party as an ideologically disciplined cadre party, mass parties may also exhibit mobilizing tendencies.For example, until they became discouraged by electoral failure, socialist parties set out to ‘win over’ the electorate to a belief in the benefits of public ownership, full employment, redistribution, social welfare, and so on.

Constitutional and Revolutionary Parties

  • Constitutional Parties:

    • Acknowledge the rights of other parties and operate within a framework of rules.

    • Recognize the division between party and state.

    • Respect rules of electoral competition.

    • Mainstream parties in liberal democracies.

  • Revolutionary Parties:

    • Anti-system or anti-constitutional parties.

    • Aim to seize power and overthrow the existing structure.

    • Tactics range from insurrection to quasi-legalism.

    • May be banned as 'extremist'.

    • When in power, suppress rivals and create a fused 'party-state' apparatus.

    • In one-party systems, the 'ruling' party substitutes itself for the government.

Left- and Right-Wing Parties

  • Left-Wing Parties:

    • Progressive, socialist, and communist parties.

    • Commitment to change (social reform or economic transformation).

    • Support from the poor and disadvantaged (working classes).

  • Right-Wing Parties:

    • Conservative and fascist parties.

    • Uphold the existing social order.

    • Support from business interests and the middle classes.

  • The left/right divide is simplistic; both sides are divided, and electoral competition blurs identities.

  • Definitions change over time and differ across political systems.

  • New issues like the environment and feminism challenge conventional ideas of left and right.

The Left/Right Divide

  • The left–right political spectrum is a shorthand method of describing political ideas and beliefs, summarizing the ideological positions of politicians, parties and movements.

  • Its origins date back to the French Revolution. The terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ do not have exact meanings, however.

  • In a narrow sense, the linear political spectrum summarizes different attitudes to the economy and the role of the state: left-wing views support intervention and collectivism, right-wing views favour the market and individualism. This supposedly reflects deeper ideological or value differences,

    • An alternative, horseshoe-shaped political spectrum highlights the totalitarian and monistic tendencies of both fascism and communism, by contrast with the alleged tolerance and openness of mainstream creeds.

    • Those, like Hans Eysenck (1964), who have developed a two-dimensional political spectrum have tried to compensate for the crudeness and inconsistencies of the conventional left–right spectrum by adding a vertical authoritarian–libertarian one.

Mainstream and Populist Parties

  • Mainstream Parties:

    • Accept the constitutional status quo.

    • Operate within established rules.

    • Orientated around the acquisition and maintenance of power.

    • Tend toward the center ground of politics.

    • Convergence in economic platforms since the 1980s.

  • Populist Parties:

    • Challenge the authority of the political establishment.

    • Claim that the only legitimate authority rests with 'the people'.

    • Often dubbed anti-party parties.

    • Reject the center ground for a narrowly focused strategy.

    • Target those 'left behind' by globalization with economic grievances and social issues.

    • Politics structured by the gulf between 'open' and 'closed' ideological leanings.

  • If they achieve power, populist parties differ from mainstream ones in their desire to dismantle ‘politics as normal’.

Anti-Party Party

  • A party that sets out to subvert traditional party politics by rejecting parliamentary compromise in emphasizing popular mobilization.

Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826)

  • US political philosopher and statesman.

  • He developed a democratic form of agrarianism that sought to blend a belief in rule by a natural aristocracy with a commitment to limited government and laissez-faire, sometimes called Jeffersonianism.

  • He also demonstrated sympathy for social reform, favouring the extension of public education, the abolition of slavery and greater economic equality.

Party Organization: Where Does Power Lie?

  • The organization and structure of parties provide vital clues about the distribution of power within society as a whole.

  • Attempts to investigate internal party democracy were undertaken in Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties (1902), which argued that the representation of individual interests had lost out to the growing influence of the party machine and control exerted by a caucus of senior party figures.

The Iron Law of Oligarchy

  • Suggests that there is an inevitable tendency for political organizations, and by implication all organizations, to be oligarchic.

  • Participatory or democratic structures cannot check oligarchic tendencies; they can only disguise them.

  • Argued by Robert Michels (1876–1936).

  • Michels analysed the power structure of the German SPD; he argued that, despite the party’s formally democratic organization, power was concentrated in the hands of a small group of party leaders.

  • Elite groups result from the need for specialization. Elite members have greater expertise and better organizational skills than those possessed by ordinary members.

  • Leaders form cohesive groups because they recognize that this improves their chances of remaining in power.

  • Rank-and-file members of an organization tend to be apathetic and are, therefore, generally disposed to accept subordination and venerate leaders.