Week 4: parties and party systems + Caramani ch. 12 & 13, Pellikaan et al. Flashcards
Objectives of parties:
- Gaining political power:
Power as end in itself
Pursuing own interests
Promoting national interests - Securing employment/income
Methods used by parties
- Coordinated action/organization
- Contesting elections
Definition of parties
Edmund Burke (1770): “[A] party is a body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavors the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they all agreed.”
- Emphasizes promotion of national interests and certain joint/shared idea
Joseph Schumpeter (1950): “A party is a group whose members propose to act in concert in the competitive struggle for political power.’”
- organized group of people, coordinated action.
- Not relevant why they seek power and what they’ll do with it
Main function of political parties:
- Coordination
- Coordination within government
Different branches of government: legislative, regional. Parties give them a platform to coordinate. Maintaining discipline within parties.
- Coordination within society
Translates ideas from citizens into concrete demands. Gives them a platform, identification
- Coordination between government and society
Linkage of interests on the ground/society and the actions of decision makers - Conducting electoral campaigns and structuring competition
Parties are central participants in elections
Are responsible for picking candidates and selecting issues among which voters can choose - Selection and recruitment of personnel
Candidates for elections
Candidates for appointed office - Representation
Of social groupings, citizens, and their ideological positions
Types of parties:
- Cadre or elite parties
- Mass parties
- Catch-all parties
- Cartel parties
- Anti-cartel parties
Cadre or elite parties
- 19th century
- Intra-parliamentary origin
- Small organization
- Limited membership
-Coordination within parliament
Mass parties
- Second half of 19th century, after right to vote expansion
- Extra-parliamentary origin, grounds up.
- Elaborate organization
- Large, homogeneous membership
Strategy of encapsulation: services to members, activities after work, workers insurances. Ancillary organizations. - Representation of interests of particular social groups
Catch-all parties
- 1950s and 1960s to present
- Evolved from pre-existing parties:
Mass parties were defined by social classes, but very clear classes started to fall apart. Mass parties also needed a certain group size of a class - Supporters, rather than members:
Far less members than mass parties. Depending less on membership fees, more on donations - Professionalization
- Reduced importance of ideology:
You need to be able to offer something to everybody in a party program. More specific proposals
Cartel parties
- 1970s and 1980s to present
- Evolved from pre-existing parties
- Eroding party loyalty and membership:
Funding through state subsidies, makes them (in a way) closer to the government than citizens. Very comfortable position for parties - Mainstream parties form a cartel to protect themselves from electoral risks -> subsidies. Reduce relevance of their role of representation. More hired consultants
- Further professionalization
- Governing, rather than representing
Anti-cartel parties
- 1990s to present
- Motivated by frustration with the system
- Committed membership
- Ideas, rather than coherent ideology
Two key elements with party systems
- The number of competing parties
- Their size/strength
The competitive interaction between parties depends on the shape of party systems.
Four types of party systems:
- Dominant-party systems
- Two-party systems
- Multi-party systems
- Bipolar systems
Dominant-party systems
- One large party, but allows for multiple small parties
- Party has absolute majority of votes and seats
- Single party government
- No alternation of power: Has an effect on the DD measure, which has alternation of power as a condition
- Examples: South Africa, Mexico
Two-party system
- Two large parties, sharing together around 80-90% of votes and seats
- Single party government
- Alternation of power between parties: one or the other wins
Examples: USA, Malta
Malta is an interesting case: it has PR-STV, and shouldn’t really have a two party system. Very high turnout
Multi-party systems
- Several or many parties, none approaching 50% of votes/seats
- Coalition government after elections
- Moderate multiparty systems: Direction is centripetal: main parties tend to converge in the middle
- Polarized multiparty systems: direction is centrifugal, usually one main party, with extremes on the sides.
- Alternation of power via coalition changes
Examples: the Netherlands, Denmark
Bipolar systems
- Two large (pre-electoral) coalitions: multiple parties, but big blocks / coalition agreements before elections
- Each capturing 40-50% of votes/seats
- Coalition government
- Alternation of power via change of the pre-electoral coalition, like with two-party system
Examples: France before Macron, Italy before five star movement
Dynamics of party systems: Down’s model
Based on economic theory
Assumptions
- Parties and voters are rational: maximize utility
Parties are motivated by gaining power/office. Want to get the most votes they possibly could
Voters know what they want and which party will represent their interests the best
- Preferences are one-dimensional
Implications
- Parties chase the ‘peaks’ in voter preferences
- Normal distribution -> centripetal party movement
Policies of two parties converge towards the middle when the preferences of voters show a single-peak distribution
- Bimodal distribution -> Centrifugal party movement
Policies of two parties diverge and a key policy area of contention emerges when the preference of the voters shows a double-peak distribution
Political cleavages
long-standing political divisions in society that structure political competition. More dimensions of political preferences. Not a single left/right dimension
Outline of historic political cleavages still relevant today:
- National revolution and the formation of the nation state
Cleavage between centralisation/centre and the periphery. Led to regional, ethnic, linguistic parties. Has an administrative (peripheries incorporated in bureaucratic and fiscal system of central state)) and cultural dimension (new allegiance to the new nation-state)
Cleavage between church and state: led to conservative, christian parties. New nation-states were usually liberal/secular, individualistic - Industrial revolution
Cleavage between urban and rural. Urban industrialists favored free markets, agrarians favored protectionism. Led to agrarian and peasant parties
Cleavage between owner and worker. Opposition between capital and labor. Led to workers, labor, social and social-democratic parties. - International revolution
Communist vs socialists. Led to communist parties - Post-industrial revolution
Materialist versus post-materialist values. Fair trade, peace, third world (post-materialist) versus law and order, safety, security. Led to libertarian, feminist and green parties
Open versus closed societies (globalization). Led to populist parties on left and right
Definition of parties by Huckshorn:
“A political party is an autonomous group of citizens having the purpose of making nominations and contesting elections in the hope of gaining control over governmental power through the capture of public offices and the organization of the government”.
Features four elements:
1. Objective of parties
2. Methods
3. Competition
4. Citizens are autonomous
US parties:
weak central organization, focus on individual candidates, absence of formal membership organization. But: heavily regulated, more like public utilities. Allows themselves to be captured by strong characters or intense policy demanders. No formal members, just ‘registrants’. Influences primaries, which are state-organized elections for parties.
Cleavage constellations change across space and over time:
Space: not all cleavages exist in all countries, are determined by:
- Differences in objective factors like diverse social structures
- Extent to which socio-economic and cultural divisions have been politicized by parties
- Relationship between cleavages: existence and strength can prevent the development of new cleavages.
Time: until recently, party systems have remained extraordinarily stable
Freezing hypothesis:
party systems have stayed remarkably the same. Cleavage structures emerged in the 1920’s (certain parties). These structures were never undone, parties created in 1960s are the same parties that were established in the 1920s, have the same constituencies
Schattschneider–Mair thesis:
electoral competition is structured by some lines of conflict.
- As a rule, established political parties preserve the existing order, since fundamental change in the existing structure could have damaging consequences for them. New lines of conflict are generally absorbed into old ones, before they become salient and potentially threatening.
- However, when a (new) party successfully introduces a new line of conflict, established parties have to react and to reposition themselves. As a result, the party system will undergo a (profound) transition.
- A single line of conflict, such as the left–right political orientation, can only correspond to a two-party system. A multiparty system in Schattschneider’s model must be based on more than one line of conflict, although this does not necessarily mean that a society with two or more lines of conflicts will always have a multiparty system.
