Forms of Party Organization
Party Types: Why do parties organize in the ways that they do?
Why do parties organize in the ways that they do?
• How much organization do they need? • Do they need
– „thick‟ organization with large # of members? – to be organized at all times or only when elections are called? – professionals rather than amateurs? – Organization at all levels of government?
Party types: a composite typology
• Cadre parties • Mass parties (or parties of mass integration) • Catch-all parties and/or
– Electoral-Professional parties
• Cartel parties
Where this comes from:
• • • • • Maurice Duverger Sigmund Neumann Otto Kirchheimer Angelo Panebianco Richard Katz and Peter Mair
Duverger’s ‘theory’ of party organization
• Degree of organization reflects parties „electoral needs • First parties were internally created & • Took the form of loose cadre parties:
– Made of „local notables‟ – Minimal organization outside of parliament – Minimal organization between elections
Duverger cont‟d
The mass party • Mass parties externally created • Extensive organization
– Outside of parliament & – In between elections
• The mass party is
– A superior form of party organization – The wave of the future
Sigmund Neumann
• Parties of individual representation • Parties of mass integration
– Party not only organizes electorally, – but also provides services and spiritual home for its citizens of the masses” (Otto Kirchheimer, 1966)
• Parties of total integration
Epstein’s critique:
Contagion from the left vs. contagion from the right: • Leon Epstein (Political Parties in Western Democracies, 1967) argues that the mass party is not the wave of the future • Parties are not dependent on numbers or mass organization; • They can rely on the media instead
Catchall and electoral professional parties:
Problem: • How do parties change over time?
• What are they like in middle age?
Otto Kirchheimer and the catchall party:
• Parties of mass integration adapt to a more affluent and consumer oriented society by
– Abandoning attempts at “the intellectual and moral encadrement of the masses” – Bidding for the support of interest groups – Emphasizing the qualities of their leaders – Scuttling “„excess ideological baggage” – Moving to the centre
• The success of one catch-all party forces others to imitate it, transforming the party system
Panebianco‟s Political Parties
• Parties reflect genetic types • Parties forced to transform themselves into electoral-professional parties
The cartel party
Katz and Mair 1995 • Parties share power with each other • Parties have become part of the state • Parties draw on state resources – e.g. state finance • Party members are involved, but only at a distance
Problems:
• • • • How appropriate are these types? Do they encompass all political parties? Do they describe contemporary parties? Do they fit political parties in Canada or the United States?
– How accurately do they characterize them?
• What about parties in other parts of the world?
Reminders:
• Preliminary bibliography & statement of topic due Friday, October 11th