Political Parties and the Concept of Power

A Theoretical Famework

D. Rye

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137331601
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Democracy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

An original investigation of the nature of the forces that make members and representatives both loyal and beneficial to a contemporary political party, this book combines theoretical reflection with interview and archive material to provide a unique perspective on power, arguing that it is more complex and nuanced than is frequently assumed.

1

Power and the Analysis of Political Parties

Despite question marks over their continuing role as a linkage mechanism between the public and institutions of government (van Biezen, Mair and Poguntke 2012; Webb 2009, 272), political parties remain important subjects of political analysis because they still perform vital functions in a relatively efficient way (Dalton, Farrell and McAllister 2011, 216). They are still the main means by which governments are formed, preferences are articulated and political activity is mobilised (Kitschelt 2000; White and Ypi 2010). Indeed, most studies of political parties have focused on these functional roles: articulating and aggregating interests (Ware 1996), mobilising and integrating populations (Duverger 1959), facilitating popular choice and control (Webb 2009) and recruiting candidates and elites, not to mention organising both government and opposition (Dalton and Wattenberg 2000).

However, perhaps surprisingly what has for the most part been missing from research is an explicit analysis of the relationship between political parties and power. Overall, I would argue the treatment of power in party contexts has been left wanting. Given the purpose of this book is to argue for a more sophisticated framework for analysing power in political organisations, this conclusion will not be a surprise to the reader. However, this is not to say that power has been entirely absent from such studies. Rather, it is present but often inferred rather than directly addressed. The approaches to power that can be elicited from the key influential literature have tacitly provided the frames within which relations of power are implicitly understood. Therefore, in arguing that there is a need for a more explicitly theorised approach to power in these contexts, it is essential to draw these underlying ideas out into the open and make some assessment of what has informed analysis up to now.

Outline of the party literature

The academic literature on political parties is vast, and it would be impossible to cover all that has been published on the subject. Indeed, I would not seek to do so. I have thus centred my analysis in this chapter on a few key texts according to two criteria: first, my specific concern is with those studies that have particularly useful things to say about the analysis of how parties are organised, and secondly, my choice of literature is further guided by which contributions include decisive or distinctive approaches to the specific issue of how power operates within parties (implicitly or explicitly). I begin with Robert Michels (1962 [1915]), whose study of the oligarchal tendencies of party organisation, despite being first published a century ago, has never quite lost its significance to the academic study of parties. Following that, the work of Maurice Duverger (1959), whose conceptualisation of the ‘mass party’ spawned a still-ongoing project charting the development of party organisational types, and Otto Kirchheimer’s (1966) equally influential ‘catch-all’ party will be briefly examined. Angelo Panebianco (1988), who developed a detailed model of a new type of party appearing in the late twentieth century which he dubbed the ‘electoral-professional party’, will then be discussed. Klaus von Beyme’s (1985) study of West European parties, most famous for the classification of parties into different Familles Spirituelles or ideological types, serves as a springboard for examining the distinction between notions of ‘cohesion’ and ‘discipline’ in parties. This approach has distinctive things to say about power relations in party organisation and in particular about the role, loyalty and discipline of members (von Beyme 1985, Chapter 3), a discussion which is taken up by a specific sub-literature on party discipline. Finally, I discuss two recent influential models in the analysis of parties which are important to current debate: firstly, Richard Katz and Peter Mair’s Cartel Party (Katz and Mair 1995), characterised as elitist and dislocated from activists and voters, and Jennifer Lees-Marshment’s Market Oriented Party which describes the fundamental changes parties have made to their internal organisation and structures of relations in the pursuit of electoral success (Lees-Marshment 2008). The last two in particular have much to say about the appearance of modern parties, and this is exemplified, I will argue, in the changes that took place in the Labour Party during the 1980s and 1990s. However, I will conclude by arguing that the literature has failed to recognise and make use of increasingly rich and sophisticated debates about political power which have much to offer the analysis of parties.

These texts will be discussed in roughly chronological order. This is in part because it corresponds with the trajectory of the orthodox evolutionary approach to party organisational development (Koole 1996, 519). The majority of the texts have been chosen because of their role in informing and framing the study of party organisation in many detailed empirical studies (see, for example, Scarrow 1996, Chapter 1; Wolinetz 1998; Luther and Müller-Rommel 2002, 6; Montero and Gunther 2002; Hloušek and Kopeček 2010) and introductory texts (such as Webb 2000a, 152–154; Heffernan 2003, 125–134; Budge et al. 2007, 373; Driver 2011, Chapter 2). The earlier texts in particular (Michels, Duverger, Kirchheimer, Panebianco) have become a part of the ‘firmament’ of political party analysis and are often paid respect but rarely subjected to close scrutiny, so they merit some (albeit brief) re-examination. Furthermore, and partly because of this, they are all texts that have become famous for one particular line of argument (for example, the proposal of a certain party type), and so have been neglected for what else they might contribute to the understanding of parties. In different ways, they each say something directly or indirectly about how power operates in parties and as such they are the tacit knowledge behind ongoing research. It is time therefore to bring them into discursive light so that what each has to say about power can be considered more closely. This, rather than what they say about party typology or development as such, will be my focus for this chapter.

Hierarchy and control: From mass organisations to electoral professional parties

Michels and the ‘iron law of oligarchy’

In one of the earliest and still one of the most influential works on political parties (see for example: McKenzie 1955; Duverger 1959; Sartori 1976, 71; Minkin 1978, 4–5; Panebianco 1988; Shaw 1988; Scarrow 1996; Wolinetz 1998, 6; Müller and Strøm 1999), Robert Michels laid out a thesis in which the emergence of the mass party in the early part of twentieth century fostered within the organisation a power which is structural, elitist and possesses its own particular logic. The development of political organisation is, he argues, a vital weapon for the political struggle of the relatively weak against the relatively powerful (Michels 1962 [1915], 61–62). However, the conservative nature of organisational power meant that it was also, tragically, the means by which the relatively weak were subjugated. The widened franchise of newly emerging democracies meant it was necessary to cultivate wide popular support, whilst at the same time being a lean, fighting organisation with a clear, responsive hierarchical structure which was ready to take control of the machinery of the state. This required a strengthened organisation in which ever more authority was ceded to trained, salaried officials overseen by a strong, elected, but professional, leadership. The result of this was a growing remoteness from the lives and concerns of the rank and file, a greater interest in protecting their position and the organisation itself than in being politically radical. Bureaucracy thus reinforces the power of leaders at the expense of the rank-and-file. It ‘is the sworn enemy of individual liberty, and of all bold initiative in matters of internal policy’ (Michels 1962 [1915], 191).

There is some resonance here with Max Weber’s description of the political party as a locus of organised domination which ‘calls for continuous administration [and] requires that human conduct be conditioned to obedience towards those masters who claim to be the bearers of legitimate power’ (Weber 1948, 80). However, whilst Weber saw this as a positive development because it facilitated the integration of socialist parties in particular into the established system of government, Michels was specifically troubled by what he saw as the diminishing prospects for democracy and socialist transformation.

Michels’ more ‘ethical’ concerns, however, led him to make bold assertions that should be treated with scepticism. For example, more contemporary (and balanced) analyses suggest that organisation does not move in one direction but in different times and places may be more or less centralised (Panebianco 1988; Kavanagh 1998). Furthermore, he has been criticised for failing adequately to define fundamental terms like ‘democracy’, ‘oligarchy’ and ‘organisation’ or use them in a consistent manner (Hands 1971) or for ignoring the significant restraints on the power of leaders in parties (McKenzie 1955; Medding 1970). These criticisms highlight Michels’ biggest blind spot and where his argument is weakest: members are left, quite simply, with no power at all. They appear to have been cut adrift. Why do they put up with it? Parties are, after all, voluntary organisations and no one is compelled to remain a member. Michels rather dismissively attributes the willing subjection of party members to such a regime to a ‘need’ for direction and guidance (Michels 1962 [1915], 88), a ‘gratitude’ for the sacrifice and service of leaders (Michels 1962 [1915], 92), and even a ‘cult of veneration’ for leadership on the part of the masses that borders on worship (Michels 1962 [1915], 93–96). Whilst this reflects Michels’ status as an elite theorist alongside others like Mosca and Pareto, this is a profoundly unsatisfactory argument and reveals a hole at the centre of his assumptions about power. It shows that although he understands some important aspects of organisational power, he does not properly address complicity to it, which means he has no account of resistance either.

Duverger and the ‘intensification’ of power

A later theorist of the mass party, Maurice Duverger (1959), seems broadly to agree with Michels’ analysis of organisation’s tragic logic. Despite in part attributing it to working-class collective culture (Duverger 1959, 170–171), which comes close to reproducing Michels’ crude psychologism, he has a somewhat more sophisticated explanation of members’ apparent willingness to subject themselves to this kind of power. The second, more promising, part of his explanation emphasises a more subtle intensification of power that comes with the growth of the organisation. Mass parties of the working class saw a strengthening of disciplinary power – requiring automatic, instinctive obedience – out of necessity: there were large numbers of people to be organised and the larger a group gets the more intense discipline needs to be. The best way to achieve this is not through straightforward techniques of persuasion or coercion, although these are important, but through a mutually reinforcig dialectic of listening and speaking, in which one builds on and reinforces the other. It is not a case of the party elite issuing commands and procuring obedience but a process by which the party leadership adapts subtly to the people, to their language and modes of thought so that it becomes hard to discern any obvious division of command and control. This clearly means knowing a great deal about the rank- and-file, their opinions and feelings and responding to them, but also guiding them: while the party is telling its members what they want to hear, at the same time it is subtly shaping their response. Eventually, they can no longer distinguish between their own thoughts and the party’s voice; the more this is the case, the less they are likely to resist it:

Thus it proceeds by light touches, by infinitely supple pressure: but the less its influence gives offence to those who are subjected to it, and the better it corresponds to their thought, the more profound and lasting it is. (Duverger 1959, 176)

Obedience becomes automatic because it is embedded in their desires and behaviour and fostered by a more subtle, integrated relationship between them, the organisation and leaders. In other words party members are even more dominated: although they think they have freedom of choice they are no longer able to distinguish between their own voice and that of the party leadership and thus without being aware of it ‘the mass is thus slowly orientated, directed, and transformed’ into a more and more obedient, docile mass (Duverger 1959, 176–177). Thus, rank-and-file members are implicated in their own subjection without really being aware of it.

This is more satisfying as an explanation in one sense because he describes an ongoing process rather than a fixed state of affairs or episodic commands and responses. It is not unidirectional like Michels but includes an element of reciprocation. However, once again, the member’s power is largely absent. Even though here they play an active role, it is only to effectively subjugate themselves perhaps even more totally than Michels’ psychologically dependent mass. Furthermore, we are left guessing as to how this kind of power relationship plays out. What might Duverger have in mind here? How does this process unfold in a political party? He does not elaborate. One might speculate that through training, guidance and the propagation of practices, modes of speech, rituals and so on, members may effectively become socialised through their own participation into certain ways of thinking and acting. Duverger points tantalisingly towards a more complex, subtle relationship between the power of leaders and members. However, by suggesting that what this amounts to in the final analysis is just more domination, he fails to strike out from under Michels’ shadow.

The ‘catch-all’ party

In 1966, Otto Kirchheimer declared that the days of the mass party were over. In a more sophisticated electoral and media environment, in which voters are less loyal, more fickle and increasingly capricious, a new kind of political machine, the ‘catch-all party’, appears. Its features include a ‘drastic reduction’ of ideological baggage and a strengthening of top leadership groups, who ‘are now judged from the viewpoint of their contribution to the efficiency of the entire social system’ (rather than just the party). This is accompanied by the downgrading of the individual party member’s role (which he saw as an ‘historical relic’) and a de-emphasis of the party’s role as the articulator of class interests in favour of attempting to appeal to the population at large (Kirchheimer 1966, 190–191). Rather than attempting to control or subjugate declining memberships, party elites instead look elsewhere for the resources they need: to professionals for campaigning, to interest groups for access to voters and to wealthy individuals, businesses and organisations for financing. These parties thus become more brand marketing led, to which leaders must adapt their own behaviour (Kirchheimer 1966, 192–193), and are more careful to modulate relations so as not to discourage potential voters with whom they communicate largely through television and newspapers.

Kirchheimer does not talk directly about power, but what can be discerned in his work is a process by which, in the catch-all party, leaders seek to gain greater power and freedom to act for themselves not by controlling and disciplining members but by rendering them superfluous to requirements. However, in doing so, leaders themselves become subject to the disciplines of brand marketing and their capacity for political manoeuvre becomes subject to the vagaries of the electorate:

Whatever the particularities of the line to which a party leader owes his intraparty success, he must, once he is selected for leadership, rapidly suit his behaviour to standard requirements. There is need for enough brand differentiation to make the article plainly recognisable, but the degree of differentiation must never be so great as to make the potential customer fear he will be out on a limb. (Kirchheimer 1966, 192)

However, as influential and apposite as Kirchheimer’s prediction has proved, in writing off members as an ‘historic relic’ it does not provide much insight into how party organisation and power relations within parties have been affected by this shift away from the mass-membership model.

Panebianco and unequal exchange relations

Panebianco (1988) provides perhaps a more direct and systematic answer to the problem. Offering a more systematic analysis of the development of Western European parties, but displaying many similar features to the ‘catch-all’ party, Panebianco suggests that what has emerged is the ‘Electoral Professional Party’ (Panebianco 1988, 264) which is characterised by a greater role for professionals and public, professionalised leadership and a diminished one for members and traditional internal party organisation. Nevertheless, underlying the detailed development of Panebianco’s model is a more explicit understanding of power, which others lack.

At the root of Michels’ failure to recognise any limit to the power of leaders, he argues, is the failure adequately to define organisational power, which in his view had led to unnecessary divisions between scholars who saw power as a property exerted by leaders over followers and those regarding it more as a relation of influence, characterised by reciprocity and agreement between them. There is, he says, a continuum between leader domination and reciprocal influence which means that two modes of power are existent in the party at one and the same time. Power is, for him, an ‘unequal exchange relation’ (Panebianco 1988, 22) in which leaders seek freedom to act and members seek material and solidary benefits. Thus, Panebianco does not regard power in parties as fixed, a frozen set of relations or hierarchy. He sees it instead as a changing and evolving resource, where different elements and combinations of the power of leaders and members may be in play at any particular time. Indeed, it is this that provides the motor for parties to change and develop as they have done.

He introduces an important element into the theory of power in parties: that is, for leaders to exercise power, they must conversely submit themselves to the power of members. The power of leaders can therefore never be absolute or arbitrary, as Michels seems to imply, because it is limited by the necessity to interact and negotiate with followers and it can only be properly exercised if members themselves are satisfied and content. This relationship is by no means equal: the outcomes of exchanges between leaders and members depend on resources and it is, not surprisingly, the leaders that are invariably at an advantage here. For example, leaders are more likely to be in a position to shape the context in which decisions are made and secure control over the agenda. Nonetheless, leaders still need to participate in these ‘vertical’ power games with members in order to generate for themselves the freedom of action and movement, and security of position, that provides them with advantages in ‘horizontal’ power games with other leaders.

This points to another important limit on the power of leaders: elites are not a unity but compete with each other to gain and maintain status, and to be successful they need the support and co-operation of members. The leader that provides followers with incentives from which they can benefit in some way will both ensure that his or her position is maintained through support of the membership (or a substantial enough proportion of it) and procure support on which he or she can call in horizontal power games with other leaders. This is important because leaders can, from this point of view, gain advantage over each other by possessing superior resources in terms of followers, procured as a result of successful vertical power games.

Panebianco’s work is a welcome advance because it introduces some dynamism into the concept of power. Ultimately, however, Panebianco sees power in terms of competitive games between elites which are constrained by the need to maintain the support of members, but he at least attempts to explain why members might cooperate with leaders without resorting to essentialism. It is not, for him, the result of some innate inclination towards ‘obedience’ but because they themselves seek benefits which leaders can offer.

Discipline, cohesion and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Power and the Analysis of Political Parties
• 2 The Concept of Power
• 3 Individualistic Power
• 4 Strategic Power
• 5 Bureaucratic Power
• 6 Constitutive Power
• 7 Disciplinary Power
• 8 Conclusion: Political Parties and the Concept of Power
• Appendix: Interview Subjects
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index