www.cevroinstitut.cz
Modern Party Politics in Europe
Miloš Brunclík
milos.brunclik@vsci.cz
www.cevroinstitut.cz
Contents
■ What are „traditional“ parties?
■ What are „modern“ parties?
1. New party organization
2. New party policies
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Course requirements
■In-class presentation
■Origins of the party
■Ideology/program/policies
■Leading figures
■Classification
■Electoral relevance
■Final test
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What are political parties for?
■Widespread and common critique of
parties, but….
■Necessary actors of democratic
politics
■Except. Nauru, Kiribati, Tuvalu,
Marshall‘s Islands
■Backbone of democratic government
■Government in democratic countries
= party government
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What are political parties?
■LaPalombara and Wiener (1966)
■continuity in organization
■permanent organization
■determination to hold decision making power
■striving for popular support
■Sartori (1976)
■ any political group identified by an official label that
presents at elections, and is capable of placing
through elections (free or nonfree), candidates for
public office
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Party functions: Klaus von Beyme (1997)
1. Identification of aims (ideology and programs)
■ X media, interest groups, opinion leaders, intellectuals…
■ X party without ideology or a coherent program,
dependency on opinion polls
2. Articulation and aggregation of interests
3. Mobilization and socialization of society
4. Recruitment of political elites and government
formation
■ Are parties failing?
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Lipset a Rokkan (1967)
■ Protection of democracy
■ Parties shield democracy from popular discontent
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Party failure and adaptation
■ Challenges
■ Economic crisis
■ Scandals
■ Lack of personnel
■ Few members
■ European integration
■ Technocratic cabinets as an alternative?
■ Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, Czech Republic
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Classification of parties
■ Ideology
■ Aims
■ Organizational structure
■ Origins
■ Position in the party system
■ Size
■ Relationship to
democracy/establishment
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Aims
1.Vote-seeking
2.Policy-seeking
3.Office-seeking
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Co jsou nov strany?
■ Robert Harmel (1985)
■ 3 základní přístupy
1. za účelem prosazování nových témat nedostatečně zohledňovaných
tradičními stranami
2. Reakce na významné historické události nebo etapy (např. strany vzniklé
po WW2, v 60. let. 20. stol.)
3. Obecněji - uskupení nově vstupující do původního stabilizovaného
stranického systému
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Nové strany
■ nejpropracovanějš teorie: Simona Hug (2001)
■ Nová strana = skutečně nová organizace a poprvé se účastní voleb
prvního řádu
■ = nová kategorie tzv. skutečně nových politických stran.
■ = tj. restriktivní definice
■ vylučuje nově vzniklé politické strany působící na ostatních úrovních politického systému
a nové strany ustavené odštěpením nebo sloučením původních organizací
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ÚSPĚCH NOVÝCH STRAN
■ závisí na 3 faktorech
1. political project - addresses problems considered urgent by substantial
sections of the electorate
2. resources: members, money, management and mass media exposure;
3. political opportunity structure: positions of other relevant parties as well
as institutional, socio-economic and cultural conditions
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Co nová strana potřebuje?
Zdroje:
1. a minimal number of members
2. A minimal campaign budget
3. a minimal amount of publicity
Once a minimum quantity of resources has been mobilized, other factors
become more important:
■ the political project
■ the political opportunity structure
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POLITICKÝ PROJEKT
■ social problems have to be translated into political issues with political
solutions
■ PŘÍKLAD: shortage of housing
■ a Dutch party named ‘Safe Traffic and 100,000 houses a year’ (Veilig verkeer en 100.000
woningen per jaar) in 1963
■ appears pragmatic but is inevitably embedded in an implicit ideology
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Paul Lucardie a jeho klasifikace
1. PROLOCUTORS (MLUVČÍ):
■ articulate particular interests without reference to an
explicit ideology
■ represent neglected groups – or perceived as neglected –
by established parties, because they lack numerical or
economic weight:
■ ethnic minorities, farmers, senior citizens, peripheral regions
■ Often, the party disappears from the scene as soon as it
has managed to put the interests of its clients on the
political agenda
■ Yet if the prolocutor parties last long enough,they may
deviate from their original ideology and develop their own
particular mixture of ideas. This happened to the Dutch
Farmers’ Party (Boerenpartij), founded by discontented
farmers in the late 1950s, which turned into a populist
conservative party in the 1960s.
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Lucardieho klasifikace
■ Parties that refer explicitly to ideological projects can be divided into 2
types
2. PURIFIERS, PURIFYING PARTIES, CHALLANGERS
■ an ideology is diluted or betrayed by one (or more) of the established parties.
■ Quite often, the founders of this party were dissident members of an established party
which revised its traditional ideology.
■ E.g. Social Democratic parties dropped Marxism and moved towards the political centre
in the 1950s, leftwing dissidents often broke away and set up radical parties like the
Socialist People’s Party in Denmark or the Pacifist Socialist Party in the Netherlands
■ E.g. social democratic parties in Britain, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and the
Netherlands shifted to the left in the 1970s, moderate groups broke away and founded
more ‘pure’ social democratic parties
■ claimed to defend and ‘purify’ the original ideology of their reference party
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Lucardieho klasifikace
3. PROHPETS - A new party need not stick to old ideologies
■ New ideologies may develop around new issues
■ ecological crisis
■ tensions between traditional culture and immigrant cultures
■ especially when established parties appear to ignore or neglect these issues
4. idiosyncratic or personal vehicle party
■ serve to solve the personal problems of the
founders, rather than any significant social
problems – např. Timo Soini, T. Okamura,
SPOZ
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Struktura politických příležitostí
■ opportunity structure of the political system
■ The term first used in studies about social movements, but was applied to
the rise of green parties by Herbert Kitschelt (1988) and later by Ferdinand
Müller-Rommel (1993)
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Struktura politických příležitostí
■ Kriesi (1995) distinguished 4 aspects of SPO
1. Formal access to the state
2. informal procedures and dominant strategies (political culture)
3. interest associations
4. configuration of power in the party system
■ Formal access to the state -usually more open in federal systems like
Switzerland or Germany, and more restricted in centralized states
■ Federalism offers a new party more opportunities to develop a regional base before trying
its luck at national elections
■ In his comparative analysis of green parties, Müller-Rommel (1993:118–20) finds they do
better in federal systems than in centralized states
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Struktura politických příležitostí
■ Political elites can facilitate, tolerate or repress new parties by formal as
well as informal procedures
1. like party registration
2. Subsidies
3. allocation of broadcasting time on public channels
4. electoral system
■ Other formal institutions, such as a presidential regime, may also affect
the opportunities for new parties – probably in a negative direction, as
presidential elections tend to foster polarization and concentration of
parties.
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Struktura politických příležitostí
■ Political cultures may be more or less conformist, tolerant or indifferent
with respect to newcomers
■ mass media may nip a new party in the bud by ignoring or ridiculing it
when it tries to enter the political arena
■ large interest associations and social movements may be more or less
reluctant to establish contacts with new and small parties
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Faktor X jako podmínka úspěchu
■ Obecně: nové strany - malou šanci na trvalejší úspěch, jestliže vznikají na
zelené louce a bez vazby na konkrétní společenský segment
■ Příklady New Democracy ve Švédsku, Strana pobřeží v Norsku – přežili pouze 1 legislativní
období
■ Ale: David Arter tvrdí opak
■ Politickým projektem může být i osobnost
■ sama o sobě může vést ke vzniku úspěšné nové strany
■ Příklad Praví Finové
■ David Arter: zastává tezi, že charismatický lídr hraje klíčovou roli v budování stranické
organizace = resilient entrepreneurial party
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Bollever a Bytzek 2013
■ 2 typy nových stran
■ Podle jejich organizačního vývoje
1. Rooted newcomers – při vzniku se mohou opřít i konkrétní sociální skupinu, segment,
který stranu předchází (sociálně zakotvení nováčci)
■ Mají tzv. promoter organization (odbory, profesní organizace, církev…)
2. Entrepreneurial parties - nemohou se opřít o žádnou takovou skupinu
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Zdroje
■ HUG, Simon, 2001. Altering Party Systems: Strategic Behavior and the
Emergence of New Political Parties in Western Democracies. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press. Interests, Identities and Institutions in
Comparative Politics.
■ KROUWEL, André a Onno BOSCH, 2004. Explaining the Emergence of New
Parties: Cynical Citizens and the rise of populism [online]. 2004. Amsterdam:
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. [vid. 23. listopad 2013]. Dostupné z:
http://www.politologischinstituut.be/PE2004/documents/11aKrouwelBosch.pdf
.
■ LUCARDIE, Paul, 2000. Prophets, Purifiers and Prolocutors: Towards a Theory
on the Emergence of New Parties. Party Politics. roč. 6, č. 2, s. 175–185.
■ SIKK, Allan, 2005. How unstable? Volatility and the genuinely new parties in
Eastern Europe. European Journal of Political Research. roč. 44, č. 3, s. 391–
412.
■ SIKK, Allan, 2011. Newness as a Winning Formula for New Political Parties.
Party Politics. roč. 18, č. 4, s. 465–486.
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Organizational structure
■cadre parties
■mass parties
■catch-all parties
■electoral-professional parties
■cartel parties
■business-firm parties
■member-less parties
Traditional
parties
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Maurice Duverger: cadre parties X mass parties
■ loosely organized
■ decentralized
■ groups of individuals
■ wealthy people, aristocrats or
businessman
■ Independent MPs
■ Members were able to finance their
election campaigns themselves
■ Often liberal or conservative parties
■ Prevalent in the late 19th century
■ „contagion from the left“
■ Hiearchical strict organization
■ centralized
■ Huge number of members
■ Disciplined MPs
■ Rested mainly on ordinary
people, especially poor workers
■ Membership fees – sources of
party finance
■ Often socialist, farmers‘ parties
■ Late 19th century until mid 20th
century
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Alternative distinction
■Sigmund Neumann
■parties of individual
representation
■parties of social integration
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Otto von Kirchheimer 1966:Catch-all parties
1.drastic reduction of the party’s ideological
baggage
2.strengthening of top leadership groups
3.downgrading of the role of the individual party
member
4.deemphasis of the classe gardée, specific
social-class or denominational clientele
5.securing access to a variety of interest groups
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Reasons for the rise of catch-all parties
1. rise of affluent advanced industrial democracies
2. change in social structures, education, communication, media
3. intensity of class conflicts was attenuated
4. Collective identities were replaced with greater individualisation
of voting
» greater openness of the electoral market posed a challenge to
parties
■ increasing number of voters became de-aligned vis-à-vis parties
■ partisan identification meant no longer a significant link
»parties forced to react and respond to these changes
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Electoral-professional party: 1988 Angelo Panebianco
■ linked with socio-economic changes
■ rise of education
■ Secularization
■ heterogeneous electorates
■ Mass media are driving parties towards
■ personalized campaigns
■ candidate-centred and issue oriented strategies
■ TV and interest groups :
■ far more important links between parties and electorates than
traditional collateral organizations, bureaucracy and party members
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Electoral-professional party
■ Parties hire out professionals to run election campaigns
■ TV specialist
■ Marketing
■ P.R.
■ Rhetoric
■ Professionals: important in certain spheres of party work
■ fund rising
■ political marketing
■ media presentation
■ helpful as opinion pollsters and advertising consultants
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Cartel Party: Richard Katz and Peter Mair (1995)
■ Parties threatened by
■ uncertain electoral gains
■ significant drops in membership
■ → parties pursue strategies that aimed at provision and
regulation of state subventions to political parties
■ Key difference
■ Closer link to state
■ increasingly dependent on state (state finance)
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Cartel Parties
■ “characterised by the interpenetration of party and
state, and also by a pattern of inter-party collusion”
■ Cartel parties try to prevent other (non-parliamentary)
parties to reach state subsidies and parliamentary
representation
■ Laws that provide finance assistance only to parliamentary parties
■ Access to public media is restricted only to parliamentary parties
■ Electoral laws that increase legal threshold for small nonparliamentary
parties
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Memberless parties
■ Oscar Mazzoleni and Gerrit Voerman (2016)
■ Maximizing centralization of decision-making process
■ Promoting party unity
■ Enhancing electoral effectiveness
■ Flexiblity and quick decision making
■ Examples:
■ The Freedom Party
■ The Lega dei Tiscinesi
■ Dawn of Direct Democracy
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Cyber party
■ Theory by Helen Margetts (2001)
■ Cyber party = a conceptual model
■ Real parties may only approximate the concept
■ Modern political parties – some traits of the concept
“virtual parties”: “Die Digitalen” in Germany
■ran in the 1999 local government election in Berlin
■operated only on the on-line basis
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Theory of political parties
■ Cadre parties (late 19th century)
■ Face to face communication, newspapers, local rallies
■ Mass parties (early 20th century)
■ Mass print media, party press, mass membership, class parties
■ Catch-all parties (20th century)
■ Mass media: TV, radio, decreasing importance of mass membership, appeal to
a wider range of voters
■ Electoral-professional parties (late 20th century)
■ Privileged access to state run media, professionalization of party campaigns
■ Cyber parties (early 21st century)
■ Cyberspace, low importance of membership, politics in cyberspace
■ New media – Social media
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Cyberparties - reaction to:
1. Increasing use of ICT
■ Citizens, organizations, government, NGOs…
■ New apps
■ Mass usage of the Internet = key platform for political communication
■ More and more activities shift on-line
■ Cyberspace = major battlefield of politics
2. Changing patterns of relationship between parties and voters
■ Single-issue political activities
■ Declining party membership
■ Increasing reluctance of citizens to join organizations of any kind (especially parties)
■ Dealignment
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Dealignment
1. Decreasing partisan identification
2. Greater alienation of voters from parties
→ links connecting parties and voters are weakening
→ more „free“ voters available on electoral market
→ electorates are less stable and more volatile (changeable)
3. Decreasing partisan membership
4. Decreasing trust in political parties
■ Anti-party sentiment
■ Lowering turnout
■ decreasing shares of old parties
■ →Favourable conditions for the emergence of new parties
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Single issue political activity
■ Anti-capitalism
■ Fox-hunting
■ Animal rights
■ Environmental issues
■ Human rights issues
■ Pirate issues
■ …
■ → technologies allow target at the respective groups
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Further examples of single-issue activities
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Party Responses: Cyberparties (summary)
■ Origins:
■ Changing patters of political participation
■ Web-based technologies
■ Claim to support
■ Direct linkages to voters
■ Membership
■ No or little membership
■ Loose definition of supporters
■ Channels of communication
■ Web-based
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Cyberparties - membership
■ Membership recruitment – low priority
■ Supporters and voters more important
■ Channels for supporter and voters to influence
party manifesto
■ On-line discussion forums
■ 2000 Conservative Party in UK – organized first e-petition
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Cyberparties and democracy
■Traditional functions of political parties
■Elite recruitment
■Interest articulation and aggregation
■Mobilization and socialization
■Identification of goals, formulating policies
■→ move on-line
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Elite recruitment
■ Recently- trend towards more business-like matter
■ Politics – more and more professionalized
■ Party activities - outsourced
■ Selection of party leaders – emphasis on the ability of candidates to
reach out to larger audience through media and Internet
■ Media skills matter
■ Campaign, competition is moving on-line
■ 2000 USA – Democratic Party – on-line primaries
■ 2008 and 2012 Obama‘s election campaigns
■ Large reliance on the Internet
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Interest articulation and aggregation and mobilization
■ Internet – ideal forum for interest articulation
■ Numerous political protests organized vie e-mail, social networks…
■ Quick channeling of ideas, voices from below
■ Quick surveys – on-line surveys among voters
■ Parties can target specific voters on-line
■ Advertising
■ Banners
■ E-mails
■ 2000 USA democratic primaries in Arizona
■ „digital hit squad“ (grassroots internet community) to connect black people
■ Targeting black voters in the primaries held on the Internet
■ Claimed to increase turnout by more than 1000 %
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Cyberparties and their weaknesses
■ Social exclusion of off-line voters
■ Digital divide
■ Strategic penetration („carpet baggers“)
■ On-line participation (no formal members)
■ Danger of party enemies to influence party
candidate selection
■ Especially local level
■ Low number of participants
■ Low turnout
■ →→ Small group of well-organized strategic
voters are more likely to influence the result
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Cyberparties and their weaknesses
■ „preaching to the converted“ (Pippa Norris)
■ On-line messages can not reach out other people
■ Lack of organizational capacity and weaknesses
■ Lack of people: grassroots activity is vital for local campaigns
■ Campaign can not be done solely on-line
■ Lack of membership fees paying members
■ X Internet – cost saving device
■ X absence of membership does not preclude donations
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New parties
■ cut across existing issue conflicts and
cleavages
■ 2 major streams
■ Left-libertarian parties
 Green parties
 Pirate parties
■ Radical-right wing populist parties
■ + others
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Traditional parties
■Result form the cleavage theory
■What is a cleavage?
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Cleavage
■ A long-term deep division in society that
translates into politics and party systems
1.Empirical element (community)
2.Normative element (sense of identity)
3.Organizational element (party organization)
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Territorial
dimension
Functional
dimension
National
revolution
Periphery X
center
State x church
Industrial
revolution
Countryside X
city
Workers x
owners
International
revolution
x Communists x
social
democrats
Cleavage
theory
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Party family
■4 major approaches
1.Origins of parties
2.International federations or
transnational groupings
3.Policy or ideology
4.Party name or label
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Party family
■ Klaus von Beyme (1985) – 2 criteria for
1. Party name
2. Voter‘s perception of party programs and ideology
■ Most influential approach
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Party family
■ Klaus von Beyme (1985) – 9 party families
■ liberal/radical parties
■ conservative parties
■ social democratic and socialist
■ Christian democratic parties
■ agrarian parties
■ regional parties
■ communist parties
■ extreme right parties
■ environmental parties
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Michael Gallagher (1995) – another 3 criteria
■ Genetic origin
■Parties as representatives of certain
interests
■Parties reflect one side of a cleavage
■ Transnational federations
■Party groups in the European Parliament
■Transnational organizations
■ Policies
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Party family
■Mair, Mudde –two criteria that
overlap
■Origins: „what parties are“
■Ideology: „what parties do“