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Explore the historical development of political parties and their essential functions in democratized societies, from open politics to mass-based organization. Discover how parties emerge, evolve, and shape democratic processes through recruitment, linkage, and system stabilization.
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Why indeed? • Because parties fulfill necessary functions? • Because mass democracy is not possible without parties? • Because parties reduce transaction costs?
Development of parties Parties develop when you have: • Open politics: sufficient political space that elements within society can challenge those who govern (public contestation) • Conflicts which can’t be contained within political elites • Mass-based politics – sufficient numbers involved that organization is advantageous (inclusive politics)
Development • Parties, defined as organizations linking citizens and government, are distinctly modern institutions (19th and 20th century) • Factions – competing teams of leaders without mass base – are hundreds of years old (e.g ancient Greece, Rome; medieval Florence….) • Parties appear only when suffrage extension has begun or is likely
Great Britain • 17th c: Power of the monarchy broken: monarchs require support in parliament • 18th c: Emergence of factions or proto-parties: • Court vs. Country Party • eventually Tories vs. Whigs • 19th c: emergence of local election societies and then mass based political parties
Turning points: • 1832: First Reform Bill rationalizes districts, eliminating rotten and pocket boroughs. Established property- based suffrage • Electorate grows from approx. 8% of adult male population to about 14% • First election societies appear
Reform Bill of 1867 • Electorate enlarged at Disraeli’s suggestion • After 1867, about 1 in 3 adult males can vote (after 1884 about 3 in 5) • Tories establish the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Constituency Organizations • Liberals establish National Liberal Federation
United States • Constitution more liberal than democratic: • Only the House of Representatives directly elected • Electoral college system assumes that voters will select their betters as electors, who in turn will meet and select the president and VP • “Revolution” of 1800: • governing elite splits into Jeffersonians (‘Democratic Republicans’) and Federalists
U.S. cont’d • Jeffersonians organize the public, swamping the Federalists • but cast equal numbers of votes for Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr (VP candidate), leading to reform of the electoral college • Democratic Republicans emerge as the dominant party, but eventually split into Democrats and Whigs in 1820s (2nd American Party System)
Other cases: • Parties initially form within the legislature (internally created parties), typically with minimal external organization • Other parties organize outside the legislature, demanding suffrage extension and representation for excluded groups or classes, e.g. workers (externally created parties),
Why parties? • Legislators find them useful to organize themselves for collective action – thus caucuses get organized (in terms of rational choice, these reduce transaction costs • Legislative caucuses find them useful to get themselves re-elected, elect others • Outsiders find them useful to get themselves in
Functions which parties fill: • Recruitment: nominating candidates helps staff elective offices • Linkage • Linking citizens and the state • Linking parliament and the executive • Structuring the vote: competition provides voters with choice • Stabilizing the system?
Some questions: • Are parties the only structures which perform these functions? • Is democracy possible without political parties? • Is democracy possible with political parties? • What happens if certain functions are not performed (or are performed badly)?
