Unit 5: What Do Parties Want ?

1. Unit 5: What Do Parties Want? Reading: Mueller and Strom pgs. 1-27

2. Guiding Questions • What is party government? • What do parties want? • What are vote seeking goals? Office seeking? Policy seeking? • Can parties maximize all three goals?

3. Political Parties and Government • Political science suggests that political parties a central role in promoting and maintaining democracy. • Schattschneider 1942 • “modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of political parties” • Muller and Strom 1999 • In a democracy, voters delegate policy-making authority to representatives via political parties.

4. What Is Party Government? • We can conceive of democracy as “party government” • Katz 1986; Katz 1987 • 1) Parties organize policy-making • Government decisions made by party leaders. • Government policy decided within political parties. • Parties act cohesively to enact policy. • 2) Parties serve as intermediaries between voters and government. • Elections seen as mechanisms to ensure party accountability. • 3) Parties recruit political leadership. • Most elected officials are affiliated with a party.

5. What Do Parties Seek? • Mueller and Strom 1999 • Three strategies are typically offered. • Parties as: • 1) Office-seekers • 2) Policy-seekers • 3) Vote-seekers. • These are ideal type strategies. • Most parties seek more than one end.

6. Factors Shaping Party Options • Mueller and Strom 1999 • Party behavior is shaped by a variety of factors: • 1) Party leadership and organization • Motivations of the leadership (political entrepreneurs) • Relationship between leadership and party activists • 2) Political institutional structures • Electoral/legislative laws • Laws governing coalition formation • 3) Political context • General elections/economic circumstances • Number of parties at the bargaining table

7. Office Seeking Models • Riker 1962 • Parties seek to maximize their control over the benefits associated with taking office. • Benefits include: cabinet portfolios, political appointments, etc. • Parties share power only when necessary. • Votes and policy viewed as instrumental to obtaining office (i.e. a means to an end), not as intrinsically valuable.

8. Policy Seeking Models • De Swaan 1973 • Parties seek to maximize their impact on policy. • Political parties have policy platforms that they seek to enact once in office. • When parties coalesce, they will do so with parties that have similar policy outlooks. • Policy can be considered as intrinsically valuable or as instrumental to other goals (e.g. office).

9. Vote Seeking Models • Downs 1957 • Parties seek to maximize their vote share. • Parties use policy manifestoes to win votes, not for policy ends per se. • Parties maximize votes even when they are assured of a majority. • Votes are instrumental and not intrinsically valuable in and of themselves.

10. Election 2005: Merkel’s Dilemma • Majority = 308 • No party could govern alone. • Schroeder and Merkel both made claims on the chancellorship. • Merkel was given first crack at forming a coalition. • Her party held the most seats.

11. Election 2005: Merkel’s Dilemma • Merkel’s preferred policy coalition (yellow-black): • FDP/CDU/CSU = 287 seats • 21 short. • Schroeder’s preferred policy coalition (red-green): • SPD/B90GR = 273 • 35 short. • PDS/Left was not an option. • Both sides needed to woo another party. • Attention turned to the B90Gr and FDP.

12. Election 2005: Merkel’s Dilemma • From an office seeking standpoint, adding B90/Gr (i.e. a “Jamaica coalition”) would give Merkel 338 seats. • Rejected by the Green party on policy grounds. • Adding the FDP to the SPD/B90/Gr (i.e. traffic light coalition) would give Schroeder 334 seats. • But this was rejected by the FDP on policy grounds.

13. Election 2005: Merkel’s Dilemma • Polls showed Germans did not want another election. • Merkel agrees to form a grand coalition with the SPD. • Coalition was strained by: • 1) conservative social policy advocated by the CSU • 2) center left economic policy favored by the SPD • 3) desire for economic reform by members of the CDU. • SPD entered 2009 elections pushing for a return of the grand coalition. • CDU wanted to end it.

14. Election 2009: The Aftermath Left-76 G/B90-68 SPD-146 FDP-93 CDU-194 CSU-45 • CDU vote declined slightly • Being in government can sometimes come at an electoral cost. • Voters punished the SPD • Worst performance in the postwar era • Voters rewarded the FDP, the Greens, and the Left • All opposition parties fared well. • Government formed by the CDU/CSU and the FDP. • Merkel was seeking a yellow-black coalition rather than another grand coalition

15. Conclusions: Party Goals • Goals are not mutually exclusive. • Parties may attempt to maximize one (e.g. votes) to obtain another (e.g. policy or office). • But parties must also make tradeoffs. • Pursuing one type of goal can hinder the attainment of other goals. • Office seeking strategies may risk a rebellion amongst party activists. • Policy seeking strategies may please activists but harm a party’s ability to win votes within the larger electorate. • Vote seeking strategies may impinge on a party’s policy-seeking goals if they water them down to appeal to the larger electorate.

16. Next Unit • Theme: Parties and Votes • Reading: • Ware CH 11 • Mueller and Strom pgs. 112-140 • Game: Elections