Political sociology: political parties

1. Political sociology:political parties Dr Alice Mah Lecture 6

2. Outline • Introduction • Political Parties: Sociological Perspectives • Political Ideologies • Electoral Politics and Voting • Conclusion • Seminar Questions

3. The Iron Rule of Oligarchy (Michels) • Robert Michels (1911) classic Political Parties argued that there is an ‘iron rule of oligarchy’ in political parties: • political parties started off as mass movements but became hijacked by elites (oligarchs) with their own interests which support the status quo • the greater the mass membership, the less control of the masses and the greater the concentration of power in the elites • Linked to Weber’s idea of ruling power elites and the depersonalizing role of bureaucracy • Influential for later historical and comparative analysis of party organization.

4. Political Parties and Party Organization • Democratic western political parties emerged in late 19th century and early 20th century with the catalyst of universal suffrage. • The competitive struggle of parties necessitated the emergence of mass-membership parties linked to class interests (e.g. labour/working class vs. conservative/upper class). • However, in the context of the modern mass media and the vested interests of elite leaders, large party membership organizations have lost some of their political missions (and arguably this started much earlier than Crouch’s analysis of post-democracy)

5. Political Parties: definitions and levels of analysis • Institutional definitions: emphasize the arena in which individuals become collective political actors. • Functional definitions: conceptualized parties as political alliances that articulate and aggregate political demands • Political parties can be studied on two (intertwined) levels as: 1) individual entities and 2) elements of a party system in which several parties compete. • Parties at both levels operate as: 1) efforts to assemble coalitions of supporters, 2) strategic units in legislatures or executives, and 3) organizational structures with international decision-making processes (Kitschelt 2012, ‘Parties and Interest Intermediation’: 145-146)

6. Programmatic vs. Clientalist Parties • Programmatic or clientialist parties: political parties with a programme that offer credible policy initiatives vs. clientalist parties that offer a direct exchange of goods for votes. • Explanations for differences: • Theories of development: argue that there is a connection between poor countries and clientalist parties • Statist theories: focus on strategic choices of politicians with the introduction of universal suffrage (Shefter 1978) • Institutionalist theories: argue that the programmatic cohesiveness of parties depends on electoral laws and executive-legislative relations • Ethnically divided countries: mobilized ethic groups serve as a check against contingent clientalistic exchange • Political ideologies: universalistic ideologists tend to be less clientalistic than religious or ethnic parties (Kitschelt 2012).

7. Political party divisions and alignments • Cleavage dimensions (durable group divides) • Social: group divides in the social organization and public opinion outside of party politics • Political: group divides mapped onto party alternatives • Competitive: only those political cleavages on which parties compete • Alignment: • Persistent alignment: stable configuration of voters around political party brand names • Intermittent or continuous realignment: contingent upon changes in social structure and political economy, and to strategic appeals of politicians and different voters; realign around partisan labels • Dealignment: detached of parties from voters; stability replaced by single-issued-based, fleeting relations between citizens and voters

8. Political Ideologies 1/2 • ‘The end of ideology’? (pronounced by Daniel Bell in 1960, echoed by Frances Fukiyama in The End of History and the Last Man in 1992 which hailed the global spread of liberal democracy and market capitalism as the final stage of history) • Political parties of the old right and left have drifted towards the ‘centre’, but they nonetheless retain different ideologies. • New Right: neoliberalism, neo-conservatism, anti-welfare, promotion of free market, so-called roll back of the state (but highly state interventionist), associated with Thatcher and Reagan (see Warden et al 2010, p. 122) • New Left (UK, Blair & Giddens): ‘Third Way’ ‘beyond traditional left and right’, more committed to free market economics and pressures of globalization, concerned with ‘family values’ in the context of ‘communitarianism’, but retains an interest in equality; criticized for actually being neo-liberal/conservative (see Warden et al 2010, p. 124-126)

9. Political Ideologies 2/2 • Different political ideologies and political party configurations across different countries and historical periods. • For example, Archer discusses why there is no labour party in the United States, as compared with many other western liberal democracies. • Importance of empirical and comparative research into different contexts rather than generalizing from single or similar examples [for example, two-party, multi-party, and single party systems; proportional vs. representative democracy; and different types of parties, including for example, liberal, labour, conservative, social democratic, religious, green, communist, socialist, fascist, nationalist/separatist, ethnic, et al…]

10. Changes in political parties and electoral politics in the past 40 (or so) years 1/2 • Political parties have changed their views and shifted on the political spectrum • Political parties cater to voters through marketing, mass media campaigns (& spin doctors), branding, and ‘boutique’ appeals which lead to party system fragmentation • Voters affiliate with political parties less on the basis of class interests or ideology, and more in relation to specific interests, lifestyle choices, and identity • Declining numbers of voters who participate in national elections (where voting is not obligatory) • Growing mistrust of politicians and political parties • Increasing willingness of educated voters to ‘defect’ and switch to competitors if interests are not met • Consumers vs. citizens: more distinct, deliberate, and intense political preferences of voters

11. Changes in political parties and electoral politics in the past 40 (or so) years 2/2 • Atrophy of mass parties coincides with the atrophy of mass membership, although the core party activists (elites with vested, typically corporate interests) remains similar to in the past (following Michels’ analysis) • More complex spaces of inter-party competition, across dimensions of economic distribution, socio-political governance, and citizenship inclusion/exclusion. • Active citizens engage in many non-partisan political activities in interest groups and social protest movements

12. Voter Disillusionment and the Paradox of Democracy ‘The paradox of democracy is that democracy is spreading over the world… yet in mature democracies, which the rest of the world is supposed to be copying, there is widespread disillusionment with democratic processes. In most Western countries, levels of trust in politicians have dropped over past years. Fewer people turn out to vote than used to… more and more people say that they are uninterested in parliamentary politics, especially among the younger generation. Why are citizens in democratic countries apparently becoming disillusioned with democratic government, at the same time as it is spreading round the rest of the world? (Giddens, 1999, pp. 71072)

13. Why don’t people vote? • Does the act of not voting mean ‘apathy’ or ‘disinterestedness’, or could it itself be a political act? • Russell Brand interview with Jeremy Paxman: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YR4CseY9pk

14. Why don’t people vote? Different explanations • Social psychological explanations: rates of political participation are related to cultures of class and socialization, but there are fewer clear patterns to explain non-participation • Structural explanations: structural and mechanical obstacles to participation (Piven and Clower 2000), such as cumbersome voter registration laws, confusion of appropriate voting districts for transient populations, confusing ballots (but not supported by research as a key factor for non-participation) • Political alienation: the role of estrangement from the dominant political system; voting does not address the interests of people who are politically alienated and who view political leaders as pursuing the narrow interests of the elite

15. Why are people politically alienated? • Scandals in leadership • The structure of the political process (limits of two-party systems) • Racism and discrimination in the electoral process

16. Conclusion • Significant changes in political parties since their emergence in late 19th and early 20th century in terms of ideology, membership, and voter confidence. • Nonetheless, continuities in terms of elite interests of party ‘oligarchy’ Widespread disillusionment with parliamentary democracy, evident in rising levels of non-participation in voting • Debates re: the appropriate realm of political action and the limits of multi-party democracy for mass participation: importance of social movements as an alternative space (next week…)

17. Seminar Questions • According to Archer, why is there no labour party in the United States? What do his findings suggest about the relationship between theoretical and empirical research? • How would you characterize the political ideologies of Obama, the Coalition Government, and Ed Miliband in relation to the debates about the New Right and New Left (in Warden et al 2010)? • Debate: do you agree or disagree that not voting is a meaningful form of political action? (following the recent debate re: Jeremy Paxman’s interview with Russell Brand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YR4CseY9pk)