The Co-evolution of Interest Groups, Social Movements and Political Parties

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

This roundtable offers a forum to discuss emerging trends in the study of the relationship between political parties, interest groups and social movements, and their consequences for politics and policies in a comparative perspective. The discussion would draw on three recent books: Secular Surge by David Campbell, Geoffrey Layman, John C. Green (Cambridge, 2020), When Movements Become Parties by Santiago Anria *Cambridge 2019) and Religious Parties and the Politics of Civil Liberties by Vineeta Yadav (Oxford, 2021).
The three books complement each other thematically and methodologically. Anria and Campbell et al focus on how mobilization by societal actors can transform the organizational structure, responsiveness and intra-party politics of political parties. Campbell et al and Yadav analyze how competing mobilization by religious and secular social actors compels parties to make ideological and strategic choices which directly impact fundamental rights and freedoms. Anria and Yadav discuss these relationships in the context of weakly institutionalized party systems in consolidating democracies while Campbell et al do so for a highly institutionalized party system in a consolidated democracy. They focus on distinct regions of the world – the US, Bolivia and Latin America (Anria) and Muslim-majority countries (Yadav) and use diverse methods. Ultimately, discussion of the three books in tandem should foster critical debates about interpretations of key concepts, the pros and cons of methodological tools, and paths forward for studying the interconnections and co-evolution of parties, interest groups and social movements.
Santiago Anria’s book tackles this question: Social movements are quintessentially bottom-up organizations. Why, then, do some parties formed by social movements develop top-down structures while others stay more open and responsive to their social bases? Anria’s book shows how movements can form parties, contribute to parties’ internal politics and shape their organizational models. Although the existing literature argues that movement-based parties will succumb to professionalization and specialization, the book shows that this is not inevitable or preordained through an in-depth examination of the unusual development of Bolivia’s Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) and a broader comparative-historical analysis of other parties formed by social movements. In Anria’s account, social movements become a critical source of variation in parties’ organizational models and consequently their policies and larger political institutions.
Vineeta Yadav’s book explores which economic and political conditions allow religious lobbies and religious parties in developing democracies to strengthen each other and, the subsequent impact their co-evolution has on their abilities to advance their own agendas. The book first shows how inflationary crises allow religious parties to strengthen religious lobbies and, then explains how lobbies’ increased institutionalization becomes a subsequent liability for religious parties, limiting their ability to implement their own organizational and policy agendas in office. Yadav then uses this dynamic to explain when religious lobbies are able to successfully compel religious parties to implement one of their central goals - curbing civil liberties. The book combines the first empirical analysis of religious parties and religious lobbies in all 49 Muslim-majority countries from 1980 to 2016 with in-depth case studies of Turkey and Pakistan to explain why and when the success of religious parties leads to declining civil liberties in some Muslim-majority countries, but not in others.
Secular Surge (Campbell, Layman, Green) examines the evolution of the relationship between religion and politics in America and, analyzes its consequences for both political parties today. Using a rich array of panel data and experiments the authors find that the Religious Right’s effective political mobilization and the resulting closeness with the Republican Party caused many voters to associate organized religion with the Republican Party and fueled a rise in secularism. They provide evidence that these secularists are as politically active as religionists and then draw out the implications of this increased political activism for intra-party politics in both the Democratic and Republican parties, focusing particularly on relations between religious and secular factions in the Democratic Party. Finally, they explore the impact of this secular surge on contemporary support for crucial rights and policies. The book therefore traces over a period of forty years how successful political mobilization by one set of social actors triggers a chain of counter mobilization by others transforming both parties and policies.

Sub Unit

• Division 33: Religion and Politics

Chair

• Amy Erica Smith Iowa State University

Presenters

• Vineeta Yadav Pennsylvania State University

• David E. Campbell University of Notre Dame

• Geoffrey C. Layman University of Notre Dame

• John C. Green University of Akron

• Anthony Gill University of Washington

• Jacob R. Neiheisel University at Buffalo, SUNY

• Jessica Rich Marquette University

• Santiago Anria Cornell University