Dominant Parties and Democracy: the Role of Party Organization

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Mainstream conceptions of democracy take inter-party competition as the principal mechanism and guarantor of vertical political accountability (Schumpeter 1942, Przeworski 1999). Yet, the organizational features of individual parties (Katz and Mair 1995, van Biezen 2004) and the types of linkages they have with voters and organized mass constituencies (Kitschelt and Wilkinson 2007, Stokes 2005) affect the quality of representation and democratic accountability. This is especially true in the case of dominant parties, which by definition remain in power for long periods of time and control many elected offices. Their presence, and the inability or absence of opposition forces to confront such a party, is almost always a proximate cause of democratic regime failure.

This panel tackles the relationship between the internal organization of political parties and democratic accountability in Europe and Latin America, particularly in empirical settings of dominant party rule. Looking at a diverse group of historical and contemporary cases across the world, papers analyze party-building efforts in different contexts, and discuss how socio-economic structures, political conditions and technological and organizational resources available to party-builders shaped the nature of political parties and the impact of these parties on the quality and stability of democracy.

The paper by Goenega sheds light on how the “ideal” model of party democracy, where programmatic parties aggregate the interests of large sections of society and offer stable and credible policy platforms, came to be. Analyzing the emergence of mass parties in the early 20th century in Argentina, Mexico, France and Sweden, Goenaga argues that the periods of mass incorporation these countries went through only produced programmatic mass parties where there were “deliberative systems” underpinned by a literate population with access to means of mass communication, and dense associational activity. Goenaga contributes a historical critique to the literature on why programmatic parties emerge in some contexts, and provides us with a lens to judge the promise of contemporary parties that have some claim to be representing disadvantaged masses.

While classical mass parties have weakened in much of the developed world (Dalton and Wattenberg 2002), there have also been examples of party building in the last 20 years, particularly outside advanced industrialized democracies. Some of these new parties have not only reached power, but they have also gone on to become dominant parties, and in some cases have launched comprehensive institutional reforms or “revolutions”, radically transforming the political establishment. Among these new dominant parties, many, such as those in Venezuela and Turkey, have used majoritarian notions of democracy to expand executive authority, discarding liberal judicial protections and horizontal accountability mechanisms.

Yet, newly emerging dominant parties did not undermine democracy everywhere. Papers by Anria and Cyr and Laebens discuss two of these new parties having emerged in different developing-country contexts, in Bolivia and Turkey respectively. The relationship of these new parties to their countries’ old political establishment and the party system breakdown that saw the new parties emerge bear some resemblance, and both parties came to power and stayed in power thanks to their charismatic leaders. However, the Bolivian MAS and the Turkish AKP developed very different organizational structures. Together, these two papers show that different party organizations in these two parties - weak bureaucratic structures in the former and a sophisticated centralized bureaucracy in the latter – contributed to the divergent evolution of democracy in the two countries. While still in power, Bolivian president Evo Morales may be held accountable by organized mass constituencies that operate in close linkage with his own party. In Turkey, on the other hand, the AKP had little capacity to constrain Erdogan’s actions, even as the president’s policies gradually transformed the regime into a dictatorship.

Because the context in which parties were born often leaves indelible marks on their organization and internal life (Panebianco 1988), this set of papers theorizes about the crucial variables that shape parties’ formative years and the processes that brought them to power. Ślarzyński discusses the role of the social movement in bringing PiS to power in Poland, and argues that while supportive social organizations give PiS a stable electoral base, the relationship between the party and the movement also constrains the party’s possibilities for electoral growth, and hence for becoming a dominant party. These organizational constraints are particularly important in the case of the Polish ruling party, whose ideological orientation threatens to take the country off the path of liberal democracy.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 35: Political Organizations and Parties

Individual Presentations

• The Communicative Origins of Programmatic Parties - Agustin Alonso Goenaga Orrego, Lund University

• Democracy and Party Organization in Contemporary Bolivia - Santiago Anria, Dickinson College; Jennifer Marie Cyr, University of Arizona

• Organization of the AKP and Turkey’s Path to Dictatorship - Melis Gulboy Laebens, Yale University

• The Impact of Social Movements: Electoral Stability and Constraint in Poland - Marcin Ślarzyński, Polish Academy of Sciences

Chair

• Anibal Perez-Linan University of Notre Dame

Discussant

• Milada Anna Vachudova University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill