scholarly journals The cartel party, consensus democracy and democracy without politics

Politologia ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 5-23
Author(s):  
Richard S. Katz

Although the age of the mass party as an organizational form is long in the past, the mass party remains a widely accepted normative ideal, closely connected to the idea of party government and to a voters-as-principals-parties-as-agents understanding of democracy. In evolving from mass party, to catch-all party, to cartel party European democracies have also been evolving towards an ‘anti-political’ view of government, along with models of consensus democracy and the regulatory state. This evolution helps to explain the decline in popular connection to political parties. Ironically, the associated causes of this decline are generally regarded as good, notwithstanding that the decline itself is often identified as a crisis. Moreover, analysis of this decline suggests as striking similarity between the consensus model of democracy and the cartel party model of democracy, notwithstanding that the first is often seen as a goal to which democracies should be moving while the second is seen as a threat to democracy itself.

Author(s):  
Richard S. Katz ◽  
Peter Mair

Cartelization has given rise to opposition in the form of anti-party-system or populist parties. While this possibility was clear as early as the 1990s, in the last decade the growth of these parties has led to alarm in some quarters about the continued viability of liberal democratic party government. In contrast to accounts that attribute this rise to the recent policy failures of the political mainstream, this chapter suggests that its roots lie in internal contradictions in the expectations that the parties have raised in the process of cartelization. Rather than being solutions to these problems, models of “the regulatory state” or “consensus democracy” are strikingly similar to democracy under the cartel party model.


Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi

Chapter 1 introduces the long and difficult process of the theoretical legitimation of the political party as such. The analysis of the meaning and acceptance of ‘parties’ as tools of expressing contrasting visions moves forward from ancient Greece and Rome where (democratic) politics had first become a matter of speculation and practice, and ends up with the first cautious acceptance of parties by eighteenth-century British thinkers. The chapter explores how parties or factions have been constantly considered tools of division of the ‘common wealth’ and the ‘good society’. The holist and monist vision of a harmonious and compounded society, stigmatized parties and factions as an ultimate danger for the political community. Only when a new way of thinking, that is liberalism, emerged, was room for the acceptance of parties set.


Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ivarsflaten ◽  
Scott Blinder ◽  
Lise Bjånesøy

The “populist radical right” is a contested concept in scholarly work for good reason. This chapter begins by explaining that the political parties usually grouped together under this label are not a party family in a conventional sense and do not self-identify with this category. It goes on to show how political science scholarship has established that in Europe during the past thirty or so years we have seen the rise of a set of parties that share a common ideological feature—nativism. The nativist political parties experiencing most electoral support have combined their nativist agenda with some other legitimate ideological companion, which provides deniability—a shield against charges that the nativist agenda makes the parties and their supporters right-wing extremist and undemocratic. The chapter goes on to explain that in order to make progress on our understanding of how and why the populist radical right persuades citizens, we need to recognize: first, that nativism is the only necessary ingredient without which the populist radical right loses its force; and second, that nativism in contemporary established democracies has tended not to persuade a large share of voters without an ideological companion.


Author(s):  
Caroline Fleay

Throughout the past forty years various leaders from both major political parties in Australia have categorized the arrival by boat of people seeking asylum as a “crisis” and the people themselves as “illegal.” This is despite Australia being a signatory to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and receiving relatively few people who seek asylum compared with many other countries. Punitive government policies and processes have further reinforced these representations, such that “crisis” and “illegal” can now be understood as both categories of analysis and practice. The repeated use of such categories may be helping to produce and reproduce prejudice and racism and obscure the needs and experiences of people seeking asylum.


Author(s):  
O. Morhuniuk

An article is devoted to the analysis of the functions and formats of political parties in consociational democracies. In particular, it is defined that parties that represent the interests of certain subcultures in society and that reach a consensus among themselves at the level of political agreements are called segmental. At the same time, parties that encapsulate different subgroups of the society that cooperate inside the party within main features of the consociational theory (grand coalition, mutual veto, proportionality in representations, and independence of segments or society subcultures) are called consociational. The theory of consociationalism has received a wide range of theoretical additions and criticism from political scientists over the past fifty years. And while political parties should have been, by definition, one of the key aspects of research within such democratic regimes (parties are part of large coalitions and agents of representation of certain subcultures), there is very scarce number of literature that focuses on this aspect. Therefore, the presented article provides a description of the functions of political parties that could be observed as inside their subcultures as well as in interaction with other segmental parties. Based on the experience of two European countries in the period of “classical” consociationalism (Belgium and the Netherlands), we explain the functions of the parties we have defined in such societies with examples of relevant consociational practices in them. Simultaneously with the analysis of segmental parties, the article also offers the characteristics of consociational parties. The emergence of such parties has its own institutional and historical features. The way of further development of the party system and the level of preservation of consociational practices makes it possible to understand the nature of changes in the societies. Similarly, the analysis of the forms of party competition and interaction between segmental parties makes it possible to outline the forms of those consociational changes that are taking place in the research countries.


1994 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 565-575
Author(s):  
Howard A. Scarrow

The weakening of American political parties has been a theme featured in the writings of political scientists for the past several decades. This essay is addressed to developments which may further that decline-developments which have undermined the very purpose which American political parties are said to serve. I refer to legal standards which were established by the Supreme Court in 1964, and which have since been expanded by the Court and then incorporated into the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its amendment in 1982.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-158
Author(s):  
Erindi Bejko

Abstract Political parties in Albania on several occasions during the past two decades have won the election in certain areas over 3 times in a row. While victory and governance of the same area, for sure creates a margin consumption which has affected the dynamics of the bastions at least in the recent national election. Parties are consumed in their strongholds if they decide the same candidates, either as a political force. In the focus of this article, will be the consuming steps of political parties in their stronghold areas, either reflecting the fall results during the election process. Will we have a final rupture in Albania consumption bastions of political parties and how would be the future of dynamic bastion, will be the question of this article scientific research. A fracture would have strongholds in shqipare perfuindimtare the consumption of political parties and how will be the future of dynamics will be bastions of this artikulil question scientific research. Bastion’s consumption occurs mainly from major political forces on the left if either of right on the study will be taken 4 constituencies which voted for the same party in three elections one by one. In our focus will be general elections, not local elections.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-110
Author(s):  
Russell Muirhead ◽  
Nancy L. Rosenblum

Despite their centrality to modern democracy, until recently political parties were relegated to the margins of normative democratic theory, taking a back seat to social movements, civil society associations, deliberative experiments, spaces for local participatory government, and direct popular participation. Yet, in the past 15 years, a burgeoning literature has emerged in democratic theory focused directly on parties and partisanship; that is our focus in this review. We locate three main normative defenses of parties: one centered in the special role parties can play in political justification as agents of public reason, a second that looks to the way parties contribute to deliberation, and a third that focuses on the partisan commitment to regulated political rivalry and peaceful rotation in office. In this last connection, we survey work on the constitutional status of parties and reasons for banning parties. We then consider the relation of partisanship to citizenship, and in a fourth section we turn to the ethics of partisanship. Parties and partisanship are interwoven but separable: If partisans are necessary to realize the value of parties, the reverse holds as well, and parties are necessary to realize the value of partisanship.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-498
Author(s):  
Laura J. Heideman

How do new forms of organizations legitimate themselves? Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have emerged as a dominant form of civil society organization in the past 35 years, often in societies undergoing social and political transitions. This paper analyzes legitimation processes for NGOs in postwar and postcommunist Croatia using interview and archival data. Starting from a principle that legitimation is a process involving multiple audiences, I examine the mechanisms NGOs use to legitimate themselves to different audiences. I find that Croatian civil society organizations adopted the NGO organizational form to legitimate themselves to international actors, who in turn pressured the Croatian government to accept these organizations as legitimate. However, the actions NGOs took to legitimate themselves to international actors undermined their legitimacy with the Croatian public. This case demonstrates that legitimation is a challenging prospect for a new type of organization, especially given the fragile nature of mediated legitimacy and the conflicting priorities of different audiences.


2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petr Kopecký ◽  
Gerardo Scherlis

Party patronage is generally associated with social, economic and political underdevelopment, and is hence seen as largely irrelevant in the context of contemporary European politics. In this article, we argue to the contrary, proposing that patronage reappears on the stage of European politics as a critical organizational and governmental resource employed by political parties to enhance their standing as semi-state agencies of government. In order to illustrate our main contention, we first define party patronage, disentangling it from other notions of political particularism that are often used synonymously in the literature. Second, we provide a brief overview of the literature on the past and present of patronage practices in Europe, arguing that rather than declining, patronage is still likely to be a relevant feature of contemporary party politics in Europe. Finally, we analyse the role of party patronage in the light of recent developments in several European countries, identifying three distinct patterns of patronage practices in the region.


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