Party Organization Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Political parties are inevitable in representative democracies, and both their organization and activities influence the functioning of democracy. Organizations are not formally required for parties to present candidates at elections for public offices, their main assignment, but in practice, all parties have some kind of organization. However, the sizes, structures, degrees of institutionalization, and various other characteristics of these differ. Organizational characteristics vary over time, among countries, and among parties due to—among other factors— differences in political systems, regulation of party finance, electoral systems, party size, party leadership, and the ideological base of parties.

Three Faces Of Parties

Party organizations are not unitary actors, but make up a political system in themselves. Richard Katz and Peter Mair distinguish between three faces of a party. First, there is the party on the ground, that is, the party as voluntary membership organization. Second, there is the party in public office, or the party as governing (or opposing) organization. Electing representatives to public offices is, according to most party definitions as well as parties in practice, the essence of what parties do. When assessing the party organization as a governing organization, focus is on the party’s representatives holding public office, for example the parliamentary groups. Third, there is the party in central office, that is, the party as bureaucratic organization comprised of staff such as secretaries, personal assistants, policy advisers, economists, journalists, and other communication and marketing specialists. In general, party headquarters grow, hence contributing to party professionalization.

Multilevel Organizations

The relationship between and within the party on the ground, party in public office, and party bureaucracy may be structured in several ways. The formal structure of the party is laid out in party statutes. In many parties, the national congress is the highest authority while the national executive takes care of organizational matters between congresses. At the most local level, branches hold meetings and campaign. Party organizations are multilevel organizations conducting party activity at several levels such as the local, regional, national, and maybe even the international, as seen within the European Union (EU). The territorial pervasiveness of party organizations is, among other things, affected by the ideological stand and size of the party. Smaller parties might not be able to establish an organization or fight elections across the nation to the same extent as larger parties.

The competencies and assignments of the various levels of the party organizations vary; party organizations vary in the degree of decentralization or centralization of internal decision-making procedures. In some parties, the party leadership makes all the important decisions, while in other parties members have a say on everything. Important decisions and tasks include the selection, or election, of party leader or leadership and candidates for elections to public offices; the formulation of party platforms, election manifestos, and party statutes; and campaigning for public offices at the various levels of government.

Party Types

Parties and party organizations thus vary in their characteristics, and this variation influenced the development of various party models or party types. Some types are “ideal types” developed on the basis of, for example, party goals or genetic origin, whereas other types are more or less successful attempts to sum up the major empirical characteristics of parties and their organizations at a particular time. Naming these various party types emphasizes different aspects of party organizations. However, the plethora of types may be summed into fewer groups with common if not completely identical, characteristics in terms of organization.

Elite or cadre parties, common in the nineteenth century with limited franchise and a dominance of bourgeois parties, include a group of notables or selected citizens and no permanent organization. Mass parties are formal, permanent organizations, characterized by citizen mobilization and influential party membership. Classic mass parties are the class based labor parties of the twentieth century. Catch-all or professional-electoral parties have dominant party leadership and professionalization of both the campaign efforts and the party organization. Cartel parties are weakly anchored among citizens and strongly anchored in the state—blurring the distinction between members and supporters—and depend on public financial support for the party organization. Business firm parties, franchise organizations, and entrepreneurial parties create ad hoc organizations, or political entrepreneurs overtake the organization for the purpose of gaining election (e.g., Canadian parties and Forza Italia).

While many of these party types are unclear on the exact empirical parameters to assess characteristics and changes in parties, they provide types to summarize the organizational variety of party organizations. The party types thus inspire further theoretical and empirical studies of the character and development of party organizations.

The Thesis Of Party Decline

The thesis of party decline is a recurrent theme within party research, and some of this research focuses on the organizations and vitality of parties. However, analyses of party organizations allowing for the diversity of party types indicate that party organizations are changing rather than declining. How parties change depends primarily, but not only, on party ideology, leadership, and available resources such as members and money. Parties with access to greater financial resources accommodate for declining membership figures by professionalizing the party bureaucracy and engaging in more capital-intensive campaigns. Organizational adaptation and change counteract the tendency to decline when organizational forms become less adequate due to societal changes and changes within parties themselves.

Democratic Implications

To what extent party organization is a democratic necessity depends on the normative concept of democracy on which the party and the political system is based. Organizations assist parties in the assignments, or functions, allocated to them either formally (e.g., in party law as in Germany) or in practice (e.g., due to the electoral system); functions may also emerge from the party’s own ideology. Parties that enroll members, and allow them to elect the party leader and candidates for public offices and decide on the party manifesto, provide a channel of participation and hence support the participatory aspects of representative democracy. However, parties that do not seriously enroll members, but emphasize campaigning and vote structuring, support the competitive aspects of representative democracy. In sum, the extent to which party organizations contribute to various aspects of representative democracy varies not only among parties but also among political systems.

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