A further argument may be that not all citizens will be able to make informed judgments on all issues: therefore, they need to delegate power of decision-making to those who are. This can be carried through to elite theory – e.g. Pareto, Michels, "the iron law of oligarchy" - but even J S Mill argued that the British parliament should include some non-elected experts/elites. This in turn relates to important differences in theories about the nature of representation (see next).
(3) What are the different theories of representation? (Finer, Harrop and Miller, Heywood)
Essentially, three models of representation can be put forward:
(a) The 'radical' or 'delegate' model, which assumes that voters are well-informed
and objective ('enlightened self-interest of the majority') - representatives should run for re-election regularly (e.g. every 2 yrs in House of Representatives) and thus be voted out if they don't respect the wishes of the voters. Elected representatives are mere 'delegates', representing the views and decisions of those whom they represent (like a trades union official who attends the TUC with instructions on how to vote). The advantage of this model, it is argued, is that it comes closest to the 'direct democracy' model: its disadvantage is that it tends to breed conflict and narrowness of goals among representatives, and ignores the politicians' 'leadership' or 'statesmanship' roles. It is also arguable, of course, that it greatly overestimates both the intelligence of voters and the congruence between the sum of individual preferences and the collective interest. (This is related to the problem of “majoritarianism” versus minority rights and freedoms.)
(b) 'Whig' or 'trustee' model, which proposes that elected politicians should be leaders of public opinion, not passive tools of it. Once elected, representatives should think for themselves and exercise independent judgment, since those they represent may not know their own best interests. MPs have special skills, and Parliament is an autonomous organic entity of which they are part. (C.f. Edmund Burke: 'You choose a member indeed, but when you have chosen him, he is not a member for Bristol, but he is a member of parliament... Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinions'). The advantages of this model, it is argued, are precisely that it overcomes the mentioned disadvantages of the first model. Criticisms of it are that it's too elitist - that voters may often be better informed and better educated than it implies and that, at worst, representatives will just exercise their 'personal judgment' to advance their personal self interest (or the interests of powerful lobbies).
(c) The 'mandate' model. Both the foregoing models were developed before the emergence of modem mass disciplined parties, and tend to assume that all representatives, whether 'delegates' or not, are independent actors. In practice, most voters in most democracies vote for party candidates, and do so on the basis of party programmes + the voter's own party identification (if any) + his/her assessment of the party leader + (only occasionally) his/her assessment of the individual candidate. The voter may make an objective judgment about the rival party programmes, but there will almost certainly be parts of the programme of the supported party he/she doesn't like and vice versa. Thus, representation is filtered through parties, and becomes quite indirect. Thus, it is argued that voters vote for a party to give it a general mandate to govern rather than a mandate for specific policies - especially because it's often impossible to foresee what issues (especially in foreign policy, etc) the next government will have to address.
(3) Are parties necessary in representative democracy?
Normally, yes - except in very small states, or where the franchise is restricted to a small number of voters. One can suggest 3 reasons, by imagining a situation in which all candidates in all elections were independents. (a) The voter would have great difficulty in informing him/herself about all the views of all the candidates - parties have established programmes and 'images' in the minds of voters, conveyed through mass media. (b) To
cover all variations of opinion, there would be an immense number of candidates, and it's likely that the winning candidate would only have a small share of the vote - creating a real legitimacy problem in single-member constituency systems (and making 'list'
systems of PR impossible. (c) A legislature with no parties would be almost impossible
for the government to manage, except by coercion or bribery, resulting in great instability, especially in parliamentary (as opposed to presidential) systems. Hence, in practice, democratic political systems have adopted parties as the norm since the C19, with the widening of the franchise. Historically, parties set up national organisations, in GB and elsewhere, as a means of mobilising the mass vote, both for national and local elections.
Conceivably, in USA, where party structure is weak, one can imagine presidential (and maybe senatorial) candidates running as independents (projecting their views and 'image' over TV, etc). In practice, this hasn't happened, and independent or 'third party' candidates have seldom progressed far, especially in presidential elections. US politicians all have party labels, even if they often behave autonomously.
(4) Why do voters support particular parties? (Harrop and Miller, Graham, Blondel, Political Parties, Ch,4).
There are, of course, all sorts of reasons, varying considerably from one society to another, but Blondel suggests as an important starting point that individuals may support parties, either for communal reasons ('based on a sense of belonging to a community or way or life') or for associational reasons ('based on common activities and goals'): this is connected with Blondel's proposals about pressure groups (more later).
Communal groups are seen as having 'natural' legitimacy, and may transfer part of it to other groups, especially political parties (e.g., a particular church lends its support to a particular political party). Communal groups which most frequently tend to do this may be tribal (ethnic), religious or based on occupation or class. Parties combine communal with associational support, but usually tend towards the associational end of the continuum (i.e., they are more concerned with specific activities and goals than with 'a way of life').
Elaborating Blondel's proposals, one might suggest 3 different modes of identification:
(a) Parochial: voters identify closely with their village/clan or other primary communal group and its leader: they vote for that leader or his nominee, often irrespective of party. Notice that in this case, the link between individual and party will probably be weak and indirect: indeed the political system may not have any political parties at the 'associational' end of the continuum - in effect, parties will at best just be labels for communal groups (normally kinship or religious groups). Mainly found in LDCs (referred to in 'political culture' debate as possessing 'parochial political culture'). On the basis of my own experience, I would question, however, whether this is really accurate re most African states (elaborate later).
(b) Communal/class identifications. Voting preference is based more on a 'feeling of belonging' than just instrumental choice. In e.g., Germany, Italy, firm RCs identified with Christian Democrats, non-(or weakly attached) RCs with socialists/communists. In GB, 'working class' voters identify with Labour, 'middle class' with Conservative (similarly, socialists vs. Christian Democrats in other countries). In southern states of USA, most white (and many black) voters traditionally always voted Democrat for historical reasons as 'the party of Dixieland', etc.
Notice however that in these cases attachments will not just purely be communal, but may also be associational in Blondel's terminology (e.g., working class Labour Party voters vote Labour not just because they feel a communal identification with it, but also because the party has policies which reflect the rational and material interests of the working class: mutatis mutandis with middle class Conservative/Christian Democrat voters).
Note that, in many African and Latin American states, some parties have tended to be seen as the parties of “the common man”, others as the parties of the educated and/or landed elites. Hence in the 1960s, a distinction was often drawn between “mass” and “patron” parties.
(c) The rational choice/associational model. Voters are 'floating', and choose between parties as between supermarkets: they come with a 'shopping list' of interests and ideas, and choose the party which meets them most closely. In Blondel's terminology, their attachment is purely 'associational', though I prefer the term ‘instrumental’.
Empirical observations suggest that there has been a substantial degree of 'de-alignment' in recent decades in many democracies, that more voters fit the 'floating' third prototype. The old RC=CDU alignment in Germany is now fairly weak: in GB less than half the voters voted with 'their class' in 1980s (Conservatives under Thatcher won 36% of the 'working class' vote - and Blair is now winning more middle class voters for Labour; Lib-Dems, SNP, PC etc winning more votes in 1980s: more people don't feel strong class identification). In the US, Republicans and Democrats are now level-pegging in most southern states, etc. However, important communal alignments survive - N.Ireland, Yugoslavia, Lebanon are striking examples. (Note all these have had actual or near civil wars recently). In US, one might argue that there is a communal element in the fact that the Republicans have become overwhelmingly the party of WASPs (white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants).
The weakness of this classification re LDCs is that one of the main forces of political allegiance – patron-clientelism – cuts across these distinctions: if voters choose to vote for a local big man who seems likely to bring benefits to the area, is this “communal” or instrumental/rational choice?
(5) Single –Party Regimes
I can see little point in repeating the classifications of various types of party system presented by some political scientists – single-party, two-party, multi-party, dominant party, and so on. I rather want to focus on single-party systems in LDCs before turning to the impact of democratisation. I considered the reasons for the tendency towards single-party regimes under the heading of “Modes of Authoritarian Rule” Today I want to consider: to what extent did parties in single-party regimes provide representative or other functions?
In single-party regimes, parties have often been given responsibility for endowing the regime with greater legitimacy, partly by articulating a legitimising ideology, partly by mobilizing the masses in symbolic expressions of popular support – for example, the “monster rallies” and, later, “super-monster rallies” of Nkrumah’s CPP in Ghana.
Also relevant to regime stability is the party's role in political recruitment, providing, for instance in Cuba's PCC or the Iraqi Ba'th Party, reliable cadres for future leadership.
But perhaps the most fundamental contribution that political parties have made to regime stability in Third World states has been by providing a structure through which, generally via the distribution of patronage, a coalition of powerful political interests sufficient to sustain the government can be secured. Indeed, even military regimes have sometimes developed party apparatuses for this purpose. Clapham and Philip (1985), for instance, have argued that the chief problem facing military regimes is not legitimacy so much as 'political management' - gaining the necessary co-operation with general policies - and that they often feel the need to develop a party apparatus as an institutional structure through which such a 'political settlement' can be maintained. 'Institutionalization' of the regime, in this relatively limited sense, was achieved in Mexico through the PRI; and in conscious imitation ARENA was intended to provide Brazil's military government from 1965 with such a patronage mechanism, particularly necessary given the sheer size and continuing regionalism of that country. Most radical, quasi-revolutionary parties have quite rapidly, in Africa at least, turned into primarily patronage machines, with a fairly thin veneer of socialist ideological rhetoric.
Even though, as previously stressed one must be careful not to accept government rationalizations at face value, it is arguable that single parties have often assisted the process of political integration of different regions and communities. Certainly, multi-party competition has often contributed to intensification of ethnic antagonisms, sometimes leading to civil war, as in Nigeria in late-1960s, or even genocide as in Rwanda in 1994.
While single-parties might be seen primarily as instruments of government, rather than as conduits for pressures upwards, it would be wrong to suggest that the flow has been entirely one-way. Even in single-party systems, there may be opportunities for electors to trade their vote for material pay-offs, to use abstention to express disapproval of government or, given an element of choice in local candidate selection, to inject local concerns into national politics. Regular elections of MPs were held within the single-party in Tanzania from 1967 to 1992, and sitting MPs, including cabinet ministers, were frequently voted out. Moreover, the various associations – trades unions, women’s and youth leagues, etc. – which have been incorporated into the ruling party have often been able to exert a degree of pressure on behalf of their members within the party’s structures. Patron-clientelism might, moreover, distribute government-controlled resources relatively widely: it has even been described by Donal Cruise O’Brien as “the democratic dimension of the Senegalese state”.
What influence have Third World parties, once in power, exerted over policy? Outside certain communist or revolutionary socialist regimes, the general verdict must be that their direct, deliberate impact has been quite minimal. Collective party bodies, even the most senior, except for instance in Vietnam or Mozambique, have rapidly ceased to act as forums for policy-making. Party representatives in national legislatures have rarely made much independent impact on government policy: single-party governments are often dominated by a single leader and may, as in Zambia and Mexico, draw more on high-ranking administrators than on party members as such.
Note the general tendency for parties to atrophy and for patronage resources to become more narrowly concentrated, when regimes no longer have to face competitive elections.
(6) Parties and Representation since the ‘Third Wave’ of Democratisation
Why did so many single parties succeed in retaining power when the political system was opened up to competition?
(i) Often the electoral playing field was far from level (electoral malpractice, but also bias of state-owned media, ruling party’s greater resources, etc.)
(ii) Opposition parties’ shortage of finance.
(iii) Opposition fragmented as aspirants scrambled for power. This has often been encouraged by incumbent rulers. (Note Moi’s victory in 1992 Kenyan elections despite gaining only 30% of the vote.)
(iv) Richard Crook’s point re Cote d’Ivoire – it was commonly difficult for newly created opposition parties to present themselves as genuinely ‘national’ in character. Contrary to the commonly voiced assertion that ruling parties have often represented just one ethnic group, most ruling parties in single-party regimes had sought to practice “ethnic arithmetic”, or at least to maintain a multi-ethnic coalition. They often succeeded in labeling newly created opposition parties as being biased towards the ethnic group of their founders. (But a dangerous game, as the case of Cote d’Ivoire has shown.)
Nonetheless, despite the fact that the (arguably unrealistic) expectations of many Africanists were disappointed in first round of post-1990 elections, a growing number of ruling parties have been displaced in recent years (e.g. Senegal, Kenya, Ghana). The successor regimes have generally continued to rule, however, in a similarly presidential style, with continuing use of patron-clientelism. This should not really surprise anyone. One always finds this in primarily agrarian societies, and especially in ethnically mixed societies. (Note arguments to this effect re US – clientelism as a means of incorporating new groups into the political system.)
It is important to qualify the common notion that African electorates generally vote on the basis of communal solidarity. My own experience of conducting surveys and studying elections in Ghana suggests that, even if ideological differences are of little consequence, parties (and, more especially, their presidential candidates) do project distinctive public images. Voters take these images seriously, together with such issues as which party/presidential candidate is likely to provide the least corrupt (‘cleanest’) government, political stability, economic improvement, and so on. Voters tend, however, to view these issues and images through ethnically-tinted glasses, according greater credibility to the claims of political leaders from their own area. Note, even so, that in most constituencies in Ghana and many other African states, the distribution of votes between the major competing parties is quite close, refuting any assumption of straightforward communally solidaristic voting. (For a relatively rare, detailed and subtle analysis of the motives of voters in an African election, see the article by John Dunn on the reading list.)
Given the fact that the future economic welfare of most people in a typically small African town/village will depend, in large measure, on whether the town receives, say, a road or pipe-borne water supply under the next government, it is perfectly rational for voters to vote largely on the basis of which of the competing local candidates and/or presidential candidates seems most likely to provide such benefits. This in turn means that nearly all parliamentary candidates must be (a) sons or daughters of the locality, with a good track record of contributing to community improvement; and (b) sufficiently well-educated to stand a chance, if elected, of obtaining a senior government position. One of the consequences is that MPs tend overwhelmingly to be lawyers and other professionals who, as a whole, are sociologically highly unrepresentative of the general population. Hence we find the suggestions of e.g. Rawlings in Ghana and Museveni in Uganda that a degree of ‘corporate’ representation of various social groups might lend greater legitimacy to representative assemblies in Africa. Hence also the frequently somewhat ambivalent attitudes towards multi-party democracy: yes, it provides greater freedom to speak one’s mind, but it also tends to mean the rule of the (self-interested) westernized, educated elite.
