The Political Incorporation of the Newly Enfranchised Voter: Organizational Encapsulation and Socialist Labor Party Development

Abstract

O NN E OF THE most problems in the evolution of liberal democracies is their transformation from limited franchise regimes to mass suffrage polities. The dynamics of the problem and its consequences can be summarized as follows: Suffrage expansion and political mobilization coincided with social mobilization resulting from urbanization and industrialization. As social and economic grievances became political, pressures for suffrage expansion increased.1 These demands set in motion an intriguing process of historical dialectics.2 The extension of suffrage increased greatly the potential for polarization in society, but enfranchisement also facilitated an organizational proliferation which reduced polarization by generating a myriad of cross-pressures. This long-term process narrowed alternatives in politics, fragmented interest organizations, and reduced the importance of electoral contests. The result was a lowering of political participation, the alienation of major segments of the citizenry, and the limitation of policy formulation to the bargaining process of major interest organizations, parties, and the bureaucracy. An analysis of the dynamics of the political incorporation of the newly enfranchised citizenry into national political life is important to our understanding the transition to mass politics and the stability of democratic institutions.