Catch-all Parties Research Articles

Towards a new party system

The results of the 2009 Bundestag election and subsequent Land elections suggest that the German party system is changing fundamentally. A few facts suffice to corroborate this statement: Volatility has now reached levels that were last recorded in the 1950s; turnout in national elections has reached an all-time low; the two large parties have had unprecedentedly poor results in the Bundestag elections while all three smaller parties reached more than 10 percent. The article shows that German catch-all parties are about to lose their hold on the electorate and, as a result, can no longer rely on being the senior parties of government. The article analyses these changes systematically using a range of quantitative indicators covering the entire post-war period. It shows a seminal erosion of the forces which have stabilized the German party system in earlier decades and discusses the repercussions for the functioning of German party democracy.

Political Polarization in Taiwan: A Growing Challenge to Catch-all Parties?

For the last decade, politics in Taiwan have become increasingly polarized over the national identity issue. Yet, the bitter division between the two major parties is not really reflected in the electorate. We seek to explain this paradox by examining the changing nature of political parties, in particular the growing role of ideological activists in campaigns, the rise of cultural and identity issues, the difficulty for new parties to emerge, the decline of catch-all parties, and the tendency for major parties to engage in cartel activities.

The Cartel Model and Motions for the Agenda: Israel as a Case Study (2003-2009)

(ProQuest: ... denotes formula omitted.)During the last four decades, political scientists have posited various theories to explain the functioning of party systems and the evolutionary changes that take place in them. Descriptions of several types of parties have emerged from these theories including the elite party, the mass party, the catch-all party and the cartel model. Cox and McCubbins (2005) used the cartel model, originally devised by Katz and Mair (1995), to advance a theory about American political parties. They tested this theory by using the roll rate to measure the influence of each party. This paper uses the measurement of Cox and McCubbins' cartel theory in order to expand our knowledge about the ability of Israeli governments to set their agenda.Scholars argue that political parties evolve by becoming increasingly elitist and less ideological, and are dominated by money and professionals (e.g., Hopkin and Paolucci 1999; Panebianco 1988). In contrast, the mass party has an extensive organization and membership. Its main goal is to capture control of the state in order to expand the right to vote and enact social reforms that benefit its members (Duverger 1954). Similarly, the main goal of the catch-all model is to attract as many voters as possible (Kirchheimer 1966). Regardless of their goals, however, many political scientists believe that political parties are in decline.Katz and Mair (1995) disagree with this assessment. They argue the political parties have successfully adjusted to their present situation by forming cartel party systems, the next stage in party evolution after the mass and catch-all parties (Katz and Mair 1995). They use the term 'cartel' to describe the influence the party uses over the state to establish its own position in power by preventing others from entering the cartel.Since 1 995 there have been a wide variety of papers published in response to Katz and Mair' s cartel theory. Some of the works criticized it from a theoretical perspective (Kitschelt 2000; Koole 1996), some developed the theory (Blyth and Katz 2005; Katz and Mair 1996). Others have examined the theory using various countries as case studies (e.g., Bowler, Carter and Farrell 2003; Hopkin 2003; Pelizzo 2007; Yishai 2001; Young 1998). Cox and McCubbins (2005) later used the phrase 'cartel party' to advance a theory about American political parties they described as 'procedural cartels'. In their model the majority party in the House of Representatives acts as a cartel by controlling the key positions of power in the chamber and, by extension, the content and composition of the legislative agenda.Of what use are the procedures described by Cox and McCubbins and to what extent do they exist in other parliamentary bodies besides the American Congress? To answer these questions, we reviewed the major research on these procedures. First we established that parliaments worldwide have different procedures that serve the same purpose: blocking or delaying the ability of the opposition or the coalition to set its agenda. In the US Congress, blocking tactics including the use of the 'killer amendment' (Wilkerson 1999) can be used to make a bill fail. In the Israeli parliament (the Knesset), such a tactic is called the 'arrangement law', which allows the government to veto expenditure bills after they have been passed (Akirav, Cox and McCubbins 2010). France's National Assembly also has delaying tactics called the 'package vote' (Huber 1992). In Western and Eastern European parliaments such actions are called the 'successive procedure' (Rasch 2000). In sum, different parliaments have a variety of blocking and delaying tactics that they use to try to maintain a delicate balance between the power of the coalition or the majority party and the power of the opposition.In order to understand the effectiveness of the procedures, we must assume, as does Huber (1992), that institutional arrangements play important roles in structuring not only the relationship between the legislative and executive branches, but also the strategic interactions between the parties that are partners in coalitions, and between the government and the opposition parties in a minority government (Huber 1992:684-685). …

Americanisation of Political Communication

Globalisation, referring to an interconnectedness and interdependence across the world, creates a challenge for national states, localities and individuals. In the past, people used to define themselves with strong ties with political parties, trade unions, and churches. However, modernisation process decreased the importance of these institutions, and individualistic values became more important. As a result of that process, ties between people and political parties are weakened. Meanwhile, media played a very important role, and the mass media gained a centrality in the world. Moreover, technological developments changed the interaction between people, and “visibility” became important for politicians: The more visible politicans are on television, the more dominant they are. Therefore, these changes forced political parties to change their political discourse and new communication techniques emerged with catch-all parties. The U.S. was the first country, which used new techniques in political communication. Because of dissemination of information, these new techniques are globalised. Key words: Modernisation; Americanisation; Centrality of Media; Political Communication

A transformação dos sistemas partidários da Europa Ocidental

Este texto foi o capítulo de um livro, publicado em 1966, que trazia resultados de pesquisas comparadas sobre os partidos políticos, sob a perspectiva do desenvolvimento político, e que foi parte de uma série de publicações intitulada Studies in political development. O tipo partidário catch-all, introduzido aqui por Kirchheimer, ainda é amplamente utilizado nos estudos partidários em todo o mundo, e este texto continua sendo um dos mais citados na Ciência Política até hoje. Embora a maior parte de seus escritos seja na língua alemã e, portanto, inacessível ao grande público, este pequeno trabalho em inglês, mais acessível, portanto, fez de Kirchheimer um dos autores mais conhecidos da área e deste texto uma leitura indispensável aos estudiosos dos partidos e da política em geral.

The CDU and the politics of gender in Germany: bringing women to the Party

Introduction: a democratic paradox? 1. The puzzle of CDU policy making on women's issues 2. The corporatist catch-all party model 3. The postwar CDU: origins of a corporatist catch-all party 4. The emergence of the Women's Union, 1969-1982 5. The Women's Union in the dominant coalition, 1982-1989 6. Looking eastward: the Women's Union and cobbled coalitions, 1989-1998 7. The rise of Angela Merkel: policy and personnel decisions of the CDU in unified Germany 8. Christian democracy with and without corporatism: policy making on women's issues in Austria, Italy and the Netherlands Conclusion Appendix A: list of cited interviews.

Volksparteien under Pressure: Challenges and Adaptation

The result of the 2009 Bundestag election strengthened the chorus of observers diagnosing the demise of the ‘Volksparteien’ (catch-all parties). Both German catch-all parties, the Christian Democratic CDU/CSU and the Social Democratic SPD, are under enormous pressure, which is reflected in standard quantitative data: the catch-all parties are losing voters both in absolute numbers and in terms of their share of the vote; they are losing party members; and they are losing public confidence regarding their perceived ability to solve important political and social problems. Apparently, the basic political idea of Volksparteien, namely vertically and horizontally to integrate different interests, ideas, social groups, opinions and trends, is less and less in demand in society. This article discusses the various, partially contradictory but mostly complementary, theories that seek to explain the downward trend of the Volksparteien. The article shows how the catch-all parties are attempting to address these detrimental developments in terms of both their organisation and strategies.

The paradoxical effects of decline

This article examines the impact of party system change in Germany on the role, status and power of the two catch-all parties (CDU/CSU and SPD) in the light of the 2009 federal election. It argues that party system change has had a paradoxical impact. On the one hand, the decline in the overall catch-all vote undermines the two parties’ integrative function. On the other, the presence of three small parties (FDP, Greens, Left Party) means that, with the possible exception of the Greens, no single small party has the potential to be ‘kingmaker’ and, because of their relative positions in ideological space, neither can they act in concert to extract concessions from the two catch-all parties. Thus, despite the impressive performance of the FDP in the 2009 federal election and the electoral meltdown suffered by the SPD, in office-seeking terms the catch-all parties are currently less vulnerable to small party threats of defection to alternative coalitions.

A Dual Centre? Executive Politics under the Second Grand Coalition in Germany

This article analyses executive politics under the second Grand Coalition in Germany with a particular emphasis on the role of the Chancellor and her Office. It applies a principal–agent framework to examine how the two parties in government affected the power relations within the executive. Next to external features such as the coinciding G8 and EU presidency as well as the global financial and economic crisis, particular institutional features structuring these delegation relationships, i.e. the partisan composition of the government and the rules for cabinet decision-making, account for the dynamics in executive politics during the second Grand Coalition. Initially, the traditional prerogatives of a German Chancellor were restricted and two hubs for executive coordination emerged for directing cabinet members from both government parties. The G8 and EU presidency in 2007 weakened the parties' influence and enabled the Chancellor and her Office to centralise executive politics. When the global financial and economic crises hit Germany in 2008, executive politics shifted towards a concentration of power at the Chancellery and the Ministry of Finance, also balancing the interests of both catch-all parties in government to engage in crisis management.

The SPD and the Debacle of the 2009 German Federal Election: An Opportunity for Renewal

The 2009 German federal election marked a devastating defeat for the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). The debacle led some commentators to speculate about the end of the SPD as a “catch-all party“ and—given the recent poor performance of center-left parties across Europe—“the end of social democracy.“ In this article, we contextualize the result of the 2009 Bundestag election within the settings of German party politics and European social democracy, and show how the electoral disaster for the SPD can be explained by broad, long-term political developments. We nevertheless argue that the German Social Democrat's defeat in 2009 provides an opportunity for renewal at a time when the governing Conservative-Liberal coalition—already in disarray—must take some tough decisions with regard to the resource crunch in German public finances.

Federalismo, dinâmica eleitoral e políticas públicas no Brasil: uma tipologia e algumas hipóteses

O presente trabalho propõe um modelo tipológico capaz de fundamentar o entendimento da conexão entre políticas públicas e dinâmica eleitoral em uma democracia federal onde o poder de formular e implementar políticas públicas é relativamente descentralizado. De modo mais geral, esta tipologia de políticas públicas pretende avançar além das dicotomias tradicionais da ciência política - clientelismo vs. universalismo / partidos catch-all vs. partidos programáticos - oferecendo uma nova perspectiva analítica, de corte não dualista. A tipologia classifica as políticas públicas a partir de duas dimensões: os critérios de alocação de recursos (políticopartidários ou universalistas) e a natureza dos bens e serviços produzidos (privados ou públicos). A partir do cruzamento das duas dimensões, o trabalho define quatro tipos de estratégias de implementação de políticas públicas: clientelismo, política distributiva, focalização e universalismo. Também são definidas algumas hipóteses capazes de explicar as escolhas de política pública realizadas pelos governos subnacionais. O trabalho leva em conta três ordens de fatores explicativos: competição política horizontal (entre partidos políticos), competição vertical (entre esferas de governo) e contexto socioeconômico e demográfico.

Borgerplatformen – Et ungt parti med regeringsmagt

The Civic Platform - a Young Party in Power The Civic Platform is one of the new parties in Poland, being established less than 10 years ago as a liberal soft protest party with a fl at and decentralized institutional structure. This article starts with a brief overview of the development of parties and party systems in Central and Eastern Europe before proceeding to review the his- tory of the Civic Platform, with a special emphasis on its constituency, institutional structure, programmatic aspects and party type. Over time, the party's profi le has changed radically, in particular since the 2007 election, which brought the party into power. Step by step, it has become more hierarchically structured and has developed cartel and catch-all party characteristics institutionally reminiscent of a mass party. Currently, it enjoys a strong position: few voters want the Law and Justice Party to return to power, and the Left does not constitute a real challenge. The article nevertheless ends by discussing the prospects of fatigue from being in power, as well as the waning effect of the shock of two years of Kaczynski rule.

Kirchheimer Italian Style

In this article, I use the Italian case to demonstrate that Kirchheimer’s catch-all thesis can be applied in various ways. Unlike parties in many European nations, Italian parties did not undergo a catch-all transformation in the post-war period. However, after the parties and party system were dramatically reformed in the 1990s, some catch-all characteristics — with clarifications — in Italy are in evidence. Specifically, an important distinction needs to be made between what Kirchheimer called a ‘catch-all party’ and what we may refer to as a ‘catch-all bloc’. The catch-all party is a single party that aims to capture as much of the vote as it can, oftentimes by converging its policy preferences on the centre political space. The catch-all bloc is a group of individual parties, catch-all or not, that agrees in advance to collaborate, and behaves, collectively, as a catch-all party. This important distinction helps us understand changes in the Italian party system over time and shows that Kirchheimer’s ideas — though modified — still have relevance in modern-day Italian politics.

Campaigning and the Catch-All Party

Otto Kirchheimer’s well-known diagnosis of ‘catch-all’ partism in Western Europe rests on an implicit causal argument about the consequences of social change for political parties. This article takes up the causal story underlying Kirchheimer’s account and traces its implications for a specific, though central, party activity: campaigning. As Kirchheimer discerned, the transformation of advanced industrial societies radically altered the context of parties’ strategic decision-making. In the area of election campaigning, parties confronted heightened incentives to approach the electorate with ‘persuasive’ rather than more traditional ‘mobilizing’ appeals and developed a greatly increased demand for reliable information about voter preferences. These shifts, in turn, had consequences for party organization, promoting the centralization and marginalization of individual members Kirchheimer associates with the catch-all party type. Through the lens of campaign change, then, we can observe the causal processes that unite the diverse features Kirchheimer links to his catch-all party — although our attention is also drawn to ways in which party development has not conformed to Kirchheimer’s expectations. This article illustrates these intersecting processes with a discussion of Labour and Conservative campaigns in Britain.

Kirchheimer’s French Twist

Despite the fact that the catch-all thesis has profoundly affected scholarship on political parties, operationalizing the thesis and applying it to evaluate empirical cases has proved challenging for scholars. The thesis has been criticized for lacking a theoretical framework of analysis and clear causal logic. Therefore, while it is often cited it is rarely tested. In this article I develop a model of the catch-all thesis and then test it in the case of France, one of the original cases specified by Otto Kirchheimer in his observations. The French case exhibits competing tendencies of party convergence and polarization with the persistence of ideology. Findings suggest some confirmation of the catch-all thesis prediction regarding bipolarization, yet not according to the rationale asserted in the thesis. Additionally, presidentialism effects prove an important explanatory factor and the 2007 elections suggest a possible catch-all party in the UMP.

Holding Their Own

In his seminal work, Kirchheimer (1966) argued that as larger parties transformed into catch-all parties we would see the disappearance of small parties. We know, however, that Green parties are one example of small parties that have persisted in many European party systems. In this article, I seek to explain this inconsistency. I argue that Kirchheimer did not anticipate the development and growth of the New Politics agenda or of Green parties. These parties, moreover, have endured because of their desire to gain electoral representation and maintain their distinct policy positions. To test this argument, I examine the electoral strategies and policy preferences of the British and French Green parties over the past decade. The results confirm my hypotheses. The findings not only update Kirchheimer’s theory, but also have important implications for our understanding of Green party behaviour and potential for longevity more generally.

The Catch-All Party Revisited

This article aims to do the following: reflect upon the life, experiences, ideas and teaching of Kirchheimer from the perspective of the author, his first dissertation advisee at Columbia University and one of his last students; discuss some of his major political observations and arguments; and consider their relevance today.

Economic crisis, party system change, and the dynamics of class voting in Venezuela, 1973–2003

The breakdown of the old catch-all party system in Venezuela, and the sudden rise to power of leftist former coup leader Hugo Chávez provides an instructive case study to examine the sources of party system change, the rise of populism and the politicisation of class. Using nationally representative survey data this paper analyses different models of voting behaviour over time, and examines the extent to which the determinants of electoral choice have changed. It argues that although economic crises during the 1990s undermined support for the existing parties, it did not create a politically salient class-based response. Rather, it created the electoral space for new actors to enter the political stage and articulate new populist issue dimensions. Explanations for the politicisation of social cleavages in Venezuela can therefore best be understood in terms of ‘top-down’ approaches which emphasises the role of political agency in reshaping and re-crafting political identities, rather than more ‘bottom-up’ factors which emphasise the demands that originate within the electorate.

Shaping the Brazilian Political Class: Causes and Consequences of Recruitment to the Chamber of Deputies

This article profiles the contemporary Brazilian political class by reviewing recruitment to the lower house of the national legislature. We pose political recruitment as both a dependent and an independent variable. After reviewing changes in the profile of politicians, we ask whether patterns of recruitment have any real impact on the functioning or output of the Câmara dos Deputados. We demonstrate that three intervening variables—party type, social structure of geographic constituencies, and malapportionment—condition the relationship between political recruitment and legislative engagement. Deputies recruited from states with low levels of human development are less legislatively active, and deputies recruited to politics by conservative, catchall parties are less active than their counterparts on the left. Malapportionment magnifies the importance of partisan factors and social structure in shaping Brazilian legislative life.

Parties and Leader Effects

In this article, I analyse whether the electorate of different party types attributes different degrees of importance to leaders, as suggested by a recent party typology. Based on expert advice, 15 parties in six democracies were assigned to the following party types: class-mass, denominational and catch-all. Individual level data are used to determine the relative importance of leader effects for voters of different types of party vis-à-vis other explanatory factors. The article shows that there are indeed statistically significant differences in the importance of leader effects concerning mass-based parties (class-mass and denominational) and catch-all parties. Electors of mass-based parties are less sensitive to leaders than electors of catch-all parties at the ballot box. This is in accordance with previous studies in the party literature regarding the emphasis placed by different parties on the leader during election campaigns, and is an introduction to the nature of the party as a contextual factor of voting behaviour.