Intra-party Democracy Research Articles

Intraparty Democracy and the Selection of Parliamentary Candidates: the Belgian Case

Leaders and activists in most Western political parties, appreciating Schattschneider's adage1 that parties are controlled by those who control nominations to public offices, jealously guard their right to choose parliamentary candidates. They realize that candidates play a crucial role in shaping voters’ images of the parties as well as in formulating the party policies. Not surprisingly, candidates are usually recruited through rather oligarchical procedures. Extra-parliamentary party leaders normally pick the nominees in closed private meetings and then submit their choices to rank-and-file party members and/or delegates who nearly always grant their approval. Such procedures reduce the role of party members to one of docile acquiescence, and completely exclude party voters.

Intraparty Democracy in Western Germany: A Look at the Local Level

Perhaps no democracy has been subjected to more investigation, analysis, comparison, and, especially, criticism in the first years of its existence than the Federal Republic of Germany. Not only have many foreign observers as well as German writers taken a critical look at the young Federal Republic; they have often demanded from it a standard of democratic practice which even older democracies have never attained.

Intra-Party Democracy: A Case Study

The principle of intra-party democracy underlying the so-called constitutional crisis within the Labour party in Great Britain—a struggle between the party conference and the parliamentary party over the creation of defence policy—has for some time been the subject of widespread discussion in academic journals and the “responsible press.” This paper examines the difficulties within the organization of the United Farmers of Ontario when intra-party democracy resulted in a clash between the parliamentary and mass sections of the party, and attempts to relate the implications of this study to the general question of the distribution of power in parties of extra-parliamentary origin.The domination of the Legislative Assembly from 1919 to 1923 by an alliance of the United Farmers of Ontario and the Independent Labor party provided Ontario with its unique experience of “third-party” government. The suddenness of the intervention of these parties into the traditional order of Ontario's Conservative-Liberal politics was matched only by their equally rapid exit after less than four years of power. Standing as it did at the forefront of a wave of protesting third parties in the following two decades, the event is of considerable significance both for its contribution to a general understanding of the problems of third parties and for the opportunity it affords as a case study of farmer-labour co-operation. Although intra-party democracy was important for both members of the union, this paper deals with its effects on only one of the parties—the United Farmers.

Power in British Political Parties [I

J t I 'UCH of the confusion about the distribution of power within the \/ major British political parties arises from a careless use of terms. a L g iThe phrases Conservative and Labour are commonly used as if each referred to a unified political entity consistlng of three sections: a parliamentary party, a voluntary mass organization and a professional staff or party bureaucracy. It is usually assumed that if either party were truly democratic }, the leaders of the party in Parliament would hold themselves responsible to the ' members of the party , i.e., to those who belong to the mass organization. But an examination of the history of the two parties shows that in practice they do not. Therefore many observers End themselves dnven to cynical or pessimistic conclusions about the nature of intra-party democracy. Some conclude with Robert Michels that an iror} law' inearitably prevents the members of a nominally democratic political organization from controlling their leaders. Others, paraphrasing A. Lv Lowell, conclude that Both parties are shams, but with this difference, that the Conservative organization is a transparent, and the Labour an opaqueg sham . There are good grounds for cynicism about certain features of the British party system and there is much to be said for both Michels and Lowell. But a clarification of terms helps to put the problem into perspective. In fact two autonomous political entities face each other in Parliament; they are The Conservative Party and The Parliamentary Labour Party (P.L.P.). Each is associated with a voluntary mass organization of its supporters outside Parliament, the former by The National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations , the latter by a body properly known as The Labour Party . In addition, the Conservative Party has at its disposal a professional staff of party workers outside Parliament, the Conservative Central Office (which

Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System: A Commentary

Every American concerned with the future of democratic government in the United States owes a considerable debt to Professor Schattschneider and the American Political Science Association's Committee on Political Parties. Their Report, ostensibly concerned with bringing about fuller public appreciation of a basic weakness in the American two-party system,' in fact addresses itself to two of the most pressing questions confronting us: How can we in America establish a governmental system capable of performing effectively the Herculean tasks thrust upon it by the demanding times in which we live? And how can we make sure that such a government will at the same time be thoroughly responsible to the people? The members of the Committee appear to consider both questions to be of equal importance. The goal, they feel, must be a government which is both effective and democratic. And if their Report does nothing more than precipitate a general and serious discussion of these urgent questions, the Committee will have more than justified its existence. The Report deserves the serious attention of a far wider audience than one exclusively of specialists in political parties for it takes the position that a responsible party system is the only possible institutional mechanism for providing us with effective and democratic government. Its explication of that position, its analysis of why and in what respects American parties are at present incapable of doing the job, and its prescription of remedies for their deficienciesall these merit the most careful consideration of the political theorist and the general student of American government, as well as of the specialist in parties. It is precisely because of agreement with the members of the Committee upon the importance of the questions raised, and because of gratitude to them for their attempt to answer these questions, that the writer feels it necessary to point out why their analysis of the problem is inadequate in certain respects. For purposes of brevity, this commentary will be confined to the two sections of the Report which most seriously weaken its total argument: (1) its explication of the notion of intraparty democracy; and (2) its analysis of why American parties are as they are and what must therefore be done in order to improve them.