Political Party Organizations Research Articles

Hong Kong, la Chine et la démocratie

Analysing political changes in Hong Kong since the SARS crisis of 2003, this paper argues that a threefold transition process where political, economic and cultural factors reinforce each other, led to a governance crisis in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, severely undermining the position of the executive and leading to the replacement of the Chief Executive in July 2005. On one hand, political mobilisation increased in recent years, both in terms of electoral turnout and protest behaviour. On the other, the subsequent legislative elections in September 2004 revealed a clear popular disenchantment with political party organizations. Support for prodemocracy organisations also became more diffuse and somewhat critical toward the Democratic Party. Hong Kong’s transitional crisis is further complicated by tensions between the different constitutional cultures found in Hong Kong and the PRC. Hong Kong is having to find a way of legitimately resisting China’s political and legal encroachments without provoking mainland suspicions of “anti patriotism”.

Political Culture and Information Technology in the 2001 Singapore General Election

Within the political configuration of advanced Western democracies, analysts agree that technology is a significant empowering force for organization and mobilization of political parties. However, it is clear that information technology is deployed and employed within a larger political culture, and therefore it is reasonable to expect that political culture has a mediating effect on the role of information technology and political practice. This essay presents a case study from the Republic of Singapore, a nation that has a vastly different political culture from the Western nations, to examine the ways in which assumptions about technology affected both the deployment and regulation of the Internet as a political force during the 2001 general election. Contrary to assumptions and arguments that the Internet has similar qualitative impacts across national boundaries, this essay argues that political culture, including regulation, plays a significant role in contextualizing and limiting the effects of new media on political practice. The results demonstrate significant national differences in the ways in which the Internet is used in campaigns, in soliciting feedback and discussion, and in establishing a political profile.

The Invasion of the Private Sphere in Iran

The Invasion of the Private Sphere in Iran MEHRANGIZ KAR THE Islamic regime that governs Iran constantly violates the private domain of the Iranian citizen through religious and legal means. The intrusion of political power into the private lives of citizens is characteristic of totalitarian regimes. In Iran the regime has disguised the intrusion as a religious ethics requirement and justifies it by cloaking it in a religious guise. The private sphere of those labeled “dissidents” is more threatened than that of other citizens. Using the legal and religious laws the regime has adopted, government agencies have brought all aspects of the private life of dissidents, critics, artists, and political activists under surveillance. For instance, listening to the telephone conversations of dissidents is a widespread practice, allowing the authorities to monitor and control dissidents’ private interaction and communication. Through these methods the regime conspires against dissidents, accusing them of illegal sexual activities, apostasy, and spying. This infringement of citizens’ private lives by the police and the regime’s security forces by falsely accusing them of ideological and sexual crimes, clearly violates Article 37 of the Iranian constitution, which calls for the presumption of innocence. Violation of the private sphere is not limited to dissidents but extends to all Iranian citizens. Since 1979, technocrats have legitimized this intrusion based on an appeal to Islamic laws. They have drawn on the religious interpretations of political clergy who are connected to political power in Iran to pass legislation that blatantly contradicts the principles of freedom and human rights. SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 70, No. 3 (Fall 2003) The ruling clergy thus puts its stamp of approval on the systematic violation of citizens’ private lives. The constitution of the Islamic Republic that was adopted in 1981 envisioned that the country’s laws and policies would not contravene Sharia, or religious law (this is stated in Article 4 and 94). This means that the rights formulated in the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights cannot be incorporated in Iranian laws—and this also means that government agencies have free rein to carry out their intrusions and oppression. The application of Sharia makes possible the control of the private sphere of citizens’ lives. In this paper I will discuss two legal means by virtue of which the regime keeps private lives of citizens under surveillance. These are: 1) legalized inquisition; and 2) the obligation to enjoin the good and forbid the evil.1 Legalized Inquisition Even though Article 23 of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran forbids inquisition, the regime actively carries out the practice. The legal and political architectonics of the Islamic Republic justifies inquisition as necessary for the protection of Islamic and revolutionary values. And the scope of religious government is so vast that it allows for the investigation of every aspect of an individual’s private beliefs. A few examples follow. Individuals trying to register a political party or cultural organization or who want to obtain a license to publish a newspaper must submit to inquisition. To register a political party or to run for office requires a thorough investigation of one’s private convictions . The approval of an applicant depends on a positive evaluation by the administrative agencies. During the evaluation process the agencies not only inspect the applicant’s past but also his or her personal beliefs, private thoughts, and family history. 830 SOCIAL RESEARCH If in any of these areas there is any evidence that the applicant is not committed to the doctrine of velayat-e faqih, or rule by the clergy, his or her application is rejected. The conduct of inquisition for the purposes of political and cultural activities is so rigorous that even the pious are required to prove their faithfulness. Of course, the measure of faithfulness is always how faithful one is to velayat-e faqih. Those whose conduct reveals a critical view of that doctrine or evidence that puts into doubt their absolute loyalty to the regime are branded as infidels, counter-revolutionaries, and spies, and their candidacy for an office or their application for a license rejected. To keep such individuals under surveillance, they are followed, their phone lines are tapped...

Community-based urban water management in fringe neighbourhoods: the case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Diminishing state resources coupled with inadequate urban management capacity and insufficiency of conventional approaches have rendered it impossible to provide basic infrastructure in urban areas in developing countries such as in the city of Dar es Salaam. In that situation fringe neighbourhoods are mostly hit. However, a notable phenomenon has emerged in informal and formal settlements where the communities, through self-help and local governance in their own neighbourhood associations, have organised to fill the gaps in infrastructure services left by the centralised institutions. Among other things, community groups mobilise and organise fund-raising, mutual self-help and external technical assistance to provide water supply and sanitation, roads and drainage channels within the immediate area. This seems to be a trend in infrastructure improvement in poor neighbourhoods including fringe settlements. Actors observed to be participating in the process of providing the basic services and facilities in some of the fringe settlements include Dar es Salaam City Council (DCC), the civil societies including political party organisations and private individuals as well as youth and women groups, and the donor community. This paper discusses the potentials and constraints existing in the provision of basic infrastructure to fringe settlements taking water management as an example. Potable water was chosen to explain the case because these settlements are not connected to the Dar es Salaam Water and Sanitation Authority (DAWASA—a centralised institution) water supply system and are remotely located. The purpose is to inform policy makers, researchers and practitioners including water providers and managers and water users on potentials and constraints existing in the provision and management of water supply in remote poor communities. Potable water as an essential need plays a major role in health development and if water is not easily accessible much time is wasted to search for it. One of the questions to be answered is how the residents, most of them being poor, are coping up with the deficiency of water supply in their fringe areas.

Introduction: Studying Southern Political Party Activists

The political changes that have occurred in the South over the past several decades have affected the political party organizations in the region. A region once marked by a weak and highly factionalized Democratic Party organization and an almost non-existent Republican Party organization now has two significant party organizations operating in each state. Examining the development of party organizations in the region should tell us much about both political party organizations and southern politics. This study, the Southern Grassroots Party Activists 2001 Project, focuses on political party activists active at the county level. Over 7,000 activists in the eleven southern states were surveyed in 2001. This study is linked to the 1991 Southern Grassroots Party Activists Project, which surveyed a similar group of activists, using a similar questionnaire. The following articles both analyze the 2001 data patterns and compare the 2001 results to the 1991 patterns.

Europeanisering en centralisering : Een verkennend onderzoek naar de plaats van de Europese Unie in de organisatie van de Belgische politieke partijen

The European Union affects the internal organisation of national political parties. We found 'traces of Europe' in the party statutes of all Belgian parties that are represented in the European Parliament since 1999. Europe is, to a greater or lesser extent, present in party goals, rules on party membership and party organs. Parties have elaborated rules for the organisation of European elections, for the selection of European executives, for the formulation of party programmes, and for internal and external co-ordination of policy formulation. At first sight these rules seem to confirm the hypothesis that Europe is in the first place a concern of party leadership, and that it reinforces centralisation of decision-making. Yet the full confirmation of this hypothesis requires further comparative research on the Europeanisation of political parties.

Hegemonía conservadora y movilización republicana en la dinámica electoral del reinado de Alfonso XIII : las elecciones de 1907 en Valencia

This work deals with the 1907 elections in Valencia, through the study of unpublished documents mainly from the private archive of the Minister of the Interior, Juan de la Cierva, and focuses on several factors that had a bearing on the electoral results, such as the organization of political parties, the political influence of local power, government pacts and interference, and the level of electoral mobilization and confrontation. An analysis of the elections reveals a duality, consisting of the persistence of the old style of politics on the one hand, clearly borne out in the electoral process and the fight against Republicans in various districts, while on the other, features specific to a new style of politics are evident, such as Republican mobilization, and the concern shown in certain sectors of the Conservative party for achieving a wider support base as well as an improved organization and image, in order to meet the challenge of a situation of growing electoral competition.

Explaining Change in Communist Successor Parties: Political Environment versus Party Organization?

The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the transformation of the formerly dominant communist parties has provided an opportunity to test some of the major propositions regarding party change. This article focuses on the relationship between external and internal factors, and evolution of the communist successor parties in seventy-nine countries across the world. The most important factor explaining the electoral success of the communist successor parties is the degree of organization, a finding that provides broader support for the literature arguing that communist successor party electoral performance is primarily a result of the organizational features these parties inherited from the past.

Financing Politics: A Global View

Democratic elections and democratic governance involve a mixture of high ideals and, all too often, dubious or even sordid practices. Election campaigns, political party organizations, pressure groups, and advertising all cost money. This must be found from somewhere. The financing of political life is a necessity—and a problem. The frequency with which new laws concerning campaign and party finance are enacted is testimony to the failure of many existing systems of regulations and subsidies. Hardly a month goes by without a new scandal involving political money breaking out in some part of the globe. In Belgium in 1995, Willi Claes was obliged to resign as secretary-general of NATO amid a lurid affair which had begun four years earlier when a fellow leader of the Belgian Socialists, Andre Cools, was shot to death outside his home because of his involvement in a scheme in which French and Italian arms manufacturers made political contributions to the Belgian Socialists in return for military contracts. In Ukraine in the fall of 2000, online journalist Georgi Gongadze lost his life in part because he had been looking into allegations that business oligarchs were involved in corrupt dealings related to political financing. Despite a stream of stories like these from around the world, and despite an increasing flow of academic studies, political financing and the abuses thereof remain shrouded in mystery. Many commonly heard notions surrounding them are unproven or wrong. This is partly because Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, senior research fellow in politics at Brunel University in West London, chairs the International Political Science Association’s Research Committee on Political Finance and Political Corruption. He serves on the steering committee of the World Movement for Democracy and on the board of the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), and he advises the Electoral Commission in London, the European Union, and the U.S. Agency for International Development on issues surrounding campaign and party finance.

In the Rustic Kitchen: Real Talk and Reciprocity

The evaluation of social communication in the town of Orgosolo is implicitly engaged with definitively Sardinian and traditional practices of hospitality. Sensually rooted in meaningful material culture, these practices enwrap participants in a moral world within which positive reciprocity and co-operation can be presumed as normative. Both language and everyday sociality in Orgosolo operate symbolically to transform verbal exchange so that the processes involved in making words fit social consumption largely mimic the rigorous local standards of authenticity applied to baking bread or roasting meat. Townspeople highlight their own regional and national marginality by affirming their ideas of real in contrast to the untrustworthy discourses of bureaucrats and party politicians. By cultivating hospitality as a sphere of political expression, they attempt to subvert cultural constructions of their backwardness and legitimize the authority of their own informal discourses. (Italy, Sardinia, politics of hospitality, authenticity, the senses) ********** Over the course of fieldwork in the town of Orgosolo, in central Sardinia, I often asked people to explain how the political climate had changed over the past twenty or 30 years. The seeming apathy of residents toward la politica appeared to be a recent trend. In postwar rural Sardinia, as in Italy generally during that period, party politics was an important part of social life. One woman described how even through the 1970s, political parties held public demonstrations and assemblies for everything ... you were always hearing an announcement on the loudspeakers or a car going around advertising a meeting one party or another, and if the Christian Democrats had a meeting, the Communist Party had to have one too, they vied with one another to see who had more meetings. At the end of the 1960s, there were vibrant sections of several political parties, and two circles led active lobbies on several issues. Yet two decades later, people in their teens, twenties, and thirties often insisted they knew nothing about politics, that they were uninterested in political parties and did not see any differences between them. Most would talk earnestly and thoughtfully about issues and events, but not about political parties. Few people had party memberships, and many skipped official town assemblies as a general rule, saying that they already knew what would be said and who would speak. Quite apparently the political climate had changed much in the course of one generation. Older people agreed that the role of organized political parties had declined. Many people who had once participated in various political projects spoke nostalgically about the period prior to the 1980s, and no longer thought it was useful to work within the party framework. Some expressed disillusionment with the left-wing activists who got their permanent job posts and ran out of steam lobbying and organizing, Si sono tutti sistemati (they all got settled). An artist, teacher, and former youth activist at Orgosolo suggested that the problem lay not in the degeneration of political organizers, but in the people, who had become more diffident toward the politicians. A former mayor also explained the changing mode of politics in Orgosolo as a decline in popular participation: [T]he indifference [today] towards the problem of employment, or the lack of [political] participation to change our life, waiting others to change it, is something unpleasant. Political life today is less intense than that of yesterday: probably one believes less than before, one has less faith, one is tired of the behavior of the political world or of the government. This phenomenon of political refusal is often attributed to the changing national context within which party politics in Sardinia takes shape. Following World War II and the creation of the Republic of Italy, extensive patronage networks evolved in association with key political parties. …

Asian-Americans, Political Organizations, and Participation in Chicago Electoral Precincts

Precinct-level data for voter registration and turnout in Chicago elections are used to assess the impact of the Asian population and party organization on political participation during the 1990s. Controlling for the effects of newer immigration, mobility, and socioeconomic status, the authors learn that larger Asian-American populations are associated with higher voter registration. Voter turnout is negatively affected in areas of higher Asian populations but attenuates when independent precincts are examined separately from machine-style precincts. This suggests that registration may be encouraged in Asian areas, but voting appears to be negatively affected by political party organizations.

Members of parliament and governments in western Europe: Agency relations and problems of oversight

Abstract. The vast majority of West European polities feature an agency relationship between members of parliaments and members of cabinets as the latter depend on the confidence of the majority of the former to remain in office. In this article, the terminology used by principalagent theory to characterise oversight activities – contract design, screening, monitoring and the use of institutional checks – and elements of transaction cost economics are applied to the agency relationship between members of parliaments and cabinet members in Western Europe. Traditional studies of parliamentary oversight have narrowly concentrated on monitoring, although parliaments (with considerable cross–national variations) use a broad range of oversight mechanisms including equivalents of contract design, screening and institutional checks. In addition, traditional studies have focused almost exclusively on one particular type of monitoring often referred to as ‘police–patrol oversight’, whilst neglecting or underestimating the effectiveness and low transaction costs associated with ‘fire–alarm oversight’. Despite the valuable insights the principal–agent framework has already added to the study of executive–legislative relations in parliamentary democracies, future research will have to account more realistically for the role and organisation of political parties which structure the delegation process, help to solve a number of co–ordination problems in parliaments (for example, the co–ordination of committees and floor activities) and generate important internal agency relationships that are fundamental to an understanding of executive–legislative relations in Western Europe.

Book Review: Piero Ignazi and Colette Ysmal (eds.), The Organization of Political Parties in Southern Europe (London: Praeger, 1998, 314 pp., £55.50 hbk.)

Book Review: Piero Ignazi and Colette Ysmal (eds.), The Organization of Political Parties in Southern Europe (London: Praeger, 1998, 314 pp., £55.50 hbk.)

The Organization of political parties in southern Europe

Foreword by Kay Lawson Introduction by Piero Ignazi and Colette Ysmal France The Evolution of the French Party System by Colette Ysmal Conflict and Change in the Rassemblement pour la Republique by Florence Haegel The Front National: The Making of an Authoritarian Party by Gilles Ivaldi The Parti Socialiste: From a Party of Activists to a Party Government by FREderic Sawicki Italy The Italian Party System: The Effective Magnitude of an Earthquake by Luciano Bardi and Piero Ignazi The Failed Renewal: The DC from 1982 to 1994 by Gianfranco Baldini From Militant to Voters: From the PCI to the PDS by Maria Pamini MSI/AN: A Mass Party with the Temptation of the Furher-Prinzip by Piero Ignazi Greece The Political System in Post-Authoritarian Greece (1974-1996): Outline and Interpretations by P. Nikoforos Diamandouros PASOK: The Telling Story of a Unique Organizational Structure by Michalis Spourdalakis Nea Democratia: Party Development and Organizational Logics by Takis S. Pappas Spain The Spanish Political Parties from Fragmentation to Bipolar Concentration by Gabriel Colome and Lourdes Lopez-Nieto The Organizational Dynamics of AP/PP by Lourdes Lopez-Nieto The PSOE: The Establishment of a Governmental Party by Gabriel Colome Conclusion: Party Organization and Power: A Southern European Model? by Piero Ignazi and Colette Ysmal Index

The Study of Campaign Consultants: A Subfield in Search of Theory

The central theme of thisPSsymposium is that political consultants are important in politics, that they have an impact on campaigns and elections. This is not news to political consultants or candidates running for office. Candidates and consultants know they need each other and the rapid growth and diversification of the profession reveals that sense of interdependence (see Thurber 1995). Though professional political consulting outside of political party organizations has been around since the 1930s, it has only recently sparked interest among political scientists. Why have consultants been ignored by political scientists? Why have consultants ignored political scientists (see Thurber and Nelson 1995)? Why is there little or no theory related to political consultants? Why do we know so little about the profession of political consultants? What subfield houses the study of political consulting: elections and voting behavior, political parties, political communications, political advertising, campaign management?Political scientists have studied campaigns, elections, and political parties from a variety of views and methodologies, but few have focused on political consultants and their influence. Political campaigns are efforts to win elections to public office by informing the voters of a candidate's issue positions, by persuading the electorate to vote for a candidate, by activating partisans, and by mobilizing supporters. Election campaigns are combats over ideas and ways to persuade groups of voters to support those ideas. Studies have treated campaigns as symbolic events, as propaganda activities with the power to change voter preferences, and as a determinant variable in elections, but there is little consensus among political scientists about the role consultants play in campaigns.

The Study of Campaign Consultants: A Subfield in Search of Theory

The central theme of this PS symposium is that political consultants are important in politics, that they have an impact on campaigns and elections. This is not news to political consultants or candidates running for office. Candidates and consultants know they need each other and the rapid growth and diversification of the profession reveals that sense of interdependence (see Thurber 1995). Though professional political consulting outside of political party organizations has been around since the 1930s, it has only recently sparked interest among political scientists. Why have consultants been ignored by political scientists? Why have consultants ignored political scientists (see Thurber and Nelson 1995)? Why is there little or no theory related to political consultants? Why do we know so little about the profession of political consultants? What subfield houses the study of political consulting: elections and voting behavior, political parties, political communications, political advertising, campaign management?Political scientists have studied campaigns, elections, and political parties from a variety of views and methodologies, but few have focused on political consultants and their influence. Political campaigns are efforts to win elections to public office by informing the voters of a candidate's issue positions, by persuading the electorate to vote for a candidate, by activating partisans, and by mobilizing supporters. Election campaigns are combats over ideas and ways to persuade groups of voters to support those ideas. Studies have treated campaigns as symbolic events, as propaganda activities with the power to change voter preferences, and as a determinant variable in elections, but there is little consensus among political scientists about the role consultants play in campaigns.

Support for campaign spending limitations in the U. S. senate: The role of party, ideology and electoral security

Recent media disclosures of American campaign funding raising practices in the 1996 election have renewed political interest in campaign finance reform. This paper examines senatorial support for the McCain/Feingold measure that would have established voluntary spending limits on senate candidates and banned unlimited campaign contributions through political party organizations. While party affiliation and senator ideology are very important in explaining support for the McCain/Feingold measure, various measures of electoral security are not significant. This is important because the public choice literature emphasizes that electoral security is the primary goal of legislators. Additionally, the electoral self-interest of legislators is probably much more accurately measured by the various electoral security measures used in this study than by the constituency measures typically employed in the public choice literature. Nevertheless, personal legislator electoral security is not a powerful explanatory factor.

Nationalism and Civil Rights in Cuba: A Comparative Perspective, 1930-1960

For most of the twentieth century U.S. history and Cuban history have been closely interconnected. African-Americans and Afro-Cubans in particular share common bonds of struggle for civil rights and equality in their respective countries. But individuals are products of their environments and African-Americans and Cubans shaped distinct civil rights platforms in accordance with their national, political and social institutions. African-Americans and Cubans learned to respond to their political systems through a series of historical experiences that reaped success or failure over time. Cuba's Hispanic colonial heritage that recognized miscegenation and mestizaje provided a different mode of action than African Americans who lived for most of their history under a segregated U.S. system.(1) This essay will examine the Cuban struggle for social, economic, political and cultural equality from 1930-1960, while comparing those events with the civil rights struggle in the United States during the same period. Citizen's rights, to be sure, are uniquely national, if not constitutional constructions. According to Hegel, right in society is that which the law wills. Those rights, defined by the state, theoretically represent the collective views of the individuals who rule the nation.(2) Civil Rights which often refer to freedom from discrimination based on nationality, race, gender, religious liberty, as well as immunity from brutality must be scrutinized within a national framework. Members of particular nations define civil rights as the rights of citizens to pursue civil liberties within that nation. United States Civil Rights, for example, are based on a constitution dating back to 1789, and which continues to be redefined for inclusively. Part of the U.S. Civil Rights Movements was bent on redefining and reelaborating on issues that would include African-Americans in the citizen's phrase We the people.(3) Owing to the historically weak Constitution in Cuban history and its political and economic underdevelopment, what Cubans have come to expect as their rights as citizens have tended to take on a nationalist focus. Moreover, while nationalism in the African-American community often meant black nationalism and implied racial solidarity, self sufficiency, black capitalism, and often separatism, among Afro-Cubans, nationalism was a patriotic call to bring all Cubans of all races together in pursuit of sovereignty, often against foreign threats. To this end, Cubans passed several nationalist laws which would shape Afro-Cubans' civil rights drive. In 1910, the Cuban Senate passed the Morua Amendment to an Electoral Reform Law which prohibited the organization of political parties based on one race only. The subsequent race war that followed in 1912 was an aberration in post-abolition history.(4) Cubans found a variety of non-political ways to pursue economic and social rights and to attain social mobility. In 1918, Jose Armando Pla explicated options available to Afro-Cubans. First, there was the individualist approach in which educated Afro-Cubans could attain high levels of achievement despite the obstacles of society; second, the collective approach called for Afro-Cubans to join together to affect the political process; third, politically influential men, such as Martin Moria Delgado argued that blacks should associate themselves with established political parties, promoting their interests within the party system.(5) Two decades after the race wars and the passage of the Morua Law, the collective option was limited to cultural and non-political activities which would not challenge the state. Moreover these options must be understood in terms of the new generation of Afro-Cubans. The Cuban Republic had just come of age. Created in 1902, by the 1930's, a new generation born after independence became increasingly interested in national sovereignty and advancement. Patriotism and nationalism ignited the passions of Cubans of all backgrounds, motivating them to seek solutions to pressing problems. …

Party Primaries in Taiwan: Continuing Appraisal

T aiwan's gradual adaptations of U.S.-style political party primary elections (otherwise known s preliminary or n min ting elections) mark a significant trend among other developments in that island's democratization. We have joined a small group of observers to chronicle and analyze the introduction and acceptance, modification, or rejection of this nominating innovation.1 This article appraises trends in the nominating processes among Taiwan's three major political parties for elections in 1995 and 1996. Primaries have not typically been used by political parties outside the United States. In the U.S. they have become a fixed method for parties to use in determining which candidates to nominate for elective offices. The nomination function is perhaps the most singular feature distinguishing political party organizations from other political groups, wrote Richard G. Niemi and M. Kent Jennings.2 All political organizations, indeed all organizations, exhibit common functions, including membership recruitment and socialization, goal formation and adaptation, leadership selection, and resource acquisition and allocation. Niemi and Jennings observed that political parties rely uniquely on primary elections-relatively formalized elections for choosing nominees to oppose candidates from other parties-to fill a variety of offices. They might have qualified their generalizations to allow exceptions for parties that do not resort to primaries, particularly those in parliamentary systems in which leaders devote considerable attention to identifying and inducing talented persons to stand for parliamentary elections. Likewise, Niemi and Jennings could have taken note of occasional variations, perhaps harbingers of change in society at large, among nonparty organi-

The Development of Civil Society in a Democratic State: The Botswana Model

Citizen influence on the modern democratic state most often occurs through social organizations demanding government responsiveness to member concerns. These organizations and their interaction with government constitute the core of modern civil society. The presence of organized groups does not in itself mean that a civil society exists. Such groups may engage in other activities such as producing collective goods for their members or controlling their members on behalf of the ruling elite. Civil society grows in a state as more and more groups engage in activities designed to maintain or change government policies. Outside of Africa, civil society development has often preceded democratization and provided the impetus for establishing elections, as well as the leadership and resources for political parties contesting these elections. With the exception of South Africa and possibly Zimbabwe, the emergence of civil society has thus far been minimal in Africa. Social organizations are too weak to bring down authoritarian regimes, let alone shape their replacements. However, the recent democratizations are providing new opportunities for group influence relative to the state. The result is that civil society is coming into existence at the same time as the holding of elections, the organization of competitive political parties and the reforming of legislative assemblies. In effect, the development of civil society and democracy are occurring in much of Africa as parallel and related processes.