POLITICAL PARTY

a group of persons organized to acquire and exercise political power through election or revolution. Political parties are a product of the 19th century, when they developed in Europe and the United States alongside modern electoral political systems. Structurally, political parties fall into one of two categories: the cadre party, with a membership confined to an active elite, and the mass-based party. In practice most parties combine features of each type. Cadre parties promoting the interests of the landed classes and the established church (conservative) or of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie (liberal) developed in 19th-century England from earlier cliques and factions. American parties were from their beginning less ideological and less centralized than those in Europe, and, because of a high degree of economic mobility and the early adoption of broad-based suffrage in the United States, they were not so distinctly based on class. By the late 19th century complaints that existing parties did not truly represent their constituencies led in the United States to the adoption of various reforms, notably the primary system of nominating candidates, which promoted the democratization of parties in the direction of the mass-based model. Truly mass-based parties arose in Europe with the organization of socialist parties in several countries. These differed from cadre parties in their efforts to enroll as many individual members as possible, in their financing by numerous small contributions, and in the election of party leaders by the membership. Parties may seek political power by electoral or revolutionary means, or sometimes by both. There is a strong tendency for a party that has gained power by revolution to decree a one-party state, a special case considered below. The two- or multiparty state with an electoral system is more common. After an election all parties exercise some degree of power, either as the governing majority party, as one party in a governing coalition, or as an opposition. In parliamentary systems the continuance of the government depends on its ability to obtain a majority vote of the legislature on important measures, and all parties therefore exercise strong discipline over their members. In the American presidential system, party discipline is less necessary and is rarely applied because both president and Congress serve definite terms. Whether a country has a two-party or a multiparty system depends partly on tradition and partly on the structure of the electoral system. Systems of proportional representation encourage the proliferation of parties, while the winner-take-all systems of English-speaking countries make it difficult for new parties to succeed. The single-party system prevails in countries where revolutionary parties have come to power or where leaders believe that political conflict and criticism of the government serve only to divide a society. The most notable examples are the communist regimes, in which the party bureaucracy, chosen from a small elite, has in effect become the state, and fascist regimes, where the party is even more of a closed corporation but is usually subordinated to a charismatic leader or to the army. Variations of the single-party system are also found in many developing countries. a group of persons organized to acquire and exercise political power. Political parties originated in their modern form in Europe and the United States in the 19th century, along with the electoral and parliamentary systems, whose development reflects the evolution of parties. The term party has since come to be applied to all organized groups seeking political power, whether by democratic elections or by revolution. In earlier, prerevolutionary, aristocratic and monarchical regimes, the political process unfolded within restricted circles in which cliques and factions, grouped around particular noblemen or influential personalities, were opposed to one another. The establishment of parliamentary regimes and the appearance of parties at first scarcely changed this situation. To cliques formed around princes, dukes, counts, or marquesses there were added cliques formed around bankers, merchants, industrialists, and businessmen. Regimes supported by nobles were succeeded by regimes supported by other elites. These narrowly based parties were later transformed to a greater or lesser extent, for in the 19th century in Europe and America there emerged parties depending on mass support. The 20th century saw the spread of political parties throughout the entire world. In Africa large parties have sometimes been formed in which a modern organization has a more traditional ethnic or tribal basis; in such cases the party leadership is frequently made up of tribal chiefs. In certain areas of Asia, membership in modern political parties is often determined largely by religious factors or by affiliation with ritual brotherhoods. Many political parties in the developing countries are partly political, partly military. Certain Socialist and Communist parties in Europe earlier experienced the same tendencies. These last-mentioned European parties have demonstrated an equal aptitude for functioning within multiparty democracies and as the sole political party in a dictatorship. Developing originally within the framework of liberal democracy in the 19th century, political parties have been used in the 20th century by dictatorships for entirely undemocratic purposes. Additional reading Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracies (1915, reissued 1978; originally published in German, 1911), provides the first modern theory of political parties, stemming from the doctrines of the elite, or ruling class, of Gaetano Mosca; the book is based largely on the example of German social democracy. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State, 3rd ed., rev. (1964, reissued 1976; originally published in French, 1951), provides a comparative and systematic study of political parties, emphasizing the experience of the European countries. Joseph G. LaPalombara and Myron Weiner (eds.), Political Parties and Political Development (1966, reissued 1972), is a collection of contributions by various authors and is a good comparative explication of problems concerning political parties. Douglas W. Rae, The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws, rev. ed. (1971), offers, on the basis of an examination of the balloting in numerous countries since 1945, an analysis of the relationship between the electoral system and political parties; it is a model of comparative study. Reference works providing world or regional coverage of political parties include George E. Delury (ed.), World Encyclopedia of Political Systems & Parties, 2nd ed. (1987); Alan J. Day (ed.), Political Parties of the World, 3rd ed. (1988); Klaus von Beyme, Political Parties in Western Democracies (1985; originally published in German, 1982); Charles Hobday (compiler), Communist and Marxist Parties of the World (1986); Bogdan Szajkowski (ed.), New Political Parties of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (1991), describing more than 500 parties that have emerged in the former Communist countries; Robert J. Alexander (ed.), Political Parties of the Americas: Canada, Latin America, and the West Indies, 2 vol. (1982), including coverage of organizations no longer functioning; Charles D. Ameringer (ed.), Political Parties of the Americas, 1980s to 1990s: Canada, Latin America, and the West Indies (1992), with updated essays and bibliographies; John Coggins and D.S. Lewis (eds.), Political Parties of the Americas and the Caribbean (1992), including coverage of outlawed groups; Haruhiro Fukui (ed.), Political Parties of Asia and the Pacific, 2 vol. (1985), with valuable historical information; and D.S. Lewis and D.J. Sagar (eds.), Political Parties of Asia and the Pacific (1992), with accounts up to mid-1992.Works about American parties are numerous. Recommended are Samuel J. Eldersveld, Political Parties: A Behavioral Analysis (1964); William Nisbet Chambers and Walter Dean Burnham (eds.), The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development, 2nd ed. (1975, reprinted 1981); and Xandra Kayden and Eddie Mahe, Jr., The Party Goes On: The Persistence of the Two-Party System in the United States (1985). Works that study western European political parties include Peter H. Merkl (ed.), Western European Party Systems: Trends and Prospects (1980), essays on 13 countries and a collection of essays on research topics; Vincent E. McHale and Sharon Skowronski (eds.), Political Parties of Europe, 2 vol. (1983); and Eva Kolinsky (ed.), Opposition in Western Europe (1987). On Great Britain, Samuel H. Beer, Modern British Politics: A Study of Parties and Pressure Groups, 2nd ed. (1969); and R.T. McKenzie, British Political Parties: The Distribution of Power Within the Conservative and Labour Parties, 2nd ed. (1963, reprinted 1992), are particularly useful. David E. Apter, The Politics of Modernization (1965); Thomas L. Hodgkin, African Political Parties (1961, reissued 1971); and A. Mahiou, L'Avnement du parti unique en Afrique noire (1969), give informative historical accounts of the operations of political parties in developing countries. Vicky Randall (ed.), Political Parties in the Third World (1988), features case studies of Zambia, Ghana, Iraq, India, Mexico, Brazil, Jamaica, and Cuba.