Downloaded from https://academic.oup.

com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
Political Parties and the
Crisis of Democracy
Organization, Resilience, and Reform

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Edited by
Thomas Poguntke
and
Wilhelm Hofmeister
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© The several contributors 2024
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Some rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, for commercial purposes,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly
permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organization.

This is an open access publication, available online and distributed under the terms of a
Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivatives 4.0
International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), a copy of which is available at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of this licence
should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023951783
ISBN 9780198888734
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.001.0001
Printed and bound in the UK by
Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Contents

List of Figures viii

List of Tables x
List of Contributors xii

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

1. Introduction 1
Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister

2. Analysing Political Parties and Democracy: Themes,

Questions, Problems 7
Thomas Poguntke, Susan E. Scarrow, and Paul D. Webb

I. POL IT IC AL PA RTI ES AN D DEMOCRAT IC CHALLENG ES IN

WE ST ER N AND CEN TRAL EUROPE, ISRAEL, AND TURKEY
3. The United Kingdom Party System 33
John Bartle, Nicholas Allen, and Thomas Quinn

4. French Political Parties and Democracy 58

Elodie Fabre

5. The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism: Party and

Party System Change in Germany 82
Michael Angenendt and Simon D. Brause

6. Fragmentation and Anti-Establishment Politics: The

Czech Party System in the 2020s 108
Tomáš Cirhan and Petr Kopecký

7. Italian Parties and Party System(s) 128

Enrico Calossi and Eugenio Pizzimenti

8. The Greek Party Systemʼs Ongoing Crisis: The Cases of

ND, SYRIZA, and PASOK-KINAL 153
Costas Eleftheriou
vi Contents

9. Parties and the Party System in Turkey: From the

System of ʻDouble Tutelageʼ to a ʻPersonalistic Hybrid Regimeʼ 177
Toygar Sinan Baykan

10. The Portuguese Party System: A Realignment? 199

Marina Costa Lobo

11. Spain: Party System Change and Fragmentation 218

Luis Ramiro and María Salvador

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

12. Party Organizational Development in Poland,
2001–2021: The Cases of Law and Justice (PiS) and
Civic Platform (PO) 240
Wojciech Gagatek

13. Political Parties and Democracy: The Israeli Case 261

Assaf Shapira

II . POL IT IC AL PA RTI ES AND DEMOCRATIC CH ALLENGES IN

L AT I N AM E RI CA
14. The Weakening of the Mexican Party System: The Rise
of AMLOʼs MORENA 289
Aldo F. Ponce

15. The Colombian Party System, 1991–2022:

Deinstitutionalized but Flexible and Resilient 310
Laura Wills-Otero

16. Political Parties in Brazil: Tradition and Trends in the

New Democracy 332
Silvana Krause and Bruno Marques Schaefer

17. Democracy and Political Parties in the Argentine

Republic 357
Carlos Fara and José Emilio Graglia

II I . PO LI TI CA L PA RTI ES AN D DEMOCRATIC C HALL ENGES

IN A SI A -PACI FI C
18. Taiwan: Party System of a Young Consolidated Democracy 381
Alexander C. Tan
 Contents vii

19. The Development of Party Organizations in New

Democracies: Evidence from South Korea 401
Yeaji Kim

20. Japan: Struggle for Party System Change 427

Takayoshi Uekami and Junpei Yamaguchi

21. The Challenges to Democracy in India: The Role of

Political Parties 447
Eswaran Sridharan

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

22. An Anarchy of Parties: The Pitfalls of the Presidential-
based Party System in the Philippines 467
Julio C. Teehankee

IV. P OL IT IC AL PA RTI ES A ND DEMOCRATIC CH ALLENGES IN

AFR I CA
23. Political Parties and Democracy in South Africa 489
Robert Mattes, Matthias Krönke, and Sarah Lockwood

24. Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth Republic,

1999–2019 512
Jake D. Dan-Azumi

25. The State of Political Party Development in Ghana 537

Isaac Owusu-Mensah, Emmanuel Debrah, and Enock
Mathapoly-Codjoe

V. T HE C R IS IS O F D EM OCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES

26. Can the Parties be Helped?: Political Party Assistance
in International Cooperation 557
Wilhelm Hofmeister

27. Parties and Democracy: A Difficult Relationship 581

Thomas Poguntke, Paul Webb, and Susan E. Scarrow

Index 592
List of Figures

3.1 Government duration (days in office), 1918–2019 34

3.2 Conservative and Labour joint seat and vote share, 1918–2019 35
3.3 Effective number of electoral and parliamentary parties, 1945–2019 36

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

3.4 Party vote share in UK general elections, 1918–2019 42
3.5 Party seat share in UK general elections, 1918–2019 43
3.6 Preferences for single-party or coalition government, 1983–2017 53
4.1 Sources of party income (%) 71
5.1 Fragmentation of the German party system, 1949–2021 84
5.2 Volatility in German federal and federal state elections 87
5.3 Party system polarization in Germany, 1949–2021 89
5.4 Coalition formulas in German federal states, 1950–2019 92
5.5 Intra-party democracy in Germany. (a) AIPD: assembly-based
intra-party democracy; (b) PIPD: plebiscitary-based intra-party
democracy 96
5.6 Distribution of income sources 98
5.7 Social media followers per party in 2023 99
7.1 Party system volatility, 1953–2018 131
7.2 Parties’ placement in 2018 general elections 138
8.1 ND, SYRIZA, and PASOK/KINAL electoral results, 2009–2019. At the
May 2023 elections, the respective results were 40.79%, 20.07%, 11.46%.
At the June 2023 elections, the results were 40.56%, 17.83%, 11.84%. 155
10.1 The effective number of parliamentary and electoral parties in Portugal,
1976–2022 and the sum of the two major parties, PS and PSD 204
10.2 Comparing the votes for the two major Portuguese parties, PS and PSD,
1976–2022 204
10.3 Trends in left–right party positioning in Portugal, 2011–2019 212
13.1 Results of the 2022 Knesset elections 262
13.2 Voter turnout in Knesset elections, 1949–2022 (%) 265
13.3 Effective number of parliamentary parties (ENPP) and effective number
of electoral parties (ENEP) in Knesset elections, 1949–2021 267
13.4 Net volatility in Knesset elections 269
13.5 Likud, Labour, and Yesh Atid in Knesset elections 270
 List of Figures ix

14.1 Evolution of seat shares in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies by party 291
14.2 Evolution of the effective number of electoral parties and the effective
number of legislative parties 292
16.1 Evolution of the number of parties, effective number of parliamentary
parties (ENPP), and party switching in the Chamber of Deputies 335
16.2 Sources of financing of Brazilian political parties (%), 2007–2021 338
16.3 Party preference and membership as a proportion of the electorate (M/E) 339
17.1 Presidential elections 362
19.1 The history of the two main political parties in Korea 407

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

19.2 Percentage of eligible voters who affiliate with a party 409
19.3 Percentage of party members who pay the membership fee 412
19.4 The total amount of state subventions for political parties 414
19.5 Source of party income 415
19.6 The two established political parties’ portion of state subventions 416
20.1 Seat share of major parties since 1955 (number of seats) 429
20.2 Core party system indicators: Voter turnout rates (left-side scale,
%), effective numbers of electoral party and of parliamentary party
(right-side scale) 429
20.3 Party membership/electorate ratio (%): The LDP and the DPJ (DP
since 2016) 435
20.4 Share of state funding in party headquarters’ income (%): The LDP and
the DPJ (DP since 2016) 435
20.5a Distribution of policy positions on national security and social issues:
LDP and DPJ (DP since 2016) 440
20.5b Distribution of policy positions on economic issues: LDP and DPJ (DP
since 2016) 440
20.6 Estimated effects of intra-party groups (confidence interval (CI) at 95%) 442
22.1 Percentage of districts that included a nominee from the president’s party 474
23.1 Intra-party democracy: South African parties in comparative perspective 498
23.2 Party personalization, 1994–2019 499
23.3 Party Presence Index, 35 countries, 2014–2015 501
24.1 Presidential election result by political party (%) 520
24.2 Composition of Senate by political parties (%) 521
24.3 Composition of House of Representatives by political parties (%) 522
24.4 Composition of governorship seats by political parties (%) 523
24.5 Seats won in State Houses of Assembly by political parties (%) 523
25.1 The performance of political parties in presidential elections,
2000–2022: The two main contending parties 538
List of Tables

4.1 Effective number of parties in presidential and parliamentary elections,

1995–2022 60
4.2 Summary of leadership and candidate selection rules, 1994–2022 67

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

4.3 Number of followers of French parties’ social media accounts, 2023 76
5.1 Membership ratios of the German parties, 1965–2021 94
6.1 Electoral results to Chamber of Deputies (lower chamber; % of votes) 112
6.2 Czech party system competition 113
6.3 Membership of Czech parties 116
7.1 Party system indicators: Second Republic, 1993–2018 130
7.2 Aggregated votes and seats to the four parties (%), 1994–2018 132
7.3 Evolution of party membership 134
7.4 Index of Members’ Prerogatives 135
7.5 Party private revenues on total party income, expenditures for personnel
and electoral campaigns on total expenditures (%), 1994–2018 140
7.6 Number of leaders and of significant splits, 1994–2018 141
7.7 Evolution of the party group composition in the Chamber of Deputies,
1994–2021 143
7.8 The four parties and their leaders in social media (number of followers) 145
8.1 Greece: Core party system indicators, 2000–2019 156
8.2 Membership and party finance of ND, SYRIZA, and KINAL 159
8.3 Greek parties’ party networks 162
9.1 Core party system indicators in Turkey 182
10.1 Organizational characteristics of Portuguese parties 207
10.2 The distribution of votes in elections and seats in the Portuguese
Parliament, 2015–2022 210
11.1 Larger parties’ electoral decline, party system fragmentation, volatility,
and turnout in Spain since 1977 225
11.2 Parties’ income, 2017 230
12.1 Key indicators of the format of the party system in Poland, 1991–2019 243
12.2 Membership figures and party finances in the four largest Polish political
parties 245
13.1 Party members in Israel, 2022 264
14.1 Organizational differences among major parties in Mexico, 2015 293
 List of Tables xi

15.1 The Colombian party system’s fragmentation, 2010–2022 315

15.2 Colombian party system in the legislature, 2018–2022 317
15.3 Centro Democrático and Comunes election results, 2014–2020 (% of
valid votes) 319
16.1 Sources of the resources for Brazilian general elections, 2002–2022 in
million dollars ($) and proportional (%) values 337
19.1 South Korea: Core party system indicators 403
19.2 Changes in presidential candidate selection rules of the Democratic
Party, 1987–2022 418

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

19.3 Changes in presidential candidate selection rules of the People Power
Party, 1987–2022 419
20.1 Voter support in national elections for the LDP and the DPJ (DP since
2016) (%) 437
20.2a Number of LDP incumbents by faction just before lower house elections 438
20.2b Number of DPJ incumbents by intra-party group just before lower house
elections (DP since 2016) 439
21.1 India: Core party system indicators 457
22.1 Party composition of the Senate, 2016, 2019, and 2022 468
22.2 Party composition of the House of Representatives, 2016, 2019, and 2022 469
22.3 Philippine party-list election, 1998–2022 470
22.4 Party switching at the House of Representatives, 1987–2022 472
22.5 Philippines: Core party system indicators 475
23.1 National election results and effective number of parties, 1994–2019 490
24.1 Composition of Federal House of Representatives by political parties,
1959–1964 514
24.2 Composition of Senate by political parties, 1979–1983 515
24.3 Nigeria: Core party system indicators (House of Representatives) 530
25.1 Ghana’s Core Political Party System Indicators 539
26.1 Actors in party assistance 564
List of Contributors

Nicholas Allen is Professor of Politics at Elodie Fabre is Lecturer in the School of

Royal Holloway, University of London, History, Anthropology, Philosophy and
UK. Politics, Queen’s University Belfast, UK.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Michael Angenendt is Postdoctoral Carlos Fara is a political consultant and
Fellow at the Düsseldorf Party Research President of Fara Veggetti, Argentina. He
Institute (PRUF) at the Heinrich Heine was elected president of the International
University, Düsseldorf, Germany Association of Political Consultants
(IAPC) in 2024.
John Bartle is Professor of Politics in the
Department of Government, University Wojciech Gagatek is Professor at the
of Essex, UK. Department of Political Methodology,
Faculty of Political Science and
Simon D. Brause is Lecturer in Politics,
International Studies, University of
Department of Social Sciences, at the
Warsaw, Poland.
Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf,
Germany. José Emilio Graglia is President of
Instituto de Ciencias, Estado y Sociedad
Enrico Calossi is Associate Professor of
Córdoba, Córdoba, Argentina.
Political Science in the Department of
Political Science, University of Pisa, Italy. Wilhelm Hofmeister is a Fellow at the
Düsseldorf Party Research Institute
Tomáš Cirhan is Researcher in Politics at
(PRUF) at the Heinrich Heine
the Charles University Prague, Czech
University, Düsseldorf, Germany and
Republic.
worked for many years in the
Jake D. Dan-Azumi is Professor of international co-operation of the Konrad
Political Science and Development Adenauer Foundation in Latin America,
Studies, National Institute for Legislative Asia, Spain and Germany.
and Democratic Studies, Abuja, Federal
Yeaji Kim is Assistant Professor in the
Capital Territory, Nigeria. He is the Chief
Department of Political Science,
of Staff to the Speaker, House of
California State University, Dominguez
Representatives, National Assembly,
Hills, Carson, USA.
Nigeria.
Petr Kopecký is Professor of
Emmanuel K. Debrah is Associate
Comparative Politics at Leiden
Professor in Political Science at the
University, Netherlands and at the
University of Ghana, Ghana.
CEVRO Institute, Prague, Czech
Costas Eleftheriou is Assistant Professor Republic.
in Political Science and Historical
Silvana Krause is Professor of Political
Sociology at the Department of Political
Science at the Universidade Federal do
Science, Democritus University of
Rio Grande do Sul-UFRGS, Porto
Thrace, Greece.
Alegre/RS, Brazil.
 List of Contributors xiii

Matthias Krönke is a PhD student at the Aldo F. Ponce is Associate Professor in

Department of Political Studies and a the Division of Political Studies at CIDE,
graduate researcher at the Institute of Mexico City, Mexico.
Democracy, Citizenship and Public
Thomas Quinn is Senior Lecturer in
Policy in Africa (IDCPPA) at the
Politics in the Department of
University of Cape Town, South
Government, University of Essex, UK.
Africa.
Luis Ramiro is Associate Professor of
Marina Costa Lobo is Research
Politics and Public Administration in the
Professor at the Institute of Social
Department of Political Science, UNED,
Sciences of the University of Lisbon,
Spain

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Portugal.
María Salvador is Professor of
Sarah Lockwood is Assistant Professor
Constitutional Law in the Department of
in Development Studies at the
Political Law, UNED, Spain.
Department of Politics and International
Studies, University of Cambridge, UK. Susan E. Scarrow is Moores Professor in
She is also a research affiliate at the the Department of Political Science,
Institute of Democracy, Citizenship and University of Houston, USA.
Public Policy in Africa at the University Bruno Marques Schaefer is Professor of
of Cape Town, South Africa. Political Science at the State University of
Enock Mathapoly-Cudjoe is a PhD Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Brazil.
Student at the University of Lapland, Assaf Shapira is Director of the Political
Rovaniemi, Finland. Reform Program at The Israel
Robert Mattes is Professor of Politics in Democracy Institute, Jerusalem, Israel.
the Department of Government and Toygar Sinan Baykan is Assistant
Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, Professor of Politics at Kirklareli
Glasgow, UK, and Adjunct Professor at University, Turkey.
the Nelson Mandela School for Public
Governance, University of Cape Eswaran Sridharan is Academic Director
Town. and Chief Executive, University of
Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced
Isaac Owusu-Mensah is Senior Lecturer Study of India, New Delhi, India.
in Political Science at the University of
Ghana, Ghana. Alexander C. Tan is Professor of Political
Science at the University of Canterbury,
Eugenio Pizzimenti is Associate Christchurch, New Zealand and
Professor of Political Science in the University Chair Professor of Political
Department of Political Science, Science at the National Chengchi
University of Pisa, Italy. University, Taipei,
Thomas Poguntke is Professor of Taiwan.
Comparative Politics and Director of the Julio C. Teehankee is Professor of
Düsseldorf Party Research Institute Political Science and International
(PRUF) at the Heinrich Heine Studies at De La Salle University, Manila,
University, Düsseldorf, Germany. Philippines.
xiv List of Contributors

Takayoshi Uekami is Professor of Laura Wills-Otero is Associate Professor

Political Science at Gakushuin in the Department of Political Science
University, Tokyo, Japan. and Global Studies, Universidad de los
Andes, Bogotá, Columbia.
Paul D. Webb is Professor of Politics at
the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. Junpei Yamaguchi is a PhD student in
political science at Kokugakuin
University, Tokyo, Japan.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

1
Introduction
Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Democracy is under threat worldwide. This is the assessment of numerous
books and articles that analyse a democratic recession, describe the ill winds
blowing into its face and explain how democracy dies (Diamond 2008, 2015,
2019; Rich 2017; Levitzky and Ziblatt 2018; Runciman 2018). Surprisingly,
most of these analyses give little attention to the analysis of the role of political
parties in this decline of democracy. Mostly, the role of political parties and
their failure are briefly mentioned, but they are not subject to a systematic
and detailed analysis concerning the individual and structural conditions of
the character of their failure. This is also the case for different international
reports on the state of democracy which receive a lot of attention but usu-
ally describe the decay of democracy rather than analyse its causes. They put
emphasis on bad governance and corruption as one of the main reasons for
the weakening of democracy; however, they barely mention the role of politi-
cal parties as political and governmental actors who have a decisive influence
on the shape of a democracy (International IDEA 2019, 2021; EIU 2022;
V-Dem 2022). Accordingly, when these analyses try to show ways out of the
crisis, they often stress the need of free and fair elections, independent judi-
ciary, free media, the respect of human rights, and especially the role of civil
society; however, they tend to remain relatively silent about the potential role
and contribution of political parties. International cooperation to promote
democracy, for example through the European Union, also focuses more on
these issues than on the political parties.
This is remarkable given the undisputed essential role of political parties
for modern democracy. Political parties are the distinctive institution of mod-
ern democracy. Hence, when it comes to analysing the operations of modern
democracies and their potential weaknesses, it is important to have a clear
understanding of how their parties operate and what challenges they are fac-
ing. Frequently, they may be victims of the decline of democracy but, in many
cases, they also bear direct or indirect responsibility for the problems. Above

Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Introduction. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy. Edited by: Thomas
Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0001
2 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

all, however, they are part of the solution, because modern democracy cannot
function without political parties (Dalton and Wattenberg 2000).
Yet, as the late Peter Mair (2013) famously put it, they are in danger of
‘ruling the void’, being relegated to a largely ceremonial role in democracy. Are
they really becoming the ‘dignified part of the constitution’ without having a
real say over how political decisions are made (Mair 2013: 18)? Are modern
democracies drifting towards a technocratic mode of governance (Caramani
2017) where (supranational) elites are those who really control the course of
events? From this point of view, the (re)emergence of populist parties and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

their recourse to nationalist language and appeals might be seen, at least in
part, as a reaction to the hollowing out of party government (Poguntke and
Webb 2018).
To be sure, these diagnoses may be too dramatic. However, the ongoing
fragmentation of party systems and the rise of new challenger parties are rea-
son for concern. Also, the trend towards the presidentialization of governance
and the overall personalization of politics (Poguntke and Webb 2005; Rahat
and Kenig 2018) have the potential to erode the role of parties as coherent
organizations within and for democracy. Are parties in danger of becoming
‘empty vessels’, as Katz and Kolodny (1994) dubbed the US parties in the early
1990s, that can easily be taken over by political entrepreneurs who may have
little concern for the traditions of the party? In sum, there is a need to spe-
cially address the relationship between the crisis of democracy and the role
of political parties.
How parties can contribute to democracy is best understood by looking at
a very diverse range of cases in different parts of the world. Instead of taking
a regional approach, which dominates the literature on political parties, this
book takes a global perspective, covering 23 countries in different regions of
the world. It covers Western and Central Europe, Israel, and Turkey; Asia-
Pacific; Latin America; and Africa. This includes new and old, presidential,
semi-presidential, and parliamentary democracies, as well as some coun-
tries where democracy is seriously threatened or eroding. Hence, we have
included countries which are classified as ‘partly free’ by Freedom House
(Mexico, India, Philippines, Nigeria) and Turkey, where democratic erosion
has gone furthest.1 This selection offers unique comparative perspectives
on the role of political parties in the democratic process combined with a
detailed analysis of individual countries and their party systems. For orga-
nizational ease the volume is organized along geographical lines, but there
could be alternative ways of reading the studies: for instance, presidential vs
parliamentary countries, established vs newer democracies, or functioning
democracies vs partly free countries.
 Introduction 3

We ask why parties fail today, why new parties emerge and displace old
parties, and also what parties need to do in order to survive cutthroat com-
petition, above all with new (and sometimes not so new) variants of populist
parties (Mudde 2004; Mudde and Kaltwasser 2012). Current developments
must therefore also be understood as a challenge to party research. If it is true
that the parties play a decisive role in the development, consolidation, and
stabilization of democratic systems, then the question is what specific organi-
zational, strategic, and programmatic characteristics of parties are conducive
to the protection of the democratic order. This question applies to the parties

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

that are upstaged by the new developments, those that successfully resist or
adapt to the pressure to change, and those which emerge as ‘new’ parties out
of crisis.
As has been noted elsewhere, ‘there is generally too much variation for
any structural model to be convincing’ (Webb et al. 2017: 308). Hence, the
contributors to our book attempt to identify appropriate answers specific to
national or regional circumstances. In other words, there is no general answer
to what parties need to be organizationally and do strategically and program-
matically. Rather, we tackle the diversity of regional differences by asking
identical questions but not expecting uniform answers.

Research Questions

Each country chapter will address the most topical issues regarding the role
of parties for the functioning of the democratic order in the context of the
current crisis of democracy. The chapters begin with general information
about the country and its party system, including relevant framework con-
ditions such as party legislation concerning party organization and internal
party democracy, party finance, and electoral system. Furthermore, relevant
developments with respect to electoral volatility, party system fragmentation,
party membership, and other aspects affecting the structure of parties and
the party system are covered. In order to ensure maximum comparability,
all country chapters follow a common set of questions; in addition, many
authors are also members of the Political Party Database Project (PPDB)
coordinated by Susan Scarrow, Paul Webb, and Thomas Poguntke and can
therefore draw on the same data source. The volume begins with a conceptual
discussion of the study of political parties, which is followed by 23 country
chapters. It concludes with a review of the experiences of international party
assistance and a short comparative reflection.
4 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

The centrepiece of the country chapters consists of an in-depth analysis of

the core parties of the national party system (usually between two and four
parties), addressing the following questions:

(1) Party organization: What characterizes the organization of these par-

ties? What role do variables such as the number of party members
play? Why do parties gain members and why do they lose members?
What kind and degree of intra-party democracy characterizes these
parties, and how strong is the party leadership?

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

(2) Party ideology: What are the most important features of theses par-
ties’ ideologies or programmes? Are there new, even provocative,
responses to a country’s challenges?
(3) Connection to social groups: With which groups do individual par-
ties maintain strong contact? Which groups are more relevant today,
and which have lost their importance? Do the parties grant a formal
status to certain groups within their organization (e.g. youth, women,
workers, professionals, civil servants, entrepreneurs)?
(4) Significance of state subsidies: Do state subsidies exist? Are the parties
dependent on them? Do state subsidies help to distance the parties
from their voters or are they used to incentivize parties to maintain
contact with the voters?
(5) Party unity: How united are the parties? How frequent are internal
party conflicts and how serious are they? Have they led to resignations
of prominent leaders? How do they affect (if at all) voting behaviour
in the legislature? Are there disciplinary measures against legislators?
(6) Communication: What characterizes the form of communication of
the parties. How do they use social media?

The chapters conclude with a discussion of the reasons for the rise and
decline of individual parties and, above all, with an evaluation of the role
of political parties for the future development of democracy. Will the par-
ties be able to defend the democratic system in the future? What are the
most promising—or successful—responses of political parties to challenges
to democracy? What pressure can be expected on the political system?
As always, publications such as this have a long history. This book started as
a conference in Madrid in October 2021, which was generously supported by
the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. We also gratefully acknowledge the finan-
cial support of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation to make the open access
publication of this volume possible. Last but not least, we are indebted to
Julian Bogenrieder, Nico Bodden, Pauline Marquardt, and Benjamin Hoss
 Introduction 5

at the Düsseldorf Party Research Institute (PRUF) for their help in getting
the manuscripts into shape.
The Madrid meeting was one of the first face-to-face events after the
COVID-19 pandemic, and even then some contributors could not be present
due to travel restrictions. These extraordinary circumstances remind us of
the importance of a functioning democracy—of which political parties are
an essential element—to cope with crises. Unlike some suspected at the
beginning of the pandemic, China did not set the standards.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Note
1. https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores (Accessed 25 September
2023).

References

Caramani, Daniele. 2017. ‘Will vs. Reason: The Populist and Technocratic Forms
of Political Representation and Their Critique to Party Government’. American
Political Science Review, 111:54–67.
Dalton, Russell J. and Martin P. Wattenberg (eds). 2000. Parties without Partisans.
Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Diamond, Larry. 2008. ‘The Democratic Rollback. The Resurgence of the Predatory
State’. Foreign Affairs, 87(2):36–48.
Diamond, Larry. 2015. ‘Facing Up to the Democratic Recession’. Journal of Democ-
racy, 26(1):141–155.
Diamond, Larry. 2019. Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese
Ambition, and American Complacency. New York: Penguin Press.
Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU). 2022. Democracy Index 2021: The China Chal-
lenge. https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2021/ (Accessed 6
December 2023).
International IDEA. 2019. The Global State of Democracy 2019: Addressing the Ills,
Reviving the Promise. Stockholm: IDEA.
International IDEA. 2021. The Global State of Democracy Report 2021: Building
Resilience in a Pandemic Era. Stockholm: IDEA.
Katz, Richard S. and Robin Kolodny. 1994. ‘Party Organization as an Empty Vessel:
Parties in American Politics’. In: Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair (eds), How Parties
Organize: Change and Adaptation in Party Organizations in Western Democracies.
London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage, 23–50.
6 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Levitzky, Steven and Daniel Ziblatt. 2018. How Democracies Die: What History
Reveals About Our Future. New York: Penguin Press.
Mair, Peter. 2013. Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy. London:
Verso.
Mudde, Cas. 2004. ‘The Populist Zeitgeist’. Government and Opposition, 39:
541–563.
Mudde, Cas and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser (eds). 2012. Populism in Europe and the
Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Poguntke, Thomas and Paul D. Webb. 2005. ‘The Presidentialization of Politics in
Democratic Societies: A Framework for Analysis’. In: Thomas Poguntke and Paul
Webb (eds), The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern
Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–25.
Poguntke, Thomas and Paul D. Webb. 2018. ‘Presidentialization, Personalization
and Populism: The Hollowing Out of Party Government’. In: William P. Cross,
Richard S. Katz, and Scott Pruysers (eds), The Personalization of Democratic Pol-
itics and the Challenge for Political Parties. London and New York: Rowman and
Littlefield/ECPR Press, 181–196.
Rahat, Gideon and Ofer Kenig. 2018. From Party Politics to Personalized Poli-
tics? Party Change and Political Personalization in Democracies. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Rich, Roland. 2017. Democracy in Crisis: Why, Where, How to Respond. Boul-
der/London: Lynne Riener.
Runciman, David. 2018. How Democracy Ends. New York: Basic Books.
V-Dem Institute. 2021. Democracy Report 2022. Autocratization Changing Nature.
Gothenburg. https://v-dem.net/media/publications/dr_2022.pdf (Accessed 6
December 2023).
Webb, Paul D., Thomas Poguntke, and Susan E. Scarrow. 2017. ‘Conclusion: The
Study of Party Organization’. In Susan E. Scarrow, Paul D. Webb, and Thomas
Poguntke (eds), Organizing Political Parties: Representation, Participation, and
Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 307–320.
2
Analysing Political Parties
and Democracy
Themes, Questions, Problems

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Thomas Poguntke, Susan E. Scarrow, and Paul D. Webb

Introduction

No one doubts that political parties play a central role in democratic gover-
nance around the globe.1 However, many doubt that they are doing it well.
The writings on the wall are manifold: the decline of former core parties, the
fragmentation of party systems, the rise of populist challenger parties, the rise
of populist leaders within established parties—the list could easily be contin-
ued. Not all failures are of the parties’ own making. While they may be able to
perform better on some accounts, they could also be victims of wider societal
trends over which they have little control.
This volume, taking a global view, takes stock of where the causes of party
failure may lie and where parties could do better—or simply do something
different. It also looks for evidence of some ‘better practices’, areas in which
some parties seem to be doing comparatively well. To this end, this chapter
presents an inventory of perspectives and questions that serve as guidance for
the country chapters. Given that the volume covers parties and party systems
across very diverse regions and political systems, the editors have chosen not
to propose a rigid framework of analysis; instead, they present an inventory
of theoretical and empirical questions that are addressed by the authors in the
light of their specific conditions of the country which they study (see intro-
duction). This chapter groups these questions into several thematic blocs. In
particular, we suggest that parties should be analysed as products of their
(changing) environment, as professionalized organizations, as actors that
create and maintain organized linkages to other collective actors, as recip-
ients of public funding, as legislators who may act more or less cohesively

Thomas Poguntke, Susan E. Scarrow, and Paul D. Webb, Analysing Political Parties and Democracy. In: Political Parties and
the Crisis of Democracy. Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Thomas Poguntke,
Susan E. Scarrow, and Paul D. Webb (2024). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0002
8 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

and, last but not least, as communicators. Throughout, and particularly in

the concluding sections of individual chapters, the underlying theme is the
role of parties in their given countries for democratic governance.

Parties in a Changing Environment

Parties are a product of their environment, operating under conditions which

are only partially of their own making. Yet they are also masters of their own

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

fate in that they decide which organizational or ideological route to choose.
To be sure, parties, in their capacity as lawmakers and policymakers influence
their environment. However, there are many factors that influence their polit-
ical fortunes which are beyond their influence or control. In most parts of the
world, social change and value change (Inglehart 1990; Dalton, McAllister,
and Wattenberg 2000) have weakened the traditionally solid anchorage that
many parties once enjoyed in systems with strong socio-political cleavages.
Declining party membership, growing volatility, the decline of traditional
parties and the rise of new challengers have been the hallmarks of the chang-
ing political environment in which political parties operate (e.g. Franklin
1992; Webb et al. 2002; Webb and White 2009; Biezen et al. 2012; Neff Pow-
ell and Tucker 2014; Poguntke and Schmitt 2018). Meanwhile, in newer and
emergent democracies, parties face their own challenges, such as immersion
in the politics of clientelism or corruption, imperfect adaptation to the norms
of the democratic game, and the politics of ethnic mobilization and defence.
How do existing parties respond? Essentially, they can and must adapt to
changing environments (Harmel and Janda 1994; Harmel 2002). If they can
no longer recruit members as they used to, they may respond by changing the
nature of party membership, for example, by introducing new ‘membership-
light’ categories in order to attract those who might otherwise not be willing
to get involved (Gauja 2015; Scarrow 2015). If demands for more political
involvement are voiced, they may open up their decision-making routines to
grassroots members or even mere supporters (Hazan and Rahat 2010; San-
dri and Seddone 2015; Ichino and Nathan 2022). If political agendas change
as result of changing values or problems, parties need to adjust their pro-
grammatic offers or face declining electoral returns (Kriesi et al. 2008; Kriesi
et al. 2012; Hutter and Kriesi 2019). If new competitors begin to threaten
the ascendency of established parties, they may adapt to these challenges in
order to win back voters—or they may close ranks and try to form defen-
sive cartels (Katz and Mair 1995). More often than not, attempts to keep new
competitors out have failed and new parties have emerged—which can be
seen as a sign of democratic viability and representative renewal as long as
 Analysing Political Parties and Democracy 9

they are committed to the basic values of democratic governance. In other

cases, more dominant parties have responded by retreating in their commit-
ments to democracy, eroding the protections afforded to challenger parties
in a bid to solidify their own hold on power.
But even where the main parties remain committed to democratic norms,
they still may seek to influence their environment by re-writing the rules of
the democratic game. This, however, is a collective effort except in those rel-
atively rare cases where single parties control the required majorities on their
own. It is here that the idea of the cartel party is particularly relevant as several

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

major parties normally need to cooperate in order to muster the necessary
simple (or even qualified) majorities.
First and foremost, this applies to electoral laws which are largely under
the jurisdiction of the parties themselves (despite some constitutional safe-
guards). Party laws are another important factor which substantially mould
parties’ environment. While the legal regulation of political parties has
become almost the norm in established European democracies (Biezen and
Piccio 2013), party laws are also found widely across other parts of the
world. Janda (2005), in his analysis of 1,101 party laws from regimes both
democratic and non-democratic, found that the former tend to generate
laws that mainly permit and promote party activities, whereas those in non-
democracies and semi-democracies are especially inclined to promulgate
laws that protect particular (presumably dominant or ruling) parties while
proscribing or banning others. Even in established democracies, however,
party laws may constitute barriers to activity, for instance by requiring fairly
substantial organizational or programmatic institutionalization as a precon-
dition for inclusion in a party register to qualify for electoral participation
or public funding. Speaking of the latter, of course, the rules of access to
public funding are a crucial aspect of parties’ environment, and these condi-
tions are a part of the competitive context which parties can heavily influence
themselves.
These legal framework conditions can have a substantial impact on the
openness of electoral competition and hence on the fortune of those political
parties which are capable of controlling the design of these rules and regula-
tions. Hence, one important perspective of the volume will be the openness
of party competition as it materializes in legal framework conditions.

Parties as Organizations

Parties as organizations structure political behaviour in many ways. By

offering choice between policies and candidates, they encourage or inhibit
10 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

political participation. How they do this is something that reflects the

organizational models they adopt. For instance, parties’ internal operations
offer variously inviting incentives for ordinary citizens to get involved in
political activity. Sometimes these participation incentives involve material
rewards, but often they include rights to participate in key decisions such
as the selection of leaders and candidates for public office, or even (less
frequently) the formulation of public policies. To the extent that party organi-
zations do a better or worse job of channelling participation and of reflecting
popular priorities, they may ultimately influence levels of legitimacy and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

public protest.
Parties are widely understood to play important roles in a number of
central functions of the democratic political process. They formulate pol-
icy, recruit elites, run election (and other) campaigns, and provide linkages
between rulers and ruled—or, to put it differently, between state and soci-
ety. However, they can and do organize themselves in quite different ways
in the performance of these functions. In newly industrializing countries,
parties are often involved in distributing clientelistic payoffs to supporters
(Kitschelt and Wilkinson 2007), but linkage is also often based on group iden-
tity. Thus, some parties have emerged as representatives of social groups in
societies where politics revolves around inter-group conflict. These cleavage-
based parties may make very different organizational decisions compared to
those parties built around the charisma of a dominant leader. They may be
able to rely on other cleavage organizations to do much of the work of mobi-
lizing individual political participation, but in return, these external actors
may benefit from important participation opportunities and rights within the
party—for instance, representation in party congresses or on party executives
(Allern, Hansen et al. 2020). The other groups might be accorded formal roles
in key decisions about selecting party leaders or candidates for public office.
This has certainly been the case for some trade union movements which have
close relationships with social democratic and labour parties (Allern and Bale
2017).
This approach contrasts with that of electoralist parties which seek to
present themselves as brands that appeal to ‘consumers’ (i.e. voters). Such
parties may run organizations that are more dependent on paid professional
employees than on grassroots volunteers, and these are much leaner between
elections than the organizations of cleavage-based parties. Electoralist par-
ties often rely on appeals that are more candidate-focused or ‘personalistic’
than programmatic (Gunther and Diamond 2003). As social anchorage has
declined and the focus on leaders has grown, parties (particularly those in
government) have tended to drift towards a presidentialized working mode
 Analysing Political Parties and Democracy 11

characterized by leaders who claim a personalized mandate from the elec-

torate and tend to govern past their own parties and its ideological tenets
(Poguntke and Webb 2005). In its most pronounced incarnation, we see in
some countries, particularly presidential ones, deliberately ephemeral par-
ties (often not much more than umbrella labels) created for the purposes of
contesting a single election.
How exactly parties link to society through their own organization is
strongly influenced by changing societal conditions. This analytical perspec-
tive has given rise to an influential body of literature that has sought to

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

identify major party types and present them as products of different phases
of socio-political development. From this perspective, the history of party
development is best summarized as a history of dominant party types, begin-
ning with the cadre party, followed by the mass party, the catch-all-party,
and finally the cartel party (Duverger 1954; Kirchheimer 1966; Katz and
Mair 1995). These are ideal types, that is, stylized abstractions that serve as
benchmarks against which to gauge empirical investigations.
The list of classical ideal types begins with the cadre (or elite) party, which
is characterized by a loose organizational structure run by social elites who
need little formal organization to accomplish the party functions of cam-
paigning and elite selection (Duverger 1954). The origins of such (often
classical liberal or conservative) parties typically lie in the pre-democratic era
of parliamentary politics. In Neumann’s terminology, this is a party of ‘indi-
vidual representation’ with only rudimentary formal organization, and one
which invites only limited participation by a restricted electorate (Neumann
1956).
With the advent of universal suffrage, the mass party (or party of mass
integration in Neumann’s terms) became the dominant model of party
organization. As large numbers of newly enfranchised voters sought rep-
resentation in the political process, the mass party emerged as the most
appropriate tool for this. It was characterized by a coherent ideology and a
strong organization and was, first and foremost, a tool for the mobilization
of collective interest. It therefore maintained exclusive organizational links
to relevant mass organizations (typically trade unions or religious organiza-
tions). The more institutionalized the party bureaucracy became, the more
the initial ideal of internal democracy controlled by grassroots mass mem-
bership eventually gave way to a hierarchy that controlled the party machine
from the top, as Michels famously remarked in stipulating his ‘Iron Law of
Oligarchy’ (Michels 1989). The success of such a model in the democratic
era led to at least partial emulation by older parties of the right—a process of
‘contagion from the left’, as Duverger described it.
12 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

As cleavages based on class and religion began to weaken from the 1960s
onwards (in Europe, at least), Otto Kirchheimer (1966) identified the catch-
all party as the new modal party type. Characterized by weaker but more
diverse ties to society, the catch-all party was mainly an elite-dominated cam-
paign organization that de-emphasized the group linkage function and the
role of party members. Party competition was less about how to change the
system than about who would run it better. In light of this, elections became
more competitive to the extent that they were less about parties mobiliz-
ing their own camps of core identifiers and more about persuading more

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

open-minded voters to make choices between different parties.
Taking this development to its logical conclusion gave rise to the cartel
party, according to Katz and Mair (1995). This new party type was strongly
anchored within the institutions of the state while the role of the grass-
roots membership was increasingly marginalized. From their perspective,
party democracy became primarily a service provided by the state for soci-
ety instead of being a political process that leads to the steering of the state
through societal forces. This model owes something to Angelo Panebianco’s
(1988) electoral-professional party, which also emphasized the electoral role
of modern political parties, and their dependence on state funding for their
organizational resources.
To be sure, this literature is strongly focused on Europe, and we need
to remind ourselves that developmental trajectories of parties will have
been different elsewhere owing to different processes of nation-building and
democratization. In other parts of the world, other party types prevail, e.g.,
ethnic parties and parties based on liberation movements (Gunther and Dia-
mond 2003) The business firm party (Hopkin and Paolucci 1999) and the
digitally organized platform party (Gerbaudo 2019) also have some, albeit
more limited, relevance. Yet the different logics of these party types will also
be relevant in other regional settings as they refer to fundamental aspects of
party organization and parties’ linkage to society.
In addition, a closer look at this body of literature shows that these classic
authors have focused more efforts on describing allegedly new modal types
of parties rather than on trying to capture the complete variability of party
organizational types. Consequently, while these ideal types inform a great
deal of current and classic discussions about classification and trends in party
organization, they do not easily encompass the full range of parties’ organi-
zational patterns. For instance, a study of 122 parties from 19 parliamentary
democracies estimated that, at most, just under two-fifths of them could be
said to conform clearly to one or other of the classic ideal types (Webb et al.
2017). As this suggests, the empirical reality is much messier than the neat
 Analysing Political Parties and Democracy 13

world of academic taxonomy; organizational hybrids and idiosyncrasies are

commonplace. Moreover, where we find evidence of contagion, it tends to
reflect national pressures rather than the influence of developmental eras
driven by technological changes or transnational socio-economic changes.
That is, parties simply emulate the rivals with whom they directly compete
(and sometimes cooperate) in their own countries (Poguntke et al. 2016).
However, certain broad trends can be identified. Over time, it does appear
that (contra the catch-all thesis) more parties have accorded their members
rights to vote in the selection of legislative candidates and party leaders,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

although this has not gone so far as to be the norm for a majority of parties
even now (see, for an overview, Poguntke and Scarrow 2020: 330). This has
happened even as the number of people willing to join parties has declined
in many countries. Whether these overlapping developments are causally
connected is not certain, but in at least some cases it seems likely that the
extension of members’ participatory rights has been a deliberate organi-
zational response on the part of leaders who have been concerned by the
erosion of their grassroots memberships. The most cynical interpretation,
associated with the cartel thesis, suggests that electorally motivated leaders
might extend such participatory rights as a way of diluting the intra-party
influence of radical mid-level party officers and activists, often via party
congresses. In such cases, we might observe:

an erosion of the boundary between formal members and supporters, particularly

through the spread of primary elections; use of direct votes—sometimes merely
to ratify, other times to decide among alternatives determined by the party leader-
ship; and by-passing of party congresses or meetings, in which communication and
coordination among the members/supporters and from them to the center is facil-
itated, in favor of direct, unmediated, and one-way communication (e.g., via direct
mailing or e-mail) from the center to the members/supporters. (Katz and Mair
2009: 761)

However, whatever the explanations for why these new rules have been
adopted, in practice when these rules are used, they do not necessarily serve
to consolidate the power of existing leaders. For instance, analysis of recent
leadership contests in European parliamentary democracies reveals that they
tend to be more genuinely competitive where they are decided by member-
ship ballots than by other means, such as votes by party congress delegates
(Scarrow et al 2022). Nor does it seem likely that most parties have been able
to respond to membership decline exclusively by substituting professional
staffing for ‘footsoldiers’ on the ground, not least because few parties have
14 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

sufficient resources to mount nationwide campaigns for local and national

offices without the help of volunteers. In fact, qualitative research with party
officials has revealed little evidence that parties accept, let alone welcome, the
loss of members; on the contrary, they continue to see the need for grassroots
members and are often quick to publicly proclaim any short-term successes in
reversing membership decline (Scarrow 1996; Ware 1996: 63–84; Bale et al.
2019: ch. 9).
Even though amateur politics still co-exists with professionalism in many
parties in regards to their intra-organizational life and campaign efforts, there

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

is one crucial aspect of party democracy where we have witnessed consid-
erable trends towards professionalization: In many countries, politics has
become a life-long career, and parties are the crucial gatekeepers (e.g. Cotta
and Best 2007). Arguably, this is also facilitated by the growth of public
funding in many countries which provide parties with resources to employ
aspiring activists before they are elected to a representative body (see the
following section).

Parties as Linkage to Society

In many regions and historical phases, organized interaction of political

parties with specific social groups has been an important tool of parties
to stabilize their relevant environments and obtain structured and reliable
information about relevant social interests. The literature on Western Euro-
pean party systems has emphasized the organizational aspect of linkage
between parties and collateral organizations defining social cleavages, par-
ticularly during the era of the party of mass integration (Lipset and Rokkan
1967; Lawson 1980; Poguntke 2002). For many decades, the freezing of the
cleavage system has worked to the benefit of political parties which had a
stable organized relationship to the major cleavage-forming interest organi-
zations such as trade unions, employers’ federations, farmers’ organizations,
or religious movements. Giving these organizations privileged access to party
decision-making arenas and meetings ensured a stable relationship with
major social forces capable of mobilizing electoral support for specific parties
in exchange for the realization of desired policy goals.
However, social change and the widening perspective to newer democra-
cies or regions with very different historical trajectories has led to a more
encompassing conceptualization of linkage, including also a range of regu-
lar yet more informal interactions (Allern, Otjes et al. 2020). While parties
in long-established democracies are struggling with the loosening of their
 Analysing Political Parties and Democracy 15

previously stable social anchorage, parties in newer democracies (such as

Central Eastern Europe) entered into the era of party democracy under a
very different setting. Decades of Communist rule had largely wiped out ear-
lier pluralistic organizational life, and hence parties had comparatively few or
only weak potential partners in civil society. In other parts of the world, such
as Latin America, the dominance of presidentialism may have led to very dif-
ferent patterns of interaction between parties and organized social groups,
while ethnicity-based collateral organizations and former liberation move-
ments play a larger role in African democracies (Mainwaring and Scully 1995;

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Randall and Svåsand 2002; Elischer 2013; Casal Bertoa and Enyedi 2021).
Parties can also follow a different organizational strategy to connect to
civil society. Rather than reaching out to more or less formally organized
social interests and offering them privileged organizational access, parties
can choose to diversify their own organization by creating multiple sub-
organizations catering for the interests of specific social groups (Allern and
Verge 2017). Youth and women’s organizations are widespread examples of
this, but the range of specific party sub-organizations is potentially limitless—
as older examples of organizations of socialist stamp collectors or socialist
car, motorbike, and bicycle drivers in Austria exemplify (Müller 1992).
Like linkages with external organizations, these party sub-organizations
may serve as important anchor points for the structured exchange between
party elites and relevant social constituencies about specific policy goals in
return for general party-political support or, at least, specific electoral sup-
port. Parties can also seek to preserve or strengthen their links to specific
groups or sectors by using candidate selection rules to guarantee minimums
of descriptive representation for designated categories, such as quotas related
to gender, age, regional origin, or linguistic community.
To be sure, the continued functionality of such structured interaction
between parties and civil society is far from assured, and it is an impor-
tant analytical perspective of this volume to what extent they continue to be
relevant and to what degree they have been superseded by other means of
exchange between parties (party elites) and society.

Parties and State Funding

Widespread availability of legally regulated public finance for political parties

constitutes one of the biggest changes in the environment of party politics in
the past 30 years. Only five of the 23 countries covered in this volume have no
direct public party funding.2 This change fits at least part of one of the specific
16 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

predictions of the cartel party model, namely, that parties will increase their
reliance on public funding as a way of compensating for decreased revenue
from party members (Katz and Mair 1995). Yet while there has been policy
contagion or convergence in regard to the acceptance and introduction of
public funding for political parties, this is not to say that public funding plays
the same role in all political systems. In fact, countries differ widely in the
per capita amounts they allocate for such funding and in how they distribute
these funds. They also differ widely in the extent to which the introduction
and expansion of public funding has been accompanied by limits or bans on

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

other sources of party funding, and by disclosure rules. These differences can
have important consequences for the political system in many ways, includ-
ing for the prevalence of corruption. However, we can understand some
of the main predicted impacts on parties and party systems by asking the
following key questions about national structures of public financing:

• How much do the funding rules favour large parties?

• How are funds distributed within parties?
• To what extent does a specific party rely on non-public funding?

How much do the funding rules favour large parties? One important dis-
tinction between systems of public funding is the extent to which funds are
available to small parties, including ones that do not win seats in the national
legislature. Rules for distributing public subsidies can discriminate against
smaller parties by excluding parties that do not win legislative seats. Rules
on donation limits can discriminate against small parties by setting no lim-
its, or high limits, on campaign donations, thus favouring established parties
which have had more opportunities to connect with (and do favours for)
potential donors. In their cartel party article, Katz and Mair (1995) suggested
that established parties would use systems of public funding for their own
benefit and would therefore seek to exclude new entrants to the party. If suc-
cessful, this would then increase party system stability and potentially limit
the range of party competitors. Others predicted that the spread of public
funding for parties could have the opposite effect, encouraging new party
entrants (Mendilow 1992). Perhaps not surprisingly, research in this area has
found some support for both assertions, suggesting that the effects are more
nuanced than merely the presence or absence of public funding. According to
some research, public funding is indeed associated with greater party system
stability (Booth and Robbins 2010). It may nevertheless support and sustain
a greater number of small parties (Pierre et al. 2000; Scarrow 2006; Rashkova
and Su 2020), but it is not necessarily associated with new party survival
 Analysing Political Parties and Democracy 17

(Bolleyer and Bytzek 2013). Other research suggests that it is the combina-
tion of subsidies and restrictions that matter, with combinations favourable
to new parties associated with more parties than would be expected purely on
the basis of social structures and electoral systems (Potter and Tavits 2015).
Whereas some research has found that far-right parties have a disproportion-
ately high reliance on public funds (Biezen and Kopecký 2017: 96), research
on European party systems has found that access to public funding exerts a
moderating influence on the small and new parties that compete in elections
(Casal Bertoa and Rama 2022).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

How are the funds distributed within the party? Whatever a party’s main
sources of funding, intra-party dynamics may be affected by how resources
concentrate within a party and how much economic autonomy is enjoyed by
different party strata or actors. One set of relations concerns the economic
standing of a party’s central office as compared to the resources enjoyed
by the party in public office; these economic relations may be indicative of
broader power relations within parties (Hagevi 2018; Biezen 2000). Another
set of relations concerns the distribution of public funding across multi-
ple party levels. To the extent that such resources disproportionately accrue
to national-level parties, this may further accelerate centralization of party
organization and of intra-party career ladders. Conversely, in systems where
regional or local governments provide additional public subsidies to support
party activity at their political level, such funds may strengthen decentraliza-
tion. A third set of relations concerns the funding of candidates as opposed
to parties. If parties allow, encourage, or even require candidates to raise a
large portion of funds for their own campaigns, this may encourage greater
personalization of politics and of political messages (Cross et al. 2020). Such
dynamics may also be associated with clientelistic politics, under which
candidates are expected to raise and distribute large sums to their supporters.
To what extent does a specific party rely on non-public funding? Whether
or not public funding is available, parties may still rely on other financial
supporters; in some cases, such funding is associated with overt or covert
influence over the party’s decisions. For instance, the status of trade unions
in the British Labour party and the Swedish Labour Party (until 1990) offers
extreme examples of major funders having a large formal say in party affairs.
Both parties were originally created (and funded) by the trade unions. This
funding came in the form of the unions paying party dues on behalf of
collective members; in return, the unions were able to cast the votes of
these members in party conference decisions. However, arrangements which
translate funding into direct influence have been relatively rare. Much more
common is the informal influence that accrues to donors of all types in rough
18 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

proportion to their financial importance to the party—an importance which

diminishes when parties have access to high levels of public funding (Allern
et al. 2021). Where large private donations are legal and are subject to dis-
closure laws, it is sometimes assumed that businesses may be more likely to
donate for purely quid pro quo reasons, whereas individuals may be more
likely to be motivated by ideological or other collective incentives (Fink
2017). In a party finance system that depends heavily on large private dona-
tions, the extent to which donors receive anything specific in return for their
donations is usually hard to judge, and this is particularly true when corpora-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

tions pragmatically give to parties deemed most likely to win (McMenamin
2012; Harrigan 2017).
In sum, for these and other reasons, it can be important to take account of
variations in party financing regimes if we wish to understand party system
variations, and in order to understand variations in the distribution of power
influence within parties.

Parties as Legislators

Anyone who knows anything about intra-party politics would recognize the
truth in Giovanni Sartori’s claim that, ‘as with icebergs, it is only a small part
of politics that rests above the water-line’ (1976: 106). Students of party pol-
itics have long been fascinated by the periodic (and in some cases seemingly
endemic) bouts of internal conflict and factional infighting that afflict parties.
Intra-party politics can be as important as inter-party competition for public
policy outcomes; a party which cannot deliver on promises made to voters
because it lacks legislative cohesion will be ineffectual and will likely lose the
confidence of those who gave it their support via the ballot box.
In general, legislative parties tend to be more cohesive in parliamentary
systems than in presidential regimes (Sieberer 2006; Carey 2007). This is
because legislative defeats in parliamentary systems often lead to loss of
office (via parliamentary votes of no confidence or dissolution of parlia-
ment and early elections), but this is rarely true in presidential regimes with
separation of powers. Under presidentialism, the head of both the execu-
tive and state generally has his or her own direct mandate from the people
and cannot (except in extraordinary circumstances) be removed by a sep-
arately elected legislature (Poguntke and Webb 2005: ch. 1). Even so, it is
certainly not the case that legislative parties in parliamentary democracies
 Analysing Political Parties and Democracy 19

are completely unified. Even in the UK system, renowned for its party dis-
cipline, MPs have always had the capacity to exert pressure on their leaders
by threatening or enacting rebellion against the party line. Moreover, their
willingness to do so has been increasingly apparent since the 1960s (Cowley
2005)—never more so than in the tortuous passage of Brexit-related legisla-
tion in the late 2010s (Webb and Bale 2021: ch. 7). As Anthony King once
pointed out, whereas a government can usually withstand the attacks of the
opposition, it ‘cannot always shrug off attacks from its own backbenchers’
(1976: 214).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

This serves to affirm a conviction that research into the extent and causes of
legislative party cohesion (Bowler et al. 1999) is important to any understand-
ing of the performance of political parties. We have already noted that the
broad distinction between parliamentary and presidential regimes is impor-
tant to any appreciation of the drivers of intra-party cohesion. Beyond this,
John Carey (2007) has shed light on a number of other factors. For one thing,
electoral systems can make a difference, in that open-list systems which allow
for competition between candidates from the same party tend to produce
lower levels of cohesive legislative voting behaviour than closed-list systems.
For another, federal systems also tend to produce lower levels of intra-party
cohesion, given the cross-cutting pressures they produce on parliamentari-
ans. Finally, parties’ own performance in seeking to discipline and ensure that
their MPs toe the party line is an important factor in explaining legislative
party cohesion (Müller 2000).
We should also note that even in presidential systems, while the general
level of party cohesion is lower than in parliamentary systems, the direc-
tion of travel may be towards higher levels of party unity. This has plainly
been the experience in the USA, where the growth of hyper-partisanship
has seriously eroded the previously well-recognized tradition of cross-party
voting in Congress. In a system characterized by institutional checks and
balances, this can be a recipe for political paralysis—or ’gridlock’ in the
American terminology. This cautions us about the virtues of (too much)
intra-party cohesion—particularly in presidential systems. While fundamen-
tally necessary if leaderships are going to act as effective governments (and
oppositions), taken to extremes in certain settings, it can become patholog-
ical in a political sense. Understanding where the lines between healthy and
pathological levels of party cohesion can be drawn—finding the ’sweet spot’
which balances discipline and free expression—is a task for researchers and
practitioners alike.
20 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Parties as Communicators: New Communications

Technologies and Party Development

Political parties have traditionally engaged in communication that flows in

two directions. Thus, they seek to communicate the party message to sup-
porters and potential supporters. Often, these are very top-down efforts,
particularly in national election campaigns. Yet they are also (more or less)
receptive to bottom-up communication, using their support networks to help
them stay in touch with the concerns and priorities of those whose support

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the party seeks. Since the end of the 20th century, parties’ tools for engag-
ing in both types of communication have been significantly augmented by
new forms of digital communication, and by the increasing extent to which
citizens have access to digital networks.
These tools, sometimes referred to under the umbrella label of Information
and Communications Technology (ICT), are techniques that in the early 21st
century rapidly became de rigueur for all organizations and firms concerned
with customer outreach—including for political parties. They include using
e-mail for contacting known and potential supporters (active contacting),
maintaining websites to promote the party message (waiting for visitors),
and engaging with supporters through an array of social media channels (a
potentially interactive medium). Compared to print or broadcast technolo-
gies, these tools are relatively cheap, and because publication and distribution
can be done quickly, they allow for very fast messaging. They can be used
in very sophisticated ways, but there are quite low barriers to entry, as evi-
denced by the proliferation of self-made social media influencers and viral
video clips.
The emergence of these new tools led to multiple and sometimes contra-
dictory predictions about their probable impact on the evolution of political
parties and the party landscape. The more conservative predictions saw
them as most likely to amplify trends stemming from the media revolu-
tions of the last decades of the 20th century. These included the increased
centralization of political campaigns in response to the pre-eminence of
televised messages, and parties’ and candidates’ increased reliance on pro-
fessional marketing staff to manage these campaigns (Lofgren and Smith
2003; 47–48). If such trends are reinforced by the introduction of new tech-
nologies, they will reward well-financed parties which can afford to hire
a large professional staff and will reduce incentives for parties to organize
supporters through formal membership structures. They may also increase
personalization of politics if citizens are more interested in the social media
pronouncements of individual politicians than of the parties with which
 Analysing Political Parties and Democracy 21

they are associated. These predictions fit what Anstead and Chadwick (2009)
labelled the ‘normalization’ scenario.
Others, whom Anstead and Chadwick (2009) label the ‘optimists’, have
seen these new technologies as having much more potential to disrupt tra-
ditional patterns of political organizing. Such disruption could take multiple
forms. For instance, because the new technologies make it easier and cheaper
to disseminate political messages, they decrease the entry costs for new
parties and make it easier for small parties to maintain their positions by
implementing communications strategies that do not rely on traditional

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

media outlets (Spierings and Jacobs 2019). In this sense, the new media could
at least somewhat ‘level the playing field’ for parties, even if bigger parties also
prove adept at using these tools. At the same time, they can potentially alter
power balances of political elites compared to non-politician citizens by cre-
ating new channels for partisan participation. This could affect not only the
amount of participation but who gets involved. For instance, online polit-
ical discussion groups might appeal more strongly to younger citizens, who
tend to be most familiar with whatever is the latest communication app. They
might also be more appealing to women partisans compared to more tradi-
tional forms of political participation, which may take place in local party
branches which in the past have been male-dominated (Stolle and Hooghe
2011; Gerl et al. 2018). In addition, parties might be able to capitalize on this
differential appeal by creating organizational forms such as cyber-branches
or affiliation opportunities for supporters who wish to limit their party con-
nection to the digital realms (Scarrow 2013); cyber-parties might entirely
downplay the role of party members in favour of other kinds of unmediated
digital communications (Margetts 2001). Thus, some see new technologies
as helping to renew traditional parties by creating new links between citizens
and their representatives (Chadwick and Stromer-Galley 2016; Vaccari and
Valeriani 2016). Others foresee more fundamental transformations as new
digital technologies create opportunities for parties to turn to online plat-
forms as their main channels for recruiting and mobilizing supporters rather
than as a supplement to more traditional organizational forms. This is what
Paolo Gerbaudo (2021) described as the rise of the digital party. In the 2010s
such efforts were most notably pursued by the German Pirate Party, with its
‘Liquid Democracy’ debate platform, and by the Italian Five Star movement,
with its own platform, named ‘Rousseau’ (Bordignon and Ceccarini 2013;
Hartleb 2013; Koschmieder 2016; Niedermayer 2013).
Research from the first decades of experiences with the new technologies
has not decisively backed either of these perspectives, but initial evidence
seems more to support the idea of the new tools as offering additional
22 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

opportunities rather than as entirely superseding old approaches. For one

thing, research suggests that although social media certainly has been effec-
tively deployed as part of successful campaigns, traditional face-to-face mobi-
lization efforts remain at least as effective as social media campaigns, meaning
that in-person campaign volunteers retain their value (e.g. Nyman 2017; Bale
et al. 2019: ch. 6; but see also Bhatti et al. 2019). In terms of the effects on par-
tisan political participation, while they may be offering some citizens more
opportunities to voice their opinions, the new technologies may be having
more effect on participation disparities by altering behaviour outside the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

party realm rather than within it. On the radical end, very few parties have
copied the all-digital efforts of the German Pirates or the Italian Five Star
Movement, and the pioneers in these efforts found it difficult to sustain such
efforts, particularly those that began to enjoy electoral success (Gerbaudo
2019). Yet even if there is at best limited support for the disruption argu-
ments, this does not necessarily validate the ‘normalization’ predictions of
greater personalization and professionalization, since the two trends are not
logically obverse propositions.
One of the reasons that results may be inconclusive is that many studies
have been limited to single parties or single countries. Some argue that clearer
patterns may emerge if research takes a more broadly comparative view
which controls for contextual factors that might affect the political impact of
these new technologies, including the degree of pre-existing personalization
in national political life, the extent to which citizens have digital access, the
nature of campaign regulations, and the state of existing partisan organiza-
tions (Anstead and Chadwick 2009; Ward and Gibson 2009). The countries
discussed in the chapters that follow offer a great deal of diversity along all
these dimensions, and thus may help shed light on where new communica-
tions technologies are having the greatest impact on parties, party systems,
and/or political participation patterns.

Conclusion

This chapter has sketched out the arguably most important aspects of politi-
cal parties’ characteristics and functions that are relevant for their success or
failure in facilitating democratic governance. Yet we have been largely silent
about what exactly we mean by these terms. At the level of party systems, the
most important sign of success surely is the peaceful alternation of govern-
ment, which is an essential and powerful mechanism for the legitimation of
democracy. For any individual party, the terms encompass the basic metrics
 Analysing Political Parties and Democracy 23

of electoral performance or longevity, but for the set of parties within a single
country, the standards are probably somewhat different. For instance, while
it is commonplace to regard the rise of extreme challenger parties as indica-
tion of party failure in established democracies, party systems that entirely
block the rise of new parties are sometimes described as ‘cartelized’, or as
lacking in democratic responsiveness. In other words, the success or failure
of party democracy is not the same as the longevity or continued dominance
of a particular set of party options. Moreover, party success and failure is cer-
tainly context-bound—and the standards of judgement vary with the context.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Furthermore, party success on one dimension may impede party success on
another. Success in recruiting new members, for example, may undermine
party cohesion. Alternatively, long-term government incumbency—certainly
a sign of party success—may ultimately weaken a party’s capacity to maintain
strong linkage to society. To be sure, this list could be continued, yet we do
not aim at being exhaustive. Instead, we leave it to individual country stud-
ies to explore different patterns of party success and failure in line with the
questions we have outlined in this chapter.
Sometimes, specific parties abruptly disappear or entire party systems fail
to facilitate democratic government, but slow decline and gradual adaptation
are probably more common. Whether changes are abrupt or gradual, they are
likely to have consequences for how parties and party systems facilitate rep-
resentative democracy; these changes and their consequences are the focus
of the chapters in this volume.
The following chapters focus on party and party system challenges and
adaptations in 23 countries from four continents. In all of them, parties
compete for power, but not all are fully fledged democracies. If we want to
understand the challenges to party democracy, we need to include also cases
where democracy has been eroding.
The diversity of these countries covers a wide range of factors which are
known to condition party and party system development, including regime
type (parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential regimes), electoral
systems (proportional representation and majoritarian), age of democracy,
population size, ethnic homogeneity, availability of public subsidies to politi-
cal parties, and level of economic inequality. It is not the aim of this volume to
provide systematic quantitative analysis of the impact of such factors; indeed,
a guiding premise of this volume is that there continues to be a role in polit-
ical science for the contextual richness offered by parallel case studies. Such
studies can complement cross-national analysis based on standardized quan-
titative measures, illuminating outliers to general tendencies, identifying new
trends, and promoting theory-building.
24 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Notes
1. The authors share equal responsibility for this chapter.
2. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/political-finance-database (Accessed on 25 Septe–
mber 2023).

References

Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd and Tim Bale (eds). 2017. Left-of-centre Parties and Trade

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Unions in the Twenty-First Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd, Vibeke W. Hansen, David Marshall, Anne Rasmussen, and
Paul Webb. 2020. ‘Competition and Interaction: Party Ties to Interest Groups in
a Multidimensional Policy Space’. European Journal of Political Research, 60(2):
275–294.
Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd, Vibeke Wøien Hansen, Simon Otjes, Anne Rasmussen,
Maiken Røed, and Tim Bale. 2021. ‘A ll about the Money? A Cross-national Study
of Parties’ Relations with Trade Unions in 12 Western Democracies’. Party Politics,
27:407–417.
Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd, Simon Otjes, Thomas Poguntke, Vibeke Wøien Hansen,
Sabine Saurugger, and David Marshall. 2020. ‘Conceptualizing and Measuring
Party-interest Group Relationships’. Party Politics, 27(6):1254–1267.
Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd and Tànja Verge. 2017. ‘Still Connecting with Society? Politi-
cal Parties’ Formal Links with Social Groups in the Twenty-First Century’. In Susan
E. Scarrow, Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke (eds), Organizing Political Par-
ties: Representation, Participation, and Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
106–135.
Anstead, Nick and Andrew Chadwick. 2009. ‘Parties, Election Campaigning, and the
Internet: Toward a Comparative Institutional Approach’. In Chadwick, Andrew
and Philip N. Howard (eds), Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics. Abingdon:
Routledge, 56–71.
Bale, Tim, Paul Webb, and Monica Poletti. 2019. Footsoldiers: Political Party Mem-
bers in the 21st Century. London: Routledge.
Bhatti, Yosef, Jens Olav Dahlgaard, Jonas Hedegaard Hansen, and Kasper M.
Hansen. 2019. ‘Is Door-to-door Canvassing Effective in Europe? Evidence from
a Meta-study across Six European Countries’. British Journal of Political Science,
49(1):279–290.
Biezen, Ingrid van. 2000. ‘Party Financing in New Democracies: Spain and Portugal’.
Party Politics, 6:329–342.
Biezen, Ingrid van and Petr Kopecký. 2017. ‘The Paradox of Party Funding. The Lim-
ited Impact of State Subsidies on Party Membership’. In Susan E. Scarrow, Paul D.
 Analysing Political Parties and Democracy 25

Webb, and Thomas Poguntke (eds), Organizing Political Parties: Representation,

Participation, and Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 84–105.
Biezen, Ingrid van, Peter Mair, and Thomas Poguntke. 2012. ‘Going, Going, . . .
Gone? The Decline of Party Membership in Contemporary Europe’. European
Journal of Political Research, 51(1):24–56.
Biezen, Ingrid van and Daniela Romée Piccio. 2013. ‘Shaping Intra-party Democ-
racy: On the Legal Regulation of Internal Party Organizations’. In William P.
Cross and Richard S. Katz (eds), The Challenges of Intra-party Democracy. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 27–48.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Bolleyer, Nicole and Evelyn Bytzek. 2013. ‘Origins of Party Formation and New
Party Success in Advanced Democracies’. European Journal of Political Research,
52:773–796.
Booth, Eric and Joseph Robbins. 2010. ‘A ssessing the Impact of Campaign Finance
on Party System Institutionalization’. Party Politics, 16:629–650.
Bordignon, Fabio and Luigi Ceccarini. 2013. ‘Five Stars and a Cricket. Beppe Grillo
Shakes Italian Politics’. South European Society and Politics, 18:427–449.
Bowler, Shaun, David M. Farrell, and Richard S. Katz. 1999. Party Discipline
and Parliamentary Government. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University
Press.
Carey, John M. 2007. ‘Competing Principals, Political Institutions, and Party Unity
in Legislative Voting’. American Journal of Political Science, 51:92–107.
Casal Bértoa, Fernando and José Rama. 2022. ‘Paying for Appeasement: On the Mod-
erating Role of Public Subsidies in East Central European Party Politics’. Party
Politics, 28(4):611–624.
Casal Bertoa, Fernando and Zsolt Enyedi. 2021. Party System Closure: Party Alliance,
Government Alternatives and Democracy in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Chadwick, Andrew and Jennifer Stromer-Galley. 2016. ‘Digital Media, Power, and
Democracy in Parties and Election Campaigns: Party Decline or Party Renewal?’.
International Journal of Press/Politics, 21:283–293.
Cotta, Maurizio and Heinrich Best (eds). 2007. Democratic Representation in Europe:
Diversity, Change, and Convergence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cowley, Philip. 2005. The Rebels: How Blair Mislaid His Majority. London: Politico’s.
Cross, William P., Rob Currie-Wood, and Scott Pruysers. 2020. ‘Money Talks:
Decentralized Personalism and the Sources of Campaign Funding’. Political Geog-
raphy, 82:102–242.
Dalton, Russell J., Ian McAllister, and Martin P. Wattenberg. 2000. ‘The Conse-
quences of Partisan Dealignment’. In Russell J. Dalton and Martin P. Wattenberg
(eds), Parties without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democ-
racies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 37–63.
26 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Duverger, Maurice. 1954. Political Parties: Their Organisation and Activity in the
Modern State. London: Methuen.
Elischer, Sebastian. 2013. Political Parties in Africa: Ethnicity and Party Formation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fink, Alexander. 2017. ‘Donations to Political Parties: Investing Corporations and
Consuming Individuals?’. Kyklos, 70:220–255.
Franklin, Mark. 1992. ‘The Decline of Cleavage Politics’. In Mark Franklin, Thomas
T. Mackie and Henry Valen (eds), Electoral Change. Responses to Evolving Social
and Attitudinal Structures in Western Countries. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

sity Press, 383–405.
Gauja, Anika. 2015. ‘The Construction of Party Membership’. European Journal of
Political Research, 54:232–248.
Gerbaudo, Paolo. 2021. ‘Are Digital Parties More Democratic than Traditional
Parties? Evaluating Podemos and Movimento 5 Stelle’s Online Decision-making
Platforms’. Party Politics, 27(4):730–742.
Gerbaudo, Paolo. 2019. The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democ-
racy. London: Pluto Press.
Gerl, Katharina, Stefan Marschall, and Nadja Wilker. 2018. ‘Does the Internet
Encourage Political Participation? Use of an Online Platform by Members of a
German Political Party’. Policy & Internet, 10(1):87–118.
Gunther, Richard and Larry Diamond. (2003). ‘Species of Political Parties: A New
Typology’. Party Politics, 9 (2):167–199.
Hagevi, Magnus. 2018. ‘Follow the Money: Public Subsidies and the Changing Intra-
party Balance of Power between Different Faces of the Party Organisation—the
Case of Sweden’. Representation, 54:159–175.
Harrigan, Nicholas M. 2017. ‘Motives of Corporate Political Donations: Industry
Regulation, Subjective Judgement and the Origins of Pragmatic and Ideological
Corporations’. The British Journal of Sociology, 68:718–753.
Hartleb, Florian. 2013. ‘Anti-elitist Cyber Parties?’. Journal of Public Affairs, 13:
355–369.
Harmel, Robert. 2002. ‘Party Organizational Change: Competing Explanations?’. In
Kurt Richard Luther and Ferdinand Müller-Rommel (eds), Political Parties in the
New Europe: Political and Analytical Challenges. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
119–142.
Harmel, Robert and Kenneth Janda. 1994. ‘An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and
Party Change’. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 6:259–287.
Hazan, Reuven Y. and Gideon Rahat. 2010. Democracy within Parties: Candidate
Selection Methods and their Political Consequences. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
 Analysing Political Parties and Democracy 27

Hopkin, Jonathan and Caterina Paolucci. 1999. ‘The Business Firm Model of Party
Organisation: Cases from Spain and Italy’. European Journal of Political Research,
35(3):307–339.
Hutter, Sven and Hans-Peter Kriesi (eds). 2019. European Party Politics in Times of
Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ichino, Nahomi and Noah L. Nathan. (2022). ‘Democratizing the Party: The Effects
of Primary Election Reforms in Ghana’. British Journal of Political Science, 52(3):
1168–1185.
Inglehart, Ronald. 1990. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton, NJ:

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Princeton University Press.
Janda, Kenneth. 2005. Political Parties and Democracy in Theoretical and Prac-
tical Perspectives: Adopting Party Laws. Washington DC: National Democratic
Institute.
Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 1995. ‘Changing Models of Party Organization
and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’. Party Politics, 1:
5–28.
Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 2009. ‘The Cartel Party Thesis: A Restatement’.
Perspectives on Politics, 7(4):753–766.
King, Anthony. 1976. ‘Modes of Legislative–Executive Relations: Great Britain,
France and West Germany’. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 1:11–36.
Kirchheimer, Otto. 1966. ‘The Transformation of Western European Party Systems’.
In Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner (eds), Political Parties and Political
Development. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 177–200.
Kitschelt, Herbert and Steven Wilkinson. 2007. Patrons, Clients and Policies: Patterns
of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition. Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press.
Koschmieder, Carsten. 2016. Partitizpation in der Piratenpartei. Die Schattenseiten
einer sonnigen Utopie. Oplanden: Barbara Budrich.
Kriesi, Hanspeter, Edgar Grande, Martin Dolezal, Marc Helbling, Dominic
Höglinger, Swen Hutter, and Bruno Wüest. 2012. Political Conflict in Western
Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kriesi, Hanspeter, Edgar Grande, Romain Lachat, Martin Dolezal, Simon Bornschier
and Timotheos Frey (eds). 2008. West European Politics in the Age of Globalization,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Lawson, Kay. 1980. ‘Political Parties and Linkage’. In Kay Lawson (ed.), Political Par-
ties and Linkage. A Comparative Perspective. New Haven/London: Yale University
Press, 3–24.
Lipset, Seymour M. and Stein Rokkan. 1967. ‘Cleavage Structures, Party Sys-
tems, and Voter Alignments: An Introduction’. In Seymour M. Lipset and Stein
28 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Rokkan (eds), Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-national Perspectives.

New York/London: Free Press, 1–64.
Lofgren, Karl and Colin Smith. 2003. ‘Political Parties and Democracy in the Infor-
mation Age’. In Rachel Gibson, Paul Nixon, and Stephen Ward (eds), Political
Parties and the Internet: Net Gain. London: Routledge, 39–52.
McMenamin, Iain. 2012. ‘If Money Talks, What Does It Say? Varieties of Capitalism
and Business Financing of Parties’. World Politics, 64(1):1–38.
Mainwaring, Scott and Timothy R. Scully (eds). 1995. Building Democratic Institu-
tions: Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Margetts, Helen. 2001. ‘The Cyber Party: The Causes and Consequences of Organi-
sational Innovation in European Political Parties’. Paper presented at ‘The Causes
and Consequences of Organisational Innovation in European Political Parties’,
ECPR General Conference 2001, Grenoble, France.
Mendilow, Jonathan. 1992. ‘Public Party Funding and Party Transformation in
Multiparty Systems’. Comparative Political Studies, 25:90–117.
Michels, Robert. 1989. Soziologie des Parteiwesens (1st edn 1911), Stuttgart: Kröner.
Müller, Wolfgang C. 1992. ‘Austria (1945–1990)’. In Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair
(eds), Party Organizations: A Data Handbook on Party Organizations in Western
Democracies, 1960–90. London/Newbury Park/New Delhi: Sage, 21–120.
Müller, Wolfgang C. 2000. ‘Political Parties in Parliamentary Democracies: Mak-
ing Delegation and Accountability Work’. European Journal of Political Research,
37(3):309–333.
Neff Powell, Eleanor and Joshua A. Tucker. 2014. ‘Revisiting Electoral Volatility in
Post-Communist Countries: New Data, New Results and New Approaches’. British
Journal of Political Science, 44:123–174.
Neumann, Sigmund. 1956. ‘Towards a Comparative Study of Political Parties’. In
Sigmund Neumann (ed.), Modern Political Parties. Approaches to Comparative
Politics. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 395–421.
Niedermayer, Oskar (ed.). 2013. Die Piratenpartei. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.
Nyman, Pär. 2017. ‘Door-to-door Canvassing in the European Elections: Evidence
from a Swedish Field Experiment’. Electoral Studies, 45:110–118.
Panebianco, Angelo. 1988. Political Parties: Organisation and Power. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Pierre, Jon, Lars Svåsand, and Anders Widfeldt. 2000. ‘State Subsidies to Political
Parties: Confronting Rhetoric with Reality’. West European Politics, 23:1–24.
Poguntke, Thomas. 2002. ‘Parties without Firm Social Roots? Party Organisational
Linkage’. In Kurt Richard Luther and Ferdinand Müller-Rommel (eds), Political
Parties in the New Europe: Political and Analytical Challenges. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 43–62.
 Analysing Political Parties and Democracy 29

Poguntke, Thomas and Susan E. Scarrow. 2020 ‘Intra-party Democracy and Rep-
resentation: Necessity, Complement, or Challenge?’ In: Robert Rohrschneider
and Jacques Thomassen (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Representation
in Liberal Democracies. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 323–339.
Poguntke, Thomas, Susan E. Scarrow, Paul D. Webb et al. 2016. ‘Party Rules, Party
Resources and the Politics of Parliamentary Democracies: How Parties Organize
in the 21st Century’. Party Politics, 22(6):661–678.
Poguntke, Thomas and Johannes Schmitt. 2018. ‘The Crisis, Party System Change,
and the Growth of Populism’. In Brigid Laffan and Lorenzo Cicchi (eds), 2017:

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Europe’s Bumper Year of Elections. San Domenico di Fiesole: European University
Institute (EUI), 1–24.
Poguntke, Thomas and Paul Webb (eds). 2005. The Presidentialization of Politics. A
Comparative Study of Modern Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Potter, Joshua D. and Margit Tavits. 2015. ‘The Impact of Campaign Finance Laws
on Party Competition’. British Journal of Political Science, 45(1):73–95.
Randall, Vicky and Lars Svåsand. 2002. ‘Political Parties and Democratic Consoli-
dation in Africa’. Democratization, 9(3):30–52.
Rashkova, Ekaterina R. and Yen-Pin Su. 2020. ‘Political Finance Regimes and
Party System Size: Evidence from New and Established European Democracies’.
European Political Science Review, 12(1): 35–48.
Sandri, Giulia and Antonella Seddone. 2015. The Primary Game: Primary Elections
and the Italian Democratic Party. Novi Ligure: Edizione Epoké.
Sartori, Giovanni. 1976. Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scarrow, Susan E. 1996. Parties and Their Members. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Scarrow, Susan E. 2006. ‘Party Subsidies and the Freezing of Party Competition: Do
Cartel Mechanisms Work?’ West European Politics, 29(2):619–639.
Scarrow, Susan E. 2013. ‘New Challenges of Intra-party Democracy: Grassroots
Activists, Instant Members, and Cyber-militants’. In Emmanuelle Avril and Chris-
tine Zumello (eds), New Technology, Organizational Change and Governance.
Palgrave Macmillan, London, 85–101.
Scarrow, Susan E. 2015. Beyond Party Members. Changing Approaches to Partisan
Mobilization. New York: Oxford University Press.
Scarrow, Susan E., Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke. 2022. ‘Intra-Party
Decision-making in Contemporary Europe: Improving Representation or Ruling
with Empty Shells?’. Irish Political Studies, 37(2):196–217.
Sieberer, Ulrich. 2006. ‘Party Unity in Parliamentary Democracies: A Comparative
Analysis’. Journal of Legislative Studies, 12(2):150–178.
30 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Spierings, Niels and Kristof Jacobs. 2019. ‘Political Parties and Social Media Cam-
paigning’. Acta Politica, 54:145–173.
Stolle, Dietlind and Marc Hooghe. 2011. ‘Shifting Inequalities: Patterns of Exclusion
and Inclusion in Emerging Forms of Political Participation’. European Societies,
13(1):119–142.
Vaccari, Cristian and Augusto Valeriani. 2016. ‘Party Campaigners or Citizen Cam-
paigners? How Social Media Deepen and Broaden Party-related Engagement’. The
International Journal of Press/Politics, 21:294–312.
Ward, Stephen and Rachel Gibson. 2009. ‘European Political Organizations and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the Internet: Mobilization, Participation, and Change’. In Andrew Chadwick and
Philip N. Howard (eds), Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics. Abingdon, UK:
Routledge, 25–39.
Ware, Alan. 1996. Political Parties and Party Systems. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Webb, Paul and Tim Bale. 2021. The Modern British Party System. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Webb, Paul, Thomas Poguntke, and Susan E. Scarrow. 2017. ‘Conclusion: The Study
of Party Organization’. In Susan E. Scarrow, Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Pogun-
tke (eds), Organizing Political Parties: Representation, Participation, and Power.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 307–320.
Webb, Paul and Stephen White (eds). 2009. Party Politics in New Democracies,
Revised Paperback Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Webb, Paul D., David M. Farrell, and Ian Holliday. 2002. Political Parties in Advanced
Industrial Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 I
POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRATIC
CHALLENGES IN WESTERN AND

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

CENTRAL EUROPE, ISRAEL, AND
TURKEY
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
3
The United Kingdom Party System
John Bartle, Nicholas Allen, and Thomas Quinn

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Introduction

The United Kingdom (UK) party system is ‘one of the oldest, strongest, and
most stable of the party systems in Europe’ (Mair 2009: 283). Simplifying
only a little, it comprises two major parties—Conservative and Labour—that
dominate both government and the House of Commons. These parties have
collectively shaped the agenda, generated most of the ‘big ideas’, and made the
UK what it is today. The performance of British democracy depends almost
entirely on these two parties (Bartle et al. 2019, Clark 2018, McGann et al.
2023).
The current UK party system has moulded British politics for 100 years.
For much of the last 50 years, commentators have speculated whether that
mould might break (Webb and Bale 2021). Such speculation has sometimes
been based on incontrovertible evidence that the public are discontented
with the parties and the choices they provide. At other times it has been based
on little more than the ‘unnatural’ longevity of the system. It often seems that
the system does not adequately reflect contemporary political conflicts. Nev-
ertheless, the two parties have staggered on, fitfully adapting to preserve both
themselves and the system.

The Two-party System

A party system comprises a recurring interaction between the parties that

make up that system (Sartori 2005). The UK’s framework conditions mean
that the goal of parties is to win a majority in the House of Commons. Since
1918, all but four governments have been either Conservative or Labour
single-party administrations. All four coalitions involved the Conservatives.
Three were Tory administrations in all but name. The 1918 coalition, under
the Liberal Lloyd George, overwhelmingly relied on Conservative MPs. The

John Bartle, Nicholas Allen, and Thomas Quinn, The United Kingdom Party System. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of
Democracy. Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © John Bartle, Nicholas Allen, and
Thomas Quinn (2024). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0003
34 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Conservatives supplied most MPs in the National governments from 1931 to

1940 and dominated the 2010 to 2015 Conservative-Liberal Democrat coali-
tion. Labour, by contrast, has only shared power in wartime coalitions from
1915 to 1918 and 1940 to 1945.
Figure 3.1 displays the number of days that the parties have been in office
by each government.1 To simplify things, the three peacetime coalitions are
classified as Conservative. This visualization illustrates the pendulum-like
swing from one side to another. Yet the swing of this pendulum is far from
regular. If we exclude the three Tory-dominated coalitions, the Conservative

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

advantage (16,475 days to 12,096) is pronounced. If we include coalitions, the
Conservatives have been in government for almost twice as long: 22,899 days
to Labour’s 12,096. While the 20th century was the ‘socialist era’ of increased
government activity and collective action, it was the ‘Conservative century’
in terms of governments (Jenkins 1988; Seldon and Ball 1994).
Figure 3.2 illustrates how the two parties have dominated UK politics. The
broken line displays their combined share of the vote. From 1918 to 1929
the parties won on average 69% of the vote. From 1931 to 1970 they won
over 90%. In February 1974, the two-party joint share fell by 14-points. It
drifted downwards until 2010 when it reached just 65%. Two-party domina-
tion seemed to have been re-established in 2017 when it rose to 82%, but it
fell to 76% in 2019 due to a sharp fall in the Labour vote.
Figure 3.2 also illustrates the growing gap between the two parties’ share of
seats and share of the vote. The two parties’ share of the vote fell steeply from
the 1950s, but their share of seats (represented by the solid line) declined
much less. This is simply because the plurality electoral system insulated the

Con/Con-led coalition Lab 1979–97

7,000
6,000
Government duration (days)

5,000 1951–64
4,000 1931–40 2010–19
3,000
1918–24 1924–29
2,000 1970–74
1,000
0
–1,000 1924
1929–31
–2,000
1945–51 1964–70 1974–79
–3,000
–4,000
–5,000 1997–2010

Figure 3.1 Government duration (days in office), 1918–2019

Source: Authorsʼ calculations
 The United Kingdom Party System 35

Vote share % Seat share %

100
95
90
% share of vote/seats

85
80
75
70
65
60
55

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

50
19 8
22

19 3
24
29
31
35
45
50
51
55
59

19 4
66
19 70

O
79
83

92
97
01

10

19
05

15
17
19 4 F

87
1

6
19

19

19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19

19

19
19

19
19
20

20

20
74

20

20
20
19
7
Figure 3.2 Conservative and Labour joint seat and vote share, 1918–2019
Source: Authorsʼ calculations based on Pilling and Cracknell 2021

two parties. From 1931 to 1970 the difference between the two parties’ seat
and vote shares averaged just 6 points. From 1974 to 2015, it averaged 18
points.
To make comparisons with other multi-party systems, it is useful to exam-
ine standardized indicators. Figure 3.3 displays the effective number of elec-
toral parties (ENEP) and effective number of parliamentary parties (ENPP)
from 1945 to 2019. The two-party dominance is illustrated by the almost flat
line for the ENPP, which varies between 2 and 2.5. The increased willing-
ness of voters to support parties other than the two parties of government is
illustrated by the increase in the ENEP from around 2 in the 1950s to 3.9 in
2015. The gap between the two indices increased from roughly 0 in the 1950s
to around 1 by 2010. It then peaked at 1.35 in 2015. The gap closed in 2017
as both major parties made gains but re-opened as Labour lost votes in 2019.
Figures 3.2 and 3.3 both illustrate that the electorate has become more willing
to vote for parties that had little prospect of either forming or participating
in the government.
Although the two parties disliked coalitions with other parties, electoral
competition compelled them to become broad coalitions themselves (King
2009). These coalitions were so broad that it should have been possible to
form a party made of the left wing of the Conservative party and right wing
of the Labour Party or have some degree of cooperation ‘across the aisle’, as
Americans say. National governments of the sort seen on continental Europe
were never needed, but even when they were possible, they were never seri-
ously considered. While the parties often struggled to agree on policy, the one
thing that both parties agreed on was that the ‘other’ party was ‘beyond the
pale’.
36 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

4.50

4.00

3.50

3.00

2.50

2.00

1.50

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

1.00

0.50

0.00
45
50
51
55
59
64
66
70
74
74
79
83
87
92
97
01
05
10
15
17
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
20
20
20
20
20
20
ENEP ENPP

Figure 3.3 Effective number of electoral and parliamentary parties, 1945–2019

Note: ENEP—effective number of electoral parties, ENPP—effective number of parliamentary parties

Source: Döring et al. 2022

Framework Conditions

The ‘closed’ nature of the party system provides the electorate with the same
binary choice at every general election (Mair 2009). This limited choice is a
product of the ‘framework conditions’—constitutional rules or conventions,
and the electoral system. Most studies tend to emphasize the impact of the
electoral system (Duverger 1954). Nevertheless, other constitutional rules
matter a lot. In the UK’s ‘political’ constitution the enforcement of conven-
tions is a matter for politicians drawn from the two major parties, not the
courts (Griffiths 1979). These parties have a common interest in maintain-
ing the conditions that sustain the system (Katz and Mair 1995). This is
most obvious in relation to the electoral system but extends to the broader
constitution.

Constitution

One of the reasons for the longevity of the party system is the importance that
the constitution attaches to ‘strong government’ (King 2009). This is a prod-
uct of parliamentary sovereignty, the rule that Parliament has unlimited legal
 The United Kingdom Party System 37

authority (Dicey 1885). It is also a product of the convention that a Prime

Minister must command the confidence of the Commons. British govern-
ments can always act without depending on other parties. Historically, this
rule encouraged the formation of parties to control the executive (Cox 1987).
Since the UK is weakly bi-cameral, the party that controls the Commons can
act as an ‘elective dictatorship’ (Hailsham 1976). The government controls
the parliamentary agenda, and party loyalty is strong. The ‘strong govern-
ment’ mindset extends beyond Westminster. Most voters think of elections
as a chance to choose a government, not a local representative.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Strong government in a two-party system requires a strong opposition to
provide voters with a choice. Government proposals are invariably opposed
by the ‘other side’. The continual reproduction of binaries makes choices
comprehensible to the electorate (Budge 2019). The larger of the two main
parties forms the government and the other becomes the ‘official’ opposi-
tion. The leader of the official opposition draws a salary paid for by public
funds. They appoint a shadow cabinet and establish a ‘government in wait-
ing’. Significant resources are placed at the disposal of this institutionalized
opposition. The funding formula for the allocation of money to support
opposition parties in their parliamentary duties is based on representation
in the Commons. This favours the official opposition over other parties
(Kelly 2020). Other features of the parliamentary system reinforce the binary
choice. Prime Minister’s Question Time in the Commons gives MPs a chance
to question the Prime Minister for 30 minutes once a week while the Com-
mons is in session. These exchanges are dominated by exchanges between
the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition and between Conserva-
tives and Labour. The major parties rarely engage with challenger parties,
denying them opportunities for publicity.
Control of the Commons is determined by the electorate and the elec-
toral system. To make their choices, voters must be informed. Since party
membership is small, voters have traditionally relied on the mass media for
information (Bartle 2006). The UK national press is highly partisan and
reinforces binary perspectives. The Conservatives have usually enjoyed the
overwhelming support of the newspapers. Yet since newspaper readership
is self-selecting, it has limited electoral impact. Broadcasting is potentially
more impactful but regulated to ensure ‘due impartiality’ (Ofcom 2020). The
definition of impartiality is heavily influenced by the parliamentary status
quo. Most news stories are framed by the government and ‘official’ oppo-
sition. Alternative perspectives are often ignored. The major parties have
cultivated relations with the media who want to hear from those parties that
might form the government. Both parties know how to shape the political
38 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

agenda and provide content that satisfies the media’s news values. The major
party domination of the media has changed a little with the rise of social
media, which provide platforms to those beyond the mainstream. Populists
on both the right and the left have used social media to shift the major parties
towards their polar positions. Both the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour
leader in 2015 and the victory of the Leave Campaign in the 2016 referendum
on the UK’s membership of the European Union owed much to the activities
of these ‘keyboard warriors’.
Changes in the framework conditions have produced party system change.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The establishment of devolved institutions in Scotland and Wales from 1998
onwards has nibbled away at the two-party system (Johns 2018).2 The new
legislatures are elected by proportional electoral systems that lower barriers
to challenger party success. Other changes have also been impactful. British
government was traditionally based on a strict division of labour between
parties and the public. The electorate chose governments, but government
made all the decisions. The public were never asked to directly decide policy
(King 2009). In 1975 the Labour government broke with this tradition and
referred membership of the then Common Market to the people. From 1975
onwards anyone who was dissatisfied with the choices provided by the parties
could campaign for a referendum. While referendums are not legally binding
on Parliament, they are politically binding. Since parties are often internally
divided on issues and referendum outcomes divide party members into win-
ners and losers, governments have generally avoided references to the people.
When governments have granted referendums—either because of electoral
pressure or miscalculation—they have risked destabilizing the party system.
The outcomes of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and 2016 ref-
erendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU) produced
shocks that will reverberate through the system for years (Fieldhouse et al.
2019).

Electoral system

The UK’s plurality electoral system for elections to the House of Commons
awards seats based on votes obtained in constituencies. Put simply, the can-
didate with the most votes is elected. If there were just two candidates, the
plurality winner would necessarily gain a majority (50% plus one). If there
are two or more candidates a candidate can win with significantly less than a
majority. This rule affects both voters and parties (Quinn 2017). Voters must
consider both their preferences and the probable election outcome. If they
 The United Kingdom Party System 39

vote for a candidate that cannot win, they arguably ‘waste’ their vote. Voters
may vote strategically or tactically for a less preferred party to stop another
less preferred party from winning. Minor parties must consider the likeli-
hood of winning before entering the race. If they nominate a candidate and
fail to obtain 5% of the vote in a seat, they will lose their £500 deposit. And,
if parties from the same side contest a seat, this may split the vote and let
the other side win. This consideration may also dissuade politicians from
breaking with their party (Cox 1997).
The plurality system has different effects on minor parties depending on

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the geographical distribution of the vote. In 2015 the Liberal Democrats
received 7.9% of the vote and just 1.2% of the seats because its vote was
not concentrated. The anti-EU United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)
won 12.6% of the vote and just 0.15% of seats in the same election. The Scot-
tish National Party (SNP), by contrast, received just 4.7% of the UK vote and
won 8.6% seats because its vote was concentrated (Johns 2018).
Changes in the electoral system are likely to have profound impacts on
the party system. This is illustrated by the new legislatures created by the
Labour’s programme of devolution. The Scottish Parliament, Welsh Senned,
and Greater London Assembly are all presently elected using proportional
systems (Additional Member System). Many voters opted to split their con-
stituency and top-up vote between different parties. Both major parties
performed far less well in these elections than their Westminster equivalents.
Challenger parties like UKIP, the Greens, the SNP, and Plaid Cymru did bet-
ter (McLean 2006). The consequences for Labour in the Scottish Parliament
were disastrous. It was forced to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats
from 1998 to 2007 and then lost power in 2007. The SNP has formed the
Scottish government ever since, as a minority, a majority or, from 2021, in
coalition with the Scottish Greens. Over time, it established its credibility and
an image as the protector of a distinctive Scottish national interest. By 2014
it was confident enough to request a referendum on Scottish independence.
Although, the Scottish people voted 55% ‘no’ and 45% ‘yes’ to independence,
the referendum destroyed Labour’s reputation as a party that looked after the
Scottish interest. Labour was virtually wiped out in Scotland at subsequent
Westminster elections. This example is one reason why the major parties
resist demands for further electoral reform.
The contrasting fortunes of the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, and SNP in
2015 illustrated how the plurality electoral system could lead to a multi-party
system. Many minor parties could emerge to represent distinct areas. This
does not usually happen because regional interests are normally muted and
because parties want to win a majority of seats. Nevertheless, if large parts
40 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

of the nation decide that they no longer want to remain in the union, these
considerations become less important. By 2014 many Scots concluded that
they could achieve more by abandoning the pro-Union Labour Party (Johns
2018). This example illustrates how a plurality electoral system can produce
rapid transformation of party systems at the regional level.

Resources: membership and finance

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Party members have played a limited role in both major parties until recently
(McKenzie 1955). In the 1950s the Conservatives claimed 2.8 million mem-
bers and Labour around one million (UK Parliament 2022). Neither claim
can be validated. Record keeping in both parties was poor. Definitions of
membership varied across local Conservative associations, and constituency
Labour parties routinely exaggerated their membership so they could send
delegates to annual conference. By the late 1990s Conservative membership
had dwindled to under 500,000 and Labour to slightly lower levels (UK
Parliament 2022). These figures are again unreliable, but the accuracy of
these records hardly mattered because members had little power. It was only
when they acquired responsibilities for electing leaders and selecting can-
didates that figures became more accurate. From 2002 onwards parties had
to produce accounts to the Electoral Commission but did not have to give
membership figures. When the accounts include such figures, they provide
reliable indicators. Labour membership surged under Corbyn’s leadership
from 388,000 in 2015 to 544,000 by 2016 and around 575,000 in 2017. Mem-
bership fell away after defeat in 2019 and the election of Keir Starmer as party
leader in 2020. Nevertheless, by 2022 Labour had 432,000 members, while the
Conservatives had just 172,000 (UK Parliament 2022: 4).
Party members have not been important in the UK because the parties did
not rely on members for funds and were reluctant to give them a direct say
over policy, the selection of candidates, or party leaders (McKenzie 1955).
Until the late 1990s, Labour obtained most of its money from affiliated trade
unions. The unions in turn obtained votes at the party’s annual conference
and a say over policy. The Conservatives relied on donations from compa-
nies and from rich individuals. From the late 1990s onwards, the unions have
become a less important source for Labour as membership of unions has
declined and trade unions have withdrawn support. Companies have largely
stopped donating to the Conservative party. New limits on election expen-
diture were imposed under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums
Act 2000 spending limits on national campaigns. Nevertheless, parties still
 The United Kingdom Party System 41

need funds. Both parties became more dependent on individual members

and donations from individuals. The first development increased demands
for members to have a say over leaders, candidates, and policies. The sec-
ond has embroiled the parties in controversies about the ethics of donations,
transparency, and the influence of donations on party policy.

Party Adaptation in a Strong Party System

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Despite the transformation of Scottish politics, the UK has a strong party
system. At a national level, challenger parties still find it very hard to break the
mould. The identity of the parties that frame the system is a result of historic
social structures and a long history of party adaptation (Lipset and Rokkan
1967). This section examines the electoral performance, origins, ideology,
and adaptation of the two parties over time. The parties endure because the
framework conditions protect them and give them time to adapt. The failure
of one of these major parties to adapt—first Labour, then the Conservatives,
and then Labour again—produced a pattern of ‘alternating predominance’
from 1979 onwards (Quinn 2012).

UK elections, 1918–2019

Figure 3.4 displays the vote share received by parties from 1918 to 2019.
Over those 101 years the Conservative party averaged 41.8% of the vote and
Labour 37.5%. From 1945 to 2019 the advantage is somewhat smaller (40.9%
to 39.3%) but still visible.
Figure 3.5 displays the seat share won by parties from 1918 to 2019. Over
the whole period Conservatives won an average of 49.9% of seats compared
to Labour’s 40.9%. From 1945 to 2019 the figures are almost exactly equal
(46.8% to 46.6%). Figure 3.4 illustrates the pattern of ‘alternating predom-
inance’ since 1979 (Quinn 2012). The Tories won comfortable majorities
in 1979 and 1992 and massive majorities in 1983 and 1987. Labour won
‘landslide majorities’ in 1997 and 2001 and a large majority in 2005. The
Conservatives have won the four subsequent elections. While the first three
victories were unconvincing, the party’s 56.2% share of the seats in 2019 was
impressive.
Votes for ‘challenger parties’ are the ‘canary in the coalmine’—they indicate
discontent with the two-party system. The vote share of the UK’s traditional
third party, the Liberal Democrats, is displayed in Figure 3.4. In the 1950s
42 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

70.0

60.0

50.0

40.0

30.0

20.0

10.0

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

0.0
18
22
23
24
29
31
35
45
50

19 1
55
59
64
66
74 0
74 )

19 )
79
83
87
92
97
01

20 5
10
15
17
19
(O
19 ( F
5

19 197

0
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19

19
19
19

19
19
19
19
20
20

20
20
20
Con Lab Lib Dem SNP/PC Others

Figure 3.4 Party vote share in UK general elections, 1918–2019

Source: Pilling and Cracknell 2021

its share of the vote share fell to 2% but then trended upwards until 2010.
This rise was driven by social changes, including a larger middle class and
the expansion of higher education (Heath et al. 1989), the periodic tendency
of the major parties to ‘vacate the centre’ (Nagel and Wlezien 2010) and both
parties’ poor performance in office (Bartle et al. 2019). Figure 3.5 shows that
the electoral system failed to reward the Liberal Democrats with seats even
when their vote increased dramatically in February 1974 and 1983. From
1997 onwards, however, it picked up more seats because of tactical voting
by Labour voters in Conservative seats.
By 2010 the Liberal Democrats had gained enough for it to enter a coalition
with the Conservatives and govern in accordance with a coalition agreement
(Quinn et al. 2011). This experiment in coalition politics proved disastrous
for the third party (Curtice 2018). Its share of the vote plummeted from 23%
in 2010 to 7.9% in 2015 (see Figure 3.4). Its share of the seats fell from 8.8% to
1.2% (see Figure 3.5). This reversal of fortunes represented the largest change
in vote share for any party in any general election.
The vote for ‘other’ or ‘minor’ parties has generally been small but tended
upwards since the early 1970s (Figure 3.4). It peaked in 2015 following the
collapse of the Liberal Democrats, a large rise in UKIP vote, a surge in votes
for the SNP, and a smaller rise in the Green Party vote. The rise in support
for UKIP before 2015 was politically consequential because it was one of the
factors that persuaded the Conservative government to hold a referendum
on the UK’s membership of the EU. UKIP claimed that the two major parties
 The United Kingdom Party System 43

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

0
18
22
23
24
29
31
35
45
50
51
55
59
64
66
70
74

19 5
79
83
87
92
97
01
05
10
15
17
19
7
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19

19
19
19
19
20
20
20
20
20
20
Con Lab Lib Dem SNP/PC Other

Figure 3.5 Party seat share in UK general elections, 1918–2019

Source: Pilling and Cracknell 2021. Authorsʼ calculations

agreed about transferring sovereignty to the EU. They argued that switching
from one side to the other would not provide voters with more control over
policy towards the EU. Instead, they argued that the people should be given
a direct say in a referendum. These arguments initially had limited impact
because sovereignty was an abstract issue. They became more impactful after
2010 when sovereignty became bundled with the issue of immigration. UKIP
claimed that the UK could not control immigration while a member of the
single market. This made the invitation to ‘take back control’ much more
appealing and was a major factor in both the growth in UKIP vote in 2015
and the Leave vote in 2016.
The variations in the vote for ‘other’ parties did not generally translate into
seats at Westminster. The only exception was the vote for the SNP since 2015.
Nevertheless, the threat of challenger parties meant that the two major parties
had to factor in these parties to a degree when formulating their electoral
strategies.

The Ideology and Performance of the Two Major Parties

In a two-party system the ideology and electoral performance of the par-

ties cannot be studied in isolation. The strategy of one depends on that of
the other, and the vote for one party depends on voters’ judgements about
the ‘alternative’. To simplify matters, we start with Labour because the cur-
rent system was established when it replaced the Liberal party. While the
44 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Conservative party has undoubtedly dominated government, moreover, it

has often been on the political defensive. If we are to understand the party
system, we must understand Labour.

The Labour Party

The present party system is the third system in the UK. The first, between
1740 and 1840, pitted the Whigs against the Tories. The Whigs opposed

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

monarchical rule, championed the political and economic rights of the
urban middle class, and advocated religious freedom. Together with a small
group of radicals, they formed a progressive wing in Parliament before mass
democracy. The Tories supported the monarch and championed the inter-
ests of the aristocrats and the established churches. The second system lasted
from 1860 to 1918, when both the parties split. ‘Whigs’ and ‘radicals’ were
drawn to the Liberal Party that supported personal freedom, free trade, and
non-conformists.3 The Tory Party re-formed as the Conservative party that
championed traditional values, empire, and the established church. Both par-
ties developed organizations to mobilize the expanded electorate (McKenzie
1955).
The Labour Party was established in 1906 to achieve working-class repre-
sentation in Parliament (McKibbin 1974). The Liberal Party recognized the
threat that Labour represented and acted to contain it. The Liberals agreed
not to compete with Labour in 50 seats in return for being given free runs
elsewhere. This helped Labour establish a foothold in Westminster. Nev-
ertheless, Labour’s future was far from certain. The Liberals increasingly
recognized demands for greater state activity and collective action to enhance
individual freedom (Heywood 2017). If the First World War had not inter-
vened, the Liberals may have forged a coalition that incorporated Labour
(Marquand 1999).
The First World War split the Liberal Party into two groups: those who
supported the coalition under Lloyd George and those who supported a dis-
tinctly Liberal alternative under Asquith. In 1918 Labour decided to take
advantage of this split and the extension of the franchise to male workers and
most women by trying to replace the Liberals. It adopted a new constitution
and advocated a massive expansion in state activity. This programme estab-
lished a new left–right economic dimension that formed the basis of party
competition in all future elections (Bara and Weale 2006). Labour (‘the left’)
advocated ‘more’ government activity, ‘more’ collective action, and ‘more’
equality, while the Conservatives (’the right’) advocated ‘less’.
 The United Kingdom Party System 45

These developments, coupled with the operation of the plurality electoral

system, resulted in the two major parties squeezing the Liberal vote by the
end of the 1920s (McKibbin 1974). Labour’s electoral strategy focused on
mobilizing the majority working class. Nevertheless, it also attracted other
social groups to the party’s coalition. Labour’s proposals to expand state
activity appealed to egalitarian non-conformists and radicals. Some in the
middle class recognized that an expanded state provided them with oppor-
tunities. Labour also advocated polices that favoured urban dwellers and
those who lived in the Celtic periphery of Scotland and Wales (Lipset and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Rokkan 1967). The party failed to attract all former Liberals, however. Many
remained suspicious of Labour’s socialist and class politics. Labour’s post-war
victories demonstrated that it could attract enough voters in favourable cir-
cumstances, but its limited appeal to the middle class became an increasing
handicap as the working class became a smaller portion of the electorate.
The proletarian origins of the Labour Party also affected the party’s
ethos and the way that it interacted with other parties (Drucker 2018).
Labour claimed to be democratic but was heavily influenced by its affili-
ated trade unions. Supporters of the union link claimed that it kept Labour
‘grounded’ (Minkin 1992). Conservative opponents claimed Labour was a
‘wholly owned subsidiary’ of the unions. Others suggested that the union
link tied Labour to intellectually timid policies (Marquand 1999). What is
beyond doubt is that the trade unions made Labour more tribal and more
suspicious of other non-Conservative parties. Labour formed minority gov-
ernments in 1923 and 1929 rather than form a coalition. It also rejected
coalition in 1931 following the economic crisis. MacDonald’s decision to
form the National Government was regarded as a betrayal. Labour reluctantly
joined Churchill’s wartime coalition and withdrew before the war with Japan
ended. The party’s unwillingness to surrender its exclusive right of opposition
to the Conservatives has continued. In 1997 Tony Blair was dissuaded from
inviting Liberal Democrats to join his government by internal opposition. In
2010 some senior Labour figures similarly urged the party to reject a ‘pro-
gressive coalition’ with the Liberal Democrats, SNP, and Greens that might
have prevented David Cameron becoming Prime Minister.
Labour ideas about government intervention, collective action, and equal-
ity have dominated British politics in the 20th century. Nevertheless, as
Figure 3.1 shows, the party has spent little time in government. The continued
contraction of the working class because of deindustrialization raised ques-
tions about whether Labour could win an election. Labour’s problems were
compounded by the fact that the 1945–1951 Attlee government achieved vir-
tually all its goals. This success led to factional disputes. The left wanted to
46 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

expand the state, while the right wanted to consolidate. In the 1960s Wil-
son emphasized the ‘white heat of technological change’ (Ponting 1989),
which untied the party for a time. Nevertheless, Labour again descended
into factional infighting as the economic crisis of the 1970s unfolded (Jenkins
1988).
From 1945 to 1970 the Labour leadership was protected from the demands
of the left by the trade unions. From the late 1960s, however, the trade unions
swung leftwards in response to the failures of Labour governments. Labour
lurched left in February 1974 and again in 1983, vacating the centre, increas-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ing support for the third parties (Whiteley et al. 2021). In 1974 the impact
of these changes was concealed by the disastrous performance of the Con-
servatives. In 1983 the party had no such luck. It faced a Conservative party
buoyed by military success in the Falklands War and an economic boom and
went down to a landslide defeat (Jenkins 1988). Only the electoral system
saved them from an even greater loss of seats.
Labour’s tendency to vacate the centre had a dramatic effect on British pol-
itics. In 1981 a significant portion of the party’s right broke away to form the
Social Democratic Party (SDP). This party fought the 1983 and 1987 general
elections in alliance with the Liberals (Crewe and King 1995). This split con-
tributed to a dramatic rise in the third-party vote, but the electoral system
again protected Labour from losing seats. The Liberals and SDP merged to
create the Liberal Democrats in 1988. Labour moved back to the centre under
the leaderships of Kinnock and Smith. From 1994 onwards Blair speeded up
the party’s ‘modernization’ by accepting many Conservative policies on trade
unions, privatization, and lower income taxes. The party was re-branded
as ‘New Labour’ and appealed to the educated middle class by emphasiz-
ing education, constitutional reforms to protect human rights, liberalizing
laws relating to sexuality, protection of the environment, and expanding the
competence of the EU. These adaptations, together with Conservative fail-
ures, resulted in Labour landslide victories in 1997 and 2001 and a significant
majority in 2005. This unusual period of Labour predominance ended when
Labour went down to a heavy defeat in 2010 following the financial crisis.
Blair also modernized Labour by reducing the power of trade unions over
policy. The unions’ share of the vote at the annual conference that decided
policy fell. The balance of power shifted to ordinary members who were more
concerned about social issues than the working class. Since participation is
higher among the educated and middle class, Labour increasingly reflected
their concerns. By the mid-2000s most Labour members and virtually all its
most prominent figures were middle class (Bellucci and Heath 2012). These
changes, together with disillusion following Blair’s support for the invasions
 The United Kingdom Party System 47

of Iraq and Afghanistan, resulted in the election of Corbyn as leader in 2015

by party members, despite his minimal support among Labour MPs. This
pulled the party further left.
The gap between the party and its working-class supporters on non-
economic issues under New Labour was not entirely new. The Wilson
government’s support for reforms of the laws relating to homosexuality,
divorce, and abortion were driven by middle-class advocacy groups (Ponting
1989). Any differences between the classes were not electorally consequen-
tial because these were secondary issues. Labour governments in the 1970s

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

balanced limits on immigration with laws to end racial discrimination. As
the non-economic dimensions of politics grew in importance, the electoral
risk increased. By the late 1990s, Labour’s liberal policies appealed largely to
young, educated, and middle-class voters (Sobolewska 2021). So did Labour’s
enthusiasm for the EU. This led it to allow workers from the new mem-
ber states in Eastern Europe to immediately work in the UK from 2004. Net
migration to the UK surged. Concerns about the impact of immigration on
employment, wages, and public services increased, particularly among the
working class. Over time, large parts of the white working class came to
feel that Labour no longer represented them (Evans and Tilly 2017). These
concerns initially resulted in declining turnout. From the mid-2000s they
produced increasing working-class support for the British National Party and
UKIP (Ford and Goodwin 2014).
In the 2016 referendum on EU membership, older voters, the working
class, and less educated voters overwhelmingly voted to ‘take back control’.
Younger voters, the middle class, and more educated voters overwhelmingly
voted Remain (Clarke et al. 2017). Victory for Leave meant that Labour was
out of line with working-class Leave voters. In the 2017 general election
Corbyn promised to honour the decision to leave but to negotiate a new
withdrawal agreement to protect labour rights and the environment. The
party also announced popular plans to increase government spending and
nationalization. This united the party and helped Labour attract the votes
of enough Leavers and Remainers to gain votes and seats and produce a
hung Parliament. By 2019 adversarial politics reasserted itself. Labour’s mem-
bers demanded a distinctive Labour policy that a renegotiated withdrawal
agreement should be put to a second referendum with the option to remain.
Corbyn agreed in order to unite his party ahead of an election (Whiteley et al.
2021). He then declined to say how he would vote in that second referendum.
This satisfied no one. Leavers felt betrayed by the promise of a second ref-
erendum. Remainers felt that Labour lacked commitment to the EU. Some
Remainers moved to the Greens, others to the Liberal Democrats. The party’s
48 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

2019 coalition quickly eroded. Labour was soundly defeated in 2019, winning
fewer MPs than at any election since 1935. Most strikingly, the Conservatives
outpolled Labour among the working class. Many seats with long Labour tra-
ditions (the so-called ‘red wall’) fell to the Conservatives. While the vote for
‘Remain’ parties exceeded that for ‘Leave’ parties, it was scattered across more
parties (Johns 2021).
After the defeat, Labour elected Starmer as leader. Despite making
promises to retain the left-wing policies of his predecessor, he reined in
the party’s ambitious spending and nationalization plans. He also nodded

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

to working-class patriotism when the party sang ‘God Save the King’ at the
2022 annual conference. He moved to exclude left-wingers from senior posi-
tions and selection as parliamentary candidates in key seats. He also barred
Corbyn from standing as a Labour candidate again after the former leader
criticized a report about antisemitism under his leadership. Labour’s return
to the political centre, following the New Labour model, was completed with
brutal determination.

The Conservative Party

Since the UK is a two-party system, any analysis of Labour says much—but

not everything—about the alternative. While Labour has been electorally
unsuccessful, the Conservative party has won election after election with gen-
erally sizeable majorities (Seldon and Ball 1994). While Labour styled itself
as the party of the workers, the Conservative party has portrayed itself as a
national party that transcends narrow interests (Butler and Stokes 1974). And
while Labour has demonstrated commitment to big ideas, the Conservative
party has—with one notable exception—prided itself on its pragmatism.
The Conservative party, like the Tory Party before it, has drawn sup-
port from those groups that support the status quo: owners of industry, the
middle class, homeowners, members of the established church, and farm-
ers, together with unionists in the three Celtic nations. Deindustrialization,
social mobility, the spread of property ownership, and migration from the
cities have all increased the size of these groups. Yet the party has always
attracted many working-class voters. Indeed, since workers were long the
majority class, the party obtained over half of its vote from this source in
the 1950s and 1960s (Butler and Stokes 1974). Some of these were repulsed
by socialism or labourism. Others deferred to their ‘social betters’ (McKen-
zie and Silver 1968). The leftward movement of policy after 1945 led some
workers to conclude that welfare was too generous, taxes were too high, and
 The United Kingdom Party System 49

personal incentives had been eroded (Bartle et al. 2011). In a two-party sys-
tem the Conservatives were the only other option. The Conservative party’s
continued association with symbols of ‘Britishness’ including the monarchy,
armed forces, and churches consolidated its reputation as the ‘national’ party.
The Conservative party of Churchill and Macmillan in the 1950s prided
itself in its pragmatism (Heywood 2017). Some have claimed that party ideol-
ogy was summarized by a principled commitment to the free market (Willetts
1992). Yet while this is true of Margaret Thatcher, she is the exception to
the rule. The Conservative party has usually simply tried to ‘conserve’. It has

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

favoured traditional institutions like the nation, the established church, and
the family. Nevertheless, it has also accepted Burke’s advice about the need to
‘change to conserve’ (Burke 2015). This willingness to adapt was most clearly
illustrated by its acceptance of the National Health Service (NHS) from 1948.
The Thatcher administration’s attempt to ‘roll back the frontiers of the state’
from 1979 to 1990 was the exception to the party’s tendency to accommodate
the public mood. Thatcher had the freedom to pursue those goals because
Labour was widely thought to be extreme and incompetent in the 1980s.
From 1997 to 2005, the Conservative party became more ideological and
tied to Thatcherite policies. Its vacation of the political centre contributed
to the period of Labour predominance. Nevertheless, the party rediscovered
its pragmatism under Cameron. It accepted the need for coalition in 2010
and adopted many of the policies of its Liberal Democrat coalition partners
when in government.
The most enduring basis of the Conservative party’s appeal is its claim to be
the national party. It is for this reason that the issue of Europe caused it such
problems. From the 1960s to the late 1990s most of the party viewed member-
ship of the Common Market, the European Economic Community, and the
EU as in the British national interest. The Heath government took the UK into
the Common Market in 1973. Many Conservatives, including Thatcher, cam-
paigned to remain in Europe in the referendum in 1975. Thatcher accepted
the expansion of European competence in the European Single Act 1986.
Yet by the late 1980s some Conservatives became worried about the erosion
of national sovereignty implied by further integration. In her 1989 Bruges
speech Thatcher proclaimed the need to maintain national distinctiveness.
These views led to her removal as leader in late 1990. This, in turn, signalled
the start of a long struggle about European policy that created disunity. From
the mid-1990s the struggle was heightened by the emergence of challenger
parties such as the Referendum Party and later UKIP. The leadership tried
to unite the party by adopting increasingly Eurosceptic positions, but none
satisfied the demands for a ‘repatriation of sovereignty’. In 2005 Cameron
50 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

warned his party that ‘banging on about Europe’ was damaging. He appeared
to win the argument. Over time, however, support for withdrawal from the
EU increased, especially among party members.
The Conservative party has traditionally been advantaged in the com-
petitive struggle for the vote by the fact that party members rarely tried to
determine policy or constrain its leaders. Only the leader has authority to
make party policy in consultation with colleagues. The leaders’ duty was
simply to stop Labour from winning. The Conservative party made little pre-
tence to be democratic until the late 1990s. Conservative leaders sometimes

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

found it expedient to take note of the mood in the party but never gave mem-
bers a direct say over policy (Kelly 1989). Over time, members have become
more visible. In 1998 they acquired the final say in the election of party lead-
ers, choosing between two candidates selected by Conservative MPs (Quinn
2012). Despite these reforms the parliamentary party was still able to engi-
neer the removal of the unpopular Duncan-Smith in 2003 and ensure that
his successor Howard faced no rival. Nevertheless, members’ significance
increased. They tended to select Eurosceptic parliamentary candidates, and
the balance of opinion slowly shifted in a Eurosceptic direction.
Under Cameron the Conservatives settled on a policy of Euroscepticism
that fell short of advocating withdrawal. This united the party for a time.
The demands for a more sceptical position increased during the coalition,
when sensitivity to the Liberal Democrats led to less Eurosceptic policies.
From 2010 onwards UKIP performed well in polls (Clarke et al. 2017). Ordi-
nary Conservatives grew alarmed by this threat. The real impulse for change,
however, was that Conservatives came to share both UKIP’s analysis and pre-
scription. Many concluded that EU integration was unstoppable and that the
UK should leave.
Cameron yielded to party pressures by pledging a simple ‘in–out’ refer-
endum on EU membership in 2013. This was designed to unite the party
and stem the growth in support for UKIP in the next general election. When
the Conservatives won the 2015 election, Cameron acted on his promise.
He called a referendum, recommending a vote to remain. The resulting
campaign brutally exposed Conservative divisions. Most MPs supported
Remain; most members supported Leave. The eventual decision to leave the
EU led to Cameron’s resignation and replacement. Theresa May, the new
Prime Minister, tried to unite her party by proposing to leave both the sin-
gle market and customs union. Her initial popularity led her to call a general
election in 2017. She promised a ‘strong and stable’ government but then
performed a series of campaign U-turns that made her appear weak. May’s
 The United Kingdom Party System 51

decision to call an election backfired, and the party lost its majority (Bartle
2018).
The May government from 2017 to 2019 became dependent on the small
Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland. For two years May’s
efforts to get a withdrawal agreement were blocked by a combination of
opposition MPs, Remainer Conservatives, and Eurosceptics who demanded
a clean break with the EU (Quinn 2021). Many Brexiteers feared that ‘the
Westminster establishment’ would block withdrawal and joined the new
Brexit party. This party’s success in the European elections of June 2019, like

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

UKIP’s before it, caused panic. May resigned. In the subsequent leadership
election, the party took the enormous risk of electing Boris Johnson—a man
with a colourful past—as its leader (Allen 2021). He imposed party disci-
pline by sacking most Remainers in the cabinet and withdrawing the whip
from MPs who did not promise to ‘get Brexit done’. He then renegotiated the
EU withdrawal agreement and manoeuvred the other parties to accept a gen-
eral election. His campaign combined traditional national appeals for strong
government with a commitment to ‘level up every part of the country’. While
few knew precisely what this meant, it generally implied government activity
and spending on a scale that horrified some Thatcherites. Nevertheless, the
appeal worked. The Conservatives obtained a massive majority in the 2019
general election.
The Conservative party had little time to enjoy its victory. Johnson man-
aged to ‘get Brexit done’, but his government was immediately overwhelmed
by the COVID-19 pandemic. The government enforced lockdowns, outrag-
ing many of those who longed for a smaller state. Johnson’s government
became embroiled in scandal after scandal relating to breaches of COVID-19
regulations by those in government, including the Prime Minister himself.
Johnson was finally forced to resign in 2022 after he made a questionable
appointment to a sensitive role in the parliamentary party. In the resulting
leadership campaign, party MPs presented members with a choice between
Liz Truss, a politician who viewed herself as a Conservative in the Thatcherite
mould, and Rishi Sunak, who enjoyed far more support among his parlia-
mentary colleagues but was blamed by many for Johnson’s resignation. Party
members opted for the more ideological Truss, selecting yet another leader
who did not enjoy the confidence of their parliamentary colleagues. Her gov-
ernment launched an ambitious tax-cutting plan to boost growth without
explaining how it would be paid for. Bond traders took flight and interest rates
rocketed. The party’s reputation for competence suffered a grievous blow.
She quicky resigned and was replaced by Sunak. The new leader set about
trying to unite his fractured party around action to stop illegal immigration,
52 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

commitments to support the NHS and promises to bear down on inflation.

It remained difficult to see how he could adapt in time for a general election
that would come in January 2025, at the latest.

The Future

If an intelligent designer who was otherwise ignorant about the past were
to design a two-party system to reflect contemporary political conflicts,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

it is doubtful that they would produce the current Labour–Conservative
system. Yet the UK remains a strong and closed system. Challenger par-
ties are unlikely to break the mould by replacing either of the two main
parties. This does not mean that the two major parties are invulnerable.
British history provides examples of parties that have disappeared because
of internal splits or changes in the suffrage. Referendums may produce
more chaos, though it is difficult to identify issues that would break the
party system. Yet the framework conditions provide parties with time to
adapt.
Both parties have been associated with policy failures. Labour presided
over an economic crash during 2008–2010. The Conservatives presided over
shambolic governments during Brexit, COVID-19, and the short-lived Truss
administration. In an era of increasing intra-party democracy, both parties
have proved vulnerable to takeover by their radical wings. The empower-
ment of party members has made it more difficult for leaders to resist the lure
of ideological consistency. Both parties have periodically vacated the cen-
tre, reducing their credibility. This has allowed governments to either move
toward their polar position or act less cautiously, confident that the electorate
has no alternative. Such developments have illustrated the weakness of the
UK constitution, which depends on voters and politics rather than judges
and law. When the opposition fails to offer a credible choice, electoral checks
are weak.
The two-party mould of British politics does not appear to be in danger of
breaking anytime soon. The current Conservative government is willing to
use its predominance to shore up its position. It has put pressure on the BBC
to produce more favourable media content. It has also introduced legislation
to require voters to use identity cards, even though the evidence suggests that
impersonation is a trivial feature of UK elections. This may reduce the vote
for non-Conservative parties. These are worrying indications that the party
may use its power in the manner of authoritarian populists in other countries
(Birch 2021).
 The United Kingdom Party System 53

Electoral reform would break the mould of the party system, but it is not
on the agenda. Only Parliament can change the electoral system, and both
the parties that dominate at Westminster and are likely to control govern-
ment have resisted reform. The Conservatives are steadfastly opposed. The
Labour leadership has ignored calls from party members for proportional
representation. The party’s experience in Scotland illustrated the dangers
of that system to the party. Labour still jealously guards its monopoly on
anti-Conservative opposition even though its electoral record is poor. And
even if Labour were to contemplate reform, it is less likely to happen than in

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the past because there is now a convention that any reform to the electoral
system must be referred to the people. Figure 3.6 displays the public’s prefer-
ences for single-party and coalition government, from 1983 to 2017. From the
early 1990s to late 2000s, roughly equal portions of the electorate preferred
single-party and coalition government. After 2010, the public’s preferences
for single-party government shot up. In short, the experience of coalition
between 2010 and 2015 set back not only the Liberal Democrats but also
the cause of power sharing.
More recent evidence about public preferences for single-party or coalition
government is not yet available. Nevertheless, it seems fair to speculate that
the public’s desire for strong single-party government can only have been
bolstered by recent experience of parliamentary stalemate under May and
administrative incompetence under Johnson. There is little prospect that the
party system is likely to change anytime soon.

One party Two parties in coalition

70

60
% preferring

50

40

30

20
1983

1985

1987

1989

1991

1993

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

2017

Figure 3.6 Preferences for single-party or coalition government, 1983–2017

Source: British Social Attitudes, https://natcen.ac.uk/british-social-attitudes (Accessed 15 December
2023)
54 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Notes
1. Figure 3.1 excludes the wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945.
2. The party system in Northern Ireland has always been different from that on the British
mainland.
3. Non-conformists hold Christian beliefs that do not conform to the established Church
of England.

References

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Allen, Nicholas. 2021. ‘Deadlock: Minority Government and Brexit’. In Nicholas
Allen and John Bartle (eds), Breaking the Deadlock: Britain at the Polls 2019.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1–37.
Bara, Judith and Albert Weale. 2006. ‘Introduction’. In Judith Bara and Albert Weale
(eds), Democratic Politics and Party Competition. London: Routledge, 1–20.
Bartle, John. 2006. ‘The Labour Government and the Media’. In John Bartle and
Anthony King (eds), Britain at the Polls 2005. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House,
125–150.
Bartle, John. 2018. ‘Why the Conservatives Lost their Majority—But Still Won’. In
Nicholas Allen and John Bartle (eds), None Past the Post: Britain at the Polls 2017.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 160–189.
Bartle, John, Nicholas Allen, and Thomas Quinn. 2019. ‘Modelling British Post-War
General Elections, 1945–2017: Party Position, Policy Mood and Party Compe-
tence’. Paper prepared for Delivery at the Elections Public Opinion and Political
Parties Conference at the University of Strathclyde, 13–15 September.
Bartle, John, Sebastian Dellepiane-Avellaneda, and James A. Stimson. 2011. ‘The
Moving Centre: Preferences for Government Activity in Britain, 1950–2005’.
British Journal of Political Science, 41(2):259–285.
Bartle, John, Anthony McGann, and Sebastian Dellepiane-Avellaneda. 2019. ‘Pol-
icy Accommodation Versus Electoral Turnover: Policy Representation in Britain,
1945–2015’. Journal of Public Policy, 39(2):235–265.
Bellucci, Paolo and Oliver Heath. 2012. ‘The Structure of Party–Organization Link-
ages and the Electoral Strength of Cleavages in Italy, 1963–2008’. British Journal of
Political Science, 42(1):107–135.
Birch, Sarah. 2021. ‘Comparative Perspectives’. In Nicholas Allen and John Bartle
(eds), Breaking the Deadlock: Britain at the Polls 2019. Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 198–218.
Budge, Ian. 2019. Politics: A Unified Introduction to How Democracy Works. London:
Routledge.
Burke, Edmund. 2015. Reflections on the Revolution in France. London: Everyman.
 The United Kingdom Party System 55

Butler, David and Donald Stokes. 1974. Political Change in Britain: The Evolution of
Electoral Preference. London: Macmillan.
Clark, Alistair. 2018. Political Parties in the UK. London: Macmillan.
Clarke, Harold, Paul Whiteley, and Matthew Goodwin. 2017. Brexit: Why
Britain Voted to Leave the European Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Cox, Gary. 1987. The Efficient Secret: The Cabinet and the Development of Political
Parties in Victorian England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, Gary. 1997. Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World’s Electoral

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crewe, Ivor and Anthony King. 1995. SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social
Democratic Party. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Curtice, John. 2018. ‘The Liberal Democrats: Remaining in the Doldrums’. In
Nicholas Allen and John Bartle (eds), None Past the Post: Britain at the Polls 2017.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 58–77.
Dicey, Albert Venn. 1885. Lectures Introductory to the Study of the Law of the
Constitution. London: Macmillan.
Döring, Holger, Constantin Huber, and Philip Manow. 2022. Parliaments and Gov-
ernments Database (ParlGov): Information on Parties, Elections and Cabinets
in established Democracies. Development Version. https://www.parlgov.org/data-
info/ (Accessed 14 December 2023).
Drucker, Henry. 2018. Doctrine and Ethos in the Labour Party. London: Routledge.
Duverger, Maurice. 1954. Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the
Modern State. London: Methuen.
Evans, Geoffrey and James Tilly. 2017. The New Politics of Class: The Political
Exclusion of the British Working Class. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fieldhouse, Edward, Jane Green, Geoffrey Evans, Jonathan Mellon, Christopher
Prosser, Hermann Schmitt, and Cees van der Eijk. 2019. Electoral Shocks: The
Volatile Voter in a Turbulent World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ford, Robert and Matthew Goodwin. 2014. Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support
for the Radical Right in Britain. London: Routledge.
Griffiths, John A.G. 1979. ‘The Political Constitution’. Modern Law Review, 42(1):
1–21.
Hailsham, Lord. 1976. The Richard Dimbleby Lecture. London: British Broadcasting
Corporation.
Heath, Anthony, Roger Jowell, John Curtice, Geoffrey Evans, Sharon Witherspoon,
and Julia Field. 1989. Understanding Political Change: The British Voter, 1964–87.
Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Heywood, Andrew. 2017. Political Ideologies: An Introduction. London: Red Globe
Press.
56 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Jenkins, Peter. 1988. Mrs Thatcher’s Revolution: The Ending of the Socialist Era.
London: Jonathan Cape.
Johns, Robert. 2018. ‘Squeezing the SNP: The Election in Scotland’. In Nicholas Allen
and John Bartle (eds), None Past the Post: Britain at the Polls 2017. Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 100–120.
Johns, Robert. 2021. ‘Why Did the Conservatives Win?’. In Nicholas Allen and
John Bartle (eds), Breaking the Deadlock: Britain at the Polls 2019. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Katz, Richard and Peter Mair. 1995. ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’. Party Politics, 1(1):5–28.
Kelly, Richard. 2020. ‘Short Money’. House of Commons Library, Briefing Paper
01663 (16 November). https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/
SN01663/SN01663.pdf (Accessed 26 June 2021).
Kelly, Richard N. 1989. Conservative Party Conferences: The Hidden System. Manch-
ester: Manchester University Press.
King, Anthony. 2009. The British Constitution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lipset, Seymour M. and Stein Rokkan (eds). 1967. Party Systems and Voter Align-
ments: Cross-national Perspective. Toronto: The Free Press.
McGann, Anthony, Sebastian Dellepiane-Avellaneda, and John Bartle. 2023.
‘Responsive Government for Realists? Public Opinion and Policy Responsiveness
in the Netherlands and the UK’. Economics and Politics, 35(3):333–355.
McKenzie, Robert. 1955. British Political Parties: The Distribution of Power within
the Conservative and Labour Parties. London: Methuen.
McKenzie, Robert and Allan Silver. 1968. Angels in Marble: Working Class Conser-
vatives. London: Heinemann.
McKibbin, Ross. 1974. The Evolution of the Labour Party, 1910–1924. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
McLean, Iain. 2006. ‘The Politics of Fractured Federalism’. In John Bartle and
Anthony King (eds), Britain at the Polls 2005. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House,
97–123.
Mair, Peter. 2009. ‘The Party System’. In Matthew Flinders, Andrew Gamble, Colin
Hay, and Michael Kenny (eds), The Oxford Handbook of British Politics. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 283–303.
Marquand, David. 1999. The Progressive Dilemma: From Lloyd George to Blair.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Minkin, Lewis. 1992. The Contentious Alliance: Trade Unions and the Labour Party.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Nagel, Jack H. and Christopher Wlezien. 2010. ‘Centre-party Strength and Major-
party Divergence in Britain, 1945–2005’. British Journal of Political Science,
40(2):279–304.
 The United Kingdom Party System 57

Ofcom. 2020. The Broadcasting Code. London: The Office of Communications.

Pilling, Sam and Richard Cracknell. 2021. UK Election Statistics: 1918–2021: A Cen-
tury of Elections. House of Commons Library, Briefing Paper, CBP7529 (18 August
2021). https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7529/CBP-
7529.pdf (Accessed 29 April 2022).
Ponting, Clive. 1989. Breach of Promise: Labour in Power, 1964–70. London: Hamish
Hamilton.
Quinn, Thomas. 2012. ‘From Two-partism to Alternating Predominance: The
Changing UK Party System, 1950–2010’. Political Studies, 61(2):378–400.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Quinn, Thomas. 2017. ‘Third-party Strategy under Plurality Rule: The British
Liberal Democrats and the New Zealand Social Credit Party’. Political Studies,
65(3):740–763.
Quinn, Thomas. 2021. ‘The Conservative Party: The Triumph of the Eurosceptics’.
In Nicholas Allen and John Bartle (eds), Breaking the Deadlock: Britain at the Polls
2019. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 38–63.
Quinn, Thomas, Judith Bara, and John Bartle. 2011. ‘The Coalition Agreement, Who
Won? The Verdict of the Content Analyses’. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and
Parties, 21:295–312
Sartori, Giovanni. 2005. Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis.
Colchester: ECPR Press.
Seldon, Anthony and Stuart Ball. 1994. Conservative Century: The Conservative Party
since 1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sobolewska, Maria. 2021. ‘A Divided Electorate: New Identities and the British “Cul-
ture War”. In Nicholas Allen and John Bartle (eds), Breaking the Deadlock: Britain
at the Polls 2019. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 123–147.
UK Parliament. 2022. Membership of Political Parties in Great Britain. London:
House of Commons Library.
Webb, Paul and Tim Bale. 2021. The Modern British Party System. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Whiteley, Paul, Patrick Seyd, and Harold D. Clarke. 2021. ‘The Labour Party: Lead-
ership Lacking’. In Nicholas Allen and John Bartle (eds), Breaking the Deadlock:
Britain at the Polls 2019. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 64–88.
Willetts, David. 1992. Modern Conservatism. London: Penguin.
4
French Political Parties and Democracy
Elodie Fabre

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

French parties are increasingly weak, with low party membership, faction-
alism, and regular splits, and their links with citizens and civil society are
often quite limited. For French democracy, this creates several issues: low
level of trust, declining partisan attachment, and increasing voter volatility
and apathy. In recent years, the party system and electorate have become
more polarized. While the French party system has always provided a wide
range of options across the left–right spectrum, parties such as the Rassem-
blement National (RN, National Rally) and La France Insoumise (LFI, France
Unbowed) have become stronger at the expense of the traditional and more
moderate parties of the right and left. These trends culminated in the 2017
election, when Emmanuel Macron, a newcomer who had only created an
organization to support his candidacy a year earlier, was elected President
of the Republic. The first round saw Macron, Marine Le Pen, and Jean-Luc
Mélenchon, three candidates who had rejected traditional parties and pol-
itics, in top positions, and the second round between Macron and Le Pen
marked the first time since 1965 that none of the traditional parties was
present in the second round of the presidential election.
This analysis of political parties in France will focus on the four parties
that have reached the second round of the presidential elections during the
last 20 years: La République en Marche (LaREM, Republic on the Move)1 ,
the RN (the new name of the Front National, FN), the Parti Socialiste (PS,
Socialist Party), and Les Républicains, (LR, The Republicans). The French
party system counts many more parties, including the Green party Europe
Ecologie-Les Verts, the leftist LFI, and the Parti de Gauche, Left Party, along
with several centrist parties such as the Mouvement Démocratique (MoDem,
Democratic Movement) and the Parti Radical de Gauche, some of which
often play a role in shaping parliamentary majorities.
Party organization in France is characterized by the great diversity of its
types. These parties vary greatly in terms of age and represent a wide ideo-
logical spectrum ranging from the far left to the extreme right. Party origins

Elodie Fabre, French Political Parties and Democracy. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Elodie Fabre (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0004
 French Political Parties and Democracy 59

and ideology both influence the type of organization of each party. This
chapter will focus on the following aspects: parties and society, relationship
with the state through party funding, and differences in organization and
organizational change. Overall, we observe a tendency of increased direct
participation of members in some areas of party life and high levels of pub-
lic funding, both symptoms of party cartelization as defined by Katz and
Mair (1995). However, the party system has remained open, and parties have
remained a vital part of French democracy.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

A Party System in Flux

The French party system has undergone significant changes in the last few
decades. After the period described as a ‘bipolar four-party system’ composed
of the Gaullist party Rally for the Republic (RPR)2 , the centre-right Union
for French Democracy party (UDF)3 , the PS, and the Communist Party
(Duverger 1973; Cole 2003: 12), new parties emerged in the mid-1980s, most
notably the radical right FN and the Green party Les Verts. The period that
followed saw a regular pattern of alternation between left and right in power,
with smaller parties, except the FN, often aligning behind the RPR/UMP
(Union for a Popular Movement) on the right or the PS on the left (Grun-
berg and Haegel 2008), with the FN as a third electoral force. However, it
is in the centre ground that recent changes have most shaken French poli-
tics. The election of Emmanuel Macron as President of the Republic and the
parliamentary elections that followed have placed both traditional govern-
ing parties in the opposition and significantly reduced their representation
in parliament. This shows that newcomers have overcome obstacles to entry
for new parties (presidential elections, a majoritarian electoral system, and
the party funding regime).
French electoral politics have become increasingly volatile. The semi-
presidential nature of the French regime has always tended to focus party
competition on candidate-centred politics and the main parties that have
a realistic chance of winning the Presidency. Since 2002, four parties have
placed a candidate in the second round of the presidential election, whereas
only two parties had managed that in the previous two decades. Table 4.1
shows that the effective number of presidential candidates (ENEP Pres)
decreased and then increased again after 2007, and the effective numbers
of electoral parties and parliamentary parties increased every year after
the 2002 election. In 2017–2022, these indicators returned to pre-2002
levels.
60 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Table 4.1 Effective number of parties in presidential and parliamentary

elections, 1995–2022

1995 1997 2002 2007 2012 2017 2022

ENEP Pres R1 5.76 n.e. 4.93 4.52 4.75 5.18 5.35

ENEP Parl n.e. 6.56 4.22 4.32 5.27 6.82 5.49
ENPP n.e. 3.54 2.26 2.49 2.83 3.00 3.72

Note: n.e.: no election

Sources: Author’s elaboration for ENEP Pres R1 (for the first round of the presidential

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

election), ENEP Parl 2022 and ENPP 2022; Gallagher (2019) for ENEP Parl (first round of
parliamentary elections) and ENPP 1995–2017.

Changes to the electoral calendar and length of the presidential term in

2002 have resulted in a perfect coincidence of the presidential and parlia-
mentary terms, each occurring every five years within a month of each other,
with the presidential election held first. This has strengthened this presiden-
tial dynamic, turning parliamentary elections into a contest about whether
voters should give the President a parliamentary majority to implement their
programme (Dupoirier and Sauger 2010). Until the 2022 elections, voters
preferred to give the new President a supportive parliamentary majority,
and France has not experienced a ‘cohabitation’ between a President and
a National Assembly majority from different parties or coalitions of par-
ties since the presidential term was cut from seven to five years. Emmanuel
Macron’s election illustrates these trends: even a President with a very new
party like LaREM won a parliamentary majority in 2017. Although LaREM’s
electoral coalition with the MoDem (Ensemble, Together) fell short of win-
ning a majority of seats in the National Assembly in 2022, they still won more
seats than any other party by a large margin. However, the Prime Minister’s
failure to build a stable governing coalition is proving problematic, as the gov-
ernment is seen to force through legislation without sufficient consultation
and legislative collaboration with other groups. The repeated use of what are
meant to be exceptional tools to pass legislation without a vote has increased
tensions, as demonstrated by the lengthy wave of demonstrations against the
2023 pension reform.4
Since the early 2000s, parties have suffered from low levels of trust and
strong dissatisfaction with their performance and their responses to the
country’s problems, such as unemployment and, more recently, terrorism
(Grossman 2019). At the same time, France is grappling with issues such
as immigration and integration, which leads to an increasing focus on the
 French Political Parties and Democracy 61

values and identity axis of party competition at the expense of the traditional
left–right economic axis (Sauger 2017: 21–22). While this focus on identity
issues was originally initiated by the FN, these issues have become increas-
ingly important for the main centre-right party LR and the PS, as voters found
it increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the economic policies
of the two traditional parties. In parallel, some newer parties have empha-
sized other issues (notably the Greens with the environment), while others
have argued that the traditional left–right cleavage has lost its relevance. The
FN/RN accused the mainstream parties of forming a cartel (‘UMPS’), and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Macron declared that he and his party were neither left nor right and that this
cleavage had become obsolete. This does not, however, mean that voters have
ceased to care about traditional economic issues (Tiberj 2017; Mossuz-Lavau
2020), and there is a risk of an increasing disconnect between voters and
parties, which in turn fuels political distrust, voter apathy, and polarization.
In addition to these changes to party competition, both traditional and new
parties have also had to deal with the issues of attracting and retaining mem-
bers, engaging their membership, and reconnecting with the electorate, often
with limited success.

Party Organization in France

The 1958 Constitution recognizes in its Article 4 the role of parties as orga-
nizations that contribute to the expression of suffrage and allows them to
form and organize freely (Légifrance 2021). Parties are free to organize as
they please, and there are no requirements in terms of intra-party democ-
racy or territorial organization, as exists in other countries. The law started
to regulate some aspects of party life in 1988 with the first law on financial
transparency in public life (Marcilloux-Giummarra 2011: 164). Later, leg-
islation to ensure gender parity, enshrined in the Constitution in 2000 and
in 2008, added to the legislative framework that applies to political parties
(Lépinard 2016).

A brief overview of the four main parties

The PS is the oldest of the four parties. Although it only existed under
this name since 1969; it used to be the Section Française de l’Internationale
Ouvrière (SFIO, French Section of the Workers’ International), founded in
62 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

1905. It is a social democratic party, although it does not use the term
(Deschodt 2007). The party adopted a traditional form of assembly-based
intra-party democracy, and the party in public office has dominated the party
since the 1980s (Bachelot 2007: 151). Local branches send representatives to
a national congress, which debates motions and policy. The party recognizes
tendencies (called ‘currents’), and these factions propose distinct lists and
motions to the conference. If no list receives a majority of the vote, a second
round is organized, and motions may merge to form a winning coalition.
The making of ‘syntheses’ (merger of different motions to form intra-party

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

coalitions) is a socialist tradition which shields party elites from the rest of
the party conference, as negotiations between currents take place behind
closed doors (Bachelot 2007). The use of proportional representation (PR)
facilitates the expression of internal divisions and provides opportunities for
ambitious politicians and programmatic factions to make a bid for the party
leadership.
The Republicans (LR) is the new name of the UMP, which was a merger of
the old Gaullist party RPR and smaller centre-right parties that were mem-
ber parties of the UDF. Some centrists in the UDF refused to join the UMP,
which they saw as a hegemonic project of the mainstream right in which
their centrist voice would be lost, and formed the MoDem. The UMP oper-
ated on a plebiscitary model, with a congress that elected the party leader
and voted on programmatic texts by membership ballot. The RPR was very
focused on unity behind the leader but had to adapt to its increasing hege-
mony on the right in the late 1980s and adopted congress votes on motion
as well as the direct election of the party leader by membership ballot. The
UMP went further in its recognition of internal pluralism and recognized
factions, in large part to accommodate the diversity of parties that merged
into the UMP. These ‘internal movements’, however, never really developed
(Haegel 2007: 232–235). Overall, the party in public office dominated the
party. LR kept this model of organization, in which the party in public office
dominates the party in central office, gave more voice to party members
(through members’ election of local federation chairs and membership con-
sultations on election nominations), and ended the recognition of internal
factions.
The RN is the new name of the FN, which was created in 1972. Like many
radical right parties, the RN places a lot of power in the hands of its leader
and her circle (Amjahad and Jadot 2012). Towards the end of the 1980s, the
FN developed a strongly centralized structure, with local branches at the bot-
tom and ancillary organizations designed to attract sectoral groups such as
 French Political Parties and Democracy 63

farmers, women, workers, and people working in the security forces (Marcus
1995: 47; Mayer 1998: 15–16). Under Marine Le Pen’s leadership, the FN and
then the RN adopted similar strategies to attract new members and potential
candidates from a range of civil society backgrounds (Dezé 2016: 55–56). The
leader selects the members of the executive and represents the party publicly.
The election of 100 delegates to the National Council allows the membership
to express preferences in terms of orientation and shows who is popular in
the party. However, the leader’s ability to choose another 20 members of the
National Council limits the membership’s influence in a body that is mostly

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

advisory. The composition of the executive board (bureau exécutif ) shows
that it is the leader’s inner circle that dominates the party (Amjahad and Jadot
2012: 60–61).
LaREM is the result of the transformation of Emmanuel Macron’s move-
ment En Marche! (EM!, which translates roughly as Forward!), created in
2016 to support his presidential bid, into a political party. EM! was created by
Macron and his circle of early supporters to engage citizens at the local level.
Supporters (‘marcheurs’) were given autonomy to run local actions to sup-
port Macron’s candidacy, and were activated for The Big Walk, an initiative
that saw thousands of volunteers knock on doors across France to gather the
opinions of 100,000 French people on political, social, and economic issues
(Raulin 2016). LaREM aimed to retain EM!’s local-level organization, with
self-organized branches that run relatively independently from the central
party. However, in return, they had no influence centrally. This stratarchical
model of organization ended up being rather centralized, as lower levels of
organization have very little power. The leader (general secretary) was not
elected by party members but instead by the party’s Council, in which mem-
bers represented only 25% of the membership. Members could declare their
interest to sit on the Council but were drawn by lot, which prevented any
form of direct representation of or delegation from the membership (Delau-
rens 2018: 15) In 2019 this model was abandoned and sortition was replaced
by a more traditional election of delegates by local party branches at the
department level. These locally elected representatives constitute a larger
share of the National Council,5 although elected representatives from the
local to the European levels still represent a majority. Many of the founders of
EM! came from the Socialist Party and viewed its organization as a source of
problems and divisions. As a result, they opted for a much more centralized
form of organization that would insulate the leadership from challenges and
divisions, leaving the party in public office very much in charge.6
64 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Leadership selection and selection of the partiesʼ

candidates for the Presidency

The leaders of LR, the PS, and the FN are all elected by membership bal-
lot, whereas the leader of LaREM is selected by the party Council, which
mixes elected officials and party members. The party leader (first secretary)
of the PS has been elected by membership in a two-round ballot since 1995.
The leadership election used to follow the national congress, so that party
motions were debated first and the leader elected second. Since 2010, the vote

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

on motions and the first round of leadership selection have been coupled: the
leaders of the two motions that receive the most ballots automatically become
the candidates for the second round that takes place a week later. Leaders of
LR are also elected by membership ballot, with results announced at a spe-
cial congress. The only time there has been a contest in the FN/RN is when
Jean-Marie Le Pen retired in 2011. After Marine Le Pen was elected party
president, she remained unopposed. Any potential candidate to the party
presidency needs the support of 20% of the National Council, which is a high
bar.
In a semi-presidential system such as France’s, the selection of the candi-
date for the Presidency is an important moment in party life. This is the area
where we have seen most change in recent years, as the main parties try to
manage the personal ambitions of their most prominent politicians, demands
for intra-party democracy, and the potentially negative impact of multiple
candidacies in a fragmented party system. The PS adopted membership bal-
lot for the selection of its presidential candidate in the mid-1990s and turned
to open primaries with candidates from a few other centre-left parties in the
mid-2000s. The electoral weakness of the PS since 2017 means that other
parties on the left have decided to present their own candidate in 2022, and
the 2022 candidate was selected by membership ballot again. The RPR also
adopted membership ballots to select its presidential candidate in the 1990s,
but it has held very few contested ballots. In 1995, the party decided against
choosing between then party president Jacques Chirac and then Prime Min-
ister Edouard Balladur, and there were two RPR candidates in that election;
in 2002, incumbent President Chirac sought re-election, supported by the
UMP. The first ballot took place in 2007 with only one candidate: party
president Nicolas Sarkozy. With Sarkozy the incumbent president seeking
re-election in 2012, there was no ballot in 2011–2012. In 2017, LR and some
of its allies on the right adopted open primaries to select a single candidate
on the right. After the 2017 candidate, François Fillon, failed to reach the sec-
ond round, LR then abandoned open primaries in favour of a two-round
 French Political Parties and Democracy 65

membership ballot ahead of the 2022 elections. In the RN, the congress
selects the candidate, but there has never been a candidate against the party
president, who has always been the party candidate for the presidential elec-
tion. The congress closest to the election is therefore the moment when the
party president is announced as the party’s official candidate. LaREM has yet
to set out how it will select its presidential candidate in the post-Macron era,
an issue they will have to address ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
The selection of presidential candidates has returned to being a purely par-
tisan affair. We have seen a retreat from open primaries, as they had led to

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the selection of candidates that were more polarized, which then opened a
wide gap at the centre that Macron was able to fill (Fabre 2023). The lack of
success of these candidates also placed the PS and LR in a weak position to
convince other parties to participate in common primaries.

The selection of parliamentary candidates

Candidate selection in France is often a rather centralized affair. In all par-

ties, the central party approves candidacies, and the local parties may present
prospective candidates to the attention of a central selection committee. This
being said, there are clear differences in practice. In the PS, local branches
organize hustings and a ballot to select their candidate. National bodies then
ratify these choices. The national executive has the final say, notably in case
of dispute either at the local level or between the local and national lev-
els (Squarcioni 2017: 22). In LR, the national executive appoints a national
commission to select candidates, and local party members may be con-
sulted. The commission tends to consult local elected officials instead of party
members (Squarcioni 2017: 26). LaREM has a similar system: a national
commission is set up and may consult local members on candidate selection,
and the national executive ratifies the selection. In 2017, without an actual
party organization, a national commission selected candidates from a pool of
prospective candidates including MPs who had defected from the PS or the
UMP and new candidates who were selected based on their CVs and inter-
views. In addition, the party chose not to present candidates in a number of
seats held by ‘Macron-compatible’ high-profile socialists and in seats negoti-
ated with the MoDem (Evans 2017). In 2022, LaREM, renamed Renaissance,
used a central selection panel for each constituency, and sitting deputies were
not automatically reselected. Finally, the RN also has a national commission
in charge of selecting candidates; its statutes do not mention membership
consultations (Rassemblement National 2018).
66 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Two major factors contribute to this centralization: electoral pacts and gen-
der parity legislation. As parties build election pacts, they need to be able
to tell local branches that they should not select a candidate and support
another party’s candidate instead. This particularly applies for the PS and LR,
which have had long-standing pacts with smaller parties. This has remained
true in 2017 and 2022, in particular for the PS, which joined the NUPES
(Nouvelle Union Populaire, Ecologique et Sociale, New Ecological and Social
People’s Union) left-wing coalition in 2022. LaREM made some strategic
withdrawals in 2017 and formed a pre-electoral coalition with the MoDem in

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2022. In contrast, the FN does not make electoral pacts, so this is not a factor
in the centralization of its selection process.
Parties are also required by law to have 50% of women candidates in all
elections. When the electoral system has single-member constituencies (in
parliamentary elections), parties need to present 50% of women candidates,
with a two-point allowance.7 Parties that fail to meet this target receive a
fine (a deduction on their public subsidy). If progress was rather quick in
bodies elected with PR, it has been considerably slower in elections to the
Assemblée Nationale (lower house of parliament). Women represented only
26% of deputies elected in 2012, a share that increased to 39% in 2017 and
was 37% in 2022 (215 female deputies out of 577). In 2022, women candidates
represented 44% of all candidates, 48% of FN candidates, 48% of Ensemble
(LaREM + MoDem) candidates, 51% of NUPES (LFI, PS, and Greens) candi-
dates, and 36% of LR candidates. LR has always been the party most reluctant
to select more women candidates, and its public funding was cut by €1.8m
(out of €12.9m) every year between 2017 and 2022 (Lombard 2017).
Overall, it is the older parties that have tried to engage their members, and
sometimes their unregistered sympathizers, through the selection of their
presidential candidate. The selection of parliamentary candidates is a much
more centralized process; the PS is the only party that formally involves its
members in candidate selection. The RN is a very centralized party, and
members are mostly an electoral resource. In all parties, power rests mostly
within the party in public office, in charge of strategic decisions on policy and
candidate selection, with their party in central office in change of organizing
the local branches, activating them at election time, and providing resources
for the party leadership (see Table 4.2). Despite its portrayal as a structure
built by grassroots activists, LaREM set up a rather unique form of organi-
zation that goes against trends towards membership empowerment. Recent
organizational reforms in LaREM suggest a change towards a more ‘normal’
form of membership participation, but the central party remains formally
quite insulated from bottom-up pressures.
 French Political Parties and Democracy 67

Table 4.2 Summary of leadership and candidate selection rules, 1994–2022

Party leader Presidential Parliamentary

candidate candidates

PS Membership ballot 1994–2006, 2021: Local selection

(2 rounds vote on membership ballot National approval
motions) 2011–2017: open
primary
RPR/UMP/ LR Membership ballot 1994–2011, 2021: National commission
(2 rounds) membership ballot ∗ Informal local

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2017: open primary consultation
FN/RN Membership ballot Membership ballot National commission
(2 rounds) (congress vote)
LaREM Vote of the National No statutory National commission
Council (elected provision Informal local
officials + local consultation
delegates)
∗
No ballot in 1995 (2 RPR candidates stood for election), in 2002 or 2012 (the party’s candidate was the
incumbent President)

Parties and Society

French parties have traditionally been unloved. Through a combination of

factors including revolutionary distrust of organizations that could prevent
the expression of popular will, Gaullist distrust of divisions, and the perceived
role of parties in the instability of the IVth Republic, the French have tra-
ditionally been wary of political parties (Charlot 1986: 5–7, Sauger 2017:
18–19). The Gaullist presidential ideal is that of a President separate from
parties, and candidates to the Presidency who are also party leaders generally
resign from the leadership of their party once selected.
Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, the share of French people who
declared that they identified with a political party increased. By provid-
ing stability and personal identification through presidential candidates, the
semi-presidential nature of the Vth Republic seemed to have strengthened
the bond between citizens and parties (Charlot 1986: 6–7). However, sur-
vey data from the Cevipof (2010–2020) show that the last decade has been
characterized by a clear distrust towards political parties, with 80 to 90% of
respondents saying that they do not trust parties. This distrust is partially
explained by the perception that the distance between the main parties has
decreased, that parties have similar economic policies, and that politicians
are principally office-seeking (Perottino and Guasti 2020: 548). François
Hollande’s rapid U-turn on his most significant fiscal promise, increasing
68 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

taxation for the very rich, was recently seen as a symbol of the shallowness
of politicians’ promises. New parties such as LaREM but also the left-wing
LFI reject the word ‘party’, usually preferring the term ‘movement’; argue
that parties are out-of-date organizations; and prefer ‘more flexible’ forms
of organization in which membership is only a click away and policy debates
are often online.
Party membership data are not always reliable, as parties often exaggerate
the size of their membership base. Party membership was among the lowest
in Europe, at roughly 2% of the electorate in the 2000s (Scarrow and Gezgor

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2010: 825), and it has continued to decline. The two traditional parties have
lost significant shares of their membership. In 2006, the PS counted 210,000
members. At the end of François Hollande’s Presidency in 2017, it had around
100,000 members; membership in 2021 is around 22,000. LR membership
has followed a similar trajectory: the party had over 250,000 members in
2012 and nearly 150,000 in 2017. At the end of 2021, 140,000 members were
eligible to vote in the party’s membership ballot. The RN claimed to have
80,000 members in 2017 and a similar number in 2021. Other sources, how-
ever, argued it had just over 40,000 in 2017 and still did in 2021. By the time
Macron announced his candidacy, EM! counted 93,000 members, and 1,700
local committees had been created (Pietralunga 2016). LaREM claims to have
400,000 members, but this number does not seem to have changed at all since
the party’s formation. In 2019, 71,000 members voted on statute changes in
an online ballot.
LR, the PS, and the RN all have a traditional form of party membership:
requiring members to pay a fee for membership. Payment of the fee entitles
members to participate in party life, from local party meetings to internal
party votes, as well as stand in internal elections or seek selection as a party
candidate. The PS is the only party with a variable fee, indexed on the mem-
bers’ income. In 2006, the party exceptionally lowered its annual fee to €20
to attract more members, and membership costs now €20 for the first year.
Membership of LR costs €30, with special prices for couples (€40), young
people, students, and unemployed people (€15). The RN has a higher fixed
membership (€50), with prices for couples (€80), young people (also €15),
and people on low income (€30).
LaREM is the only one of the four parties that does not require the pay-
ment of a membership fee. One only needs to join the party online, and there
is no need to confirm continued membership on a regular basis. This likely
explains the unchanged number of members. It remains unclear whether the
enthusiasm that led many to join LaREM when it was formed was intact
five years later, and the party has struggled to mobilize members in local
 French Political Parties and Democracy 69

branches and in campaigns for intermediary elections since 2017. By Scar-

row’s (2015) standards, En Marche! adopted a hybrid mode of membership:
there is no fee to join the party, but members are not simple ‘cyber members’.
The party encourages its members to be active locally and provides forums
to engage in online and offline policy debates.
The distance between politicians and citizens is also compounded by the
shallowness of the links between parties and organized groups. Most French
parties do not have any link with the trade union movement or other orga-
nizations, including churches. The French Communist Party (PCF) had

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

traditional links with the CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail, Gen-
eral Labour Union) union, but these links were severed in the early 2000s
as the PCF was reaching a single-digit share of the vote. The Gaullist party
was the other mass organization, while other parties had weaker social ties
and fewer members (Sauger 2017: 19). The PS had links with teaching and
student unions, as well as some of the 1980s anti-racist movements, but these
links have become weaker, as have some of these organizations. The shift
towards values-oriented politics and the rise of individualism and single-
issue groups have weakened all parties’ ties with specific socio-economic
groups.
All French parties have a youth wing, but they do not have any other sec-
toral groups, such as women’s or farmers’ branches or organizations for Black
and ethnic-minority members. In a French context where ‘universalism’ is
seen as a key republican principle, dividing people by their origins or skin
colour is very controversial. The same arguments were once used against
gender quotas (Murray 2012). Recently, the issue of women-only meetings
or ethnic-minority-only meetings has become heavily politicized and criti-
cized (called ‘separatism’). There seems to be a consensus among mainstream
parties as well as the RN on this issue, so that this group-based approach
to representation and diversity seems presently unlikely. This limits French
parties’ ability to reach out to specific groups and restricts their recruitment
strategies to equality rhetoric.
The FN developed a series of sectoral ‘circles’ in the 1980s and 1990s, each
designed to attract a specific socio-economic group (e.g., national circle of
public servants, national circle of banking, national circle of Paris students).
They remained largely dormant. New thematic organizations (‘collectives’)
were created under Marine Le Pen’s leadership, including collectives for
young people, teachers, and a new ecology (Dezé 2016: 56). Although it
is hard to assess the level of activity and membership of these organiza-
tions, they serve the purpose of demonstrating an interest in these topics and
openness towards socio-economic groups, some of which (education and the
environment, for instance) are traditionally seen as owned by the left.
70 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

The traditional parties also organize summer ‘universities’ that bring

together party members, non-members, guest speakers and organizations,
and party leaders and elected officials. They are an opportunity for parties to
reach beyond their base by inviting like-minded organizations to have a stall
and/or participate in thematic discussions.
As in most other European countries, party membership is in decline in
France. In addition, parties’ links with organized interests and civil society
are quite weak. Attempts to attract more members have been limited in their
scope and success. LaREM’s hybrid model of party membership does not

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

seem to have altered this trend, as initial success in attracting members does
not seem to have lasted.

Parties Dependent on State Subsidies

Political parties must be registered in a prefecture as non-profit associations.

Once registered, they must report their accounts and provide a list of donors
to the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Fund-
ing (CNCCFP) annually. After a series of scandals that involved illicit party
funding in the 1980s and 1990s, donations were particularly restricted in
France: private donations from foreign and domestic companies are banned,
and individual donations are capped at €7,500. In return, public funding for
political parties with representation in Parliament is generous, depending on
the party’s number of seats and votes.
Figure 4.1 shows that French parties are very reliant on state funding. Since
1995, state funding has represented 50% to 70% of LR’s annual income and
between 30% and 45% of that of the PS.8 The importance of public fund-
ing for the RN has varied considerably over time, depending on its electoral
fortunes and the size of other sources of income. LaREM stands quite apart
from the other parties: it participated in the 2017 elections without any state
support and thanks to tens of thousands of private donations (Guesdon et al.
2019), but it has since relied heavily on state subsidies, which represented
over 90% of its income in 2018 and 80% in 2019. Since it does not ask its
members to pay a fee, it does not have any income from party members,
although some may make donations. For the other parties, membership fees
amount to at least 10% of their revenue, a small share of the parties’ resources.
In addition to membership revenue, many parties make it compulsory for
their elected officials to pay an additional contribution. This contribution
represents a small proportion of revenue for the RN and LR, but between
10% and 25% of annual income for the PS.
 Parti Socialiste RPR/UMP/LR
100% 100%

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

90% 90%
80% 80%
70% 70%
60% 60%
50% 50%
40% 40%
30% 30%
20% 20%
10% 10%
0%
0% 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2017 2019
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2017 2019

Membership fees Membership fees Elected officials

Elected officials
Public funding Public funding Private donations
Private donations

FN/RN LaREM
100% 100%
90% 90%
80% 80%
70% 70%
60% 60%
50% 50%
40% 40%
30% 30%
20% 20%
10% 10%
0% 0%
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2017 2019 2017 2018 2019

Membership fees Elected officials Membership fees Elected officials

Public funding Private donations Public funding Private donations

Figure 4.1 Sources of party income (%)

Source: Authorʼs elaboration from Légifrance 1996 JORF 264, 1996; JORF 79, 2002; annual reports from the CNCCFP website
72 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Private ordinary and campaign donations have a rather low cap, making
it hard for parties to find important resources from private sources. As elec-
tion campaigns have become more expensive, parties have tried but often
failed to find additional sources of funding. With low donation caps on cam-
paign donations, many parties and candidates have been found to have been
at the limits of legality over the years, with several condemned for illegal party
funding (like former President Jacques Chirac) or campaign funding (such
as former President Nicolas Sarkozy). Although these examples come from
the main right-wing party, politicians from all parties, including the PS and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the RN, have at some stage received convictions for illegal party or campaign
funding.
The introduction and development of the public funding regime corre-
sponded to an imperative in the face of political and financial scandals. The
decline in party membership does not seem to particularly coincide with
the introduction and development of public subsidies (as also shown for
other countries by Pierre et al. 2000). Contrary to the cartel thesis, the fund-
ing regime did not prevent the emergence and success of competitors like
LaREM and the RN, or LFI and the Greens (Katz and Mair 1995; Clift and
Fisher 2004: 691).

Divided Parties in a Changing Party System

As mentioned previously, the PS allows for the development of party ideolog-

ical factions (called ‘currents’) thanks to its use of PR in leadership elections
and all intra-party elections. It is the only party that still recognizes such fac-
tions. This recognition of factions has not always been without problems.
Throughout its history, the PS has been divided between centre-left and
left-wing factions, and more recently between Europhiles and Eurosceptics
(notably at the time of the 2005 referendum on the European Constitu-
tion but also later during debates over the European Fiscal Compact and
the EU’s attitude towards Greece during the Great Recession). PS factions
are not permanent; the coalitions of prominent party cadres that constitute
the leadership of these factions can change rapidly as they fall out over pro-
grammatic differences or personal ambitions. The 2017 elections marked a
turning point, and party divisions contributed to the weakening of the party.
Even before the election, some members and party cadres left to support
Emmanuel Macron’s campaign, while others left to seek nomination as a
parliamentary candidate for LaREM. At the other end of the PS ideological
 French Political Parties and Democracy 73

spectrum, a few followed 2017 presidential candidate Benoit Hamon and

joined his new party, Generation.s.
This factionalism of the PS became the model not to follow for the PS defec-
tors who founded LaREM. They saw this factionalism as one of the main
causes of the PS’s problems and chose a form of organization that prevented
the emergence of programmatic groups that could openly criticize the party
line and the development of alternative sources of power and resources for
ambitious politicians eager to take over the party. As a result, LaREM does
not recognize factions, and its first statutes severed the link between members

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

and party leadership and executive bodies, which were mostly selected by the
leadership. However, this did not prevent the development of tendencies in
LaREM. Perhaps inevitably in a party that included former members of the
PS, MoDem, and LR, there are tensions over several policy issues, notably
economic and social policy. The strict party discipline imposed by the par-
liamentary leadership and the difficulty to channel issues internally led to
breakaways from the parliamentary party and the formation of a new parlia-
mentary group of former LaREM MPs in the 2017–2022 National Assembly.
As a result, LaREM lost its parliamentary majority, but its coalition with the
MoDem and a few other MPs still sufficient to provide the government with
a majority in parliament.
On paper, the UMP recognized factions even more than the PS because
of the different parties and tendencies that contributed to its formation. This
was designed to pacify some of the more ambitious small parties from the
UDF that joined the UMP. Intra-party factions, called ‘movements’, could
gain official recognition and financial resources provided they garnered the
support of at least 10 MPs, 10 local federations, and 10% of the congress.
‘Movements’ were not granted the promised support and were scrapped
when the UMP was transformed into The Republicans in 2015 under for-
mer President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to return to politics. His ambition
was to lead the party into the next presidential election as the leader of a
new, united party, following the Gaullist model of a party unified behind its
leader (Olivier 2003: 761). The open presidential primary that took place
ahead of the 2017 election and the internal ballot ahead of the 2022 elec-
tions pitted several candidates representing different sensibilities in the party
against each other, from candidates who focused on immigration and secu-
rity (Sarkozy in 2017, Ciotti in 2022) to more centrist and economically
liberal candidates (Alain Juppé in 2017, Pécresse in 2022). After Fillon’s vic-
tory and subsequent defeat in the first round of the 2017 elections, the party
was weakened by several defections to Macron’s side. For instance, deputy
74 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Edouard Philippe, who had supported Juppé in the primary, and Gérard
Darmanin, an ambitious conservative deputy who had supported Sarkozy,
became Prime Minister and Minister for the Budget, respectively, in Macron’s
first government.
The FN and then RN were and are traditional radical right organizations
in which the party leader suffers little challenge. However, the late 1990s
saw a brief period of intra-party divisions between the supporters of party
leader Jean-Marie Le Pen and those of Bruno Mégret, who was then Le Pen’s
second-in-command. The division, over the extent to which the party should

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

aim to be ‘respectable’ and reach out the elements of the centre-right, eventu-
ally led to a split in 1998–1999, with Mégret forming his own party and taking
with him many FN elected officials and party cadres (Ellinas 2009: 213). The
FN remained the dominant party at the extreme right, but this debate was to
remain important for the party. When Marine Le Pen succeeded her father
as party leader in 2011, the party moved towards a more ‘respectable’ image,
rejecting Jean-Marie Le Pen’s tendency to create scandals with extreme posi-
tions on the Holocaust or the Nazi occupation of France. Such a statement
even led to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s removal from the position of Honorary Pres-
ident in 2015 (a position that was scrapped in the reform of party statutes the
same year). The party also has several tendencies, an ethno-nationalist group,
a Eurosceptic sovereigntist group, and a small traditionalist Catholic group,
but they are not formally organized. The FN and now RN also have relatively
unstable parliamentary groups, with members often leaving their parliamen-
tary groups. For instance, the FN group in the European Parliament lost 9 of
its 24 members between 2014 and 2019, and one of its 2017 MPs, José Evrard,
defected in November of the same year. However, the larger parliamentary
group elected in 2022 is more cohesive and disciplined, suggesting a more
professional approach to party discipline as the party feels that it could be
close to power.
All the parties have suffered from divisions in recent times and had to
manage different internal tendencies. Battles for internal power, candida-
cies, and strategies have led to splits and defections. Governing parties have
always needed to be broad churches, and the strength of the various tenden-
cies is often measured in internal ballots for the selection of candidates in
presidential elections or for internal party elections, but even small divisions
sometimes seem to lead to a split. The presidential nature of the system leads
some ambitious politicians to think that they can form their own party and
succeed without the support of a major party. Even though Macron’s success
shows that it can be done, he remains an exception.
 French Political Parties and Democracy 75

Communications

Like all parties, French parties face citizens who are harder to reach and less
deferential to elites. In a context of an increased variety of online sources that
citizens use to find political information and express political views, French
parties have had to engage with the online space.
All four parties naturally have a website. These websites provide informa-
tion about party positions, campaign activities during pre-election periods,
recent events, and discourses from prominent party leaders. These websites

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

also have clearly indicated buttons that allow visitors to join and donate to
the party. The PS allows visitors to subscribe to a newsletter, and the web-
sites of the PS, LaREM, and the RN also allow visitors to become ‘volunteers’,
separately from membership, in a range of activities. For the PS, volunteering
opportunities were focused on online technical support and the production
of online materials, whereas volunteering activities in the RN and LaREM
were mostly about campaign activities and supporting the party to dissemi-
nate its message. The website of LaREM also allows visitors to ‘join a cause’ or
even create one, provided it adheres to the party’s ‘values charter’, join a local
committee, or attend events, which are listed on a page and can be found
through a search by location. The website of the RN also allows visitors to
sign petitions and, uniquely, buy RN-branded products. The website of LR
was the only one that asked for visitors’ opinion on an issue. Its homepage has
a ‘question of the week’, asking for visitors’ views on a pre-selected question.
With the exceptions of this question and LaREM’s causes, these websites are
mostly designed to share information with visitors and facilitate their engage-
ment in the party, but they do not provide many opportunities for visitors to
share their views with the parties.
The parties have also all engaged with social media. They all have YouTube
channels and active X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram accounts
(although the Instagram account of the PS shows irregular levels of activity)
with tens or hundreds of thousands of followers (see Table 4.3). Facebook and
Twitter are clearly the main channels. The parties have not really engaged
with TikTok, which appeals to a younger audience, with the exception of
the RN, although some individual politicians do have accounts (Emmanuel
Macron has 3.9 million followers; Marine Le Pen, 589,300; Olivier Faure, PS
general secretary, 3,722; LR president Eric Ciotti does not have an account;
neither does Stéphane Séjourné, general secretary of Renaissance). Although
comments are also possible on these platforms, these accounts are again
mostly a way to inform and engage citizens through short, sharable content,
76 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Table 4.3 Number of followers of French partiesʼ social media

accounts, 2023

Facebook Twitter Instagram TikTok

LR 205,000 327,400 53,600 2,275

PS 127,000 240,000 17,500 6,804
RN 500,000 328,200 48,200 637,600
Renaissance 255,000 316,900 92,500 3,218

Source: Data compiled by the author

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

not really to engage in meaningful conversations with citizens or specific
groups.
As forms of communication have become a lot more atomized, political
parties have developed communications strategies to include a variety of
social media platforms and provide websites that allow visitors to gain infor-
mation, join, or donate to the party. In a context in which citizens are looking
for more ways to engage with their representatives and institutions, these
mostly one-way, top-down forms of communication are unlikely to satisfy
citizens’ interest in more direct forms of political engagement.

Conclusion: French Parties and Democracy

French political parties vary greatly in age and ideological leanings; they also
vary in their organization, although there are some similarities. Party mem-
bers are generally involved in the selection of party leaders and candidates
for the Presidency, and the party leadership is responsible for party pol-
icy and the overall selection of parliamentary candidates. Parties are quite
centralized, but this centralization also goes together with divisions and occa-
sional splits and defections. Like parties elsewhere, French parties have lost
members, and innovations to attract new members and engage members
differently are rare.
The French party system has undergone significant changes, most notably
in the range and strength of relevant parties. These changes, though, do
not necessarily mean that France is facing a decline of parties. The semi-
presidential system allows some personalities to build a large following
outside of parties, but the example of Macron shows that a President elected
without a traditional party to support his candidacy then builds a party to
back his action. French democracy has not become any less centred around
 French Political Parties and Democracy 77

political parties: it is now centred on a larger number of parties, while parties

have tended to lose members, confirming Svåsand’s (1994: 304) distinction
between ‘crisis of party’ and ‘decline of party’. However, the parties are suf-
fering from a double problem: an issue-salience gap between voters and
parties, and younger citizens increasingly interested in non-electoral forms
of political participation.
A sign of weakness in the workings of French democracy may be the dis-
connect between citizens’ main concerns and the issues most emphasized
by political parties. Whereas a majority of voters are still mostly interested

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

in ‘old’ left–right issues about economic policy, the role of the state in the
economy, and redistribution, political debates now seem to focus on cul-
tural issues, most notably immigration, national identity, and security (Tiberj
2017). This shift towards a competition based on cultural issues was initiated
by the RN, and other parties followed suit. This gap between the concerns of
citizens and the issues politicized by parties and their candidates is a source
of frustration for voters, which can fuel abstention but also protest votes.
The decline in electoral participation and party membership that has hap-
pened in France as it has in other European countries is not necessarily a sign
of democratic crisis. It may be more a crisis of representative democracy, of
which parties are a key agent, but research has shown that although post-
baby-boom generations vote less systematically than previous generations,
they are no less interested in politics than previous generations. They are,
however, interested in forms of political participation that go beyond casting
a ballot every four or five years (Tiberj 2017). For parties, this means finding
ways to engage citizens differently, demonstrating that party members can
have more of a role to play, but also thinking creatively about citizen engage-
ment with institutions. However, like parties elsewhere, French parties have
not yet found a way to demonstrate that they can indeed engage their mem-
bers differently and more efficiently than single-issues groups or individual
campaign action.

Notes
1. This chapter chooses to use the acronym LaREM, which is used by the party itself,
although other acronyms can be found, including LREM (see Perottino and Guasti 2020)
and LRM (see Le Monde 2017 and all Le Monde articles on the subject). The party was
renamed Renaissance in 2022.
2. The RPR is the result of the transformation of the old Gaullist party UDR (Union of
Democrats for the Republic) into a new party by Jacques Chirac in 1976.
78 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

3. The UDF was created in 1978 as an electoral alliance of small non-Gaullist centre-right
parties to support President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing against the hegemony of Gaullism
on the right.
4. Article 49.3 of the Constitution allows the Government to pass legislation if a majority
of deputies reject a motion of no confidence. The motion of no confidence on pension
reform failed by nine votes.
5. There is also a convention, which includes all party members, but no party congress
proper made up mainly by delegates elected by lower-level party bodies.
6. LaREM became Renaissance after the 2022 presidential elections, with new statutes
adopted in September 2022. This chapter does not include details about these changes,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

focusing instead on party rules that affected the 2017 and 2022 electoral processes.
7. When the electoral system is list-based (local, regional, and European Parliament
elections), lists must have 50% of women and alternate men and women candidates
(a method called zipping).
8. The 2019 accounts of Les Républicains are not representative of their usual income: the
sale of their headquarters brought in an additional €50m to the party’s coffers.

References

Amjahad, Anissa and Clément Jadot. 2012. ‘Le modèle organisationnel du Front
National’. In Pascal Delwit (ed), Le Front national. Mutations de l’extrême droite.
Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 57–76.
Bachelot, Carole. 2007. ‘La culture d’organisation au Parti socialiste: De l’explication
à l’appropriation des normes’. In Florence Haegel (ed), Partis politiques et système
partisan en France. Paris: Presses de Science Po, 145–181.
Cevipof. 2010–2020. ‘Le Baromètre de la confiance politique’. https://www.
sciencespo.fr/cevipof/fr/content/les-resultats-par-vague.html (Accessed 21 July
2021).
Charlot, Jean. 1986. ‘La transformation de l’image des partis politiques français’.
Revue Française de Science Politique, 36(1):5–13.
CNCCFP. n.d. ‘Nos Ressources’, https://www.cnccfp.fr/nos-ressources/?category_
resource=49 (Accessed 13 July 2021).
Clift, Ben and Justin Fisher. 2004. ‘Comparative Party Finance Reform: The Cases of
France and Britain’. Party Politics, 10(6):677–699.
Cole, Alistair. 2003. ‘Stress, Strain and Stability in the French Party System’. In Jocelyn
Evans (ed), The French Party System. Manchester: Manchester University Press,
11–26.
Delaurens, Diane. 2018. ‘En marche, la politique moderne?’. Esprit, 4:11–17.
Deschodt, Jean-Pierre. 2007. ‘Du collectivisme radical à l’exercice du pouvoir. Les
socialistes’. In Guillaume Bernard and Eric Duquesnoy (eds), Les forces politiques
françaises: genèse, environnement, recomposition. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 253–267.
 French Political Parties and Democracy 79

Dezé, Alexandre. 2016. ‘Le changement dans la continuité: L’organisation partisane

du Front National’. Pouvoirs, 157:49–62.
Dupoirier, Elizabeth and Nicolas Sauger. 2010. ‘Four Rounds in a Row: The Impact
of Presidential Election Outcomes on Legislative Elections in France’. French
Politics, 8(1):21–41.
Duverger, Maurice. 1973. ‘Un quadrille bipolaire’. Le Monde 15 March. https://
www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1973/03/15/un-quadrille-bipolaire_2548100_
1819218.html (Accessed 12 July 2021).
Ellinas, Antonis A. 2009. ‘Chaotic but Popular? Extreme-right Organisation and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Performance in the Age of Media Communication’. Journal of Contemporary
European Studies, 17(2):209–221.
Evans, Jocelyn. 2017. ‘La candidature de Macron e il movimento En Marche!’. In
Riccardo Brizzi and Marc Lazar (eds), La Francia di Macron. Bologna: Il Mulino
http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/121054.
Fabre, Elodie. 2023. ‘Explaining the success of Macron and La République en Marche
in 2017: Political supply and demand in turbulent times’. Paper presented at
the 2023 annual conference of the Political Studies Association, Liverpool, 3–5
April.
Gallagher, Michael. 2019. Election indices dataset. http://www.tcd.ie/Political_
Science/people/michael_gallagher/ElSystems/index.php, (Accessed 14 July
2021).
Grossman, Emiliano. 2019. ‘France’s Yellow Vests—Symptom of a Chronic Disease’.
Political Insight, 10(1):30–34.
Grunberg, Gérard and Florence Haegel. 2008. ‘Le bipartisme imparfait en France et
en Europe’. Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée, 14(2):325–339.
Guesdon, Julie, Sylvain Tronchet, and the Radio France Investigative Cell.
2019. ‘La moitié de la campagne d’Emmanuel Macron financée par des
grands donateurs’. https://www.franceculture.fr/politique/comment-800-grands-
donateurs-ont-finance-la-moitie-de-la-campagne-demmanuel-macron (Accessed
21 December 2021).
Haegel, Florence. 2007. ‘Le pluralisme à l’UMP. Structuration idéologique et
compétition interne’. In Florence Haegel (ed.), Partis politiques et système partisan
en France. Paris: Presses de Science Po, 219–245.
Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 1995. ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and
Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’. Party Politics, 1(1):5–28.
Le Monde 2017 ‘Législatives: Questions sue la liste de candidats de La République
en Marche qui est attendue’, Le Monde 11 May, https://www.lemonde.fr/elections-
legislatives-2017/article/2017/05/11/legislatives-une-liste-de-450-candidats-
de-la-republique-en-marche-devoilee-aujourd-hui_5125760_5076653.html
(accessed 26 January 2024).
80 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Légifrance. 1996. JORF 264. Commission Nationale Des Comptes de Campagne et

des Financements Politiques, Avis relatif à la publication générale des comptes des
partis et groupements politiques afférents à l’exercice 1995. https://www.legifrance.
gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000563774 (Accessed 13 July 2021).
Légifrance. 2021. Constitution du 4 Octobre 1958 https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/
loda/id/JORFTEXT000000571356/2021-04-02/ (Accessed 7 April 2021).
Lépinard, Eléonore. 2016. ‘From Breaking the Rule to Making the Rules: The Adop-
tion, Entrenchment, and Diffusion of Gender Quotas in France’. Politics, Groups,
and Identities, 4(2):231–245.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Lombard, Gaël. 2017. ‘Non-respect de la parité: ce que cela coûte aux partis’. Le
Parisien 8 March. https://www.leparisien.fr/elections/legislatives/non-respect-
de-la-parite-ce-que-cela-coute-aux-partis-08-03-2017-6743481.php (Accessed
17/12/2021).
Marcilloux-Giummarra, Sandrine. 2011. ‘Droit constitutionnel et vie politique.
Le financement des partis politiques’. Revue Française de Droit Constitutionnel,
65:163–174.
Marcus, Jonathan. 1995. The National Front in French Politics: The Resistible Rise of
Jean-Marie Le Pen, Macmillan: London.
Mayer, Nonna. 1998. ‘The French National Front’. In Hans-Georg Betz and Stefan
Immerfall (eds), The New Politics of the Right: Neo-populist Parties and Movements
in Established Democracies. London: Macmillan, 11–25.
Mossuz-Lavau, Janine. 2020. Le clivage gauche droite: Toute une histoire. Paris:
Presses de Science Po.
Murray, Rainbow. 2012. ‘Parity in France: A ‘Dual-track’ Solution to Women’s Under-
representation’. West European Politics, 35(2):343–361.
Olivier, Laurent. 2003. ‘Ambiguïtés de la démocratisation partisane en France (PS,
RPR, UMP)’. Revue Française de Science Politique, 53(5):761–790.
Perottino, Marc, and Petra Guasti. 2020. ‘Technocratic Populism à la Française? The
Roots and Mechanisms of Emmanuel Macron’s Success’, Politics and Governance,
8(4):545–555.
Pierre, Jon, Lars Svåsand, and Anders Widfeldt. 2000. ‘State Subsidies to Political
Parties: Confronting Rhetoric with Reality’. West European Politics, 23(3):1–24.
Pietralunga, Cédric. 2016. ‘Le faux suspense sur la candidature d’Emmanuel Macron
touche à sa fin’. Le Monde 9 November. https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/
2016/11/09/le-faux-suspense-sur-la-candidature-d-emmanuel-macron-touche-a-
sa-fin_5028059_823448.html (Accessed 12 August 2020).
Rassemblement National. 2018. ‘Statuts du Rassemblement National’.
Raulin, Nathalie. 2016. ‘Macron lance sa «grande marche»’. Libération 26 May.
https://www.liberation.fr/france/2016/05/28/macron-lance-sa-grande-marche_
1455768 (Accessed 17 February 2020).
 French Political Parties and Democracy 81

Sauger, Nicolas. 2017. ‘Raisons et évolution du rejet des partis’. Pouvoirs, 163:16–26.
Scarrow, Susan E. 2015. Beyond Party Membership: Changing Approaches to Partisan
Mobilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scarrow, Susan E. and Burcu Gezgor. 2010. ‘Declining Memberships, Chang-
ing Members? European Political Party Members in a New Era’. Party Politics,
16(6):823–843.
Squarcioni, Laure. 2017. ‘Devenir candidat en France: règles et pratiques de sélection
au PS et à l’UMP pour les élections législatives’. Politique et Société, 36(2):13–38.
Svåsand, Lars. 1994. ‘Change and Adaptation in Norwegian Party Organisations’. In

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair (eds), How Parties Organize: Change and Adapta-
tion in Party Organizations in Western Democracies. London: Sage, 304–331.
Tiberj, Vincent. 2017. Les citoyens qui viennent: Comment le renouvellement
générationnel transforme la politique en France. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France.
5
The Long Way towards Polarized
Pluralism
Party and Party System Change in Germany

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Michael Angenendt and Simon D. Brause

Introduction

In October 2019, the entire republic looked at Thuringia, a federal state

located in eastern Germany: for the first time in German history, a coali-
tion of the political centre had become impossible in numerical terms after
a federal state election—the Christian Democrats (CDU), Social Democrats
(SPD), Greens, and Liberals (FDP) were outnumbered in parliament.1 Fur-
thermore, for the first time in a German federal state, a far-left party, The
Left, represented the largest political force, followed by the populist radical
right Alternative for Germany (AfD). The political centre had eroded; the left
and right fringes had clearly strengthened. The erosion of the political centre
outlined is, so far, an exception. Nevertheless, it points to profound changes
in the German party system. Over the last decades, CDU/CSU2 and SPD,
which can be characterized as catch-all parties, were losing support among
the electorate at both federal and federal state levels (Poguntke 2014). Simul-
taneously, other parties like the Greens, The Left, and more recently the AfD
gained votes.
In consequence, the (formerly) dominant Christian Democrats and Social
Democrats are no longer automatically senior partners in coalitions, a
trend that became apparent in the 2010s. In 2011, the Greens in Baden-
Wuerttemberg provided the prime minister for the first time and became
the largest party in the subsequent election in 2016. With the establishment
of the AfD in the German party system, for the first time a populist radical
right party has been represented in the Bundestag since 2017. Consequently,
the alternating coalition model that has characterized German politics since
the 1960s, with the CDU/CSU and SPD competing to lead the government,

Michael Angenendt and Simon D. Brause, The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of
Democracy. Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Michael Angenendt and Simon
D. Brause (2024). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0005
 The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism 83

has become outdated. These developments have significant consequences for

party competition and have an impact on German politics.
Challenges may arise for the German party system and its actors, especially
from a weakening of the function of government formation. The number
of small, stable government coalitions decreases, while oversized coalitions
increase. This makes it more difficult to change the status quo. At the same
time, the opposition is weakened and splits into small democratic parties
and extreme parties. Overall, this development could lead to a centrifugal
dynamic of party competition in the future that further bolsters extreme

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

parties, particularly when coupled with an irresponsible opposition that pro-
motes unrealistic political demands, thus fuelling a politics of overbidding.
Sartori (2005: 116–123) addressed some of those potential problems as con-
stitutive factors for a polarized pluralism type of party system: the existence
of a bilateral opposition and anti-system parties, as well as a polarized cen-
trifugal party competition. Such a multi-party system exhibits a high degree
of conflict, with extreme parties on both sides of the ideological spectrum fur-
ther increasing polarization. This creates a higher probability for democratic
dysfunction and unstable governments.
Therefore, we analyse the challenges facing the established parties and the
party system in Germany in the early 2020s and trace the path towards polar-
ized pluralism. For this purpose, our study focuses on the changing supply
and demand in German politics and is structured as follows. We first describe
the major trends of the party system in the post-war period. Thereafter we
systematically analyse these developments using several indicators to assess
the party system and party competition based on longitudinal data. On the
demand side, we examine volatility, parties’ vote share in the federal state
elections, and turnout.3 On the supply side, we shed light on the polarization
of the party system and on coalition constellations in the German federal
states. We also address the challenges parties face as organizations in a chang-
ing political environment to draw a comprehensive picture. Here the focus is
on membership figures, party financing, intra-party democracy, and digital
communication. Finally, we discuss our findings and the consequences for
the future of German politics.

Party System Change since 1949

After the first federal election in 1949, 10 parties entered the Bundestag,
covering a broad spectrum from left to right. However, the strong fragmen-
tation decreased noticeably in the three subsequent federal elections. In the
84 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

election to the fourth Bundestag in 1961, three parties still managed to enter
parliament: the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, and the Liber-
als. For the next 22 years, they shaped German politics in different coalition
constellations. This period represents the famous 2.5-party system, in which
one of the two catch-all parties—together with the Liberals as ‘kingmaker’—
formed either a centre-left or centre-right cabinet (except for the first grand
coalition from 1966 to 1969) (Niedermayer 2006: 115). After the initial phase
of relatively high fragmentation and the subsequent phase of the stable 2.5-
party system, the spectrum has widened since the 1980s. Figure 5.1 illustrates

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

this development.4 The solid line displays the electoral fragmentation in
terms of the effective number of electoral parties (ENEP) from 1949 until
2021 for the federal elections, while the dotted line represents the parliamen-
tary fragmentation for the federal elections in terms of the effective number
of parliamentary parties (ENPP).
The increasing fragmentation corresponds to social changes and the
modernization of Western European societies, with considerable impact on

5
Effective Number of Parties

0
49

53
57

61

65

19 9
72
76

80
83

87
90

94
98
02
05

09

13
17
21
6
19

19
19

19

19

19

19

19
19

19
19

19
19
20
20

20

20
20
20

ENEP' (effective number of electoral parties)

ENPP' (effective number of parliamentary parties)

Figure 5.1 Fragmentation of the German party system, 1949–2021

Source: Authorʼs illustration, based on https://www.bundeswahlleiterin.de/ (Accessed 15 December
2023)
 The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism 85

the political agenda which led to permanent changes to the party system. Due
to a general increase in prosperity in Western European societies, economic
issues became less relevant, and a new, socio-cultural conflict was gradually
established. This differs from the old class conflict between labour and cap-
ital and shifts public attention to issues such as environmental protection,
emancipation, and the inclusion of social minorities. Various labels in politi-
cal science now address the two opposing poles (e.g. Kriesi et al. 2006; Merkel
2017). Essentially, the contrast refers to green, alternative, and libertarian
values (GAL) on the one hand and traditional, authoritarian, and national

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

values (TAN) on the other (Marks et al. 2006). The changing demand in the
electorate has been reflected on the supply side since the beginning of the
1980s in the establishment of Green parties in Western European party sys-
tems (Poguntke 1987; Franklin 1992). In Germany, the Greens, founded in
1979–1980, succeeded in entering the Bundestag for the first time in 1983.
Subsequently, the German party system first took a different path from
other party systems in Western Europe. As a reaction to the post-material
change, described as the ‘silent revolution’ by Inglehart (1971), right-wing
populist parties emerged in many countries, occupying the traditional,
authoritarian, and nationalist pole in party competition—the ‘silent counter-
revolution’ (Ignazi 1992) spread in Western Europe. However, a populist
radical right party in Germany succeeded relatively late on the federal level—
namely the AfD, which was founded in 2013 (Arzheimer 2015).5 Contrary
to expectations, economic issues continued to dominate German politics as
the country struggled with the social and economic consequences of reuni-
fication. The economic reforms implemented to solve these problems are
known by the slogan ‘Agenda 2010’. They were introduced by the centre-
left coalition of Social Democrats and Greens under Chancellor Schröder,
following the politics of the ‘third way’. Consequently, disappointed Social
Democrats split off and founded the ‘Electoral Alternative for Labour and
Social Justice’ (WASG) in early 2005, which two years later merged with
the post-Communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor
party to the Socialist Unity Party (SED) (which governed the German Demo-
cratic Republic), to form The Left (Spier et al. 2007). Thus, the Social
Democrats’ shift to the right on economic issues created a gap on the left
of the political spectrum, which The Left party has since occupied in the
Bundestag.
Since the 1980s, the value change and the individualization of society have
resulted in the vanishing hold of the catch-all parties (Poguntke 2014). Until
the mid-2010s, the dwindling electoral anchorage was more noticeable for
86 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

the Social Democrats than for the Christian Democrats, as the former came
under competitive pressure due to the success of the Greens and The Left
party. Thus, the first grand coalition under Chancellor Merkel, from 2005
to 2009, was already the consequence of the declining support of the catch-
all parties, especially the Social Democrats. The effective number of parties
(see Figure 5.1) reflects this development. In 2009, we see almost the same
picture of a fragmented party system as in 1949. The second grand coalition
under Chancellor Merkel, which governed between 2013 and 2017, triggered
a dynamic that accelerated the downward electoral spiral and put the Chris-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

tian Democrats under increased competitive pressure from the right. The
AfD was initially a populist Eurosceptic party that criticized government
policies dealing with the European financial and economic crisis since 2008
(Franzmann 2016a). Its approval ratings had been falling before the refugee
crisis in 2015–2016 again boosted its electoral appeal. The AfD thus shifted
away from stressing liberal market positions on the economic dimension to
emphasize traditional and nationalist positions on the socio-cultural dimen-
sion (Franzmann 2016b). Since then, the party has represented the central
antipode to the Greens on the socio-cultural dimension. The entry of the
AfD after the 2017 federal elections had thus further ‘normalized’ the Ger-
man party system, as a populist radical right party was now represented in
the Bundestag for the first time (Berbuir et al. 2015). Since then, six par-
ties have held seats in the Bundestag—which had not occurred since the
founding years of the republic. This recent development in party competi-
tion might be transforming the German party system from one of moderate
pluralism to polarized pluralism, as the fragmentation and ideological range
during the Bundestag elections are increasing (Schmitt 2018: 61). The frag-
mentation of the opposition and the conflicts with the AfD correspond to the
patterns described by Sartori (2005), which are expected in polarized party
systems.
The 2021 federal election marked the end of the Merkel era after 16 years
(she did not stand for re-election). After the election, a three-party coali-
tion was formed for the first time at the federal level, led by Chancellor Olaf
Scholz and including the SPD, Greens, and FDP. Never before in German
history had a party with such a small vote share selected the Chancellor and
been confronted with comparatively strong coalition partners (Angenendt
and Kinski 2022), which is a consequence of the growing fragmentation of
the party system. The federal election has presented an additional challenge,
as forming a government majority has become increasingly arduous, poten-
tially necessitating oversized coalitions. Consequently, the fragmentation of
the German party system has resulted in the need to form cross-ideological
 The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism 87

alliances, as exemplified by the establishment of the so-called ‘traffic light

coalition’ following the 2021 federal elections.

The Demand Side of German Politics: Dwindling

Anchoring of the Party System in Society

Our empirical analysis illustrates the development of the party system and
the resulting challenges for parties and voters based on various established

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

indicators. In this section, the focus lies on the anchorage of party democracy
in society.

Volatility

Figure 5.2 shows the changes in aggregate voting behaviour. The high volatil-
ity in the initial phase weakened until the 1980s but has increased since then.
While the increased volatility indicates a dealignment process (Norris 1999),
it is also an indicator of intensified competition for votes, which puts catch-all
parties in particular under competitive pressure. Our data correspond to

40

30
Volatility in %

20

10

0
49
53
57
61
65
69
72
76
80
83

19 7
90
94
98

20 2
05
09
13
17
21
8

0
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19

19
19
20

20
20
20
20

Federal level States (West)

States (East)

Figure 5.2 Volatility in German federal and federal state elections

Source: Authorʼs illustration
88 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

studies investigating individual voting behaviour, which show an increased

number of swing voters (Schoen 2003). Party identification, which shapes
voting behaviour in the long term, loses importance for voting behaviour
in favour of an orientation towards candidates and issues (Arzheimer 2006;
Rahat and Kenig 2018). These criteria also affect the supply side. In the
German mixed-member electoral system, constituency candidates increas-
ingly pursue a candidate-centred and localized campaign strategy to gain
personalized votes (Kriesi 2011; Bukow and Angenendt 2019).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The evolution of vote share and voter turnout

When examining the vote share development6 in West and East Germany,
several significant patterns emerge. First and foremost, it is evident that the
catch-all parties experienced a decline in electoral support in both the federal
and federal state elections across the country. Moreover, while The Left party
and the AfD have particularly strong support in East Germany, the strength
of the Greens is primarily concentrated in West Germany. The notable pres-
ence of the Greens in West Germany and the AfD in East Germany illustrates
the pronounced cultural divide within German party competition that exists
between the East and West.
In terms of voter turnout7 , we observe an initial increase until the mid-
1970s, reaching a peak of approximately 91%, followed by a decline to an
all-time low of 71% in the 2009 federal elections. In eastern Germany, turnout
is lower than in western Germany, reflecting a relatively weak anchoring of
party democracy. Despite starting at lower levels during federal state elec-
tions, a decline in voter turnout from the 1970s until the mid-2000s can be
observed. Since then, voter turnout has been rising in western and eastern
German states. The increase has been particularly noticeable in the east since
2013, indicating an ongoing politicization of citizens due to the emergence of
the AfD, which mobilizes both supporters and opponents to cast their vote
(e.g. Schulte-Cloos and Leininger 2022).

The Supply Side of German Politics: Altered Party

Competition

This section addresses the altered party competition. To this end, we inves-
tigate the polarization within the party system and the resulting changed
patterns of coalition formulae.
 The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism 89

Polarization

Polarization describes the pattern of interactions between parties within a

party system. We understand polarization as an indicator of ‘the overall
spread of the ideological spectrum’ (Sartori 2005: 111). Polarization is one of
the distinctive features of polarized pluralism, which develops from centrifu-
gal party competition (Sartori 2005: 120). The larger the ideological distances
between parties, the harder it will be to form a majority government. Hence,
in an extreme form, polarization is a threat to the functioning of democracies

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

(Dalton 2008: 902; Schmitt and Franzmann 2018: 170). To measure polariza-
tion, we use left–right values from Franzmann and Kaiser (2006: 168), which
are derived from manifesto data (Volkens et al. 2021). We calculated polar-
ization based on the weighted standard deviation of all left–right values of
the relevant parties8 from the mean left–right value of the party system and
based on the range between the maximum and the minimum of ideological
positions for each election. This measurement is fit to assess the overall polar-
ization of the party system and takes extreme parties (e.g. AfD) into account
(Schmitt 2022: 63, 100).

10

7
Party System Polarization

0
9
3
7

72

83

20 2

21
5
69

80

90

94

98

09

13
17
19 7

05
76
4
5
5

0
6

8
19
19
19

19

19

19

20

20
19
19

19

19

19

20

20
20
19
19

Figure 5.3 Party system polarization in Germany, 1949–2021

Source: Authorʼs illustration
90 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

As seen in Figure 5.3, the polarization of the party system is higher in

the formative years of the republic and then drops to an all-time low in
1965. This coincided with the formation of the first grand coalition in 1966.
Following that, the party system polarized continuously, showing a steep
increase from 1980 until 1983. This increase could be attributed to the
shift towards more conservative positions by the CDU/CSU under Chan-
cellor Kohl (called geistig moralische Wende9 ) and the establishment of the
Green party (Franzmann 2008: 30). After the next federal elections, from
1987 until 1998, polarization stabilized on this level, although the PDS

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

(later The Left) entered the federal politics stage in 1990 (Franzmann 2008:
30). Until 2002 the German party system was a moderately polarized party
system.
Since then, the party system has increasingly polarized (Schmitt 2018: 55),
reaching a high point in 2005. This resulted from a shift to the right by the
CDU/CSU and to the left by the SPD (Schmitt 2018: 53). Nevertheless, a
grand coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD was formed, as the other coalition
options would have included the FDP and the Greens, which was considered
an impracticable choice at the time. However, the next election in 2009 pro-
duced a bipolar competition resulting in a classic centre-right CDU/CSU–
FDP government coalition. Since then, until the 2021 federal election, the
German party system created only grand coalitions situated in the ideologi-
cal centre. This was accompanied by a leftward drift of CDU/CSU in the 2013
election and contributed to depolarization for a short period. The ideological
centre’s occupation was followed by the establishment of a new competitor
on the right side of the ideological spectrum, the AfD (Schmitt 2018: 53).
This caused heightened polarization in the 2017 elections, introducing the
first right-of-CDU/CSU party in years.
The 2021 federal election witnessed a fluid competition between main-
stream parties, with discussions about various coalition options that cut
across ideological lines. In the run-up to the election, the Greens, CDU/CSU,
and FDP demonstrated a movement towards the political centre, while the
AfD distanced itself from other parties. Hence, the overall polarization of the
German party system was mainly a result of the radicalization of the AfD
between 2013 and 2021, when it shifted considerably further to the right of
the CDU/CSU position.
To summarize, polarization in Germany has increased considerably since
the 1960s. In the following decades polarization rose with the establishment
of new competitors, like the Greens in the 1980s, The Left in the 1990s, and
the AfD in recent years. The establishment of the latter two, especially, has
produced a centrifugal party competition that has weakened the ideological
 The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism 91

centre parties and strengthened the bilateral opposition on the left (The Left)
and the right (AfD). However, these dynamics exhibit asymmetry as the AfD
achieves greater electoral success compared to The Left, which encountered
challenges in securing parliamentary representation during the 2021 federal
election.

Coalition governments

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

From the 1960s onwards, the stable Germany party system led to similarly
stable governments dominated by either CDU/CSU or SPD as the major
coalition partner and the FDP or, later, the Greens as the junior partner.
This stability resulted in the impression of a plebiscitary element regarding
the election of the Chancellor, as it was clear that the candidate from either
CDU/CSU or SPD would be the next head of the government (Niclauß 1987:
227). This stability, however, has changed drastically. Today, the electoral
weakness of the former catch-all parties, the high volatility, and fragmenta-
tion lead to the necessity to form larger coalitions. Moreover, parties have
begun to keep their options open and are willing to form various coalitions,
which means that voters are increasingly unsure which political constellation
they support by voting for a specific party.
This is shown by Figure 5.4, which looks at the size of coalition cabinets
at the federal state level for each decade, differentiating between two-party
and three-party coalitions.10 After a short transformation period in the 1950s,
where the size of the coalitions differed significantly from coalitions in later
years, the 2.5-party system is reflected in the size of the governing coalitions
until the 1980s (Aleman et al. 2018: 52). In most cases, either the SPD or
the CDU were the senior party in such coalitions, while the FDP served as
a pivotal party to form a governmental majority (Oberndörfer et al. 2009:
257). With the Green party gaining strength, this pattern changed in the
1990s. The first complete alternation of a federal government in the repub-
lic’s history in 1998 was part of this development. The Left party (former
PDS) was of importance only in eastern Germany and where it could join
government coalitions.11 For a short period, a bipolar competition between
a centre-left bloc (SPD and Greens) and a centre-right bloc (CDU/CSU and
FDP) characterized the German party system. In summary, for the period
from 1960 to the early 2000s, more than 90% of coalitions consisted of two
parties.
Since 2010, the situation has changed drastically, as in the past decade
only 69% of all governments were formed by two parties, while 31% were
92 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

100

80

60
%

40

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

20

0
1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s

Two-party coalitions Three-party coalitions

Figure 5.4 Coalition formulas in German federal states, 1950–2019

Source: Authorʼs illustration; data for cabinet constellations were collected from the official websites
of the federal state governments

formed by three parties. Other competitors gained strength as the catch-all

parties (SPD and CDU) lost ground. The main beneficiary of this develop-
ment was the Green party, which increased its total number of governmental
participations from eight in the 2000s to 24 in the 2010s.
To sum up, the altered processes of governmental formation mirror the
party system’s growing fragmentation. While in the 1990s only a few coalition
configurations were common and the lines between ideological blocs were
clear, those lines have now blurred and opened the possibility for varying
coalition compositions. Currently, there are 11 different coalition formulae
at the federal state level. All relevant parties except the AfD are part of those
coalition formulae. This can result in two challenges for the functioning of
democracy. Firstly, larger coalitions are generally less stable than smaller
coalitions, making it more difficult to enact significant changes and reduc-
ing the space for common compromises. This can potentially undermine the
effectiveness of policymaking. Secondly, it becomes increasingly challenging
for voters to anticipate the composition of future governments, which can
lead to concerns regarding representation.
 The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism 93

Party Organization in Germany: Institutionalised

Uniformity

This last section analyses the challenges that the transformation of German
politics pose for parties as organizations. The German Party Law governs the
organizational structure of German parties and prescribes several obligatory
components of party organization, e.g. the requirement to be internally
democratic (Poguntke 1994: 189). Hence, party organizations in Germany
are remarkably similar. However, we now see a change in German party orga-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

nizations, especially regarding three central components: party members,
intra-party democracy, and party financing.

Membership ratios

Table 5.1 displays membership figures at the time of each federal election
from 1965 until 2021. To control the changes in the size of the electorate,
we refer to the ratio of membership figures and the electorate (Katz et al.
1992: 331).
The catch-all parties reach their highest level at the end of the 1970s
(Social Democrats) and the beginning of the 1980s (CDU/CSU). There-
after, they almost continuously lose members. Until the beginning of the
2000s, the Social Democrats could retain more members than the Christian
Democrats. Since then, both parties are at about the same level. The general
pattern is in line with the declining membership figures in other Euro-
pean countries (Biezen and Poguntke 2014). The membership decline also
affects other, previously large mass organizations, such as trade unions and
churches.
For the smaller parties the change does not follow such a uniform pattern.
The membership figures of the Liberals rise until the 1980s, after which they
stabilize at a lower level (apart from a temporary increase due to German
reunification). A slight increase can be seen in 2009 after the Liberals entered
as a junior partner in coalition with the CDU/CSU, also after parliamentary
re-entry in 2017. Nevertheless, the level is clearly below that of the 1970s
and 1980s. The membership of the SED successor party halved after German
reunification. After the fusion with the West German left-wing protest party
WASG, it briefly gained members but overall has remained at the same level
since the beginning of the millennium.
94 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Table 5.1 Membership ratios of the German parties, 1965–2021

Year CSU CDU SPD FDP Greens Left AfD

1965 0.20 0.75 1.84 - - - -

1969 0.20 0.78 2.01 0.15 - - -
1972 0.26 1.02 2.30 0.14 - - -
1976 0.34 1.55 2.43 0.19 - - -
1980 0.40 1.60 2.28 0.19 0.04 - -
1983 0.42 1.67 2.10 0.16 0.06 - -
1987 0.41 1.56 2.01 0.14 0.09 - -

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

1990 0.31 1.31 1.56 0.28 0.07 0.46 -
1994 0.29 1.11 1.41 0.15 0.07 0.20 -
1998 0.29 1.03 1.28 0.11 0.09 0.16 -
2002 0.29 0.97 1.13 0.11 0.07 0.12 -
2005 0.27 0.92 0.95 0.11 0.07 0.10 -
2009 0.26 0.84 0.82 0.12 0.08 0.13 -
2013 0.24 0.75 0.76 0.09 0.10 0.10 0.03
2017 0.23 0.69 0.72 0.10 0.11 0.10 0.04
2021 0.22 0.64 0.65 0.13 0.21 0.10 0.05

Notes: The figures are calculated as the membership share of the electorate (M/E).
M/E was multiplied by 100 and represents the percentage share of the electorate.
(Source: Niedermayer (2020, 2022).

Although the Greens’ mobilization capacity has been low, they managed to
grow—a rare exception for an established party; since 2016, it has recorded
a noticeable increase compared to the previous three decades. Typically for
a new party, the AfD has been gaining members since its foundation in 2013
but has remained at a rather low level. Looking at the growth of both since the
refugee crisis in 2015–2016, it is apparent that parties on the GAL–TAN axis
fringes are increasing their membership base. The growing mobilization may
indicate a polarizing electorate, as the socio-cultural dimension has recently
structured party competition (Franzmann et al. 2020).

Intra-party democracy

Subsequently, we take a look at intra-party democracy (IPD) in Germany.

An increase in IPD may be linked to the parties’ loss of members. Arguably,
parties try to make their organizations more attractive to party members
through expanding IPD. This can positively affect democracy, as it increases
the transparency of decision-making processes and the responsiveness of
parties and their participation (Shomer et al. 2016: 515). We present two
 The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism 95

dimensions of IPD, first the assembly-based intra-party democracy (AIPD,

see Figure 5.5a), and second, the plebiscitary-based intra-party democracy
(PIPD, Figure 5.5b). AIPD captures the representative logic of democratic
decision making, therefore measuring the inclusiveness of parties’ decision
making based on deliberation within party bodies and assemblies. PIPD is
concerned with the logic of direct democratic choice. Hence, it measures
to which degree party members have a direct say on party programmes
and personnel selection.12 PIPD follows an either/or logic and may trans-
fer power to the party leaders (Berge and Poguntke 2017: 144). This transfer

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

of power can be seen as one aspect of the cartelization of party democ-
racies. Here, the broader electorate can serve as a means of legitimizing
the decisions of party leaders through plebiscitary voting, at the same time
weakening party activists at the regional and local levels (Katz and Mair
1995: 21). Hence, an increase in PIPD could also indicate an erosion of
AIPD, although it can also work in the opposite direction (Scarrow et al.
2022). For both indices, high values indicate more inclusive rules of decision
making.
Between 2011 and 2017, German parties significantly shifted towards more
IPD, especially in terms of PIPD (Figure 5.5b). The Greens consistently
had the highest degree of assembly-based intra-party democracy (AIPD,
Figure 5.5a) due to their tradition of grass-roots democracy (Poguntke 1987).
They are closely followed by The Left, FDP, SPD, and AfD, with mini-
mal variance.13 The AfD’s high AIPD is linked to its populist stand against
alleged elitism in established parties (Berge and Poguntke 2017: 137). The
SPD notably increased its AIPD between 2011 and 2017. The IPD similari-
ties across ideological boundaries suggest that country-related factors might
be more influential in Germany to explain the level of IPD than ideology
or party families, aligning with findings by Pilet and Cross (2014: 228) and
Poguntke et al. (2016: 672). Christian Democrats traditionally score lower
on IPD, with a significant gap between them and other parties. As for PIPD,
there is high uniformity across parties, all of which increased their scores,
particularly the CSU.

Party funding

The cartel party thesis (Katz and Mair 1995) suggests a closure of party
competition and a withdrawal of parties from civil society. Parties are increas-
ingly losing members and are forced to draw more financial resources from
96 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

(a)

.54
CDU .56
.78
SPD
.85
.81
FDP
.86
.84
Left .85
.84

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Greens .88
.58
CSU .62

AfD .85

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1
AIPD

2011 2017
(b)

.25
CDU .5
.25
SPD
.5
.25
FDP
.5
.25
Left
.5
.25
Greens
.5

CSU .5

AfD .5

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1
PIPD

2011 2017

Figure 5.5 Intra-party democracy in Germany. (a) AIPD: assembly-based intra-party

democracy; (b) PIPD: plebiscitary-based intra-party democracy
Source: Authorʼs calculation, based on Poguntke et al. (2016), (2020); Scarrow et al. (2022)
 The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism 97

state sources (Katz and Mair 1995: 16). As a result, parties secure their sur-
vival and simultaneously hinder the emergence of new alternatives. This
can result in a loss of legitimacy and trust and prevent functioning party
competition. Therefore, we turn to party funding in this section. Germany,
in 1959, became the first state in Europe to introduce public party funding
(Koß 2008: 289).
The main funding sources for parties in Germany are donations and fees
through party members, private and corporate donations, and state subsidies.
The German Political Parties Act sets a cap on state funding. Parties earn

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

state subsidies per vote in various elections and for each euro received in
donations or membership fees up to €3,300 per person (§18 Party Law). The
SPD and CDU/CSU grand coalition raised the total state funding cap from
€161.8 million to €190 million in 2018, but in 2023 the Federal Constitutional
Court deemed this change unconstitutional (BVerfG, 2 BvF 2/18, Judgement
of the Second Senate of 24 January 2023).
Turning to the distribution of the three main income sources (party mem-
bers, private donations, subsidies) at the party level (Figure 5.6), the first
observation is the different relevance of membership fees and donations for
parties. Financing through membership is of greater importance for parties
on the left and centre-left (Left, Greens, SPD), while the share of private
donations is larger for those on the right and centre-right (CDU/CSU, FDP,
AfD).
For the CDU, CSU, and the FDP, we see that the share of income by mem-
bers decreased while the share of private donations increased. The share
of the state subsidies changed only for the SPD, which increased its share,
and the FDP, which decreased its share. The Green party was the only one
that could increase its share of member financing due to its rising mem-
bership. The AfD, as a new competitor, resembles the FDP regarding the
distribution of income sources, although the dependence on state subsidies
is of greater importance for the AfD. Overall, German parties still rely on
non-state sources for a substantial share of their funding (as required by the
Party Law). The importance of different income sources varies for different
parties. Firstly, smaller parties (Left, Green, AfD) depend more on state sub-
sidies than bigger parties. Secondly, as argued, centre-right parties still create
a larger share of income through private donations, while centre-left parties
rely the most on membership income. Thus, it could be concluded that state
subsidies do not promote ‘cartelization’ but rather help smaller parties to
establish themselves.
98 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

CDU 2011
2017
SPD 2011
2017
FDP 2011
2017
Left 2011
2017
Greens 2011

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2017
CSU 2011
2017
AfD 2017

0 20 40 60 80 100
Share of total funding in percent

donations (member) donations (private)

state subsidies

Figure 5.6 Distribution of income sources

Source: Authorʼs illustration, based on Poguntke et al. (2020); Scarrow et al. (2022)

Party communication

Social media shape political communication and have become an established

part of parties’ communication strategies in an increasingly fragmented pub-
lic sphere (Angenendt et al. 2022). The use of social media enables parties
to bypass journalistic gatekeepers and transport their content instantly and
unfiltered to the public (Barberà et al. 2021: 2). On the downside, the frag-
mented use of social media may trigger echo chambers and reinforce the
polarization of society (Terren and Borge-Bravo 2021: 100).
Recent results for Germany show that party politicians use different social
media platforms for different purposes, which ‘underscores the need to argue
with the utmost caution when trying to infer findings from one platform to
social media as a whole, as it has often been done’ (Stier et al. 2018: 67). Tak-
ing this as a starting point, we analyse the number of followers per social
media platform and party as an indicator of parties’ anchoring in the digital
sphere.
Adding up the follower numbers for each party by platform, (Figure 5.7)
shows that parties overall have the most followers on Twitter, followed by
 The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism 99

194
AfD 141
560
380
CDU 114
230
231
CSU 57.6
221
415
FDP 146
167

Greens 648
222
232

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Left 349
117
257

SPD 428
101
215

50 150 250 350 450 550 650

Number of social media followers in thousands

Twitter Instagram
Facebook

Figure 5.7 Social media followers per party in 2023

Source: Authorsʼ illustration; all figures taken from the official party accounts (accessed 19 May 2023)

Facebook, and then Instagram. However, the outreach of the parties dif-
fers considerably between the platforms. While the AfD has by far the most
followers on Facebook, the Greens have the most followers on Twitter. There-
fore, the results support the thesis that the relevance of different social media
platforms varies between parties (Kelm et al. 2023). Moreover, the results
reveal that parties differ in their coverage more generally, i.e. in their capa-
bility to generate followers in the digital sphere. The Greens have by far
the highest range with a total of over one million followers on the social
networks, followed by the AfD with nearly 900,000 followers. The other
four parties all have a similar coverage, with slightly more than 700,000
followers.
Both parties are effectively mobilizing support online, mirroring their
real-world success. This online engagement also indicates that socio-cultural
divisions, characteristic of these parties’ support bases, are present in the
digital sphere. With digital communication becoming an important arena
of political competition, this could potentially amplify polarization. The
phenomenon of media fragmentation should be considered in this context.
The digital divide and the reliance on social networks can contribute to the
100 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

polarization of political discourse, as individuals may be exposed to informa-

tion sources that align with their existing beliefs, leading to echo chambers
and the spread of fake news. This further reinforces the concept of polarized
pluralism, as described by Sartori (2005), where political parties and their
supporters become more polarized in their ideologies and communication
strategies.

Discussion and Conclusion

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Our study has analysed the long journey of the German party system towards
polarized pluralism, thereby providing various insights into the develop-
ment of German parties, party competition, and the party system since the
founding of the Federal Republic in 1949. Our results show that supply
and demand in German politics have systematically changed, putting parties
under increased competitive pressure. The increased volatility in aggregate
voting behaviour exhibits an intensified competition for votes, and a renewed
politicization drives the diversification of political competition through the
establishment of the populist radical right AfD. As previous studies have
shown, the catch-all parties are becoming less entrenched, while challenger
parties have made substantial gains. Moreover, our study highlights that the
party system is now more pluralized and polarized than in previous leg-
islative periods. New and more diverse coalition models reflect the changed
competitive situation. Although the catch-all parties occupy the party sys-
tem’s ideological centre, only a moderate centrifugal dynamic in competition
is evident. An apparent strengthening of the political fringe is recently only
observable on the right but not on the left of the political spectrum; the social-
ist Left party failed to pass the five per cent hurdle in the 2021 federal election
and is just represented in the Bundestag because they were able to win three
constituencies directly (the so-called basic mandate clause). Therefore, the
path to polarized pluralism has not yet been completed. Nevertheless, the
East German party systems are already in a state of polarized pluralism,
which complicates government formation and poses a noticeable challenge to
the stability of federal state governments. It is noteworthy that the AfD is the
second-strongest parliamentary group in almost all eastern German federal
states, while the CDU and SPD have lost ground. The increasing centrifugal
competition in that region demands that parties adapt their strategies and
compete for the support of voters across the ideological spectrum. There-
fore, party competition differs between East and West, even 30 years after
reunification.
 The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism 101

As modern democracies are party democracies, it is crucial how par-

ties adapt their decision-making processes and communication strategies
in a changing political environment to fulfil their linkage function between
society and state. Following on from the decline of party membership, we
studied how parties try to make their organizations more attractive to non-
members and voters by expanding IPD. The analysis shows that IPD has
expanded in all parties over the past 10 years. Nevertheless, it remains an
open question whether this will lead to the desired results and enhance
parties’ images in public. So far, parties’ financial resources do not reflect

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

their dwindling anchorage in society. Conversely, their income increased
during the observed period, whereby the catch-all parties CDU/CSU and
SPD still have the highest revenue. However, despite the increased income,
no trend of cartelization can be observed, as new competitors have also
entered the scene. In the digital sphere, the rise of challenger parties is man-
ifest, along with the relative loss of importance of the two catch-all parties;
the Greens and the AfD are particularly successful in generating followers
on social media, and their digital mobilization may be a further manifes-
tation of increased polarization. Therefore, the dynamics in social media
and the dissemination of fake news pose a potential threat of exacerbating
polarization.
A consequence of the fragmented party system became apparent after
the 2021 federal election. A slight lead was sufficient to become the senior
partner in government—never has a party with such a small vote share as
the SPD succeeded in obtaining the chancellorship. The relevance of lead-
ership in German politics manifested in Angela Merkel’s retirement after
16 years as Chancellor; the CDU/CSU reached their historic low and thus
followed the downward trend that the SPD had already gone through. It
remains to be seen whether the CDU/CSU will reposition successfully after
the end of the Merkel era. However, with the outlined transformation of
parties and the party system in mind, it seems unlikely that the former
catch-all parties will regain their former strength in the (near) future. Con-
sequently, the implications of voting behaviour for coalition formation are
more opaque than in previous years, which poses a challenge to German
party democracy. Parties will be required to show an enhanced willingness
to compromise to ensure the ability to govern in various coalitions beyond
long-standing ideological boundaries to counteract the consequences of a
possible further increase in polarization. This development may be a chal-
lenge to government stability and could impede efforts to efficiently imple-
ment reforms. The extended coalition negotiations after the 2017 federal
election already hinted at possible difficulties. Four years later, however,
102 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

the coalition formation of the unequal alliance of SPD, Greens, and FDP
succeeded quite quickly—it remains to be seen how open to compromise
parties in Germany will be. A serious threat to liberal democracy is the rise
of right-wing populism. In Germany, the AfD has been radicalizing since
its foundation in 2013 and is currently a populist radical right party with
extreme tendencies. However, even if German party competition has become
polarized and pluralized, it would be too far-reaching to speak of a crisis
of democracy, as strong centrifugal dynamics are only apparent in the east-
ern German federal states. Nevertheless, the increasing polarization must be

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

kept in mind as it may endanger the future stability of the German party
system.

Notes
1. The chapter was written in equal parts by Michael Angenendt and Simon D. Brause. We
are grateful to Pauline Marquardt, Nico Bodden, and Aaron Schlütter for their help. Fur-
thermore, we would like to thank Simon Franzmann, who provided data on the left–right
positions of parties.
2. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) are two
autonomous parties, whereby the CSU only exists and competes in elections in Bavaria
and the CDU in all other federal states of the country. In the Bundestag, the national
parliament, a joint parliamentary group is always formed. For most analyses, they are
treated as one party.
3. The developments in German local politics are outside the scope of our analysis. For the
role of national parties and independent local parties, see Angenendt (2021, 2023). For
the local party system, see Linhart and Eichhorn (2022), and for party competition, see
Gross and Jankowski (2020).
4. We use the effective number of parties (ENP) based on the vote share as an indicator to
measure party system fragmentation (see Laakso and Taagepera 1979: 4–7).
5. During the 1960s and 1980s other right-wing parties had some electoral successes in
some of the federal states and one of them even entered the European Parliament for one
electoral period in the 1980s, but they never succeeded in winning a seat in the Bundestag.
6. See Schmitt-Beck et al. (2022: 5) for further insightful information on the development
of the vote share over time.
7. These data were obtained from Voter Turnout Database (International IDEA 2022).
8. Relevant parties include those that gained at least one seat in the German Bundestag, the
FDP, and the AfD in 2013, due to their high blackmail potential. The index was weighted
by the vote share of each party.
9. This loosely translates to a ‘moral turning point’.
10. In the 1950s, there were a few coalitions with four or more parties. In order to keep the
presentation clear, these coalitions have been grouped under the coalitions with three
parties. These are the governments Hellwege I (Lower Saxony), Bartram (Schleswig-
Holstein), Müller I, Müller II, Müller III, and Kiesinger I (all Baden-Württemberg).
 The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism 103

11. In Berlin from 2002 until 2011 and in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania from 1998 until
2006, as part of an SPD-PDS/The Left government.
12. Data are derived from the Political Party Database Project. A detailed conceptualisation,
as well as the index construction, can be found in Berge and Poguntke (2017) and for
round 2 of the IPD in Brause and Poguntke (2021).
13. For the AfD, a comparison between both time points is not possible, as the party was
founded in 2013.

References

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Aleman, Ulrich von, Philipp Erbentraut, and Jens Walther. 2018. Das Parteiensystem
der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Eine Einführung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Angenendt, Michael. 2021. Politik abseits der Parteien: Wählergemeinschaften in
Deutschland. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Angenendt, Michael. 2023. ‘Membership and Participation in Independent Local
Parties: Patterns and Explanations’. Party Politics, 29(3):424–434.
Angenendt, Michael, Ole Kelm, Thomas Poguntke, and Ulrich Rosar. 2022. ‘Digital
Campaigning on the Rise? A Long-term Perspective on German Federal Elections’.
Zeitschrift für Parteienwissenschaften, 28(3):331–339.
Angenendt, Michael and Lucy Kinski. 2022. ‘Germany: Political Developments and
Data in 2021. The End of the Merkel Era’. European Journal of Political Research
Political Data Yearbook, 61(1):171–192.
Arzheimer, Kai. 2006. ‘“Dead Men Walking?” Party Identification in Germany,
1977–2002’. Electoral Studies, 25:791–807.
Arzheimer, Kai. 2015. ‘The AfD: Finally a Successful Right-wing Populist Euroscep-
tic Party for Germany?’. West European Politics, 38(3):535–556.
Barberà, Oscar, Giulia Sandri, Patricia Correa, and Juan Rodríguez-Teruel. 2021.
‘Political Parties Transition into the Digital Era’. In Oscar Barberà, Giulia Sandri,
Patricia Correa, and Juan Rodríguez-Teruel (eds), Digital Parties: The Challenges
of Online Organisation and Participation. Cham: Springer Nature, 1–12.
Berbuir, Nicole, Marcel Lewandowsky, and Jasmin Siri. 2015. ‘The AfD and Its Sym-
pathisers: Finally a Right-wing Populist Movement in Germany?’. German Politics,
24(2):154–178.
Berge, Benjamin von dem and Thomas Poguntke. 2017. ‘Varieties of Intra-party
Democracy: Conceptualization and Index Construction’. In Susan E. Scarrow,
Paul Webb, and Thomas Poguntke (eds), Organizing Political Parties: Repre-
sentation, Participation, and Power. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press,
419–444.
Biezen, Ingrid van and Thomas Poguntke. 2014. ‘The Decline of Membership-based
Politics’. Party Politics, 20(2):205–216.
104 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Brause, Simon and Thomas Poguntke. 2021. ‘Consistency Checks IPD

Index Round 2 (V2)’. Düsseldorf: mimeo. https://www.pruf.de/fileadmin/
redaktion/Oeffentliche_Medien/PRuF/Daten_zum_Download/Brause_
Poguntke_2021_Consitency_Checks_IPD_Index_Round_2.pdf (Accessed 8
December 2023).
Bukow, Sebastian and Michael Angenendt. 2019. ‘Three Faces of Constituency Cam-
paigns in Mixed-member Electoral Systems. Parties and Candidates in Germany,
2005–13’. German Politics, 28(1):35–60.
Dalton, Russell J. 2008. ‘The Quantity and the Quality of Party Systems: Party Sys-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

tem Polarization, its Measurement, and its Consequences’. Comparative Political
Studies, 41(7):899–920.
Franklin, Mark N. 1992. ‘The Decline of Cleavage Politics’. In Mark N. Franklin,
Thomas T. Mackie, and Henry Valen (eds), Electoral Change: Responses to Evolv-
ing Social and Attitudinal Structures in Western Countries. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 383–405.
Franzmann, Simon. 2008. ‘Programmatische Heterogenität und ideologische
Polarisierung in den europäischen Parteiensystemen’. Köln: mimeo. https://vergl-
polwiss.uni-koeln.de/fileadmin/wiso_fak/polwi_kaiser/documents/Working-
Papers/2008WS7Franzmann.pdf (Accessed 8 December 2023).
Franzmann, Simon and André Kaiser. 2006. ‘Locating Political Parties in Policy
Space: A Reanalysis of Party Manifesto Data’. Party Politics, 12(2):163–188.
Franzmann, Simon T. 2016a. ‘Von AfD zu ALFA: Die Entwicklung zur Spaltung’.
Mitteilungen des Instituts für Deutsches und Internationales Parteienrecht und
Parteienforschung, 22:23–37.
Franzmann, Simon T. 2016b. ‘Calling the Ghost of Populism: The AfD’s Strategic
and Tactical Agendas until the EP Election 2014’. German Politics, 25(4):457–479.
Franzmann, Simon T., Heiko Giebler, and Thomas Poguntke. 2020. ‘It’s No Longer
the Economy, Stupid! Issue Yield at the 2017 German Federal Election’. West
European Politics, 43(3):610–638.
Gross, Martin and Michael Jankowski. 2020. ‘Dimensions of Political Conflict and
Party Positions in Multi-level Democracies: Evidence from the Local Manifesto
Project’. West European Politics, 43(1):74–101.
International IDEA. 2022. Voter Turnout Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/
data/voter-turnout (Accessed 17 August 2023).
Ignazi, Piero. 1992. ‘The Silent Counter-revolution’. European Journal of Political
Research, 22(1):3–34.
Inglehart, Ronald. 1971. ‘The Silent Revolution in Europe: Intergenerational Change
in Post-Industrial Societies’. American Political Science Review, 4:991–1017.
Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 1995. ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and
Party Democracy’. Party Politics, 1(1):5–28.
 The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism 105

Katz, Richard S, Peter Mair, Luciano Bardi et al. 1992. ‘The Membership of Polit-
ical Parties in European Democracies, 1960–1990’. European Journal of Political
Research, 22(3):329–345.
Kelm, Ole, Michael Angenendt, Thomas Poguntke, and Ulrich Rosar. 2023. ‘Which
Candidates Benefit from Social Media? An Analysis of the 2021 German Federal
Election’. Electoral Studies, 86:1–12.
Koß, Michael. 2008. Staatliche Parteienfinanzierung und politischer Wettbewerb.
Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Kriesi, Hanspeter. 2011. ‘Personalization of National Election Campaigns’. Party

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Politics, 18(6):825–844.
Kriesi, Hanspeter, Edgar Grande, Romain Lachat, Martin Dolezal, Simon Born-
schier, and Timotheos Frey. 2006. ‘Globalization and the Transformation of the
National Political Space: Six European Countries Compared’. European Journal of
Political Research, 45(6):921–956.
Laakso, Markku and Rein Taagepera. 1979. ‘“Effective” Number of Parties: A Mea-
sure with Application to West Europe’. Comparative Political Studies, 12(1):3–27.
Linhart, Eric and Kristin Eichhorn. 2022. ‘Electoral Systems and Party Systems in
Germany on the Local Level’. German Politics: Online First.
Marks, Gary, Liesbet Hooghe, Moira Nelson, and Erica Edwards. 2006. ‘Party Com-
petition and European Integration in the East and West’. Comparative Political
Studies, 39(2):155–175.
Merkel, Wolfgang. 2017. ‘Kosmopolitismus versus Kommunitarismus. Ein neuer
Konflikt in der Demokratie’. In Philipp Harfst, Ina Kubbe, and Thomas Pogun-
tke (eds), Parties, Governments and Elites: The Comparative Study of Democracy.
Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 9–23.
Niclauß, Karlheinz. 1987. ‘Repräsentative und plebiszitäre Elemente der Kan-
zlerdemokratie’. Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 35(2):217–245.
Niedermayer, Oskar. 2006. ‘Das Parteiensystem Deutschlands’. In Oskar Nieder-
mayer (ed.), Die Parteiensysteme Westeuropas. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 109–133.
Niedermayer, Oskar. 2020. ‘Parteimitglieder in Deutschland: Version 2020’. Arbeit-
shefte aus dem Otto-Stammer-Zentrum, 31: 1–100. Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin.
Niedermayer, Oskar. 2022. ‘Mitgliederentwicklung der Parteien’. Bonn: Bundeszen-
trale für politische Bildung. https://www.bpb.de/themen/parteien/parteien-in-
deutschland/zahlen-und-fakten/138672/mitgliederentwicklung-der-parteien
(Accessed 28 March 2023).
Norris, Pippa. 1999. ‘Introduction: The Growth of Critical Citizens?’. In Pippa Norris
(ed.), Critical Citizens. Global Support for Democratic Governance. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1–28.
Oberndörfer, D, Gerd Mielke, and Ulrich Eith. 2009. ‘Vom Zweieinhalb-zum Fünf-
Parteiensystem: neue Bündnisse oder alte Lager?’. In Antonius Liedhegener and
106 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Torsten Oppelland (eds), Parteiendemokratie in der Bewährung: Festschrift für

Karl Schmitt. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1–28.
Pilet, Jean-Benoit and William P. Cross. 2014. ‘The Selection of Party Leaders in
Comparative Perspective’. In William P. Cross and Jean B. Pilet (eds), The Selection
of Political Party Leaders in Contemporary Parliamentary Democracies. London:
Routledge, 222–253.
Poguntke, Thomas. 1987. ‘New Politics and Party Systems: The Emergence of a New
Type of Party?’. West European Politics, 10(1):76–88.
Poguntke, Thomas. 1994. ‘Parties in a Legalistic Culture: The Case of Germany’. In

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Richard Katz and Peter Mair (eds), How Parties Organize: Adaption and Change
in Party Organizations in Western Democracies. London: Sage, 185–215.
Poguntke, Thomas. 2014. ‘Towards a New Party System: The Vanishing Hold of the
Catch-all Parties in Germany’. Party Politics, 20(6):950–963.
Poguntke, Thomas, Susan E. Scarrow, Paul D. Webb et al. 2016. ‘Party Rules, Party
Resources and the Politics of Parliamentary Democracies: How Parties Organize
in the 21st Century’. Party Politics, 22(6):661–678.
Poguntke, Thomas, Susan E. Scarrow, and Paul D. Webb. 2020.
PPDB_Round1a_1b_consolidated_v1. doi: 10.7910/DVN/NBWDFZ, Harvard
Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:7TqxInvGFY2Kh4OGcviQ+A== [fileUNF]
Rahat, Gideon and Ofer Kenig. 2018. From Party Politics to Personalized Poli-
tics? Party Change and Political Personalization in Democracies. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Sartori, Giovanni. 2005. Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis.
Colchester: ECPR Press.
Scarrow, Susan E, Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke. 2022. ‘Intra-party Decision-
Making in Contemporary Europe: Improving Representation or Ruling with
Empty Shells?’. Irish Political Studies, 37(2):196–217.
Schmitt-Beck, Rüdiger, Sigrid Roßteutscher, Harald Schoen, Bernhard Weßels, and
Christof Wolf. 2022. ‘A New Era of Electoral Instability’. In Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck,
Sigrid Roßteutscher, Harald Schoen, Bernhard Weßels, and Christof Wolf (eds),
The Changing German Voter. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3–24.
Schmitt, Johannes. 2018. ‘Zur Wirkung einer großen Koalition: Die Renaissance des
polarisierten Pluralismus und die Polarisierung des deutschen Parteiensystems’.
Zeitschrift für Parteienwissenschaften, 24(1):48–63.
Schmitt, Johannes. 2022. Mechanismen der Polarisierung von Parteiensystemen:
Ideologische Dynamiken im Kontext von Angebot, Nachfrage und institutionellen
Rahmenbedingungen. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Schmitt, Johannes and Simon T. Franzmann. 2018. ‘A Polarizing Dynamic by
Center Cabinets? The Mechanism of Limited Contestation’. Historical Social
Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 43(1):168–209.
 The Long Way towards Polarized Pluralism 107

Schoen, Harald. 2003. Wählerwandel und Wechselwahl: Eine Vergleichende Unter-

suchung. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fur Sozialwissenschaften.
Shomer, Yael, Gert-Jan Put, and Einat Gedalya-Lavy. 2016. ‘Intra-party Politics and
Public Opinion: How Candidate Selection Processes Affect Citizens’ Satisfaction
with Democracy’. Political Behavior, 38(3):509–534.
Schulte-Cloos, Julia and Arndt Leininger. 2022. ‘Electoral Participation, Political
Disaffection, and the Rise of the Populist Radical Right’. Party Politics, 28(3):
431–443.
Spier, Tim, Felix Butzlaff, Matthias Micus, and Franz Walter. 2007. Die Linkspartei:

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Zeitgemäße Idee oder Bündnis ohne Zukunft?. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Stier, Sebastian, Arnim Bleier, Haiko Lietz, and Markus Strohmaier. 2018. ‘Elec-
tion Campaigning on Social Media: Politicians, Audiences, and the Mediation
of Political Communication on Facebook and Twitter’. Political Communication,
35(1):50–74.
Terren, Ludovic and Rosa Borge-Bravo. 2021. ‘Echo Chambers on Social Media:
A Systematic Review of the Literature’. Review of Communication Research, 9:
99–118.
Volkens, Andrea, Tobias Burst, Werner Krause et al. 2021. Wissenschaftszentrum
Berlin für Sozialforschung, 2021a. Manifesto Project Dataset. doi: 10.25522/MAN-
IFESTO.MPDS.2021A.
6
Fragmentation and Anti-Establishment
Politics
The Czech Party System in the 2020s

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Tomáš Cirhan and Petr Kopecký

Introduction

The electorally volatile and highly unstable party systems in the post-
communist countries of central-eastern Europe are associated with the con-
stant (re)emergence of new parties. The Czech Republic had for a long time
after the emergence of democracy defied these patterns of unstable party
politics. In the first few decades following the fall of communism, the polit-
ical competition was based on the clearly defined, ideology-driven conflict
between two relatively stable and numerically limited blocs of political par-
ties. The left-wing social democracy, with the Czech Social Democratic Party
(ČSSD) as the main protagonist, and right-wing neoliberalism, with the Civic
Democratic Party (ODS) as the key player, represented the two opposing
views on how to run the country and economy that structured the country’s
political competition. Consequently, some referred to the Czech party sys-
tem as institutionalized or consolidated (Berglund and Dellenbrant 1991),
well established with a high level of programmatic crystallization, and not
being fragmented into many smaller parties (Hanley 2008). The above char-
acteristics made the Czech party system de facto an exception in the context
of post-communist countries. Only a few other countries, such as Slovenia or
Hungary, witnessed similar developments.
However, the Czech party system has registered fundamental changes in
recent years in terms of the number of (new) parties that compete in elec-
tions and enter the parliamentary arena, as well as in the issues structuring
the political struggle between the parties. Beginning with the 2010 elections,
the relatively predictable pattern of party competition and the stable format
of the party system started to unravel. No longer driven only by left–right

Tomáš Cirhan and Petr Kopecký, Fragmentation and Anti-Establishment Politics. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of
Democracy. Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Tomáš Cirhan and Petr Kopecký
(2024). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0006
 Fragmentation and Anti-Establishment Politics 109

divisions, the conflict between parties started to be drawn along different

lines: between the parties representing the political establishment and those
profiled as anti-establishment (Cirhan and Kopecký 2019). Although the
anti-establishment parties initially performed well in elections, their for-
tunes were often short-lived. Many of them made an electoral breakthrough
utilizing their anti-establishment appeal but, with the notable exception of
Action of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO) and the Pirate Party (Pirates), fell apart
quickly afterwards, often consumed by intra-party organizational divisions
and conflicts. This is how the Czech party system gradually transformed into

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the new more fragmented constellation with one bigger party that succeeded
by running on the anti-establishment ticket (ANO) and several smaller par-
ties. In the Czech context, anti-establishment and anti-corruption appeals
may still help new parties to enter parliament, but it takes more than that to
survive in the longer term (Kubát and Hartliński 2019: 107). The new parties
that currently prevail in the Czech party system are those that avoided scan-
dals associated with their participation in politics. Some scholars have noted
that such scandals, especially those related to corruption, were a plague to
the established parties in the past, and some of the new parties have learnt
the lesson (Haughton and Deegan-Krause 2015). Others observed that the
anti-establishment stance among some of the leaders of new parties is only
a product of party marketing. In reality, these individuals can be recognized
as an elite with respect to their wealth or prominence (that they use to fund
their political enterprises), and in many cases, their fortune is even a result of
their political connections in the past.
In this chapter, we chart these recent transformations of the Czech party
system, focusing on the surge of anti-establishment parties that exemplifies
the most significant of these changes. We will start with a brief analysis of
the institutional conditions that provide basic parameters for party develop-
ment, followed by an analysis which will show how the Czech party system
has fragmented as a result of the wave of anti-establishment politics. By fur-
ther zooming on two new political parties—one short-lived (Public Affairs,
VV ) and one electorally and organizationally very successful (ANO)—we
will also show some important trends in intra-party organizational devel-
opment which further point to a general decline of partisanship and party
strategies in Czech politics. Throughout the chapter, our empirical strategy
is to highlight several organizational features of two new anti-establishment
parties and, where possible, contrast them with the established parties which
represent the ‘old party system’, and which are still important players in the
country’s party system.
110 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

The Czech Party System and the Framework Conditions

for Party Development

Parties play a fundamental role in Czech politics. This is certainly true for the
first two decades of post-communist politics, but even the recent wave of ant-
establishment politics did not fundamentally alter the overall strong role of
parties in the system. Parties enjoy a near monopoly of representation, and
alternative channels of representation such as social movements and trade
unions are relatively weak (Kopecký 2001; 2007). Some of the longer estab-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

lished parties, like ČSSD and the Christian Democratic Union (KDU-ČSL)
have been associated, even organizationally linked, with different social orga-
nizations, such as youth organizations, women´s organizations, or labour
unions. Although these different social organizations were significant with
respect to their internal party democracy, they did not turn these parties into
mass parties, nor did they strengthen the role of social movements in pol-
itics overall. Political parties have no challengers as selectors of candidates
for key elected positions within the state: independent candidates stand no
chance in lower chamber elections conducted according to the PR list system
(see below); even the Senate seats (contested in single-member districts) are
mostly divided on the basis of straight inter-party contests.
One important constitutional position which has gradually started to
escape a partisan grip is that of the country’s president. Until 2012, the pres-
ident was elected by a joint vote of both chambers of the Czech parliament.
Although one such elected president, Václav Havel (president for two terms
between 1992 and 2000), profiled himself as a ‘non-partisan’ (if not anti-
partisan) figure, even he could be not elected without strong backing from
key political parties. Since the introduction of a popular vote for the president
in 2012 (a two-round system, with a run-off between the two strongest can-
didates if no candidate reaches more than 50% of the vote in the first round),
the losing candidate in the second round was always a non-partisan figure,
indicating that presidential races might eventually produce results not fully
under partisan control. However, while important in many respects (e.g. for
constitutional court and other judicial appointments), the Czech president is
part of a parliamentary system of government. The key position of executive
power is the Prime Minister (PM), who is dependent for approval and sur-
vival on a majority in the lower chamber of parliament. With a few exceptions
in caretaker governments, the Czech PM is always a partisan figure, com-
ing from and often leading the largest party within a coalition government.
The selection of ministers is similarly party centred in that, typically, the
key source of recruitment for cabinet posts is parliamentary parties. Those
 Fragmentation and Anti-Establishment Politics 111

recruited to a cabinet post from outside of parliament are often party mem-
bers or part of wider party networks; even the few non-partisan experts in
coalition governments that Czech politics has known were pressured to act
within the political guidelines of the nominating party. Finally, there are only
very few regional governors (Hejtman), the highest administrative positions
at the sub-national level, who are not members of one of the political parties.
There are at least two important institutional features that are responsible
for the strong role of parties in Czech politics. The first one is a generous
system of state subsides which favours (registered) political parties over all

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

other political actors. All parties that receive over 3% of the votes in general
elections (the threshold for representation in the lower chamber is 5%) are
entitled to public subsidies in two forms: as a permanent contribution for
political activities of the party, and for mandates allocated to the party (for
more details on party financing, see Pšenička 2019). As we shall see later,
Czech parties would unlikely survive organizationally without such public
subsidies, which moreover endow them with resources very few other actors
can match.
The second feature is the electoral law for parliamentary elections, which
stipulates that the lists of candidates can only be drafted by registered par-
ties. Only party-selected1 ‘independent candidates’ are therefore allowed to
run for both the lower (the Chamber of Deputies) and upper (the Senate)
houses of the parliament. This legal provision de facto turns the national
elections into party races. The electoral system to the lower chamber of the
parliament is a proportional representation (PR) list system. Voters choose
in 14 multi-member districts between party lists of candidates. The d’Hondt
formula that was introduced to distribute the seats in districts has been sub-
ject to several alterations throughout during the last three decades (Kopecký
2004). All these modifications had two main underlying reasons. The first rea-
son was to limit the competition of new parties by increasing the barrier for
entry into the lower house of parliament, especially for electoral coalitions.
The second reason was to empower larger political parties by increasing the
disproportionality of electoral results (Crawford 2001).
For nearly 20 years since the end of communism, these framework con-
ditions for party development, together with their relatively predictable
electoral performance, translated into the dominance of four political par-
ties, ODS and KDU-ČSL right of the centre, and ČSSD and the Communist
Party of Czechia and Moravia (KSČM), left of the centre (see Table 6.1 for
details). A small liberal conservative party, first under the name of Civic
Democratic Alliance (ODA), later to be known as Freedom Union (US-DEU)
and now competing as TOP 09, completed the picture. It is because of this
112 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Table 6.1 Electoral results to Chamber of Deputies (lower chamber; % of

votes)

1992 1996 1998 2002 2006 2010 2013 2017 2021

ČSSD 6.5 26.4 32.3 30.2 32.2 22 20.5 7.3 4.7

ODS 29.7 29.6 27.7 24.5 35.4 20.2 7.7 11.3 27.8∗
∗
KDU-ČSL 6.3 8 9 14.3 7.2 6.8 5.8
KSČM 14.1 10.3 11 18.5 12.8 11.3 15 7.8 3.6
ODA 5.9 6.4
US-DEU 8.6

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

SRP-RSČ 5.9 8.1
SZ 6.3
∗
TOP 09 16.7 12 5.3
VV 10.9
Dawn 6.9
ANO 18.7 29.6 27.1
SPD 10.6 9.6
STAN 5.2 15.6∗∗
∗∗
Pirates 10.8

Source: www.volby.cz (accessed 15 December 2023)

∗
result for SPOLU (Together) coalition (ODS, TOP 09, and KDU-ČSL),
∗∗
result for PIRATSTAN coalition (Pirates and STAN)

relatively stable constellation of political parties—which, with the exception

of the pariah KSČM, were also responsible for the formation of most coali-
tion governments until 2010—that the Czech party system was for a long
time ‘renowned’ for its relative stability, one would even say for its hostility
towards new parties.
However, even before 2010 and the 2013 earthquake elections, there were
signs that the dominant parties were starting to lose the trust of the electorate,
which became increasingly frustrated with political and corruption scandals
over the years. In fact, despite their strong institutional position and good
electoral performance, political parties have repeatedly been placed among
the least trusted institutions in the country (Čermák and Stachová 2010).
Fuelled by strong anti-party sentiments and strengthened by every major
corruption case that involved high-ranking politicians from one of the two
major established parties—ODS and ČSSD (Klíma 2015)—the protest vote
started to gather momentum and, in the 2010 elections, resulted in the elec-
toral breakthrough of the populist and anti-establishment Public Affairs (VV )
(see Table 6.1).
This tendency continued in the 2013 earthquake elections, when two new
anti-establishment parties, ANO and Dawn of Direct Democracy (Dawn),
 Fragmentation and Anti-Establishment Politics 113

made electoral breakthrough, with ANO nearly winning these elections. The
2017 elections further strengthened this trend of anti-establishment parties´
emergence and electoral success. Three other such parties succeeded elec-
torally and performed above the electoral threshold—Pirates, Freedom and
Direct Democracy (SPD), and Mayors and Independents (STAN). It was only
in the 2021 elections that, for the first time in nearly a decade, no new polit-
ical party entered the lower chamber of Czech parliament. However, two
long-standing parties ČSSD and KSČM—disappeared from it, leaving the
left-of-centre largely unrepresented in parliament.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

What does this mean for the Czech party system? Ultimately, the numer-
ous new anti-establishment parties´ electoral breakthroughs translate into
the fragmentation of the Czech party system, one could say its gradual
‘Dutchification’. As can be seen from Table 6.2, the effective number of parlia-
mentary parties (ENPP) has gradually risen since 2010 and only dropped to
the levels observed around the turn of the millennium after the 2021 elec-
tions, largely thanks to the disappearance of two major left-wing parties.
The more fragmented the party system, of course, the more difficult it is to
form government coalitions. Indeed, as seen in Table 6.2, the vote and seat
shares of the two largest parties have gradually declined since the 1990s, with
2013 representing an all-time low on both shares. Translated into executive

Table 6.2 Czech party system competition

ENEP∗ ENPP∗ Volatility Turnout (%) TLP∗ vote share TLP∗

seat
share

1990 3.38 2.24 - 96.33 62.74 78.50

1992 7.14 5.71 - 84.68 43.80 55.50
1996 5.14 4.15 28.20 76.29 56.00 64.50
1998 4.55 3.71 15.90 74 60 68.50
2002 4.14 3.81 16.30 57.95 54.70 64.00
2006 3.61 3,10 18.40 64.47 67.60 77.50
2010 6.38 4.62 32.60 62.60 42.20 54.50
2013 7.21 5.79 36.50 59.48 39.20 48.50
2017 6.49 4.81 28.30 60.84 40.96 51.50
∗∗
2021 5.04 3.34 12.90 65.39 53.00
∗
ENEP—effective number of electoral parties; ENPP—effective number of parliamentary parties;
Volatility as the total volatility; Turnout as share of all registered voters; TLP—two larges parties; ‘-’
—missing data
∗∗
One of largest parties running under electoral coalition, cannot determine vote share
Source: Parliaments and Governments Database (Döring et al. 2022); Database on WHO Governs
in Europe and Beyond, PSGO (Casal Bértoa 2022); Voter Turnout Database (IDEA 2022)
114 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

politics, government coalitions containing more than two or three parties

has been the norm since then. Indeed, if we split two electoral alliances of
SPOLU (ODS, KDU-ČSL, and TOP 09) and PiratStan (Pirates and STAN)
into their individual parts, the government of Petr Fiala formed following the
2021 elections consists of five political parties, a record coalition size in the
entire post-communist period.

VV and ANO: The Background of Two Anti-establishment

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Parties

In this section we focus on two new political parties that perhaps best embody
the recent changes in the Czech party system. VV was established in 2002 in
Prague. Similar to other new parties, in particular Pirates, it was founded as a
local party that was initially embedded solely in municipal politics. However,
unlike some other new parties like US-DEU or TOP 09, VV lacked connec-
tion to pre-existing party structures or to individuals with political capital
and, nationwide, made an electoral breakthrough only in the 2010 general
elections. Together with TOP 09, it immediately participated in the govern-
ment led by ODS. Nevertheless, VV´s engagement in this government was
marred by scandals, and thus short-lived, and the party fell apart not much
later.
VV´s ideology was always rather shallow, centred around anti-corruption
and anti-establishment appeals, combined with calls for simpler laws and
slim state administration. Initially, the party initially did not attract many
charismatic individuals to lead it, but this changed in 2009 when some
celebrities became associated with the party, in particular the investigative
journalist Radek John, who became the party leader. Other individuals, like
the businessman Vít Bárta, became highly influential within the party (ČTK
2011). Because of his prominence in VV and the closeness of his business and
VV´s politics, some researchers have referred to the party as to a business-
firm party (Hloušek 2012). Indeed, a close proximity to business groups is
what differentiates VV (and ANO) from the other new Czech parties, many
of which were associated with different social groups. For instance, the Green
party (SZ) was connected to various ecological initiatives and environmental
organizations, while Pirates started around the community of the PirateLeaks
website (the Czech equivalent of WikiLeaks) organizing online petitions pro-
moting internet freedom. In contrast, VV´s and ANO´s electoral success
can be seen as a part of the wider phenomenon of political entrepreneurs
infiltrating the Czech party system (Hloušek et al. 2020).
 Fragmentation and Anti-Establishment Politics 115

Like in VV, in ANO the worlds of politics and business intertwine.

ANO was established in 2012 by Czech businessman Andrej Babiš, and
his personality and business background characterize the party to this
day. Before founding ANO, the second-richest Czech, a billionaire and
owner of the Agrofert business conglomerate, was virtually unknown to
the public. Unlike VV, ANO did not have rudimentary party organi-
zational structure from local politics to build on. However, using the
vast economic and personnel resources of Babiš´s business companies,
ANO was from the beginning professionally organized, with input from

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

external consultants and marketing experts. In that sense, ANO´s back-
ground and origins are quite reminiscent of Silvio Berlusconi´s Forza
Italia. Similar to VV, ANO´s initial appeal consisted mainly of a critique
of the entire political establishment and widespread corruption. Ideolog-
ically, ANO offers a specific kind of technocratic populism, in which it
combines anti-establishment rhetoric with centrist managerial-like techno-
cratic policies (Havlík and Voda 2016); it involves the idea of running
‘the state like managing a private business-firm’. This includes appeals
for fixing and centralizing the state administration, tackling the incompe-
tence and corruption of civil servants, and introducing vast infrastructure
projects.
This mixture proved to be the winning formula for Czech voters, espe-
cially considering the timing of ANO’s entry into Czech politics (Roberts
2018). In the course of the next seven years, ANO became the strongest
political player in the country (see Table 6.1). ANO’s electoral success in
the 2013 general elections was unexpected by many, especially since the
main opposition party (ČSSD) was supposed to win by a landslide, con-
sidering the major scandal haunting its main competitor (ODS). However,
with the exception of the Senate elections, ANO has excelled in all succes-
sive elections since then, and this in different electoral arenas, including
regional and European elections. As a result, the party has become fully
implanted at all levels of public administration. After the 2013 elections,
ANO formed a coalition government with ČSSD and KDU-ČSL. In the
2017 general elections, ANO received its largest share of votes to date
and formed a minority coalition government with ČSSD, relying on the
support of KSČM (Krumphanzl 2018). Although now weakened after los-
ing the 2021 parliamentary elections (and Babiš in the 2023 presidential
elections), the party seems firmly established on the Czech party scene,
representing a populist alternative to ČSSD and KSČM on the left of the
spectrum.
116 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Organization of New Anti-establishment Parties

Unlike other studies of these two parties which deal mainly with their
ideology (e.g. Haughton and Deegan-Krause 2015; Hanley and Vachudova
2018), we now focus on their party organization (party membership and
party elite) and financing. Both parties share a number of party organiza-
tional approaches, which differ from the established parties (ODS or ČSSD).
We start by looking at party membership.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Party membership and communication

As we can see from Table 6.3, the number of party members in ANO
and VV is much lower when compared to the established parties (i.e.
those established prior to or shortly after the 1989 revolution). The con-
trast is particularly stark when comparing ANO and VV to the two estab-
lished parties with long historical roots: KSČM and KDU-ČSL (see also
Rovenský 2018). Nevertheless, ANO’s and VV’s membership is fairly com-
parable with that of the other newer parties, such as Pirates, SPD, TOP
09, or STAN (see Mazancová 2018). All the newer parties in the country,
that is those which have emerged in the last decade or so, register very few
members compared to their established counterparts from the 1990s and
before.
In a post-communist social environment hostile to partisanship and other
conventional forms of political participation, extensive organization building

Table 6.3 Membership of Czech parties

Party M/E Income through Income through state

members (%) funding (%)

ČSSD 0.23 50.60 44.10

ODS 0.17 2.35 20.17
ANO 0.04 1.30 87.43
KDU-ČSL 0.30 3.37 37.32
KSČM 0.45 15.13 62.93
TOP 09 0.03 4.07 71.70
Mean 0.26 12.80 53.94

Source: Political Party Database Round 2 V4 (Scarrow et al. 2022), data retrieved for 2017; the
reported income share refers to the total party income; M/E was multiplied by 100 and presents the
percentage share of the electorate
 Fragmentation and Anti-Establishment Politics 117

and membership recruitment were never among parties’ highest priorities,

especially among these immediately involved in parliamentary and executive
politics (Kopecký 1995, 2001, 2007; Biezen 2003). Most Czech parties have
restricted their organizational efforts almost exclusively to the party in public
office, often failing to establish a strong extra-parliamentary organizational
structure. The only two notable exceptions in this regard are KSČM and
KDU-ČSL, long-established parties with a pre-1989 history, which are by far
the closest to the definition of a mass party in the Czech context (see, for
example, their M/E values reported in Table 6.3; see also Biezen 2003). The

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

parties established after the Velvet Revolution (mainly ODS and the recreated
ČSSD) never matched them regarding the extensiveness of party organiza-
tion. And parties even newer than ODS or ČSSD, like ANO, VV, Pirates,
SPD, TOP 09, or STAN, do not seem to even attempt to match the parties
established in the 1990s in this respect.
Overall, the trend in post-communist Czech politics is that the party mem-
bership as a percentage of the electorate (M/E ratio) is at a low level (see
Table 6.3 for more details). This is especially the case in comparison to West-
ern European democracies (see Delwit 2011: 35; Kölln 2014). The same can
be observed for the size of party membership relative to the number of the
individual party voters (M/V ratio): with the exception of KSČM and KDU-
ČSL (both commanding M/V ratio of about 10%), the only other party with
some, although minimal, M/V ratio is ODS (about 3–6%).
Interestingly, VV and ANO also display a strong emphasis on the alter-
native and limited forms of party membership (Cirhan and Stauber 2018).
ANO cultivates a far more closed elite-like membership base, while VV
was relatively open to recruit new members without setting any major
restrictions. In ANO, screening of members´ backgrounds and correspond-
ing long probationary periods were a norm in the party at its inception.
These restrictions on party membership resulted in numerous failed or
pending membership applications. In order to compensate for the (self-
)limited number of party members, both parties gradually started to focus
on registering alternative forms of membership, in particular party sym-
pathizers, who have no rights, nor any influence on their parties (in VV,
sympathizers initially had voting rights but had them restricted later)
(Cirhan and Stauber 2018).
The focus on alternative forms of membership is also crucial with respect
to party communication. ANO, in particular, established a robust network
of party sympathizers and online supporters who have been widely used for
communicating the party message to its potential electorate. The party has
118 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

also invested in a specialized social media team in order to boost this impor-
tant strategy of party marketing (Cirhan and Stauber 2018: 475). In contrast,
VV did not invest so much in its online activities, most likely because the
party emerged prior to the spread and popularity of social media
Arguably, the strategy based on alternative forms of membership is advan-
tageous with regard to the maintenance of the party organization: both ANO
and, to lesser extent, VV focus on the advantages of membership in the
form of voluntary labour and restrict those types and aspects of member-
ship that are not easily maintained organizationally (Cirhan and Stauber

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2018). Similar developments can be observed in the case of other newer par-
ties like TOP 09, SPD, Pirates, or STAN, which also register very limited
numbers of party members and do not invest in building extensive party
membership.

Party elites

Another aspect of VV´s and ANO´s party organization that is crucial for
understanding their involvement in Czech politics relates to the party elite.
Previous research has established that the contrasting political and organi-
zational fortunes of VV and ANO can be partially explained by the different
composition of their party elites (Cirhan and Kopecký 2017). Concretely,
the similarity in professional and career backgrounds among the party elite
could act as one of the contributing factors for their organizational survival
(by facilitating party cohesion). In theory, party cohesion is a crucial part of
party unity (see Andeweg and Thomassen 2010); commonly shared career
and professional backgrounds of party elites are variables that support party
cohesion (Putnam 1973). ANO displayed a highly homogenous party elite,
(67% of its party elite were managers), while VV´s party elite included indi-
viduals with much more heterogenous career pathways (only 24% of its party
elite shared the same career background). Also, in ANO a non-negligible pro-
portion of the party elite (17%) was recruited from the Agrofert business
conglomerate of the party leader. Many of these individuals associated with
Babiš´s business hold important posts within ANO (see Cirhan and Kopecký
2017 for more details).
For the ANO, party cohesion resulting from this organizational strategy of
relying on Agrofert managers proved to be especially relevant and advanta-
geous when it had to deal with major scandals. It was most strongly tested
when Babiš began to be investigated by The European Anti-Fraud Office
(OLAF) and by the Czech police for an alleged fraud in the application for
 Fragmentation and Anti-Establishment Politics 119

EU funding for one of his companies (Rankin, 2018). When the party faced
serious scandals concerning the party leader, the party elite stayed firmly
united behind him, and none of the party elite voiced any opposition towards
Babiš in public (ČTK 2015). There was no publicly visible faction within
ANO asking for his resignation, questioning his position, or even suggesting
changes in the leadership. On the contrary, in the months and years following
the scandal, all members of ANO´s elite continued and continue to support
Babiš publicly in the media and in parliament (Kosová 2018).
When VV went through a similar test concerning a scandal with much

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

less significant magnitude, it failed miserably. The corruption scandal in VV
involved an influential member of the party and one of its main donors, Vít
Bárta (ČTK 2011). Bárta has been labelled by local commentators as the grey
eminence of VV and the most influential individual in the party, who was de
facto running the party instead of the party leader John. The organizational
crisis in VV was complex; however, its trigger was rather straightforward—
bribery and party financing scandals among its party elite. Bárta´s ABL
security agency and his relatives were involved in non-transparent party
funding both to the party and to different individuals within the party organi-
zation. A trial took place in 2012, in which Bárta was sentenced for providing
interest-free loans to members of the VV’s parliamentary group (Cirhan
and Stauber 2018: 464). Handing money to different MPs was considered
bribery, and the scandal had a destructive impact on the party organiza-
tion. VV quickly fell into internal conflicts and party divisions following
the media coverage of Bárta´s scandals. The party elites were divided and
started to blame each other in the media; there were frequent changes in party
leadership, and the party split into different factions.
This political strategy of targeting managers from outside of politics is not
an entirely new idea in the context of contemporary post-communist Czech
politics. A similar strategy was implemented in ODS in the 1990s. In this
respect, Hadjiisky (2011) talks about an essential group of so-called post-
normalization technocrats: individuals that formed the ideology and public
image of ODS throughout this period. This ODS elite shared similar political
attitudes based on their common professional past as managers or financiers
and their educational profiles as economists. Hadjiisky (2011: 102) referred
to ODS as a business enterprise because of the influence of these profes-
sionals on the party ideology. For similar reasons, Hanley (2008) described
ODS as the tool of technocratic modernization, emphasizing the substan-
tial impact these professionals had on the party. Although the difference
between economists and engineers within the party leadership later led to
widespread disputes and tensions and the struggle for control over the party,
120 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

in the 1990s it unified the party ideologically. The common ground on main
policies and a common-sense technocratic approach shared by ODS’s elite
helped it to share common political attitudes which, in turn, protected the
party organization from larger conflicts and the risk of disintegration.
While in ANO and ODS the parties’ unity stemmed partially from the
similarity in the career profiles of their party elites, other parties relied on
connections to social groups (e.g. the Greens with environmental organiza-
tions) as their source of cohesion. The same cannot be said about some of
the other Czech parties, notably ČSSD, where the conflicts between different

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

party factions (stirring internal conflicts) were notorious throughout its his-
tory. The conflict was mostly visible between the faction standing behind the
former party leader (and the former Czech president Miloš Zeman) and a
more liberal wing of the party. The struggle between the two factions culmi-
nated after the 2013 general elections, when a faction around regional party
leaders in Brno (the second-largest Czech city) organized an attempted lead-
ership coup against the then party leader Sobotka. The conflict between the
two factions took weeks to resolve. It severely weakened the position of party
leader within the party, as well as the position of ČSSD in the newly form-
ing coalition government with ANO. The conflict between the two different
factions in ČSSD never fully disappeared and continues to this day. It re-
emerged repeatedly during the period when ČSSD participated in Babiš’s
coalition government and ultimately could be seen as one of the major con-
tributing factors for the weak electoral performance of the party in the 2021
elections and its exit from the lower house of parliament.
A similar fate of losing its presence in the Chamber of Deputies was also
haunting TOP 09. Although a relatively united party that did not have many
publicly known scandals or internal party conflicts, it has had issues of its
own. A deficit of charismatic candidates, on one side, combined with the
entry of new successful liberal parties (like Pirates), on the other, represent a
serious problem for TOP 09, which relies on a similar type of voter to Pirates.
Regarding the party elite, we can see a specific personnel continuity between
previously mentioned minor centre-right liberal parties like ODA, US-DEU,
and most recently TOP 09. Many of their elite have originated from the early
days of Civic Forum and transferred through several of these parties.
For the other newer parties, like Pirates, it still remains to be seen how
they will hold together now that they have become involved in the coalition
government after the 2021 poll. From the very beginning, Pirates has pre-
sented itself as a party with a novel approach to party organization, relying
on its grassroots structures and online forums for its internal decisions (Nat-
trass 2021). It could then be expected that the relationships within the party
 Fragmentation and Anti-Establishment Politics 121

elite would matter less for such a party, as its source of party unity could
be based elsewhere. However, research on Pirates indicates that although
the so-called ‘member initiative’ theoretically gives members more power to
influence the internal party functioning than in the established parties, its
actual usage in the party is limited (Michalčák 2018). The party leadership
of Pirates maintains autonomy in matters related to the programmatic prior-
ities and organization of campaigns. Another limitation of members’ impact
within the party is related to their relative passivity: the party members in
Pirates seem to be much more active locally than at the national level. This

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

shows that, even for parties that may on the outside appear less strictly hierar-
chical and more grassroots driven, the intra-elite relationships are probably
the most important ingredient for their survival.

Party financing

One can only speculate if Babiš learnt from the mistakes of VV when he
established ANO and recruited its party elite. However, one aspect that most
certainly contributes to any new party´s success, especially at the early stage
of its formation, is the availability of party financing. There is no doubt that
the vast financial resources of its party leader were an obvious advantage at
the beginning of ANO’s existence, as nearly all of its total revenue before the
party won parliamentary seats was donated by Babiš or by companies affili-
ated with his Agrofert business conglomerate. In this part of the chapter, we
therefore pay close attention to how Czech parties are funded.
Between 1990 and 2012, Czech parties received over 40% of party fund-
ing from public subsidies (Kopecký and Biezen 2017); the data in Table 6.3
indicate that this percentage is now well over 50%, representing a very large
proportion of their overall finances. In the context of the Czech party sys-
tem, parties are highly dependent on public subsidies for their existence and
long-term survival. Indeed, as can also be seen from Table 6.3, which reports
some of the most recent data, public subsidies constitute the largest share of
income for most parties. ODS and KDU-ČSL, which receive a sizeable pro-
portion of their party finance from private donations and their own economic
activities, are an exception. Most Czech parties represented in parliament
depend almost exclusively on funding from the state. In some cases, like
ANO or Pirates, public subsidies are almost the sole source of party income,
with income from members in particular representing only a very negligible
source of money.
However, as mentioned in the second section of this chapter, parties are
only entitled to receive the funds from the state when they perform well in
122 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

elections (when the party receives at least 3% of the vote in general elections).
The availability of private funding for a party at the time of its emergence (or,
alternatively, at the time of a disastrous electoral performance) may therefore
be a crucial aspect of its success, and indeed also an opportunity to control
the party organization from the early days. Babiš seem to be the case in point
here. As mentioned previously, ANO (unlike VV ) depended highly on private
sources during its emergence, in particular from Babiš and his companies.
Importantly, this private funding from Babiš to ANO was made in the form of
loans to the party. The fact that these loans represented a large proportion of

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

this party’s income meant that Babiš could directly exercise control over the
party organization. One could argue that because ANO could not function
without his financial support (and the party was highly indebted to him for
it), this financial backing made it much easier for him to secure a dominant
position within the party.

Conclusion

The Czech party system in the 2020s is more volatile than in the late 1990s,
with new parties making an electoral breakthrough and gaining seats in
parliament while some of the seeming mainstays of the party system, like
ČSSD and KSČM, have been forced to leave it. Simultaneously, it is more
difficult for the parties to form a government, and coalition governments
consisting of three or more parties are likely to become the norm. Some
of the newcomers into the party system fall apart quickly after making an
electoral breakthrough, while some appear to be here to stay. The com-
parison drawn in this chapter focused on two new parties with opposite
political and organizational fortunes. The successful ANO has become one
of the biggest and most important parties in the country, while VV has failed
and disappeared despite a successful start. The focus of this comparison
was on how these two political parties’ organizational features have influ-
enced their survival. On one hand, they are fairly similar in their approach
towards party membership, although ANO is much more restrictive and
closed, almost elite-like in this respect. Both parties rely on alternative forms
of membership that provide the perks of having members without having to
pay for their maintenance organizationally. On the other hand, the homo-
geneity of the ANO party elite, absent in VV, facilitated the party’s survival
even when it was severely tested in government. The overlap between the
party leadership structures and private company networks seems to have
facilitated unity within the party. In the absence of such unity, the shocks
 Fragmentation and Anti-Establishment Politics 123

triggered by scandals have proven to be organizationally fatal, as shown by

the case of VV.
What has been the wider impact of ANO and VV on the development
of democracy in the Czech Republic? VV was too short-lived to leave an
impact, but when it comes to ANO, certain red flags appear. For instance,
Babiš expressed ambitions to amend the constitution, ostensibly to make the
system more ‘efficient’. He planned to abolish the Senate and the regional
level of governance, and to reduce the size of the parliament. He repeatedly
attacked the legislative process in the Chamber of Deputies as just endless

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

twaddle. He presented himself as a pragmatic businessman with a real-life,
hands-on approach, and who does not waste time on long discussions. This
perspective of politics has been fully in line with ANO´s version of techno-
cratic populism that reduces democratic governance to managing the state
efficiently like running a private company. In this context, some well-known
intellectuals warned that Babiš as PM (in cooperation with the then Czech
president Miloš Zeman) might attempt to dismantle liberal democracy in a
way parallel to the political changes seen in Poland or Hungary.
This turned out not to be entirely the case. ANO´s technocratic populism
(rather than the nationalist and illiberal approaches of PiS or Fidesz in Poland
and Hungary, respectively) and its shallow ideological anchoring meant it
lacked zeal and purpose for systematic changes that would lead to the dis-
mantling of democracy. Importantly, given the diffuse institutional structure
of the Czech political system and a fragmented political class, ANO was fre-
quently challenged by the Senate, the courts, media, and powerful regional
governments, and it always lacked the parliamentary and political majority
necessary for a sustained attack on democracy. Instead, a major problem in
the Czech case has been the tremendous accumulation of economic, politi-
cal, and media power in the hands of one person and its subsequent use in
the way that Abby Innes (2016) succinctly described as a corporate state cap-
ture. Even then, however, Babiš´s conflicts of interests, frequently pursued by
some media, together with a mismanaged COVID-19 pandemic, rising infla-
tion, and other economic issues, have consistently brought pressures on his
party and ultimately led to its defeat.
The 2021 general elections were de facto a referendum on Babiš. Two pre-
viously mentioned anti-ANO electoral coalitions, together consisting of five
individual parties, were formed ahead of the elections to challenge Babiš: the
more conservative SPOLU coalition of ODS, KDU-ČSL, and TOP 09, and
the more liberal centrist coalition of Pirates and STAN. Both coalitions per-
formed well electorally. SPOLU received the highest number of votes and
defeated Babiš by a few votes. More importantly, however, together with the
124 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

coalition of Pirates and STAN, they hold a majority of seats in the lower
house of parliament and now form the government under the leadership of
Petr Fiala (ODS). To make things worse for Babiš, he decided to run for the
presidency but was decisively defeated in the 2023 direct presidential elec-
tions by Petr Pavel, a non-affiliated former NATO general, who was politically
supported by all the parties in the government coalition.
This now leaves the country and its party system in a somewhat paradox-
ical situation: Babiš has been replaced in government by some of the very
same parties whose past scandals led to his successful entry into politics.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Considering that Fiala’s government consists of five ideologically rather het-
erogenous parties and now faces ANO as its main opposition party at a time
of high levels of inflation and social unrest, it remains to be seen how sta-
ble the post-2021 government will be. The fragmentation of the Czech party
system that precipitated the emergence of ANO is also unlikely to be funda-
mentally reversed by the defeat of Babiš’s technocratic populism. However,
this peaceful and strategically manufactured transfer of power, both in par-
liament and in the presidential office, shows that while parties are often the
Czech political system’s main problem, they are still also the only institutions
capable of solving these problems.

Note
1. Depending on the individual party rules, either the local or district branches draft the
candidate lists that are sent for approval to the higher levels of party organization, be it
the regional executive committee or the national executive committee. Additionally, in
the case of some parties, the party leadership maintains a veto right on the candidate
selection.

References

Andeweg, Rudy and Jacques Thomassen. 2010. ‘Pathways to Party Unity: Sanction,
Loyalty, Homogeneity and Division of Labour in the Dutch Parliament’. Party
Politics, 17(5):655–672.
Berglund, Sten and Jan Ake Dellenbrant. 1991. The New Democracies in East-
ern Europe: Party Systems and Political Cleavages, Studies of Communism in
Transition. Hants: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.
Biezen, Ingrid van. 2003. Political Parties in New Democracies: Party Organisation
in Southern and East-Central Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
 Fragmentation and Anti-Establishment Politics 125

Casal Bértoa, Fernando. 2022. ‘Database on WHO Governs in Europe and Beyond:
Party Systems and Governments Observatory’. https://whogoverns.eu/ (Accessed
23 March 2023).
Čermák, Daniel and Jana Stachová. 2010. ‘Sources of Trust in Institutions in the
Czech Republic’. Czech Sociological Review, 46(5):683–717.
Cirhan, Tomáš, and Petr Kopecký. 2017. ‘Career Backgrounds, Professional Network
and Party Cohesion’. Czech Journal of Political Science, 2:116–136.
Cirhan, Tomáš, and Petr Kopecký. 2019. ‘From Ideology to Interest-driven Poli-
tics: Václav Klaus, Andrej Babiš and Two Eras of Party Leadership in the Czech

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Republic’. In Sergiu Ghergina (ed.), Party Leaders in Eastern Europe. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 93–120.
Cirhan, Tomáš and Jakub Stauber. 2018. ‘Online Supporter and Registered Sym-
pathiser as Alternatives to a Regular Party Member’. East European Politics,
34(4):458–482.
Crawford, Keith. 2001. ‘A System of Disproportional Representation in the Czech
Republic: The Proposed Electoral Law for the Czech Republic’. Representation,
38(1):46–58.
ČTK. 2011. ‘Bárta předáním půl milionu porušil zákon, tvrdí Pospíšil a Dientsbier’,
Aktuálně.cz. 10 April.
ČTK. 2015. ‘Byla odejita! Válková: Rezignace nebyla moje svobodné rozhodnutí’. TV
Nova (date unknown).
Delwit, Pascal. 2011 ‘Still in Decline? Party Membership in Europe’. In Emilie Van
Haute, (ed.), Party Membership in Europe: Exploration into the Anthills of Party
Politics, Brussels: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 25–42.
Döring, Holger, Constantin Huber, and Philip Manow. 2022. Parliaments and
Governments Database (ParlGov): Information on Parties, Elections and Cabinets
in Established Democracies. Development version. https://partyfacts.herokuapp.
com/data/parlgov/ (Accessed 10 April 2022).
Hadjiisky, Magdaléna. 2011. ‘Občanská Demokratická Strana a Prosazení Stran-
ickosti v České Demokracii Devadesátých let’. Czech Sociological Review, 47(1):
89–114.
Hanley, Sean. 2008. The New Right in the New Europe: Czech Transformation and
Right-Wing Politics, 1989–2006. London: Routledge.
Hanley, Sean and Milada Vachudova. 2018. ‘Understanding the Illiberal Turn:
Democratic Backsliding in the Czech Republic’. East European Politics, 34(3):
276–296.
Haughton, Tim, and Kevin Deegan-Krause. 2015. ‘Hurricane Season: Systems of
Instability in Central and East European Party Politics’. East European Politics and
Societies and Cultures, 29(1):61–80.
126 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Havlík, Vlastimil and Petr Voda. 2016. ‘The Rise of New Political Parties and Re-
alignment of Party Politics in the Czech Republic’. Acta Politologica, 8(2):119–144.
Hloušek, Vít. 2012. ‘Věci veřejné: politické podnikání strany typu firmy’. Czech
Journal of Political Science, 4:322–340.
Hloušek, Vít, Lubomír Kopeček, and Petra Vodová. 2020. The Rise of Entrepreneurial
Parties in European Politics. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
IDEA. 2022. Voter Turnout Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-
turnout-database (Accessed 10 April 2022).
Innes, Abby. 2016. ‘Corporate State Capture in Open Societies: The Emergence

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

of Corporate Brokerage Party Systems’. East European Politics and Societies and
Cultures, 30(3):594–620.
Klíma, Michal. 2015. Od totality k defektní demokracii: privatizace a kolonizace
politických stran netransparentním byznysem. Prague: SLON.
Kölln, Ann-Kristin. 2014. ‘Party Membership in Europe: Testing Party-level Expla-
nations of Decline’. Party Politics, 22(4):465–477.
Kopecký, Petr. 1995. ‘Developing Party Organisations in East-Central Europe: What
Type of Party is Likely to Emerge?’. Party Politics, 1(4): 515–534.
Kopecký, Petr. 2001. Parliaments in the Czech and Slovak Republic, Party Competi-
tion and Parliamentary Institutionalism. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Kopecký, Petr. 2004. ‘Czech Republic: Entrenching Proportional Representation’. In
Josep M. Colomer (ed.), The Handbook of Electoral System Choice. Basingstoke:
Palgrave, 347–358.
Kopecký, Petr. 2007. ‘Building Party Government: Political Parties in the Czech and
Slovak Republics’. In Paul Webb and Stephen White (eds), Party Politics in New
Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kopecký, Petr and Ingrid van Biezen. 2017. ‘The Paradox of Party Funding: The
Limited Impact of State Subsidies on Party Membership’. In Susan Scarrow, Paul
Webb, and Thomas Poguntke (eds), Organizing Political Parties: Representation,
Participation, and Power. Oxford: Oxford Scholarship Online, 84–105.
Kosová, Pavlína. 2018. ‘ANO brání Babiše. Jeho poslanci se postavili proti tomu, aby
se kauza Babišova syna probírala na výboru’, Seznam Zprávy, 22 November.
Krumphanzl, Michal. 2018. ‘Vláda ANO a ČSSD podpořená komunisty získala
důvěru poslanců’, České Noviny, date unknown.
Kubát, Michal and Maciej Hartliński. 2019. ‘Party Leaders in the Czech Populist
Parties and Movements’. Polish Political Science Review, 7(1):107–119.
Mazancová, Hana. 2018. ‘Počty členů ve stranách: nové tváře hlásí ANO, Piráti i
KSČM. ČSSD ztratila po volbách 1500 lidí’, Český Rozhlas, 10 June.
Michalčák, Jan. 2018. The Czech Pirate Party: Is Intra-party Democracy Decreasing
Following the Party’s Recent Electoral Success? (Master’s thesis). Leiden: Leiden
University.
 Fragmentation and Anti-Establishment Politics 127

Nattrass, William. 2021. ‘The Remarkable Rise of the Czech Pirate Party’. Spec-
tator (23 February). https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-remarkable-rise-of-
the-czech-pirate-party (Accessed 3 November 2021).
Rankin, Jennifer. 2018. ‘EU antifraud office finds 'irregularities' in payments allegedly
obtained by Czech PM’. The Guardian (5 January) Available at: https://www.
theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/05/eu-antifraud-office-finds-irregularities-in-
payments-allegedly-obtained-by-czech-pm (Accessed 21 January 2024).
Pšenička, Stanislav. 2019 ‘Financování politických stran po novele č. 302/2016
Sb., MVČR’, date unknown. https://knihovna.usoud.cz/arl-us/en/detail-us_us_

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

cat-0040031-Financovani-politickych-stran-po-novele-c-3022016-Sb/ (Accessed
3 November 2021).
Putnam, Robert. 1973. The Beliefs of Politicians: Ideology, Conflict, and Democracy
in Britain and Italy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Roberts, Andrew. 2018. ‘Czech Billionaires and Politicians’. Problems of Post-
Communism, 66(6):434–444.
Rovenský, Jan. 2018. ‘Lidovcům, ČSSD i KSČM mizí členové po tisících’, Novinky,
11 April. https://www.novinky.cz/domaci/clanek/lidovcum-cssd-i-kscm-mizi-
clenove-po-tisicich-40279780 (Accessed 3 November 2021).
Scarrow, Susan E., Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke. 2022. ‘Intra-Party
Decision-making in Contemporary Europe: Improving Representation or Ruling
with Empty Shells’. Irish Political Studies, 37(2):196–217.
7
Italian Parties and Party System(s)
Enrico Calossi and Eugenio Pizzimenti

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Introduction: The Italian Party Systems

The Second Republic: The never-ending reform of the rules

of the game

The party system that had been established in Italy after the end of the Sec-
ond World War suddenly collapsed around 1992–1993 as a consequence of a
combination of both exogenous and endogenous shocks (Harmel and Janda
1994; Pizzimenti 2020).1 Party system change was attributed to a number of
different factors: a) the collapse of international communism and its impact
on domestic electoral alignments; b) the disclosure of a widespread system of
political corruption; c) the country’s fiscal crisis at a critical time in the pro-
cess that eventually gave birth to the euro; and d) a referendum that forced
radical changes in parliamentary election rules. All these factors climaxed at
the same time, and at least some of them had mutually reinforcing effects.
The general elections held in March 1994 marked the beginning of the so-
called Italian ‘Second Republic’. A systemic change had occurred (Jones and
Pasquino 2015), although the institutions did not significantly change com-
pared to the previous period. In fact, the modification of the format and
mechanics of the party system, as well as of the relevant parties, was signif-
icantly profound. Thus, the Second Republic has been characterized by an
over-production of political reforms, in particular, concerning electoral rules
and the public funding regime.
As for the electoral rules, three reforms were approved by Parliament, in
1993, 2005, and 2017. The underlying logic of all these reforms was the lim-
itation of proportionality to strengthen the link between the parliamentary
majority and the executive. Disproportional mechanisms were introduced
in order to favour the establishment of a bipolar competition. A mixed elec-
toral system (3/4 single member plurality and 1/4 party list proportional)

Enrico Calossi and Eugenio Pizzimenti, Italian Parties and Party System(s). In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Enrico Calossi and Eugenio Pizzimenti
(2024). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0007
 Italian Parties and Party System(s) 129

was initially introduced, which lasted until 2005; it was then replaced by a
proportional system strongly unbalanced in favour of the winning coalition,
which was guaranteed the absolute majority of seats in the Chamber of
Deputies. In 2014, the Constitutional Court established the partial uncon-
stitutionality of this law. Three years later, a new mixed electoral system
was approved (2/3 single member majority, 1/3 party list proportional).
However, the debate about the need for a new reform persists.
Regarding the funding and regulation of party politics, the Italian con-
stitution (Article 49) mentions political parties as fundamental actors in

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

determining national politics through ‘democratic methods’. However, the
constitution neither regulates specific aspects of intra-party dynamics (func-
tional/organizational arrangements) nor defines binding requirements that
political parties must conform to (Pacini and Piccio 2012). The Italian case
has been defined as a case of ‘inclusive cartelization’ (Pizzimenti 2017). The
inclusiveness of the cartel was the by-product of a bipolar electoral competi-
tion within a highly fragmented party system, which gave coalition potential
to a number of small parties: these were ‘rewarded’ by progressively lowering
the electoral threshold to access public funds.
The first legal framework disciplining public funding to parties was intro-
duced in 1974; it was partly modified in 1979 and 1981 and it was significantly
reformed after a people’s referendum in 1993. Direct funding was then pro-
vided only as electoral reimbursement. However, normative legislation and
amendments (in 1997, 1999, 2002, 2006, and 2012) dramatically increased
the total amount of money assigned to parties far beyond the level of elec-
toral reimbursements (Pizzimenti and Ignazi 2011; Pizzimenti 2018). In
1999, an amendment was introduced that aimed at granting 5% of elec-
toral reimbursements to initiatives that promoted the political participation
of women. Since 2017, Italy has been an evident anomaly in the context of
the European Union, as it is the only large country that does not provide
any direct public funding to parties (Pizzimenti and Calossi 2020; Ignazi
and Fiorelli 2021). In fact, as a consequence of a growing anti-party senti-
ment, between 2014 and 2017 direct funds destined to parties were abolished;
simultaneously, a mild state regulation was introduced to discipline party
organizations.

Party system stability in time, 1948–2018

To appreciate the patterns of continuity and change between the First and
the Second Republic, it is helpful to resort to a set of party system indicators
130 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

which are integrated with measurements of other important aspects of the

political competition. First, by focusing on the propensity to change the rules
of the game (number of relevant reforms/number of years) it is clear how the
First Republic was more stable than the Second (0.16 vs 0.89, respectively).
The same holds when looking at the degree of party organizational and elec-
toral consolidation. Following Pizzimenti (2020), we resort to an indicator
that measures the ratio between consolidated parties (ConsP; i.e. parties that
show both organizational and electoral stability for at least 15 years and/or
four general elections [Arter and Kekkonen 2014]) and competitive parties

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

(ComP; i.e. parties that win parliamentary seats). Our data show that the
ConsP/ComP ratio was much higher during the First Republic (0.6) than in
the Second Republic (0.2).
As Table 7.1 shows, significant changes affected electoral turnout (TO):
while the mean 1948–1992 value was 91.6%, in the following decades it
fell to 80.4%, thus signalling an increasing disaffection towards politics, a

Table 7.1 Party system indicators: Second Republic, 1993–2018

TO EFRG ENEP PFRG ENPP

1948 92.2 0.66 2.94 0.611 2.57

1953 93.8 0.761 4.18 0.718 3.54
1958 93.8 0.741 3.87 0.71 3.45
1963 92.9 0.759 4.15 0.733 3.74
1968 92.8 0.747 3.95 0.717 3.53
1972 93.2 0.754 4.07 0.719 3.55
1976 93.4 0.716 3.52 0.684 3.16
1979 90.6 0.744 3.91 0.713 3.48
1983 89 0.778 4.51 0.751 4.01
1987 88.8 0.783 4.61 0.755 4.08
1992 87.3 0.849 6.62 0.825 5.73
st.dev 2.30 0.04 0.91 0.05 0.78
Mean 91.61 0.75 4.21 0.72 3.71
1994 86.1 0.868 7.58 0.862 7.58
1996 82.9 0.86 7.14 0.868 7.14
2001 81.4 0.841 6.31 0.823 5.65
2006 83.6 0.818 5.5 0.797 4.92
2008 80.5 0.738 3.82 0.675 3.08
2013 75.2 0.815 5.39 0.715 3.51
2018 72.9 0.807 5.19 0.768 4.32
st.dev 4.71 0.04 1.23 0.07 1.72
mean 80.37 0.82 5.85 0.79 5.17

TO—turnout; EFRG—electoral fragmentation; ENEP—effective number of

electoral parties; PFRG—parliamentary fragmentation; ENPP—effective
number of parliamentary parties
Source: Authors’ elaboration on Siaroff (2019).
 Italian Parties and Party System(s) 131

well-known phenomenon in all Western democracies. However, the destruc-

turing of the party system emerges in both the electoral and parliamen-
tary arenas. In fact, all the indicators measuring the level of fragmentation
increased: this is particularly evident concerning the effective number of
electoral parties (ENEP) and the effective number of parliamentary parties
(ENPP).
Finally, Figure 7.1 presents the changes which occurred between the First
and the Second Republic in terms of party system volatility in the three main
arenas of political competition (Bardi and Mair 2008). As for government

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

volatility—the percentage of ministers belonging to new parties which were
present in the previous executive—the Second Republic actually shows ele-
ments of typical competitive and majoritarian democracies, while the First
Republic was characterized by a strong stability in parties occupying the exec-
utive. Regarding electoral and parliamentary volatility, the highest values are
observable in 1994 and 2013. These years coincide with general elections that
followed deep economic, political, and even moral crises of the country; these
elections registered the success of brand-new parties, namely Forza Italia in
1994 and Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) in 2013, whose success was heavily based
on a rhetoric of rupture with the past.

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%

10%
0%
1953 1958 1963 1968 1972 1976 1979 1983 1987 1992 1994 1996 2001 2006 2008 2013 2018

Electoral Volatility Parliamentary Volatility Governmental Volatility

Figure 7.1 Party system volatility, 1953–2018

Note: Governmental volatility is calculated in analogy with parliamentary volatility. Thus taking into
account the number of parties present in the previous executive, and the share of the occupied
ministerial positions. These data are compared with the number of parties and ministerial positions
occupied in the following cabinet.
Source: Calossi and Cicchi 2018
132 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

The Organization, Ideology, and Communication of Four

Italian parties
The relevance of the selected parties

Our empirical analysis focuses on four parties: the largest parties of the two
main competing coalitions and two parties that have played (and still play) a
crucial role in influencing the mechanics of the party system. These four are
the Partito Democratico (PD) and its major predecessors, the Partito Demo-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

cratico della Sinistra (PDS) and the Democratici di Sinistra (DS), which
have always been the pillars of the centre-left alliance. We also include the
two ‘editions’ of Forza Italia, around which the centre-right coalition was
formed in 1994, and which was re-established in 2013 after the failed merger
with Alleanza Nazionale that led to the birth of the short-lived Popolo della
Libertà (PDL) in 2008. The third party is Lega, which was created in 1991 as
Lega Nord by federating several regionalist and autonomist lists, adopting the
name of Lega Salvini Premier in 2019. Lega is the oldest party in the Italian
party system, even though it has changed its electoral strategies several times.
The fourth party is the M5S. It took part in the 2013 general elections outside
the bipolar scheme by not placing itself along the left–right axis. Thereafter,
it suddenly and unexpectedly became the largest party in terms of votes. Its
success was further reinforced in 2018, when it increased its percentage of
votes, gained more seats, and formed a government for the first time.
As shown in Table 7.2, until 2008, the most important centre-right and
centre-left parties plus the Lega obtained, on average, 57.9% of votes cast.
After the entrance of the M5S into the electoral arena, these four parties accu-
mulated far more than 75% and 80% of the votes cast in 2013 and 2018,
respectively, even if the electoral results of each party significantly changed
over time (in particular those of the Lega and PD). As for seats, in all seven
elections the analysed parties have obtained, cumulatively, more than 50% of
the seats. In 2008, 2013, and 2018 they won more than 80% of the seats.

Table 7.2 Aggregated votes and seats to the four parties (%), 1994–2018

1994 1996 2001 2006 2008 2013 2018

Votes 49.8 51.7 49.9 59.1 78.9 76.6 82.8

TOT
Seats 53.9 56.2 55.1 60.8 86.2 81.8 85.4

Source: Authors’ own calculation on official data provided by https://elezionistorico.

interno.gov.it/ (Accessed 15 December 2023)
 Italian Parties and Party System(s) 133

Furthermore, all these parties had a coalitional potential. In this respect,

the relevance of the M5S is well represented by its changing partners that have
been included in government since 2018 (first the Lega, later replaced by the
PD), until the launch in February 2021 of a technocratic government lead by
former president of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi, supported by
almost all parliamentary parties.

Membership and intra-party democracy

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Regarding the organization of the selected parties, we first focus on the evolu-
tion of party membership. Table 7.3 indicates the evolution of party members
in the Second Republic.
The PDS-DS inherited the mass-party tradition from the Italian Commu-
nist Party (PCI) and continued to be the largest party in terms of members
until 2007, notwithstanding a constant decline. On the right, the newly
founded Forza Italia had a fluctuating membership, while the Lega Nord kept
constant figures of about 120,000 members. In 2007, the almost simultane-
ous birth of PD and PDL led to an increase in overall membership figures.
In 2008, the PD exceeded 800,000 members. Additionally, the PDL publicly
announced its membership in 2011, when the central party organization
confirmed one million members—a figure that the literature considers as
implausible (Pizzimenti 2020). In the following years, a clear trend towards
a continuous decline in total party membership emerged—this was particu-
larly evident for PD, which lost almost half its members, but it holds also for
the reborn Forza Italia. Figures referring to the Lega remained constant at
least until 2013, the last year for which data are available. Finally, the M5S—
which was launched as a digital party (Gerbaudo 2018)—registered shrinking
figures, despite the remarkable increase in the number of members from 2010
onwards.
Moreover, the types of membership as well as the status and powers
assigned to members are crucial aspects of the party system. In the litera-
ture, growing attention has been paid to the diffusion of more ‘relaxed’ forms
of affiliation to political parties, with fewer obligations and limited rights
(Biezen et al. 2012; Scarrow 2017; Archury et al. 2018). These types of affil-
iation often take different names, such as ‘supporters’ or ‘friends’, and are
characterized by an inactive role in the life and organization of the party.
This kind of membership is provided by the Lega, whose statutes explicitly
indicate the existence of the ‘soci sostenitori’ (supporters) alongside normal
members. Further, the PD, since its foundation, has adopted open primary
134 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Table 7.3 Evolution of party membership

PDS-DS PD FI PDL Lega M5S

1994 698,287 NA NA NA 167,650 NA

1995 682,287 NA 5,200 NA 123,031 NA
1996 686,713 NA - NA 112,970 NA
1997 640,838 NA 139,546 NA 136,503 NA
1998 613,412 NA 161,319 NA 121,777 NA
1999 656,146 NA 190,398 NA 123,352 NA
2000 555,171 NA 312,863 NA 120,897 NA

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2001 598,085 NA 271,751 NA 124,310 NA
2002 534,358 NA 222,631 NA 119,653 NA
2003 549,372 NA 249,824 NA 131,423 NA
2004 555,481 NA - NA - NA
2005 543,907 NA 190,012 NA 131,423 NA
2006 615,414 NA - NA - NA
2007 571,583 NA 401,214 NA - NA
2008 NA 791,517 - NA 150,000 NA
2009 NA 831,042 - NA - 6,123
2010 NA 617,897 - 1,000,000 182,505 60,456
2011 NA 607,897 - - - 100,789
2012 NA 500,163 - - - 255,339
2013 NA 539,354 - - 122,000 80,383
2014 NA 378,187 - NA - 87,656
2015 NA 395,320 110,000 NA - 120,369
2016 NA 405,041 - NA - 135,023
2017 NA - 111,000 NA - 140,147
2018 NA 374,786 - NA - 100,258
2019 NA 412,675 - NA - 115,372
2020 NA - - NA - 175,281

Source: Adaptation from Pizzimenti (2020)

elections to choose the party leader. Voting rights in primary elections are
granted to all those who agree to pay a small contribution (over time it
has increased from one to two euro). Furthermore, voters must agree to be
registered as ‘party supporters’ (Seddone and Sandri 2020).
By focusing on the rights and powers accorded to ordinary members, it is
possible to resort to the Index of Members’ Prerogatives. This is calculated by
combining eight variables, which assess the prerogatives of members within
party organizations2 . We rest on the rationale of the Political Party Database
Project; thus, we analysed and codified party statutes by assigning values
ranging from 0 to 1. The two polar models are represented by a party in which
democracy follows a bottom-up process of delegation and membership bor-
ders are clearly defined (score: 1). In contrast, in a plebiscitary/top-down
 Italian Parties and Party System(s) 135

Table 7.4 Index of Membersʼ Prerogatives∗

Party 1991–1998 2002–2006 2008–2009 2015–2017

PDS-DS-PD 0.61 0.33 0.22 0.16

FI-PDL-FI 0.55 0.72 0.44 0.72
Lega 0.61 0.61 NA 0.27
∗ ∗
M5S 0.55 0.27

Source: Pizzimenti (2020)

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

model, membership is open and the leadership is legitimized by a large base
of sympathizers (score: 0). The first pole is typical to mass/traditional parties,
while the second pole is expected to be associated with newer parties.
Table 7.4 shows that during 1991–1998, the PDS and Lega adopted a mass-
party/traditional model. Forza Italia, which was then the newest party and
was characterized by the strong leadership of Berlusconi, was more oriented
towards plebiscitary democracy. Over time, both Lega and, even more evi-
dently, DS and later PD adopted a plebiscitary model: the DS introduced a
closed primary election to elect the party leader, which turned into open pri-
maries in the PD; the Lega introduced closed primary elections in 2013. In
contrast, the organizational consolidation of Forza Italia resulted in a more
traditional internal functioning. The M5S, which entered the scene only in
the early 2010s, adopted an internal functioning typical of traditional parties.
In fact, despite its strong anti-party rhetoric and pro-novelty propaganda, the
M5S accorded rights and active roles only to officially registered members. It
was only in the mid-2010s that the movement adopted a rather plebiscitary
style through the introduction of closed primary elections. The paradox is
that Forza Italia, which in the 1990s was the party with the least traditional
internal functioning, is now the party with the most traditional member-
ship regulation. The inverse development characterizes the post-communist
family, that is, the PDS-DS-PD evolution, which currently displays the most
plebiscitary internal functioning.

Ideologies and programmes

Concerning party ideologies, in Italy all the main spiritual families have
been represented in Parliament, except the agrarian/rural parties (Pizzimenti
2020). This was facilitated by the electoral system, which was almost purely
proportional in the First Republic; the Second Republic forced the main
136 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

parties of the centre-right and the centre-left coalitions to include representa-

tives of minor and often ideologically distant parties. In order to assess party
ideological orientation, we resort to European Parliamentary (EP) Group
membership, which is a useful indicator in the field (Hix 1999; Hanley 2008).
The PDS-DS was the result of the social-democratic turn of the former
Communist party. This change was already confirmed in the early 1990s
after the entrance of its European Parliamentarians into the Socialist Group.
The situation is more complicated for PD: the party is the result of a
merger between DS and Margherita. The latter, established in 2001, was

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

itself a heterogeneous party in which the heirs of the Democrazia Cristiana—
reorganized in the smaller Partito Popolare Italiano—coexisted with other
parties (Pizzimenti 2007). The ambiguous positioning of the PD was par-
tially clarified in 2014 when the party officially joined the Party of European
Socialists.
Forza Italia has also experienced several changes in its ideological ori-
entation. Although, according to its founder Berlusconi, the party was
destined to be a ‘liberal mass party’, it quickly strengthened its links to
liberal conservativism. In 1994, the MEPs of Forza Italia formed the orig-
inal and almost mono-national group of Forza Europa. However, in 1998,
first as individual MEPs and then as an entire party, Forza Italia embarked
on the path to joining the Christian-Democratic European People’s Party
(EPP). Hence, Forza Italia, with the PDL, became one of the most impor-
tant parties of the EPP. Forza Italia, which had become more conservative
when it merged with post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale (AN) in 2008, recov-
ered its neoliberal and moderate orientation after its re-establishment in
2013.
The ideological profile of Lega and its international affiliation is even
more interesting. When it was created, Lega Nord wanted to focus its efforts
only on Northern territorial and political autonomism. Although many of
its founders (above all its leader Umberto Bossi) had a left-wing orientation,
the party’s goal was to include all the autonomists (or even the separatists)
whatever their political placement on the left–right axis. Despite this hetero-
geneous origin, the party has permanently joined the right-wing coalition
since 2001. In 2014, the new leader Matteo Salvini imposed a decisive turn
towards a nationalist orientation upon the party. The adoption of the slo-
gan ‘Prima gli Italiani’ (Italians First!) instead of the former ‘Prima il Nord’
(North First!) was emblematic. These ideological changes are reflected by
the European affiliation of Lega. It was part of the Rainbow group in the
European Parliament until 1994. Between 1994 and 1997, it was mem-
ber of the Liberal group, and in 1999–2001 it was part of the ‘Technical
 Italian Parties and Party System(s) 137

group of Independent MEPs’, demonstrating its difficulties in finding a clear

international collocation. Since 2004, it has been member of Eurosceptic
groups, such as Independence/Democracy (Ind/Dem) and Europe of Free-
dom and Democracy (EFD), or of right-wing groups, i.e. Union for Europe
of the Nations (UEN), Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), and Identity
and Democracy (ID)).
The ideological orientation of the M5S has attracted the attention of many
scholars as the Movimento has explicitly rejected any collocation along
the classical left–right axis of competition. It has certainly emphasized its

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

strong anti-party sentiment (Viviani 2019) and its anti-establishment attitude
(Hartleb 2015). For these reasons, some authors define the M5S as a pure
populist party, instead of including it in the family of populist radical right
parties (Mudde 2007). This confrontational behaviour against other (estab-
lished) parties made it difficult for the M5S to find a political group within the
European Parliament. In 2014, the M5S joined Nigel Farage’s UK Indepen-
dence Party (UKIP) and together formed the ‘Europe of Freedom and Direct
Democracy’ group, in which anti-EU sentiment and a right-wing spirit coex-
isted. Ahead of the 2019 election, the M5S tried to find another alliance. An
attempt was made with the Liberal group (ALDE) in 2017, but the EP group’s
president Guy Verhofstadt publicly rejected the proposal. In 2019, the fears of
remaining alone materialized and the M5S did not find any suitable group to
be part of. Therefore, its MEPs joined the ‘non-inscrits’ group, demonstrat-
ing the M5S’s difficulties in positioning itself among the traditional political
families.
As for the parties’ political programmes, Figure 7.2 offers a snapshot of the
placement of the Italian parties along the state–market and the progressive–
conservative axes of political competition in the 2018 national elections
(Bardi et al. 2018).3 In 2018, the most pro-market party was Forza Italia,
while the Lega and the PD were almost in a centrist position on the left–
right dimension. Surprisingly, the M5S was more pro-state than the PD. As
for the cultural dimension, the Lega and PD occupied the two opposite poles.
Forza Italia and M5S had a median orientation, as the M5S did not take clear
positions on many issues.

Connection to social groups

In the First Republic, many strong links existed between Catholic asso-
ciations and the Christian Democrats (DC), between some trade unions
138 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

PROGRESSIVE

STATE INTERVENTISM

FREE MARKET

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

CONSERVATIVE

Figure 7.2 Partiesʼ placement in 2018 general

elections
Note: Of the analysed parties, we can identify Lega in the IV
quadrant, M5S between the II and the III, Forza Italia between 1
and 4, and PD between II and I (anti-clockwise, starting in the
upper right quadrant).
Source: Authorsʼ elaboration of data provided by Voting Advice
Application Navigatore Elettorale, released during the 2018
national elections.

and some leftist parties, and between sporting and cultural associations
and parties. However, these connections with social groups have never
been made explicit formally in party statutes. In this respect, we do not
observe any evolution in the past 25 years. A partial exception is consti-
tuted by Lega, which tried to establish a party-associated trade union, the
‘Sindacato Padano’, which however did not have significant success. In con-
trast, the M5S has never been supported by any collateral organization.
Moreover, the movement did not create intermediate organizational lay-
ers (such as regional or provincial layers). Further, the M5S had expressed
its rejection several times for any kind of intermediate organs that might
interfere with the direct connection between the leader and the members
(Mosca 2020).
If we focus on party organizations, some kinds of special representation
exist, especially for younger members. In the PDS-DS, young people were
given a special status through the ‘Sinistra Giovanile’; the same happened
 Italian Parties and Party System(s) 139

when the PD was founded in 2008 (‘Giovani Democratici’). In Forza Italia,

from 1994 to 2008, we find ‘Forza Italia—Giovani per la Libertà’; and
‘Studenti per le libertà’ as a specific organization for students. In the post-
2013 party, we find ‘Forza Italia Giovani’. During the brief existence of the
PDL, the youth group was named ‘Giovane Italia’. Within the Lega, the young
members were organized in the ‘Movimento dei Giovani Padani’, which,
alongside the nationalist/right-wing turn launched by Salvini, dropped the
reference to the North and became ‘Lega Giovani’ in 2008. Much more vari-
ance can be found when focusing on intra-party organizations based on

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

gender (women’s organizations) or age (senior citizen organizations). The
PDS-DS explicitly provided for a National Coordination of women—which
became a ‘Permanent Conference’ in the PD—that was granted specific par-
ticipation rights; Forza Italia also always provided for organizations based on
both gender (Movimento Azzurro Donna) and age (Movimento Seniores)
criteria. In contrast, the M5S has never recognized intra-party organizations
of these kinds.
Finally, it could be interesting to analyse changes in the socio-demographic
profile of party constituencies. Like the PCI, PDS and DS were able to keep
a meaningful connection with workers, but they also progressively increased
their appeal among executives and middle-class employees (Pizzimenti
2020). Forza Italia had an inter-class profile, but the party was particularly
attractive for professionals and entrepreneurs. Lega was popular with artisans
and shopkeepers, but it was not able to find a widespread consensus among
public officers. However, during its recent expansion phase, Lega broadened
its appeal among manual workers. The rise of the M5S caused a shock among
the traditional classe gardée of other parties. It became immediately interest-
ing to manual workers and unemployed people (who previously voted mainly
for the centre-left), but also to entrepreneurs and autonomous professionals
(who were previously strongly linked to the centre-right). Thereby, the move-
ment soon became an inter-class party by receiving votes from several and
differentiated social sectors (IPSOS 2018). By contrast, the PD has been the
party that has changed its electoral constituency the most (Pizzimenti 2020).
In fact, despite the roots of its predecessors, the PD has lost its appeal among
people with lower incomes and, conversely, has strengthened its links with
higher-income classes. In some respects, it has become and is perceived as the
‘party of the elites’ (De Sio 2018): while it could not be maintained that this
was an explicit aim of the party’s founders, the commitment to ‘break’ with
the original political cultures (communist and catholic) facilitated a move
towards the bloc bourgeois.
140 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Partiesʼ resources and state subsidies

The structure of party revenues followed the main trajectories of the reforms
of state funding (Table 7.5). From 1994 to 2007, all the analysed parties show
decreasing ratios between private funding (grassroots revenues plus pluto-
cratic funding) and total party income. Needless to say, the data must be
interpreted in the light of the dramatic increase in state funding, which had
a clear impact on the relative weight of parties’ autonomous financing. Be
that as it may, all parties (apart from Lega) were heavily dependent on pub-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

lic funds. The data seem to tell us a different story in the following periods,
when all parties (except the PD) show a reverse trend. However, the data
must be read as a consequence of the cut to state funding until its final abo-
lition in 2017. In addition, it must be noted that a significant amount of the
revenue raised by the parties comes from their MPs according to intra-party
agreements.
Another interesting indicator of party strength is represented by the per-
centage of expenditure used for party staff. Wages, fiscal dues, liquidation,
and pension contributions are all revealing elements which can be com-
pared with the resources spent by parties for electoral campaigns. Forza Italia
has always privileged spending for electoral campaigning rather than for the
functioning of the party, while the Lega has devoted a significant proportion

Table 7.5 Party private revenues on total party income, expenditures for
personnel and electoral campaigns on total expenditures (%), 1994–2018

PDS-DS-PD FI-PDL-FI Lega M5S

∗
Private income 47 33.7 58.7
∗
1991–1998 Staff 41.4 12.7 13.5
∗
Campaigns 5.8 22 10
∗
Private income 25.2 29.2 46.5
∗
2002–2006 Staff 20 6.4 25.2
∗
Campaigns 9.1 27.5 6.4
Private income 7.8 31.6 NA NA
2008–2009 Staff 9.3 7.4 NA NA
Campaigns 27.1 42.6 NA NA
Private income 42.8 77.5 71.8 NA
2015–2017 Staff 42 8.4 20 NA
Campaigns 7.1 10 16.3 NA

Note. ∗ refers to parties that did not exist at the time.

Source: Authors’ own work based on Pizzimenti 2020
 Italian Parties and Party System(s) 141

of its income for party staff. In the centre-left camp, the tendency is less
clear. PDS and DS prioritized the maintenance of party staff (in line with the
mass-party principle), while the interpretation of the balance sheets of their
successor PD is less univocal. Finally, it is not possible to assess the profile of
the M5S along this dimension, as the movement reports neither income nor
expenditure.

Degree of internal cohesion of parties

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

To assess the degree of internal cohesion of political parties, we resort to three
indicators: the continuity of their leadership, the number of significant splits
suffered by the party, and the loyalty of the elected personnel.
Table 7.6 shows us data regarding the first two indicators. Among the right-
wing parties, there has been high leadership stability. Berlusconi, who passed
away in June 2023, was always the leader of Forza Italia (1994–2009 and
2013–2023), and also of its (temporary) evolution, the PDL (2009–2013). In
practice, the major centre-right parties have always kept their founder as the
only leader. The Lega also presents a high level of stability in its leadership.
The founder of the party, Umberto Bossi, served as leader from its foundation
in 1991 and held the office until 2012. After the brief leadership of Roberto
Maroni, Salvini became the party secretary in 2013 and radically changed
the orientation of the party by transforming it from an autonomist/separatist
anti-Italian actor into a pro-Italian nationalist right-wing party. Further, in
the M5S, the founder of the party has long held the top-level leadership.
Between 2007 and 2017, Grillo behaved as the movement’s leader, even if no
official role was specified in party statutes. In 2017, a ‘Capo politico’4 (Polit-
ical Chief ) was formally introduced, to be chosen through closed primary
elections, but Grillo kept the role of the ‘guarantor of the movement’ and has
remained the owner of the party logo. However, the events associated with
leadership changes in the main centre-left parties are more complex. For both
the PDS and the DS, we find continuity in the leadership. If we consider the

Table 7.6 Number of leaders and of significant splits, 1994–2018

PDS DS PD FI PDL Lega M5S

Number of leaders 2 3 6 1 1 3 2
Significant splits 0 0 1 0 1 0 0

Source: Authors’ elaboration from Pizzimenti (2020: 178)

142 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

two parties as one, there were four general secretaries from 1991 to 2007. The
average time in office is reduced for PD leaders. In fact, after Walter Veltroni
(founder and first general secretary in 2007), we find a long list of ‘regents’
(temporary leaders) and new appointed secretaries—a total of 7 in 14
years.
Less variance is recorded for relevant party splits. By taking into account
only those splits that gave birth to a competitive party (i.e. a party that is able
to appoint some cabinet members or to elect parliamentary representatives
in the following elections), we can identify a few episodes. On the left, we

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

find only the ‘Movimento Democratico Progressista—Articolo 1’, which in
2017 left PD because of its strong opposition to the centrist and moderate
path chosen by the then secretary Matteo Renzi. On the right, the ‘Nuovo
CentroDestra’ left the PDL under the leadership of the former deputy leader
Angelino Alfano, who wanted to continue to be part of the grand coalition
cabinets led by Enrico Letta in 2013 and Renzi in 2014. Neither Forza Italia
nor the Lega have experienced relevant splits.
Another type of departure, more significant in quantitative terms, is repre-
sented by the number of parliamentarians who changed the group that they
had joined at the time of the elections. Table 7.7 clearly shows that at the
end of the term, the number of deputies still part of the same group they
joined at the beginning of the term is usually lower. One exception is the
PDS in 1994, which was able to enlarge its group by welcoming many indi-
vidual deputies who had been elected in the first-past-the-post constituencies
by the left coalition without a clear partisan affiliation. The other exception
is the Lega in the 2018–2022 term. The Lega group grew from 125 deputies
in 2018 to 138 in 2022. However, the most important feature is that, in all
other cases, party parliamentary groups progressively lose members during
the term, in some cases in sizeable numbers. Particularly significant is the
decline of the M5S group in the 2018–2023 term (−27% of deputies). But the
biggest failure of group unity occurred in the 2013–2018 term for the PDL.
In fact, the result of 2013 election saw a heavy decline of 15.88 percentage
points for the centre-right party. This led Berlusconi’s party into a strategic
crisis. At first, it decided to form a grand coalition with PD, but in November
2013 he decided to leave the governmental coalition and to re-establish Forza
Italia, with the aim of giving a new priority to the centre-right alliance. How-
ever, a large share of parliamentarians did not follow the leader and formed
the Nuovo CentroDestra (NCD), choosing to support the executive of
Letta.
 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
Table 7.7 Evolution of the party group composition in the Chamber of Deputies, 1994–2021

PDS DS PD FI PDL Lega M5S

BEG END BEG END BEG END BEG END BEG END BEG END BEG END

143 164 NA NA 113 110 NA 117 71 NA

1994
+15% NA NA −3% NA −39% NA
NA 172 161 NA 122 117 NA 59 46 NA
1996
NA −6% NA −4% NA −22% NA
NA 136 129 NA 178 167 NA 30 26 NA
2001
NA −5% NA −6% NA −13% NA
NA NA 218 194 134 131 NA 23 22 NA
2006
NA NA −11% −2% NA −4% NA
NA NA 217 203 NA 275 202 60 58 NA
2008
NA NA −6% NA −27.00% −3% NA
NA NA 293 282 NA 97 56 20 22 109 88
2013
NA NA −4% NA −42.00% +10% −19%
NA NA 111 93 104 78 NA 125 132 222 161
2018
−16% −25% +6% −27%

BEG—beginning of term; END—end of term

Source: Authors’ own calculation
144 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Means of communication

Regarding the means of communication, the PDS had inherited from the PCI
the historical communist newspaper l’Unità. Although it saw a huge crisis in
the early 2000s—it was temporarily closed between 2000 and 2002—in 2007
it became the official newspaper of PD. The party also inherited the newspa-
per Europa from La Margherita, the other merging party. Eventually, the two
newspapers closed in the 2010s (Europa in 2014 and l’Unità in 2017), leaving
the PD without any official newspaper. Even the online magazine Democrat-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ica, which was established to fill the gap left by the disappearance of the two
newspapers, closed in 2019. The newspaper of the Lega, La Padania, and its
official radio broadcaster, Radio Padania Libera, were both founded in 1996.
However, in the 2010s, following the nationalist turn of the party, these two
channels of communication—whose names harked back to the party’s sep-
aratist past—were liquidated. A new official party newspaper, Il Populista,
had an online circulation between 2016 and 2020 (Tizian 2021). Neither
Forza Italia nor the M5S aimed at owning official party media. However,
Berlusconi was the owner of Italy’s biggest private broadcasting company,
Mediaset, which also had interests in book publishing and magazines. Fur-
thermore, some newspapers were directly owned by political and economic
collaborators of Berlusconi or even by his relatives. Newspapers like Il Foglio,
Libero, Il Giornale, to mention a few, all had experienced editorial direction
closely connected to Berlusconi and, therefore, to Berlusconi’s party (Poli
2001). Something similar happened for the M5S. In this case, although the
M5S does not own any newspaper or radio channels, its founder Beppe Grillo
had a very popular website. In the mid-2000s, the blog beppegrillo.it offered
the first space for political discussion, organization, and external promotion
for the ‘Amici di Beppe Grillo’. In 2008, The Observer placed Grillo’s web-
site in ninth position in the global ranking of most influential blogs, and in
2009 it became the web-space for the ‘Liste Civiche 5 Stelle’, which became
the ‘Movimento Nazionale a 5 Stelle’ by the end of that year. Going through
several changes, ‘Il Blog delle Stelle’ became the official online party organ
only in 2018. Furthermore, in its history, the M5S and its leader Grillo have
repeatedly shown that they employ private social media in an effective way.
Table 7.8 shows that social media represent an important means of com-
munication for the four analysed parties, with different numbers and styles
depending on the party organization and party leader. The M5S is the most
popular party on social media among the four. Its unofficial leader Beppe
Grillo is also the most followed leader on Twitter and the second most ‘liked’
on Facebook (Salvini being the most liked there). The Lega’s leader, Salvini,
 Italian Parties and Party System(s) 145

Table 7.8 The four parties and their leaders in social media
(number of followers)

Facebook Twitter Instagram

PD 367,384 360,495 117,000

Enrico Letta 122,179 624,857 65,100
Forza Italia 227,612 166,855 62,700
Silvio Berlusconi 1,090,896 166,452 356,000
Movimento 5 Stelle 1,543,434 713,941 356,000
Beppe Grillo 1,919,205 2,400,000 111,000

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Lega 799,527 178,648 326,000
Matteo Salvini 4,542,639 1,400,000 2,200,000

Source: Authors’ own elaboration of data gathered in Facebook, Twitter, and

Instagram (13 July 2021)

is by far the most followed on Instagram, with approximately seven times

more followers than his party. Overall, as a further demonstration of their
level of personalization, on both Facebook and Twitter leaders are generally
more popular than their corresponding parties, along with Instagram in two
out of the four cases.

Summary Evaluation

The Italian political system has often been depicted as an outlier (Lijphart
1999). Although this well-rooted image mainly referred to the First Repub-
lic, the heavily criticized Italian ‘particracy’ has given way to an even more
anomalous party system. The so-called Second Republic is characterized—
since its beginning in the early 1990s—by a persistent weakness. The contin-
uous reforms of the ‘rules of the game’ have been (erroneously) considered
the means through which the party system and its units could have been rein-
forced. The perverse effects produced by redundant and incoherent political
regulation has come to reduce the (already limited) incentives to party orga-
nizational consolidation. Parties have privileged their competitiveness in the
electoral arena to survive in the institutions, thus becoming heavily depen-
dent on the state (Pizzimenti 2018, 2020). This long-lasting dependency is no
longer based on direct public funding—which was abolished in 2017. How-
ever, looking at the present parties’ balance sheets, other public resources
(such as parliamentary salaries) are still relevant.
To date, we can identify at least three problem areas in the relationship
between political parties and the functioning of representative democracy:
146 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

institutional design, the format and mechanics of the party system, and party
organizational features.
Considering institutional design, the electoral system is a factor of per-
sistent instability and uncertainty. As we have outlined, the last 30 years
have been characterized by frequent changes in electoral law. In some
phases, these changes have also become prominent themes of political
debate, with two negative effects on the proper functioning of Italian
democracy. On the one hand, the instability of the ‘rules of the game’
has made the ‘game’ itself less credible and legitimized. On the other

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

hand, the great attention and time paid by the political class to elec-
toral regulation has worked to the disadvantage of other important issues.
Recently, this situation has worsened since a referendum in 2020 reduced
the number of members of both chambers of the parliament. This cut
has further intensified the debate on the need for an umpteenth elec-
toral law. However, whatever the new electoral system may be, lowering
the number of parliamentarians will increase the ratio between MPs and
inhabitants.
As for the format and mechanics of the party system, the Second Republic
shows a clear inclusive nature. Even though most of the successful new parties
have emerged as anti-establishment parties, the already existing parties had
no problems in establishing parliamentary agreements or even electoral and
government alliances with these actors. The socialization of anti-system or
challenger parties is particularly evident during technocratic governments,
when very few parties were excluded from the unions sacrées which some-
times emerge in Italian politics. The post-2018 parliamentary term proved
that even the most populist and quintessential anti-party movement, the
M5S, was able to ally with almost all the other competitor parties (from the
right-wing Lega to the left-wing Liberi e Uguali—LeU; from the socialist
PD to the conservative Forza Italia). However, the ductility of the system—
which someone could interpret as a sign of maturity, tolerance, and sense
of responsibility—could also be seen as a clear sign of the parties’ indistin-
guishability for voters, thus explaining the falling turnout figures. This aspect
is detrimental to Italian democracy because it risks pushing more voters into
abstention and apathy.
Finally, the organizational characteristics of Italian parties also show a
number of dangerous weaknesses. The first element, which is common to
all parties, is the extreme identification of the party with its leader. In our
analysis, two out of the four parties were specifically founded as leader’s par-
ties. This is the reason why Forza Italia and the M5S also follow the individual
 Italian Parties and Party System(s) 147

fortunes and evolutions of their leaders. Forza Italia has not been able to expe-
rience a different leadership than that of its founder, Berlusconi; the M5S
has unsuccessfully tried to overcome Grillo’s prominence, first by electing
Luigi Di Maio as a leader and then choosing former Prime Minister Giuseppe
Conte. The parties’ adaptation to their leader is also evident for the Lega. In
2012, the election of Salvini as federal secretary provoked a change in the
party’s goals. It moved from being an organization rooted in a specific area of
the country (the North) to behaving as an ‘opinion party’, attractive to occa-
sional sympathizers from the whole country. The extreme personalization of

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

parties, which is less evident (albeit present) in the PD, has weakened the
parties’ organizations and also had consequences on the capacity of politics
to respond to citizens’ requests and expectations. In fact, most of the parties
(including those in our sample) have striven to find brand-new organiza-
tional arrangements by changing their names or symbols or even merging
with other parties, often in order to match their leaders’ ambitions. In gen-
eral, most of the parties have increased their plebiscitary profiles, mainly
through the introduction of direct forms of legitimization of their leaders—
such as primary elections, whether open or closed. However, the blurring of
the organizational boundaries, the lightening of structures, and the parallel
empowerment of the party leader have tended to weaken the parties as orga-
nizations. Overall, the general personalization of parties suggests a negative
perspective on the future of Italian democracy.
In addition to these general tendencies, some specific problems affect the
parties in our sample. Forza Italia, which is epiphenomenon of a person-
alized party and which was originally labelled as the prototype and model
of new populist parties in Europe, seems to have an uncertain future. The
party is experiencing a long decline in parallel with the personal ageing
and physical deterioration of Berlusconi. Even the recent party relocation
towards institutional, responsible, and fully pro-European positions seems
to be more an effect of the cooling down of Berlusconi’s lively personality
than of a profound ideological evolution. What will become of Forza Italia
after Berlusconi is one of the big question marks hanging over the future
of Italian democracy. Another point of interest concerns the future direc-
tions of M5S’s unstable electorate. The ‘Movimento’ was able to gain voters
from all political orientations, with a specific attractiveness for those with an
extreme and anti-establishment profile. However, the extent to which these
voters will appreciate the change in the very nature of the M5S towards a
centre-leftist profile is an open question. Another specific point of inquiry
concerns the Lega’s ability to keep together the original Northern regionalist
148 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

and governmental wing with the new extreme-right nationalist positioning of

the party. As long as Salvini was on the top of opinion polls, there was no open
criticism towards his nationalist course. However, after his removal from
the national government in 2019, an increasing malaise has been moving
through the party, initially in silence, and then after the forming of Draghi’s
cabinet in 2021. We will see whether the Lega is able to maintain its cur-
rent two-headed nature. The PD has an opposite long-standing problem:
the endemic weakness of its leaders. The party has experienced, by far, the
largest number of leadership changes. This could be the result of the perverse

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

effects produced by the open primary elections, a foundational myth of the
party; of the uncertain and hybrid nature of the party’s ideological profile;
as well as of the extreme intra-party factionalism, which the party inherited
from its Christian-democratic wing (Bardi and Pizzimenti 2020). All these
features have undermined the stability and the autonomy of the national
leadership. By contrast, the organizational consolidation of the major
party of the centre-left coalition could be beneficial for Italian democracy
as a whole.
Overall, we can affirm that, faced with multiple and highly complex
challenges—such as globalization, monetary integration, or the financial cri-
sis, to cite a few—Italian parties have proved totally inadequate, thus boosting
the vicious circle of political and institutional delegitimization. Technocratic
governments—another Italian anomaly—and the rise of new (or renewed)
anti-establishment actors represent phenomena which are deeply connected
to Italian parties’ fragility. All of them look like ‘paper tigers’ whose appar-
ent strength and legitimacy are only connected to their capacity to survive
within the institutions in a persistent vacuum of any reliable organizational
projects.

Post-script

In late July 2022, the technical government led by Mario Draghi resigned due
to increasing political tensions among the heterogeneous coalition of sup-
porting parties. The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, opted to
dissolve Parliament and called for early elections, to be held in September.
The unexpected resignation of the technical executive forced parties to run
an unusual summer election campaign. While centre-right parties (FI, the
Lega, and Fratelli d’Italia) had already agreed on a possible coalition pact,
the other parties showed no clear strategies. The PD decided to break up
the existing coalition with the M5S, as it was considered the main culprit
 Italian Parties and Party System(s) 149

for Draghi’s resignation. At the same time, the centrist liberal parties Azione
and Italia Viva opted for a solo race by launching a new electoral cartel
(AZ-IV ).
These sudden events further hindered the (already unlikely) reform of the
electoral system, which was deemed necessary after the reduction of the num-
ber of deputies and senators. As widely forecast, the centre-right coalition
won the elections. However, compared to the past, the political profile of the
coalition had changed. In fact, the extreme-right parties (Lega and the post-
fascist Fratelli d’Italia) overwhelmed the parliamentary representation of the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

previous main party of the coalition, Forza Italia. The former two parties won
a total of 184 representatives in the Chamber, while the latter had only 44
deputies. Unsurprisingly, Fratelli d’Italia (FDI) benefited from the opposi-
tion to Draghi’s government, thus becoming the most popular party in the
poll. Compared to the 2018 elections, the once anti-establishment M5S more
than halved its electoral figures, while the PD confirmed its disappointing
performance.
By mid-2023, the government led by FDI leader Giorgia Meloni has not
fully addressed the issue of institutional reforms, despite its public inclina-
tions towards increased regionalism and presidentialism. In parallel, how-
ever, several events have occurred that might alter the political competition
in the years to come. First, in February 2023, the open primary elections set
by the PD to select its party leader were won by Elly Schlein, a liberal-leftist
politician who registered as a party member only in late December 2022.
This unexpected result opened the door to a potential alliance with the M5S,
which was marginalized until then. Second, and probably more important,
Silvio Berlusconi passed away on 12 June 2023. This event symbolically put
an end to the Italian Second Republic while posing a major threat to Forza
Italia’s survival.
All in all, despite several scandals affecting relevant members of the ruling
coalition, the centre-right government looks healthy and is fully supported
by its member parties. In contrast, the opposition is still divided into different
poles and thus does not currently represent a viable alternative.

Notes
1. Acknowledgments. We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.com) for English
language editing.
2. The variables are: 1. Leader’s selection, 2. Candidates’ selection, 3. Differentiated mem-
bership, 4. Registration of non-members, 5. Possibility of party affiliation directly to the
150 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

centre, 6. Possibility of enrolment to other parties, 7. Delegated affiliation, 8. Time limits

for membership.
3. These analyses have been provided by the Voting Advice Application NavigatoreElet-
torale.it, developed by the Università di Pisa, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Kieskom-
pas BV.
4. The expression ‘capo politico’ is the same as that explicitly mentioned within the Legge
Rosato, which has regulated the electoral system and procedures since 2017. Indeed, its
use to define political parties’ leaders is rather unusual. Other words, such as ‘segretario’,
‘presidente’, or ‘portavoce’, are usually employed. We can reasonably think that in this
aspect—mainly symbolic—the M5S wanted to differentiate itself from the other tradi-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

tional parties.

References

Archury, Susan, Susan E. Scarrow, Karina Kosiara-Pedersen, and Emilie Van Haute.
2018. ‘The Consequences of Membership Incentives: Do Greater Political Benefits
Attract Different Kinds of Members?’. Party Politics, 20:1–13.
Arter, David and Elina Kestila Kekkonen. 2014. ‘Measuring the Extent of Party Insti-
tutionalization: The Case of a Populist Entrepreneur Party’. West European Politics,
37(5):932–956.
Bardi, Luciano and Peter Mair. 2008. ‘The Parameters of Party Systems’. Party
Politics, 14(2):147–166.
Bardi, Luciano and Eugenio Pizzimenti. 2020. Perché falliscono i partiti?. Roma:
Carocci.
Bardi, Luciano, Enrico Calossi, André Krouwel, Yordan Kutiyski, Beniamino Masi,
and Eugenio Pizzimenti. 2018. The Positioning of the Italian Voters in the 2018
Elections. Highlights from the VAA ‘NavigatoreElettorale.it’, Paper presented at
6–8 September 2018 SISP Conference, Torino.
Biezen, Ingrid van, Peter Mair, and Thomas Poguntke. 2012. ‘Going, Going, …
Gone? The Decline of Party Membership in Contemporary Europe’. European
Journal of Political Research, 51(1):24–56.
Calossi, Enrico and Lorenzo Cicchi. 2018. ‘The Italian Party System’s Three Func-
tional Arenas after the 2018 Election: The Tsunami after the Earthquake’. Journal
of Modern Italian Studies, 23(4):437–459.
De Sio, Lorenzo. 2018. Il ritorno del voto di classe, ma al contrario (ovvero: se il PD
è il partito delle élite). Centro Italiano Studi Elettorali. https://cise.luiss.it/cise/
2018/03/06/il-ritorno-del-voto-di-classe-ma-al-contrario-ovvero-se-il-pd-e-il-
partito-delle-elite/ (Accessed 11 December 2023).
Gerbaudo, Paolo. 2018. Il partito piattaforma. Milano: Feltrinelli.
Hanley, David. 2008. Beyond the Nation State: Parties in the Era of European
Integration. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
 Italian Parties and Party System(s) 151

Harmel, Robert and Kenneth Janda. 1994. ‘An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and
Party Change’. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 6(3):259–287.
Hartleb, Florian. 2015. ‘Here to Stay: Anti-Establishment Parties in Europe’. Euro-
pean View, 14(1):39–49.
Hix, Simon. 1999. The Political System of the European Union. London: Macmillan
International Higher Education.
Ignazi, Piero and Chiara Fiorelli. 2021. ‘The End of Cornucopia: Party Financing
after the Great Recession’. Government and Opposition, 57(1):193–216.
IPSOS. 2018. Elezioni politiche 2018: Analisi post voto. https://www.ipsos.com/it-it/

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

elezioni-politiche-2018-analisi-del-voto (Accessed 11 December 2023).
Jones, Erik and Gianfranco Pasquino (eds). 2015. The Oxford Handbook of Italian
Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lijphart, Arend. 1999. Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance
in Thirty-six Countries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Mosca, Lorenzo. 2020. ‘Democratic Vision and Online Participatory Spaces in the
Italian Movimento 5 Stelle’. Acta Politica, 55(1):1–18.
Mudde, Cas. 2007. Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Pacini, Maria Chiara and Daniela Romee Piccio. 2012. Party Regulation in Italy
and its Effects. In The Legal Regulation of Political Parties. WP: 26. http://www.
partylaw.leidenuniv.nl/uploads/wp3513.pdf (Accessed 11 December 2023).
Pizzimenti, Eugenio. 2007. La galassia postdemocristiana. In Luciano Bardi, Piero
Ignazi, and Oreste Massari (eds), I partiti italiani: Iscritti, dirigenti, eletti. Milano:
Egea, 1–54.
Pizzimenti, Eugenio. 2017. ‘The Evolution of Party Funding in Italy: A Case of
Inclusive Cartelisation?’. Modern Italy, 22(1):71–85.
Pizzimenti, Eugenio. 2018. Finanziamento pubblico e cartellizzazione. Il caso Ital-
iano. In Daniela Romee Piccio (ed.), Il finanziamento ai partiti politici in Italia:
Passato, presente e prospettive future. Roma: Carocci, 48–64.
Pizzimenti, Eugenio. 2020. Tigri di Carta. Pisa: Pisa University Press.
Pizzimenti, Eugenio and Enrico Calossi. 2020. ‘Leaders and Members in the Ital-
ian Parties (1994–2018): A Dimensional Approach’. Contemporary Italian Politics,
12(4):425–442.
Pizzimenti, Eugenio and Piero Ignazi. 2011. ‘Finanziamento pubblico e mutamenti
organizzativi nei partiti italiani’. Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, 41(2):199–236.
Poli, Emanuela. 2001. Forza Italia. Strutture, leadership e radicamento territoriale.
Bologna: Il Mulino.
Scarrow, Susan E. 2017. ‘The Changing Nature of Party Membership’.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/
9780190228637.013.226
152 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Seddone, Antonella and Giulia Sandri. 2020. ‘Primary Elections and Party Grass-
roots: Participation, Innovation and Resistance’. European Political Science,
20:483–501.
Siaroff, Alan. 2019. Comparative European Party Systems. New York: Routledge.
Tizian, Giovanni. 2021. ‘Così è fallita la propaganda “populista” di Salvini’. In
Domani, 13 February.
Viviani, Lorenzo. 2019. ‘Populist Anti-party Parties’. In Paul Blokker and Manuel
Anselmi (eds), Populism and Democracy. London/New York: Routledge, 106–123.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

8
The Greek Party Systemʼs Ongoing Crisis
The Cases of ND, SYRIZA, and PASOK-KINAL

Costas Eleftheriou

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

General Characteristics of the Greek Party System

Political parties have always been relatively strong in Greece. Due to their
pivotal role in the democratization process during ‘Metapolitefsi’ (‘regime
change’) from 1974 onwards, they enjoyed primacy vis-à-vis civil society
organizations and exercised privileged access to state resources. Notably,
political parties emerged as champions of democratization due to the low
acceptance of other institutions, such as the monarchy, Church of Greece,
Hellenic Army, or trade unions; this was the direct by-product of parties’
performance during the colonels’ dictatorship of 1967–1974. Political par-
ties were the only institutions that could claim to ensure the transition to
and consolidation of democracy, and to achieve the legitimacy of the new
democratic regime (Spourdalakis 1996).
Article 29 of the 1975 Greek Constitution (along with its four amend-
ments) states that ‘Greek citizens possessing the right to vote may freely found
and join political parties, the organization and activity of which must serve
the free functioning of democratic government’. While the parties constitute
one of the foundations of the Greek polity, only their management and the
transparency of party finances are subject to legal regulation. There is no
party law regulating intra-party democracy or defining what it means to be
a democratic party; the only prerequisite for a party to participate in Greek
elections is to file a declaration at the ‘Supreme Civil and Criminal Court of
Greece’ (Areios Pagos).
In this sense, in party statutes, most parties opted for structures
corresponding to the mass type (centralized and organized on a local basis),
which gradually incorporated procedures of direct democracy (primaries).
To fulfil their role in the democratization process as it unfolded in Greece,
parties utilized the following type of party organization: mass inclusion of

Costas Eleftheriou, The Greek Party System’s Ongoing Crisis. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Costas Eleftheriou (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0008
154 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

potential members, organizing political mobilization and participation and

colonizing civil society and the state. While the two governmental parties
(Panhellenic Socialist Movement, PASOK, and conservative New Democ-
racy, ND) almost inherently pursued a catch-all strategy, especially from
the 1980s and later, they initially developed mass structures which created
polarized party competition that affected most aspects of civil and social life
(Spourdalakis and Tassis 2006; Alexakis 2020). In one sense, it is extremely
difficult to understand the mass politics of the democratic period and the
cleavages that prevailed if one ignores the clash between mass party machines

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

in the 1980s. The dynamics of party competition produced ‘limited but polar-
ized pluralism’ (Mavrogordatos 1984) in the party system comprising the two
powerful governmental parties and the Communist Party of Greece (KKE),
which held a stable and significant position as a third party.
During the 1990s, the close relations that the parties had forged with the
state and the existence of latent anti-party sentiment among the electorate
necessitated the making of detailed party finance laws, especially concerning
election funding, as means to enhance the parties’ transparency and account-
ability. To ameliorate their public image and re-establish their links with
society, the latter sought to ‘open’ their organizations to the electorate in the
2000s through the direct elections of their leaders (PASOK from 2004, ND
from 2009; Tsirbas 2020). During the 1990s and 2000s, the number of parties
with parliamentary presence ranged from four to five, with the socialists and
conservatives remaining the basic actors of party competition (Figure 8.1).
From the late 2000s, the far right made its appearance through the Popular
Orthodox Rally (LAOS), thereby altering the dynamics of party competi-
tion and the ideological space. The financial crisis after 2010, which deeply
affected the Greek economy, created the conditions for a major dealignment
that radically changed the Greek party system (Tsatsanis 2018). The demise
of PASOK, the rise of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), the advance
of the Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, and the emergence of many new parties—
most of them flash parties—challenged the ways that political parties were
organized and appealed to the electorate.
Regarding the electoral system, the Greek Constitution does not regulate
the electoral laws (Koustenis 2013). There was a long tradition of exploit-
ing and altering electoral laws in Greek electoral history, a manifestation
of the pathogeny of the Greek political system in the post-war years. Dur-
ing the democratic period, the most frequently used electoral system was
a mixed one, which functioned as a prerequisite for the emergence of the
two-party system. This electoral system is usually described as ‘enhanced
proportional’, as it allowed a relatively low threshold (3%) that enabled the
 The Greek Party Systemʼs Ongoing Crisis 155

50
43.92
45
39.85
40 36.34 35.46
33.47
Percentage of votes (%)

35 31.53
29.66
30 26.89 27.81 28.09

25
18.85
20 16.78
13.18 12.28
15
8.1
10 6.29

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

4.6 4.68
5
0
2009 2012 2012 2015 2015 2019
Election

ND PASOK/KINAL SYRIZA

Figure 8.1 ND, SYRIZA, and PASOK/KINAL electoral results, 2009–2019. At the May
2023 elections, the respective results were 40.79%, 20.07%, 11.46%. At the June 2023
elections, the results were 40.56%, 17.83%, 11.84%.
Source: https://ekloges.ypes.gr/en, Ministry of Interior (Accessed 1 March 2024)

representation of minor parties, especially from the left, and simultaneously,

especially from the mid-2000s, awarded the party gaining most votes with a
generous bonus in seats. This favoured the formation of single-party gov-
ernments. After 2010, the disintegration of PASOK and the near collapse
of ND paved the way for multi-party cabinets and multiplied the number
of parties in the Greek parliament (Table 8.1). Furthermore, in this period
the same electoral law produced different results than it had previously;
thus, the critical factor for the development of the Greek party system is the
socio-economic environment in which the parties have functioned.
Here, we focus on the development of ND (led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis
from 2016), SYRIZA (Alexis Tsipras from 2013 until 2023, then Stefanos
Kasselakis), and PASOK-Movement of Change (PASOK-KINAL) (Fofi Gen-
nimata from 2015 until 2021, then Nikos Androulakis)1 , which constitute the
representatives of the three major ideological currents in Greek political his-
tory: conservatism, radical left, and social democracy, respectively. ND and
SYRIZA were until 2023 the competing building blocks of party competi-
tion, while PASOK-KINAL is the rebranded version of the once hegemonic
PASOK. We chose not to include KKE, even though it is the oldest political
party in Greece, because in many ways it chooses to entrench itself in party
156 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Table 8.1 Greece: Core party system indicators, 2000–2019

Election year ENEP ENPP Volatility Turnout (%)

2000 2.53 2.21 6.90 76.00

2004 2.61 2.18 5.50 75.64
2007 2.90 2.62 6.00 74.14
2009 3.01 2.59 9.80 70.92
2012 (I) 8.02 4.83 3.40 65.10
2012 (II) 4.91 3.76 18.00 62.47
2015 (I) 4.29 3.09 19.50 63.87

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2015 (II) 4.20 3.24 8.60 56.16
2019 3.51 2.71 15.90 57.78

Note: ENEP—Effective Number of Electoral Parties; ENPP—Effective Number of Parliamentary

Parties; Volatility as the total volatility; Turnout as share of all registered voters
Source: Parliaments and Governments Database (Döring et al. 2022); Database on WHO
Governs in Europe and beyond, PSGO (Casal Bértoa 2022); International IDEA 2022)

competition and not interact substantially with other parties. After 2019, the
extreme-right Golden Dawn dissolved and its leaders are in prison. Lastly, the
radical right Greek Solution (Kyriakos Velopoulos) and radical left MERA25
(Yanis Varoufakis), which entered the parliament at the 2019 elections, still
have not institutionalized in a way that predicts their resilience2 .

Greek Party Organizations: The Demise of the Mass Party

Type

In general, current Greek party organizations originate from the mass party
organizations of the 1970s and 1980s that shifted to the implementation of
a catch-all strategy. This meant that party members gradually shifted from
being ‘party militants’ to become leadership ‘cheerleaders’. This is one devel-
opment from the early 1990s onwards that, in one sense, undermined the
participatory spirit of the early Metapolitefsi period. Mass membership, espe-
cially the urge for party organizations to attract and recruit party members on
a quantitative basis, was directly connected to democratization and was ini-
tially considered a project occupying the parties on the left (Eleftheriou and
Tassis 2013). During the 1980s, the conservatives experienced their own ver-
sion of the ‘contagion from the left’ (Duverger 1964) by embracing the need
for mass organization and becoming the most populous party, in terms of
members, in the Greek party system (Kalyvas 1998; Papavlassopoulos 2004).
From the mid-1990s, the epicentre of party politics was the technocratic
capacity of each governmental party. Thus, the previous politicization of
 The Greek Party Systemʼs Ongoing Crisis 157

mass membership gave way to direct and non-mediated links between the
technocratic elites and voters. This usually took the form of a firm and client-
style relationship between parties and society (Vernardakis 2011). This had
a profound impact on party members deprived of motives to join party
organizations. Available party organization data for Greece reveal a trend of
non-decline of party membership (Biezen et al. 2012), something that pushed
some scholars to think that Greece is an exception to the party decline the-
sis. However, it is usual for party membership data in Greece to be largely
unreliable. Frequently, party members register whenever their favoured party

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

is reaching a governing potential and demobilize when it suffers electoral
defeat. Parties’ access to state resources was and still is a critical factor for
party participation. In most cases, this simply means the possession of formal
party membership status with no obligations whatsoever.
Consequently, in the mid-2000s, both PASOK and ND opted for the
inclusion of non-members in intra-party processes, not just to revitalize par-
ticipation but also to rebrand their image as organizations with visible links
to society on an exclusively electoral basis. However, the demise of the role
of the party member was detrimental to the legitimacy of the Greek party
system, eventually became almost catastrophic for the once mighty PASOK,
and allowed the inevitable advance of tangible anti-political and anti-party
sentiments during the crisis.
As for intra-party democracy and the relationship between the three faces
of party organizations (Katz and Mair 1993), Greek party organizations were
always conditioned by one inherent trait in Greek political culture: the cen-
trality of (at times charismatic) leadership in party politics. This was not just
the by-product of the prime minister-centric institutional framework, but an
element closely tied to the petit bourgeois character of Greek society. There-
fore, during the 1980s, the canon of Greek party politics was the co-existence
of strong leaders with mass bureaucratic organizations, with the former being
obliged to consider the party in central office (Kalyvas 1998; Eleftheriou and
Tassis 2022). During the 1990s and 2000s, the professionalization of political
communication and cartelization of the Greek party system both presiden-
tialized Greek political parties in a way that marginalized the party in central
office and concentrated critical decision making in the party in public office.
This shift was more evident in PASOK than in ND (Spourdalakis and Tassis
2006); in the minds of both parties’ executives, inclusiveness of intra-party
democracy—if we accept that intra-party democracy stands for a set of
procedures that regulate meaningful participation—cost electoral efficiency.
Intra-party democracy was useful only when members and non-members
selected and legitimized the party leader. In all other aspects of decision
158 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

making, such as party programmes or candidate selection, the respective

processes were probably contingent but certainly centralized.
These tendencies intensified during the crisis, at least for mainstream
parties. For example, they suffered membership losses (Vernardakis 2011).
Moreover, to implement the bailout austerity policies, they were forced to
reduce intra-party democracy in terms of imposing strict discipline on their
parliamentary groups. This further promoted the marginalization of their
organizational faces in central office and on the ground. Indeed, this proved
to be the point of departure for PASOK’s demise and an increasing pressure

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

on ND. In one sense, the move of PASOK voters to SYRIZA and the cre-
ation of the Independent Greeks party (ANEL) in 2012 is explained, among
other factors, as the last outcome of the continuous and deepening decline
of intra-party democracy in mainstream parties before and during the crisis
(Lyrintzis 2011; Eleftheriou and Tassis 2013).
SYRIZA has partly inherited the intra-party democratic model of the
Coalition of Left and Progress (SYN), a small democratic-socialist party in
the 1990s and 2000s that gave special relevance to the proceedings of the
party’s central office (Eleftheriou 2009; Katsourides 2016, 2020). SYN and
SYRIZA traditionally enjoyed high levels of intra-party democracy in terms
of internal pluralism and the centrality of collective party bodies. The party
leader held a distinct position in intra-party politics, regulating the compet-
ing factions and functioning as the party’s public face. After Alexis Tsipras’
selection as SYN’s leader in 2008, the party produced more personalized
appeals; yet, due to its status as a political coalition, it still preserved its inter-
nal pluralism. From 2004 to 2013, SYN was the largest constituent party of
the political coalition of SYRIZA, consisting of groupings representing all
existing strands of the radical left galaxy (Maoist, Trotskyist, left socialist,
eco-socialist, etc.) (Eleftheriou 2023). In 2013, SYRIZA became a single, uni-
fied party, thereby discarding internal pluralism; after 2015, it ended as a
governing and highly presidentialized party, thereby marginalizing the par-
ties on the ground and in the central office. In a similar vein to PASOK
and ND, this change in SYRIZA’s intra-party politics came from the condi-
tionalities of the third bailout programme, which narrowed the margins for
policy manoeuvring for the SYRIZA-ANEL government (Spourdalakis and
Eleftheriou 2019).
In general, today, the definitions of party members are extremely inclusive.
This is a legacy from the democratization period when participation in par-
ties was encouraged as a democratic duty. New Democracy (2018) accepts as
a member ‘any Greek citizen or nationally Greek or citizen of an EU mem-
ber state or anyone that resides legitimately in the EU’ (Article 3). A candidate
 The Greek Party Systemʼs Ongoing Crisis 159

member registers himself or herself on the ‘National Membership Registry’

and then is granted the right to vote in several internal procedures of the
party. The party congress is composed of many ex officio participants and
almost a thousand representatives from local branches. The party leader is
selected by those members of the National Membership Registry that have
registered 15 days prior to the selection event. A total of 330,521 members
participated in the 2015–2016 leadership selection (data for the second round
of the selection process); however, in 2018, only 155,335 were verified as
party members to participate in intra-party elections for the bodies of munic-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ipal and prefectural branches. In 2021, this figure was 134,802 (author). Even
so, ND still possesses the largest membership base in Greece (Table 8.2),
which exhibits significant influence in leadership contests but is granted low
access in decision making. In many ways, Kyriakos Mitsotakis opted for the
inclusion of non-partisans in the party’s inner circle and initiated the cre-
ation of the ‘Personnel Registry’, through which he tried to attract potential
political personnel by overriding traditional partisan channels.
SYRIZA (2022) accepts as its member any ‘person who has reached 16
years, and lives in Greece’ (Article 3) and whose application is made at a
SYRIZA local branch, a central or intermediate party body, or the party’s dig-
ital platform (Article 4). The members participate in internal elections and
select the representatives for the party congress. The party leader was for-
merly selected by the party congress; however, the previous statutes (SYRIZA
2013) referred to the congress as the party’s ‘sovereign collective body’ that

Table 8.2 Membership and party finance of ND, SYRIZA, and KINAL

Note: Party income data were retrieved for 2019; the reported income share refers to the total party
income; M/E was multiplied by 100 and presents the percentage share of the electorate. In Greek parties’
financial reports, members’ contributions are not discerned from MPs’ contributions.
Sources: Annual financial reports for 2019 (epitropielegxou.parliament.gr); PPDB Round 2 Data;
author; the data for KINAL came from the financial reports of KINAL, PASOK, Democratic Alignment
(DISI), and Olive Tree–Democratic Alignment combined
160 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

may choose a different method of leadership selection, thus paving the way
for open primaries—a development that unfolded in 2022 both for lead-
ership selection and selection of central committee members and again in
2023 for leadership selection (SYRIZA 2022). In general, after 2012, the
party had difficulties in keeping membership numbers corresponding to its
expanded electorate. In organizational terms, the low numbers in member-
ship recruitment were the result of the activities of factions, which functioned
as gatekeepers by excluding potential members to preserve their positions
in the intra-party power balance. This was particularly visible in 2015 when

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

SYRIZA had only 35,000 members, which was a low number compared with
the 2,245,978 voters for the party in the January 2015 elections (i.e. only
a 1.5% members/voters ratio). After the electoral defeat in 2019, Tsipras
declared the need for SYRIZA to reach 180,000 members, thus employing the
use of a digital platform to facilitate registrations. The extent of party mem-
bership expansion became a crucial intra-party issue, which in many cases
halted the dynamics of expansion. In 2022, SYRIZA claimed approximately
172,000 members3 (Table 8.2), marking a major departure from its long-
standing low membership tradition. For Tsipras, the main goal in SYRIZA’s
post-incumbency period (2019—2023) was to attract ‘centrist’ voters and
cadres, something that provoked internal criticism, especially from ‘leftists’
inside the party who think—not without good reason—that his leadership
style sometimes violated intra-party democracy.
PASOK-KINAL (KINAL 2018; PASOK-KINAL 2022) notes that its mem-
bers are ‘Greek citizens, EU citizens and foreigners residing legitimately and
permanently in Greece from the age of sixteen’ (Article 4). Potential members
can register themselves either at a local branch or at the digital ‘Membership
Registry’ and, at least in theory, have formally increased rights concerning
decision making. Similar to the Memberships Registry, PASOK-KINAL has
the ‘Friends’ Registry’, which records party supporters and non-members.
The party leader is elected in an open primary by the total votes from
party members and ‘friends’; importantly, candidates should be proposed
by at least 5,000 members. In the 2017 leadership contest, 211,191 members
and non-members participated, and in the 2021 leadership contest, 270,706
(Table 8.2). In 2018, 65,000 members voted for representatives for KINAL’s
founding congress (author). Regarding the state of intra-party democracy,
note that the founding of KINAL resulted from the quasi-dissolution of
PASOK in April 2017. PASOK’s leader, Fofi Gennimata, abolished at her
own will all elected organs of PASOK, from the party in central office to the
party on the ground, and decided unilaterally on the liquidation of PASOK
into KINAL. Nikos Androulakis, the new party leader elected in 2021, stated
 The Greek Party Systemʼs Ongoing Crisis 161

his intention to reinvigorate PASOK-KINAL’s internal democracy, mainly by

reinstating the collective functioning of party bodies.

Greek Partiesʼ Social Links: From ʻColonizationʼ

of Society to Disengagement from Society

In general, through the democratization process and until the late 1990s,
most Greek parties ‘colonized’ civil society by transferring the dynamics

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

of party competition to pressure groups and civil society organizations
(Spourdalakis and Papavlassopoulos 2008; Mavrogordatos 2009; Sotiropou-
los 2019). This took the form of the parataxi (‘formation’, with its military
meaning), which was a party-aligned group inside civil society organizations.
Thus, in trade unions, small and medium-sized employers’ associations, pro-
fessional unions, chambers, and student unions, these party-aligned groups
were competing for the control of a given pressure group. Until the mid-
1990s, socialists and communists controlled the trade union confederation
(GSEE), while the conservatives influenced employers’ associations, profes-
sional unions, and chambers. Concerning farmers’ unions and cooperatives,
the main parties created distinct organizations; the same also happened in
women’s organizations. After the mid-2000s, SYRIZA emerged as a party
prioritizing its links with social movements, something that became more
evident after the eruption of the Greek debt crisis (Tsakatika and Eleftheriou
2013).
Today, organized interests have lost a great deal of their relevance, mainly
because social dialogue collapsed under the requirements of the post-crisis
bailout agreements (Aranitou 2013). In one sense, organized interests are
still considered sources of legitimation for government and party policies,
though their relationship with political parties is characterized by a system
of mutual autonomy. Parties cannot exert the same degree of control over
civil society organizations; this is a crucial factor that has allowed civil society
to gain autonomy and the capacity to promote its initiatives independently,
especially some non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Nevertheless, the
parties, while in crisis and suffering anti-party disapproval, are still the source
of policies and have tried to ensure privileged relations with specific groups
(mostly business interests or associations) to preserve access to valuable
resources (funds, personnel, and policy proposals).
ND historically established persistent links with Greek society, mainly
forged by the monopoly that the Greek right enjoyed on state management
in the pre-democratic years. During the 1980s and 1990s, the dominance of
162 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

PASOK deprived ND of this monopoly and pushed the conservative party to

form a party network with strong organizational and non-state-sponsored
links to society. Today, ND accepts as ex officio members at its ‘political
committee’ (party executive) representatives from several pressure groups,
such as GSEE, ADEDY (representing civil servants), SEV (industries and big
businesses), GSEVEE (small industrialists and artisans), ESEE (commerce),
SETE (tourism enterprises), professional associations and chambers. This
stands for a quasi-corporatist conception of the party’s relations with soci-
ety, in which the party functions as an umbrella for all conservative forces

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

in Greek society. Its parataxi in trade unions, the Democratic Independent
Movement of Employees (DAKE) (Table 8.3), secured a share of 19% in
the last GSEE elections (March 2023). ND is more popular among the busi-
ness sector, free professions, significant segments of upper civil service, small
farmers, pensioners, and military and police personnel. The Youth Orga-
nization of New Democracy (ONNED) and its student wing DAP-NDFK
(Democratic Renewing Group—New Democratic Student Movement) con-
stitute two of the strongest youth and student organizations in Greece in
organizational terms (Table 8.3). Finally, ND organizes its women-focused
interventions through the party secretariat of family politics and gender
equality rather than a distinct organization.
SYRIZA’s links with civil society organizations are weak because of its
tradition as a small-sized party with loose internal structures (Tsakatika

Table 8.3 Greek partiesʼ party networks

Political party Trade unions Youth organizations Institutes

ND Democratic Organization of New Konstantinos

Independent Movement Democracy’s Youth Karamanlis
of Employees (DAKE) (ONNED), student wing Foundation
Democratic Renewing
Group—New Democratic
Student Movement
(DAP-NDFK)
SYRIZA United Militant SYRIZA Youth, student Nicos
Movement (EAK) and wing Bloco Poulantzas
United Front of Strong Institute
Trade Unions (EMEIS)
PASOK-KINAL Panhellenic Trade Union Youth Network, student Institute for
Movement (PASKE) wing Panhellenic Militant Social
Students’ Group (PASP) Democracy
(INSOCIAL)

Source: Author
 The Greek Party Systemʼs Ongoing Crisis 163

and Eleftheriou 2013; Eleftheriou 2023). As already noted, SYRIZA directed

its linkage strategy towards various social movements, especially the anti-
austerity movements during the crisis period. However, during its electoral
and organizational expansion, it failed to institutionalize these links, thus
losing the support of social movements when it rose to government. In this
sense, while the party proved sensitive to demands originating from identity
politics groups or trade unions, it failed to connect itself in a stable man-
ner with these groups. Moreover, in the trade union movement, the parataxi
aligned to SYRIZA secured only 6% of the votes at the last GSEE congress,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

although the bulk of the party’s electoral support still comes from wage earn-
ers of public and private sector. SYRIZA, in general, has cultivated a rather
individualistic relationship between its members with civil society. As noted
in past party statutes (SYRIZA 2013), ‘the members of SYRIZA, as active citi-
zens, participate in trade unions and other associations, in social movements,
according to their personal interests’. This created a party organization with
no formal links to civil society and encouraged the personalized participation
of individual members in groups and movements, which the party declared
that it wished not to patronize. The departments of the party’s central com-
mittee functioned as the coordinating structures of the members’ work in
civil society, such as the department of labour or feminist politics, with-
out managing to create separate organizations. Moreover, SYRIZA’s long-
standing low membership has affected the size of its youth wing (SYRIZA
Youth) (Table 8.3), which is extremely small compared to those of other
parties.
PASOK-KINAL inherited the weakened links of the once powerful
PASOK, especially in the trade union movement (Bithymitris 2018; Eleft-
heriou and Tassis 2022). Nevertheless, electoral demise limited the party’s
capacity to control, guide, or even communicate with civil society organiza-
tions. During Giorgos Papandreou’s leadership, PASOK was eager to appeal
to NGOs, thus highlighting NGO politics as the backbone of its linkage
strategies (Eleftheriou and Tassis 2013). The disintegration of its organiza-
tion over the years severed its entire long-established links to civil society.
This created, in the case of PASOK-KINAL, a new party with a one-way
electoralist orientation. PASOK’s historic parataxi, PASKE (Table 8.3), still
enjoys majority at GSEE’s general council; however, this is not something
attributed in any way to PASOK-KINAL’s intervention or political assistance.
Its shrunken electorate, confined to pensioners, farmers, and public ser-
vants, narrowed the social space in which the party could employ its linkage
strategies.
164 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

State Subsidies and the Cartelization of Greek

Party Organizations

The significance of state subsidies in the development of the Greek party sys-
tem is one of the most evident features of the symbiotic relationship between
the Greek political parties and the state (Vernardakis 2012; Rori 2015). Party
funding comes from the following sources: state subsidies, parliamentarians’
and members’ contributions and donations, bank loans, and the utilization
of party-owned real estate. State subsidies are divided into three types: the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

annual state subsidy; electoral subsidies in election years; and regular subsi-
dies for research and education (directed to party research foundations and
institutes) (Vernardakis 2012: 14). From 1997 to 2007, 75–80% of the total
party funding came from state subsidies (PASOK, ND, and SYN/SYRIZA),
while only 5.4% for PASOK and nothing for the other two parties came
from members’ contributions and donations (Vernardakis 2012: 15). In 2019,
according to party financial reports, ND received 85% if its income from
state subsidies, and 9.7% from members of parliament (MPs) and members’
contributions, SYRIZA received 85% and 14%, respectively, and KINAL
received 84% and 5%, respectively (see Table 8.2).
Therefore, the reliance of parties on state subsidies remains strong,
although the total sum of available state funds is decreasing on a yearly basis
(Rori 2015: 190–193). In 1996, the annual state subsidy amounted to 1.2‰
of total government budget; in 2002, it fell to 1.02‰ and 0.5‰ during the
crisis in 2014. From 1997 to 2014, the Greek state has spent nearly one billion
euro on party funding, from which PASOK collected 361 million euro, ND
354 million, and SYN/SYRIZA 67 million. In the crisis period, available state
funding reduced by 43% and was distributed to a larger number of parties
with parliamentary representation, especially after 2012. Thus, there was less
funding for larger parties, pushing them to reform their spending to adapt to
the new conditions.
Nevertheless, the ‘elephant in the room’ is the parties’ debt to the banks,
which reached almost 500 million euro for both for PASOK and ND
(Table 8.2). Prior to the crisis, the relevant parties were receiving bank loans
by using present and future state subsidies as collateral. The high costs of
party competition from the early 1990s to 2009 skyrocketed party loans and,
consequently, party debt. In this situation, mainly mainstream parties were
then hit by the drastic reduction of state subsidies.
How has all this affected Greek party organizations? The cartelization the-
sis addresses the increased reliance of parties on state subsidies as a sign of
 The Greek Party Systemʼs Ongoing Crisis 165

their dependence on state resources and disengagement from society (Katz

and Mair 1995, 2009). The Greek case corroborates the thesis since mem-
bers’ contributions and donations constitute a very small piece of Greek
parties’ total budget. Until 2009, the increased reliance on state-related eco-
nomic interests pushed mainstream parties to converge especially on issues
of economic policies and to try to undermine or block the advance of new
challenger parties. The latter emerged as new political actors during the
crisis period as a response to the pre-crisis party system shortcomings; how-
ever, SYRIZA’s U-turn after 2015 favoured the reconvergence of relevant

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

parties inside a renewed cartel. In intra-party politics, this type of party fund-
ing caused the ascendancy of the party in public office as the specific face
that managed and distributed state-originated funds, while the minute eco-
nomic contribution of party members marginalized the party on the ground.
Finally, resorting to bank loans on inconspicuous terms and the general lack
of transparency concerning party funding enhanced the anti-party senti-
ment in Greek public opinion, with the parties being treated as ‘puppets’ of
powerful economic interests. This was something that favoured the rise of
challenger parties. The significant reform of party finances that happened
during the crisis did not decrease parties’ reliance on state funding; rather, it
merely decreased their income. Meanwhile, the burden of debt remained for
ND and PASOK-KINAL. This, especially, still questions the credibility of the
party system in the Greek public mind.

Intra-party Politics in the Greek Party System

Political parties, as we know, are not unitary actors (Sartori 2005 [1976]);
they comprise intra-party groups that reflect either different ideological
approaches or competing personalistic networks. The Greek case is no excep-
tion. Nevertheless, the culture of the mass-type organization imposes the
logic of internal homogeneity for all parties, thus suppressing overt factional
activity (Eleftheriou and Tassis 2013). Every Greek party, except the Euro-
communists and SYN, presented itself as comprising non-organized internal
groupings. The post-1974 rapid institutionalization of the party system and
the hybrid character of the relevant parties, especially the governmental
ones, created favourable conditions for internal fragmentation. The polariza-
tion of the 1980s forced the main parties to conceal their internal diversity;
after 1990, the salience of intra-party conflict in party competition revealed
the reality of PASOK and ND as multi-tendency actors. The only party
166 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

that sanctioned the existence and free activity of factions was SYN, which
conducted its decision-making process, at least until mid-2000s, through
compromises between existing factions (Eleftheriou 2009).
ND does not allow formal factional competition, though three distinct
tendencies have characterized its intra-party politics from its earliest years
(Kalyvas 1998; Alexakis 2020). The first tendency, ‘karamanlist’, stems from
the tradition of the party founder, Konstantinos Karamanlis, who empha-
sized conservatism, moderate statism, and paternalistic social protection. The
second, ‘popular rightist’, appeals to the popular strata of ND’s electoral base

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

and stresses cultural conservatism, anti-communist and anti-PASOK senti-
ments, and right-wing populist demands. The third, ‘liberal’, is the proponent
of an unbounded free-market economy with salient anti-statist views. Each
tendency, being non-organized and consisting of prominent cadres, MPs,
and their respective clienteles, used to intervene in intra-party politics mostly
after electoral defeats; their aim was to influence the leadership selection by
forming temporary alliances with another tendency or parts of it. The kara-
manlist faction, apart from the founder (1974–1980), was also represented
by the latter’s nephew, Kostas Karamanlis (1997–2009); the popular-rightists
were represented by three leaders—Evangelos Averoff (1981–1984), Miltiadis
Evert (1993–1997), and Antonis Samaras (2009–2015); and the liberals by
the Mitsotakis father-and-son duo, Konstantinos and Kyriakos (1984–1993,
2016–present, respectively). Today, Kyriakos Mitsotakis is generally consid-
ered as a leader who managed to, on the one hand, reconcile all tendencies
under his leadership and, on the other hand, draw support from other parties’
supporters, especially the ‘modernizers’ of PASOK.
SYRIZA and its predecessor SYN were the only parties that tolerated the
organized functioning of factions in their internal politics (Eleftheriou 2009).
From 1993 to 2005, SYN experienced divergences between leftist and moder-
ate factions, interrupted by a ‘centrist’ faction close to the party leader. After
2005, leftists and moderates competed in a polarized way; this led, in 2010, to
the departure of the moderates, who formed Democratic Left (DIMAR). The
remaining leftists from 2010 onwards divided on the question of the euro-
zone in the context of the debt crisis. The majority faction led by Tsipras
rejected any Grexit-type strategy, while the minority faction supported the
potential of a ‘Plan B’ strategy, the exit of Greece from the euro currency,
and the return to a national currency. After July 2015 and the acceptance by
the majority faction of the third bailout programme, the minority departed
from the party to form Popular Unity (LAE). Since then, intra-party conflict
in SYRIZA is about the level of moderation that the party is ready to embrace.
Today, the free activity of factions refers to the existence of organized factions
 The Greek Party Systemʼs Ongoing Crisis 167

with their own procedures; disclosure of distinct position papers during

party procedures; competition for the control of party bodies and MPs’ can-
didacies; and access to party bureaucracy resources. While party statutes
regard factions as ‘ideological currents’, this kind of intra-party competition
is fully tolerated (Eleftheriou 2023). Tsipras’ proposal for a direct leadership
election polarized SYRIZA’s intra-party politics between two factions: the
‘presidentialists’, in favour of Tsipras’ proposal and centripetal strategy, and
the ‘umbrella’, comprising various leftist currents which criticize Tsipras’ pro-
posal and overall strategy. Between them was the centrist faction ‘six plus six’

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

that supported eventually Tsipras’ proposal. After the departure of Tsipras in
July 2023 and the election of Kasselakis in September 2023, the most of the
former ‘presidentialists’ re-grouped around the new leader. The centrists and
‘umbrella’ left SYRIZA afterwards to form the New Left party.
PASOK-KINAL is a highly fractionalized party due to its coalitional origin.
PASOK, which is the strongest component of PASOK-KINAL, was charac-
terized by an enduring conflict between the ‘modernizers’, who favoured a
Third Way-style social democracy, and the ‘presidentialists’, who appealed to
the radical project of 1980s’ PASOK. This conflict was relevant from the early
1990s to the mid-2000s. After the selection of Giorgos Papandreou in 2004 as
party leader, PASOK took the form of a ‘confederation’ of various intra-party
networks that were trying to ensure a certain space in intra-party politics and
party bureaucracy (Eleftheriou and Tassis 2013). After 2010 and the imple-
mentation of the first bailout agreement by the PASOK government, party
discipline became loose enough to have the party organization liquidated.
Gradually, the demise of PASOK followed a status of intra-party politics
marked by a total absence of internal ideological struggle. The remaining
intra-party groups became personalistic networks that claimed the extremely
scarce party resources. In this context, the late Fofi Gennimata’s most obvi-
ous achievement was to regulate this competition by distributing resources
to almost everyone, simultaneously securing an adequate share of votes to
preserve the party’s parliamentary presence (Eleftheriou and Tassis 2022).
Gennimata’s death dissolved this intra-party status, and the new leader,
Nikos Androulakis, attempted to re-formulate a new equilibrium between
the various intra-party groups and his own faction.

The Professionalization of Political Communication

The Greek party system has followed the trend towards professionalized
political communication strategies, especially from the 1990s, when the
168 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

newly founded private TV stations began to dominate the public sphere

(Papathanassopoulos 2007). In the case of ND and PASOK, this meant rising
campaign budgets. This intensified, as shown above, the dependence of par-
ties on state funding. The privileged use of TV-based communication tools
enabled the parties to promote personalized campaigns and de-emphasize
the role of party organizations, especially members, in campaigning. More-
over, the parties’ heavy reliance on political marketing professionals for
their communication created gaps between party leaderships and collective
bodies. The content of the party appeals became less ideological and more

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

adapted to the semiotics of TV imagery and language (Andreadis et al. 2011).
SYN, until the mid-2000s, held a middle ground concerning its commu-
nication strategies. On the one hand, it sought high representation in the
TV-regulated public sphere. It presented a group of party cadres and MPs that
were considered as moderates and acceptable to public opinion. On the other
hand, it gave roles to party members due to the party’s low funding and small
membership. After the mid-2000s, SYN followed an activist-based grassroots
approach in campaigning while preserving its mass media participation and
expressing views that were considered as more radical. The internet was a
latecomer in political communication; PASOK and SYN attempted to exploit
digital means for their communication strategies, especially the former under
Giorgos Papandreou’s leadership.
During the 2010 economic crisis, the increased importance of social media
and the emergence of street politics challenged the mainstream of polit-
ical communication. This invigorated grassroots demonstrating and cam-
paigning, at least for the parties of the radical left. SYRIZA’s insistence on
movement-type linkages allowed it to conduct decentralized electoral cam-
paigns at the 2012 dual elections, dominated by Tsipras’ image. Nevertheless,
in 2014, when Tsipras stood as a candidate for the President of the Euro-
pean Commission, the party turned for the first time to an advertising
company to enhance its public image and professionalize its strategy. Grad-
ually, SYRIZA’s shift from opposition to government altered the methods
and content of its political communication to personalized appeals, reliance
on advertising companies, and less ideological discourse (Koliastasis 2022).
During its governmental spell, the prime minister’s office monopolized the
party’s communication, sidelining the party’s press office.
The ND and PASOK/KINAL communication strategies were also chal-
lenged during the crisis period. On the one hand, PASOK approached the
2012 elections with a highly personalized logic; however, in tandem with
 The Greek Party Systemʼs Ongoing Crisis 169

its organizational decline, it experienced the well-known collapse of 2012.

From 2015 onwards, the weakened KINAL tried to rehabilitate PASOK’s
public image with a new face in its leadership. Under Fofi Gennimata, KINAL
produced extremely personalized appeals on a professional basis, given the
low organizational penetration of the party in society. Androulakis’ PASOK-
KINAL seems to be less personalized, although the image of the leader is still
the main reference of party communication.
On the other hand, ND’s electoral survival in 2012 was a landmark that
ensured that the party was still the conservative pillar of the Greek party

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

system. Traditionally, ND was a highly personalized party that had pro-
fessionalized its communication earlier than others. Therefore, after his
selection as leader in 2016, Kyriakos Mitsotakis sought to re-modernize the
party’s communication appeals (Koliastasis 2022) by utilizing, at a high level,
the available digital means and forging close links with private mass media.
Mitsotakis’ inner circle comprised, apart from politicians, marketing profes-
sionals who did not necessarily belong to the party but heavily influenced
strategic decisions. Along with Giorgos Papandreou and PASOK in the past,
Kyriakos Mitsotakis probably exemplfied the most Americanized version of
political communication in recent Greek electoral history.

Concluding Remarks

In general, the Greek party system was relatively stable until the so-called
electoral ‘earthquake’ of 2012 that demolished the electoral base of PASOK
and ensured the electoral rise of SYRIZA (Voulgaris and Nicolacopoulos
2014). The system of ‘two-partyism’ reproduced itself through the confronta-
tion of two mass socialist and conservative poles, and the parallel existence
of radical left actors. This system started displaying signs of delegitimization
from the mid-2000s, when the radical left and emerging far right challenged
the two-party consensus. In this sense, the economic crisis and the deep polit-
ical crisis that followed functioned as a catalyst for the collapse of the old
party system.
The decline of PASOK was the landmark event of the period as it had
been the ‘hegemonic party’ in Greek party competition (Eleftheriou and
Tassis 2013). PASOK had a pivotal role in promoting organizational inno-
vations and programmatic shifts, as well as influencing its main political
adversary. Yet PASOK’s decline is the embodiment of various developments
170 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

in the Greek party system. These developments included the cartelization of

party organizations (which signalled the retreat of intra-party democracy),
de-mobilization of party members, professionalization of political commu-
nication, and rupture of party–society links. The implementation of the first
bailout programme left PASOK on the margins of party competition, being
resilient only in a small niche of the electorate (Eleftheriou and Tassis 2013;
Sotiropoulos 2014). PASOK was made the ultimate ‘scapegoat’ for the coun-
try’s tragedy; therefore, its demise was conceived as ‘catharsis’ for Greek
society. In other words, a devastating economic crisis during which the coun-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

try lost 30% of its gross domestic product was needed for the hegemonic party
to stop being resilient.
On its part, ND, being a party with deep roots in certain conservative seg-
ments of Greek society, displayed its longstanding experience in systemic
politics. It eventually represented the pro-bailout strata in Greek society, uti-
lized its expertise in managing the state and its historic pro-EU stance, and
stood decisively against the Golden Dawn phenomenon and contributed to
the latter’s demise. In most of the democratic period, ND simply followed
PASOK’s lead; as a result, it did not receive as much negativity as PASOK did.
Furthermore, it did not have to face a strong right-wing challenger, except
from the rather weak ANEL (the Golden Dawn was an extreme-right case).
In the 2019 elections, ND managed to cast itself as a political force of ‘nor-
mality’, that is, the guarantor of the post-crisis normalization, something that
was repeated at 2023 dual elections.
SYRIZA emerged as the main challenger party by receiving the bulk of the
de-aligned PASOK voters. Its rise was the by-product of the crisis and the
‘Indignants’ square demonstrations: it managed to articulate a diffuse anti-
bailout sentiment and claimed the power to implement a programme of this
kind. However, in 2015, the defeat of its strategy forced SYRIZA to moder-
ate its position and accept the bailout logic. Seemingly anti-system, SYRIZA
contributed substantially to the stabilization of the political and party system
during and after the political crisis. For instance, it incorporated the anti-
austerity protest dynamics and moderated its extremist tendencies. SYRIZA
is not a new party, as it stems from a democratic-socialist predecessor in the
1990s and the moderate Eurocommunists of the 1970s and 1980s. In this
sense, by being an established but small party, it managed to function as a
democratic alternative for exiting the political crisis against the calamitous
threat of the anti-democratic Golden Dawn. Moreover, due to the fail-
ures of consecutive governments to implement the bailout programmes, the
SYRIZA government was the only one remaining to conclude successfully a
 The Greek Party Systemʼs Ongoing Crisis 171

bailout programme; this was mostly because it emerged from the anti-bailout
camp that could legitimize the necessity of the bailout programmes and
finally conclude the last of them. This was something that cost SYRIZA cred-
ibility and, more importantly, the capacity to present itself as an alternative
to systemic politics.
The 2019 elections, as the first post-crisis poll, seemed to provide a repe-
tition of the old two-party system: a conservative pillar versus a radical left
pillar, with the parallel presence of a centre-left minor party. However, the
2023 elections confirmed the dominance of the conservative party with over

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

40% of the vote and marked the decline of the centre-left, with the combined
electoral influence of SYRIZA and PASOK-KINAL falling below 30%. There
are two different elements in the new party system. First, the post-crisis pol-
itics are still extremely unstable: volatility is still high, and a new crisis may
erupt. In this sense, the two-partyism of 2019 was in the making as it is the
dominant-party system of 2023, although ND seems to have institutionalized
its dominant position. Second, competition between mainstream parties is
still largely based on negative identifications: most people vote on an anti-
right or anti-SYRIZA basis. This makes the new party system vulnerable to
anti-mainstream challenges.
Concerning the state of party democracy, all three parties share the same
signs of decline. The parties are highly presidentialized, with leaders that
function beyond any accountability to party members or collective bodies.
Direct forms of accountability are dysfunctional mainly because there is no
permanent plebiscitary accountability (e.g. through intra-party referenda)
but only appeals from party elites to the constantly changing selectorates
through leadership contests. Intra-party democracy is declining as critical
decision making is undertaken in the leaders’ inner circles, while all rele-
vant collective procedures are reduced to symbolic partisan ‘festivities’ or
totally ignored. The utilization of digital tools has furthered the ascendancy
of party leaders, who have monopolized party communication and pro-
duced non-ideological and inclusive personalized appeals. The context of
the bailout programmes restricted the space and content for policymaking
and led to programmatic convergence. However, in the economic context of
the post-bailout period, external pressures also impose necessary program-
matic adaptation to any party aspiring to rise to power. Finally, party–society
relations are still characterized by suspicion from society over the honesty of
parties and their capacity to respond to citizens’ problems.
Thus, it is not easy to predict the direction of party strategies in a post-crisis
environment. There is still political space available for challenger parties and
172 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

issues that provoke populist responses. The inadequacy of Greek political

parties to reform themselves, enhance party democracy, mend their broken
links with society, and revitalize their public images can always allow the
emergence of new anti-party parties that will threaten the norms of demo-
cratic party competition. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic period again
challenged the Greek party system, not only on questions of health and
economic management but also on the capacity of parties to function under
imposed multi-level restrictions. In this sense, party democracy, whenever a
state of emergency is declared, is deemed as a political luxury vis-à-vis dire

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

collective dangers. Therefore, the parties’ tendencies toward practices of lim-
ited democratic justification find breeding ground in the subsequent crises to
grow further. Nevertheless, for the recent Greek party system, instability and
turbulence are commonplace, and the parties are accustomed to function-
ing within that context. While the parties may end up being less democratic,
they will continue to exist. After all, the resilience of Greek parties is not just
a domestically inherent feature of theirs but also a reminder that the age of
political parties has not yet passed.

Notes
1. From 2017 to 2022 PASOK was the core party of KINAL (coalition with centre-left
groupings). In 2022 KINAL was renamed PASOK-KINAL.
2. The chapter mainly covers developments in the Greek party system up to the summer
of 2022. It does not address extensively the context of party competition after the two
elections in 2023. Greek Solution managed to remain in parliament, while MERA25 did
not. There are two new far right parties in the parliament – Spartans and Niki – and
Course for Freedom a sovereigntist left party originating from SYRIZA.
3. Prior to its April 2022 party congress, SYRIZA claimed 61,600 members. At the May
2022 leadership selection, SYRIZA claimed the participation of 151,842 members. Given
the abstention of almost one-third of pre-congress members at the leadership selection
process, the party claimed the recruitment of 110,000 additional members who enrolled
before the leadership selection day. 148,821 party members participated in the September
2023 leadership selection, of which 40,000 were new members registered on the day of
the first round of the selection process.

References

Alexakis, Manolis. 2020. ‘The Conservatives’. In Kevin Featherstone and Dimitris A.

Sotiropoulos (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Modern Greek Politics. Oxford, New
York: Oxford University Press, 256–268.
 The Greek Party Systemʼs Ongoing Crisis 173

Aranitou, Valia. 2013. Social Dialogue and Employers’ Associations. Athens: Savalas
(in Greek).
Andreadis, Ioannis, Eftychia Teperoglou, and Emmanouil Tsatsanis. 2011. ‘The
Structure of Ideological Space in Greece’. Greek Political Science Review, 38:5–32
(in Greek).
Biezen, Ingrid van, Peter Mair, and Thomas Poguntke. 2012. ‘Going, Going, …
Gone? The Decline of Party Membership in Contemporary Europe’. European
Journal of Political Research, 51(1):24–56.
Bithymitris, Giorgos. 2018. ‘An Exceptional Social Democratic Trade Union Identity:

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

PASOK and Trade Unions from Metapolitefsi to Crisis’. In Vassilis Assimakopoulos
and Chrysanthos Tassis (eds), PASOK 1974–2018: Organization, Ideology, Policies.
Athens: Gutenberg (in Greek), 134–161.
Casal Bértoa, F. 2022. Database on WHO GOVERNS in Europe and beyond, PSGO.
https://whogoverns.eu/ (Accessed 13 December 2023).
Döring, Holger, Constantin Huber, and Philip Manow. 2022. Parliaments and Gov-
ernments Database (ParlGov): Information on Parties, Elections and Cabinets
in established Democracies. Development Version. https://www.parlgov.org/data-
info/ (Accessed 13 December 2023).
Duverger, Maurice. 1964. Political Parties. London: Methuen.
Eleftheriou, Costas. 2009. ‘The Uneasy “Symbiosis”: Factionalism and radical
Politics in Synaspismos’. Paper presented to the 4th Hellenic Observatory PhD
Symposium. London, 25–26 June. https://www.lse.ac.uk/Hellenic-Observatory/
Assets/Documents/HO-PhD-Symposia/The-4th-HO-Phd-Symposium/26-June/
Session-1/Panel-1-Political-Parties-II-Cleavages-Electoral-Politics.pdf (Accessed
13 December 2023).
Eleftheriou, Costas. 2023. ‘Greece’. In Luke March, Fabien Escalona, and Dan Keith
(eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Radical Left Parties in Europe. London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 263–300.
Eleftheriou, Costas and Chrysanthos Tassis. 2013. PASOK: Rise and Fall of a
Hegemonic Party. Athens: Savalas (in Greek).
Eleftheriou, Costas and Chrysanthos Tassis. 2022. ‘From “Pasokification” to
“De-pasokification”? PASOK’s Deviation from Its Political Tradition (2012–2020)’.
The Greek Review of Social Research, 158:97–131 (in Greek).
International IDEA. 2022. Voter Turnout Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/
data/voter-turnout (Accessed 13 December 2023).
Kalyvas, Stathis N. 1998. ‘The Right in Greece: Between Transition and Reform’. In
Frank L. Wilson (ed.), The European Center-right at the Turn of the Century. New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 87–115.
Katsourides, Yiannos. 2016. Radical Left Parties in Government: The Cases of SYRIZA
and AKEL. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
174 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Katsourides, Yiannos. 2020. ‘The Radical Left’. In Kevin Featherstone and Dimitris
A. Sotiropoulos (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Modern Greek Politics. Oxford,
New York: Oxford University Press, 299–315.
Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 1993. ‘The Evolution of Party Organizations in
Europe: The Three Faces of Party Organization’. American Review of Politics,
14(4):593–617.
Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 1995. ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and
Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’. Party Politics, 1(1):5–28.
Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 2009. ‘The Cartel Party Thesis: A Restatement’.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Perspectives on Politics, 7(4):753–766.
KINAL. 2018. Statutes. https://kinimaallagis.gr/katastatiko (in Greek) (Accessed 13
December 2023).
Koliastasis, Panos A. 2022. Permanent Campaigning in Greece in Times of Crisis: The
Samaras, Tsipras and Mitsotakis Premierships. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Koustenis, Panagiotis. 2013. History and Arithmetic of Representation Meth-
ods: Investigating the Greek Case (PhD thesis). Athens: University of Athens
(in Greek).
Lyrintzis, Christos. 2011. ‘Greek Politics in the Era of Economic Crisis: Reassess-
ing Causes and Effects’. Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and South-
east Europe, 45. https://www.lse.ac.uk/Hellenic-Observatory/Assets/Documents/
Publications/GreeSE-Papers/GreeSE-No45.pdf (Accessed 13 December 2023).
Mavrogordatos, Giorgos Th. 1984. ‘The Greek Party System: A Case of “Limited but
Polarised Pluralism”?’. West European Politics, 7(4):156–169.
Mavrogordatos, Giorgos Th. 2009. ‘Models of Party–Interest Group Relations and
the Uniqueness of the Greek Case’. Paper presented to the Workshop ‘Political
Parties and Civil Society’ ECPR Joint Sessions, Lisbon, 14–19 April.
New Democracy. 2018. Statutes of New Democracy. https://www.politicalpartydb.
org/wp-content/uploads/Statutes/Greece/Greece_New-Democracy_2018.pdf
(in Greek) (Accessed 13 December 2023).
Papathanassopoulos, Stylianos. 2007. ‘Political Communication and Professionali-
sation in Greece’. In Ralph Negrine, Paolo Mancini, Christina Holtz-Bacha, and
Stylianos Papathanassopoulos (eds), The Professionalisation of Political Commu-
nication. Bristol, Chicago: Intellect Books, 127–143.
Papavlassopoulos, Efthymios. 2004. The Reconstruction of Greek Conservatism: New
Democracy’s Organization, 1974–1993 (PhD thesis). Salonica: Aristotle University
of Salonica (in Greek).
PASOK-KINAL. 2022. Statutes of PASOK-KINAL. https://pasok.gr/katastatiko/ (in
Greek) (Accessed 13 December 2023).
 The Greek Party Systemʼs Ongoing Crisis 175

Rori, Lamprini. 2015. ‘Funding of Political Parties and Transformations in Party

Competition’. In Nicholas Demertzis and Nikos Georgarakis (eds), The Political
Portrait of Greece. Athens: EKKE/Gutenberg (in Greek), 188–205.
Sartori, Giovanni. 2005 [1976]. Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis.
Colchester: ECPR Press.
Sotiropoulos, Dimitris A. 2014. ‘Triumph and Collapse: PASOK in the Wake of the
Crisis in Greece (2009–2013)’. In David J. Bailey, Jean-Michelle De Waele, Fabien
Escalona, and Mathieu Vieira (eds), European Social Democracy During the Global
Economic Crisis: Renovation or Resignation?. Manchester: Manchester University

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Press, 193–212.
Sotiropoulos, Dimitris A. 2019. ‘Political Party–Interest Group Linkages in Greece
before and after the Onset of the Economic Crisis’. Mediterranean Politics,
24(5):605–625.
Spourdalakis, Michalis. 1996. ‘Securing Democracy in Post-authoritarian Greece:
The Role of Political Parties’. In Geoffrey Pridham (ed.), Stabilizing Fragile Democ-
racies. London: Routledge, 167–186.
Spourdalakis, Michalis and Costas Eleftheriou. 2019. ‘When the Radi-
cal Left Met Government: The Syriza Experience’. Tempo Exterior, (39):
119–133.
Spourdalakis, Michalis and Efthymios Papavlassopoulos. 2008. ‘Parties, Inter-
est Groups and the Transformations in the Representation System: Beyond
the Theories of Crisis’. In Charalambos Anthopoulos and Xenofon Kontiadis
(eds), Crisis of the Greek Political System?. Athens: Papazissi (in Greek),
291–315.
Spourdalakis, Michalis and Chrysanthos Tassis. 2006. ‘Party Change in Greece
and the Vanguard Role of PASOK’. South European Society and Politics, 11(3–4):
497–512.
SYRIZA. 2013. The Statutes of Syriza. Athens https://www.syriza.gr/page/
katastatiko.html (in Greek) (Accessed 13 December 2023).
SYRIZA. 2022. The Statutes of Syriza-Progressive Alliance. https://www.syriza.gr/
page/katastatiko.html (in Greek) (Accessed 13 December 2023).
Tsakatika, Myrto and Costas Eleftheriou. 2013. ‘The Radical Left’s Turn towards
Civil Society in Greece: One Strategy, Two Paths’. South European Society and
Politics, 18(1):81–99.
Tsatsanis, Emmanouil. 2018. ‘The Swift Unravelling: Party System Change and De-
Institutionalization in Greece During the Crisis’. In Marco Lisi (ed.), Party System
Change, the European Crisis and the State of Democracy. London: Routledge,
115–136.
176 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Tsirbas, Yannis. 2020. ‘The Party System’. In Kevin Featherstone and Dimitris A.
Sotiropoulos (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Modern Greek Politics. Oxford, New
York: Oxford University Press, 219–239.
Vernardakis, Christoforos. 2011. Political Parties, Elections and Party System: The
Transformations of Representation 1990–2010. Athens, Salonica: Sakoulas (in
Greek).
Vernardakis, Christoforos. 2012. ‘From Mass Parties to Cartel Parties: The Evolution
of the Structure of Political Parties in Greece through Changes in Their Statutes
and Systems of Financing’. Working Paper Series on the Legal Regulation of Politi-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

cal Parties, 27. http://www.partylaw.leidenuniv.nl/uploads/wp2712.pdf (Accessed
13 December 2023).
Voulgaris, Yiannis & Elias Nicolacopoulos (eds). 2014. 2012: The dual electoral
earthquake. Athens: Themelio (in Greek).
9
Parties and the Party System in Turkey
From the System of ʻDouble Tutelageʼ to a ʻPersonalistic
Hybrid Regimeʼ

Toygar Sinan Baykan

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The System of ʻDouble Tutelageʼ and a Deficient
Democracy

Turkey made a transition towards democracy in the mid-20th century.

Although Turkey has a long history of democratic contests and governments
compared to many similar developing countries, its democratic system,
surprisingly, has not been consolidated so far. What is even more surprising
is that the country has experienced a marked backsliding of democracy in
recent years. The development of the Turkish party system and the parties
it contains has been one of the root causes of the problems of democracy in
Turkey.
As a first step in explaining this puzzle, the specific historical develop-
ment of the founding political party of modern Turkish Republic, the CHP
(Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi—the Republican People’s Party), should be elabo-
rated because it was a blueprint for the development of other Turkish parties
in the following decades. The CHP was the party of the coalition between
the military–bureaucratic elites and Turkish notables (including merchants
and landlords) that fought the National Independence War against the Greek
invasion between 1919 and 1922 (Keyder 2003). Hence, there was no agrar-
ian or working-class mass mobilization behind the CHP. In fact, the party’s
roots could be found in the assembly that gathered to run the National
Independence War.
Initially, the CHP was a sort of ‘vanguard organization’ which was
extremely hesitant about mass mobilization (Plaggenborg 2015). The CHP
created an authoritarian single-party regime, mainly relying on the prestige
of its founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, stemming from the victory in the

Toygar Sinan Baykan, Parties and the Party System in Turkey. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Toygar Sinan Baykan (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0009
178 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

National Independence War. But the CHP’s authoritarian vanguardism was

also uniquely blended with a skilful pragmatism which made the central CHP
elite establish and sustain coalitions across provincial Turkey with segments
of powerful local elites (Meeker 2001). Thus, the first prominent party of the
Turkish Republic was the creation of military and bureaucratic elites and, to
a lesser extent, social and economic elites who were obedient to the political
vision of this petty bourgeois leadership. Hence, the CHP, as a founding pillar
of Turkish democracy in the mid-20th century, was the party of an elite coali-
tion that was born in the parliament. This was largely understandable, since

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the rural population of Turkey in the 1920s was deeply segmented, poor,
and uneducated, and a degree of industrial development—and therefore a
sizeable working class—was almost non-existent.
After the Second World War, as a result of the combination of various
internal and external factors, Turkey made a transition to multi-party pol-
itics with the foundation of the DP (Demokrat Parti—The Democrat Party)
(Özbudun 2011). The transition was mainly the outcome of an internal rift
within the CHP elite. The founders of the new DP were prominent figures
from the CHP, and the transition to the multi-party regime was made in
the parliament (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi—The Grand National Assem-
bly of Turkey) by the foundation of a new party by politicians from the
establishment. There was no major social pressure or public mobilization
at all preceding this episode in Turkey’s political history. Hence, the DP
was an elite-based party mostly relying on provincial elites left behind by
the CHP’s elite coalition, and it formed the first two-party system of Turkey
together with the CHP in the 1950s. Thus, the party system in Turkey (and
the parties forming it) emerged within the parliament, and this pattern largely
reproduced itself in the following decades. In fact, the Turkish party system
appeared as a contest between rival patronage networks (Akarlı and Ben-Dor
1975), and it would be futile to define insulated social sectors behind par-
ties such as peasants, working classes, or denominational or ethnic groups,
at least until the rise of the Islamist and pro-Kurdish parties in the mid-1990s.
In the 1950s, a majoritarian electoral system was one of the factors that sus-
tained the DP’s predominance, and this generated a marked frustration in the
opposition. For example, in the 1954 general elections, the DP got 92.8% of
all seats in the parliament with 57.6% of all votes (Turan 2016: 114). The DP
rule became increasingly authoritarian in the second half of the 1950s. The
first two-party system came to an end with a military coup, staged mostly
by lower-ranked officers of the Turkish Armed Forces, in 1960. After a short
interim process, Turkey returned to multi-party politics with a new, more
liberal constitution and a proportional electoral system. This proportional
 Parties and the Party System in Turkey 179

system remains intact to the present day, with various important modifica-
tions. The result of this proportional system, combined with a more liberal
constitutional framework and rapid industrialization and urbanization, was
the rise of a remarkably more fragmented and unstable party system in the
1960s and 1970s. More problematically, the rising political polarization from
the mid-1970s onwards escalated into a civil-war-like left–right conflict in
Turkey.
These developments culminated in another military coup in 1980 which,
this time, was led by top military commanders and resulted in unprecedented

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

bloodshed and oppression. While the proportional system was protected by
the military junta, there were two new important measures that shaped the
party system in the 1980s and 1990s. The military junta, as a part of a legal
engineering process aiming at curbing polarization and fragmentation in the
political system (which was evident in the 1970s), decided to erect a 10%
electoral threshold (Özbudun 2013: 73). The other legal measure to achieve
a more stable party system was the restrictive party law that was promulgated
in 1983. Combined with the 10% electoral threshold, as Kabasakal notes,
this party law imposed a very similar organizational structure to all Turkish
parties by forbidding branches below the district (ilçe) level, in workplaces,
and so on. It hindered a healthy relationship between parties and society
(2016: 234).1
For a short period of time, this restrictive framework worked in the way the
military junta had wished, and the Turkish party system seemed to be stabi-
lized around 2.5 parties, with a single-party majority government (Özbudun
2013: 73). But the 1990s reproduced the fragmentation that the Turkish party
system had witnessed in the 1970s. Throughout the 1990s, there were five
parties in the parliament with an almost even number of seats. Most notably,
the rise of a new type of party (the Islamist RP—Refah Partisi—the Welfare
Party, the predecessor of the AKP) akin to a classical mass party model2 by
ideologically appealing to devout Sunni Muslims, was a major development
in the 1990s. A backlash against this party by the secular establishment in the
form of an indirect military intervention toppled the Islamist-led coalition
government in 1997. Turkey had been governed by several unstable coali-
tion governments throughout the 1990s, and the general legitimacy of the
system hit rock bottom at the beginning of the 2000s due to mismanagement
(which became all too evident after the inability of the government to han-
dle the consequences of a devastating earthquake) and the economic crisis
in 2001. In the general election in 2002, a moderate splinter group from the
Islamist political tradition, the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—the Justice
and Development Party) of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, won 34% of the vote. But
180 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

due to the 10% electoral threshold, the party won 363 seats out of 550 seats
in the parliament. Around 45% of all votes cast in this election were wasted.
These wasted votes mostly belonged to the ruling parties of the 1990s and—
combined with their failure in government throughout that period—their
failure in this critical election suddenly pushed these centre-right and centre-
left parties out of parliament, and incrementally out of the political system in
the 2000s.
There are two major points that needed to be asserted for the period until
the rise of the AKP. One of them is that the party system in Turkey during the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

second half of the 20th century was frequently interrupted by interventions of
powerful institutional veto players, most notably the Turkish military. Hence,
the Turkish political regime had never been a liberal democracy in this period
and developed under the tutelary impact of a Kemalist institutional order
that reduced the Turkish political system to a deficient ‘electoral democracy’
(Özbudun 2011). The other leg of this ‘double tutelage’ was rooted in political
parties and how they were organized as elite-based patronage structures with
no meaningful input into decision-making processes from societal groups.
This was largely a consequence of the development of Turkey’s political par-
ties inside the parliament due to an underdeveloped agrarian economy and
the strategic decisions of military–bureaucratic elites to curb the penetration
of party competition into local societal groups.
However, despite the seeming conflict between military–bureaucratic and
political elites at certain periods in the history of Turkish competitive
party politics, keeping popular participation and mobilization restricted and
orderly remained one of the top priorities for these different elite sectors in
Turkey. Hence, competition between parties (under firm elite control) and
alternation in office were possible, but a healthy representative relationship
between parties and society was missing. The participation in party deci-
sions by members was highly restricted, and the military elite, albeit for short
periods of time, took control of the political system when they deemed it
necessary.3
As a result, the Turkish political system, despite the application of vari-
ous electoral systems and the formation of various party systems throughout
the second half of the 20th century, remained a deficient democracy with
high levels of fragmentation, polarization, and volatility (Özbudun 2013).
This system of ‘double tutelage’ (consisting of tutelary attitudes of military–
bureaucratic as well as political elites) came to an end within a decade with
the rise of Erdoğan’s AKP. However, as is demonstrated in the following
sections, this happened at the cost of further democratic backsliding.
 Parties and the Party System in Turkey 181

The Rise of a ʻPersonalistic Hybrid Regimeʼ

The system of ‘double tutelage’ in Turkey that was based, on the one hand, on
frequent interventions from non-party actors (such as the army and the high
judiciary) in party politics and, on the other hand, on authoritarian domi-
nation of powerful political elites/patrons (Akarlı and Ben-Dor 1975; Bektaş
1993; Ayan-Musil 2011) over poor, segmented, and subjugated social sectors
gradually started to dissolve in the years preceding the rise of the AKP. In the
1980s and 1990s, urbanization and domestic migration gained momentum,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

and Turkey witnessed the rise of two identity-based mass party-like politi-
cal entities; one of these entities was a series of parties including the Islamist
RP (the predecessor of the AKP), and the other was a series of left-leaning
pro-Kurdish parties including the HADEP (Halkın Demokrasi Partisi—The
People’s Democracy Party). The rise of those two parties in the 1990s was
a remarkable change in the Turkish political system, which, at least for a
few decades, started to deconstruct one of the legs of the ‘double tutelage’ in
Turkey by establishing profoundly ideological linkages with their supporters
(instead of mere patronage relations); to a remarkable extent, these parties
transformed their sympathizers’ worldviews. Both parties were targeted by
the military–bureaucratic leg of the ‘double tutelage’, and the interactions of
these parties with its institutional leg resulted in the incremental transforma-
tion of some of the elites of the Islamist RP into a moderate, conservative,
democratic party at the beginning of the 2000s. While the AKP transformed
into a catch-all-like party in the 2000s, it retained the mass party features (an
ideologically motivated and active grassroots organization) inherited from its
Islamist past for a remarkably long period of time. This provided the party
with a notable advantage against its left- and right-wing rivals, which had
looser links to social sectors (Baykan 2018).
From the beginning of the 2000s until 2015, partly thanks to Turkey’s
extremely high electoral threshold, the AKP was able to win more than
two consecutive general elections and form single-party majority govern-
ments. Hence, by the beginning of the 2010s, there was a marked trend to
define the AKP-led party system as a ‘dominant party system’ (Aslan-Akman
2012; Gümüşçü 2013; Özbudun 2013; Keyman 2014; Ayan-Musil 2015; Ete
et al. 2015). The transformation of the Turkish party system during the AKP
period can also be observed in the change of core party system indicators
set out in Table 9.1. Starting with the 2002 general elections, the effective
number of parliamentary parties as well as volatility in the Turkish party
system decreased remarkably. The main parties in the parliament since the
182 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Table 9.1 Core party system indicators in Turkey

ENEP ENPP Volatility Turnout (%)

1983 2.79 2.52 92.27

1987 4.02 2.05 38.50 93.28
1991 4.66 3.58 17.40 83.92
1995 5.90 4.40 21.90 85.20
1999 6.22 4.87 20.70 87.09
2002 5.01 1.85 42.60 79.14
2007 3.00 2.30 23.40 84.25

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2011 2.44 2.35 11.00 83.16
2015 3.54 3.13 - 83.82
2015 2.84 2.45 - 85.23
2018 3.67 3.07 - 86.22

Note: ENEP—Effective Number of Electoral Parties;

ENPP—Effective Number of Parliamentary Parties; Volatility as
the total volatility; Turnout as share of all registered voters;
‘-’—missing data.
Source: Parliaments and Governments Database (Döring et al.
2022); Database on WHO Governs in Europe and Beyond,
PSGO (Casal Bértoa 2022); Voter Turnout Database (IDEA 2022)

2007 general elections (namely the AKP, CHP, pro-Kurdish parties, and the
MHP-Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi—Nationalist Action Party) were, more or
less, able to protect their vote and seat shares in the 2015 and 2018 general
elections, with the exception of the rise of a splinter party from the MHP,
Meral Akşener’s İyi Parti—The Good Party, in the 2018 elections. Thus, it is
safe to argue that the volatility in the Turkish party system remained limited
throughout the AKP years.
Nevertheless, the process of AKP’s rise into a predominant party within
the system by getting around twice the number of votes received by the main
opposition for more than two consecutive elections, and the seeming party
system stability this predominance has provided so far in terms of core party
system indicators, has been accompanied by a process of autocratization.
While this process was not clearly discernible before 2015, as Sözen (2020)
states, there were signs regarding this authoritarian tendency, such as the
‘aggrandizement in the executive branch’ well before this date. Yet the author-
itarian characteristics of the AKP more clearly emerged after 2015. Thus, the
case of Turkey demonstrates that improvements in the quantitative indica-
tors of party system stability may not always accompany democratic stability
(Yavuzyılmaz and Tsarouhas 2022). Not only the relationship between par-
ties but also the complex relationships among parties, non-party institutional
actors (such as the military), and patronage-oriented societal actors (such as
 Parties and the Party System in Turkey 183

religious communities and powerful regional patronage networks/clusters)

should be taken into account in the examination of the nexus between
political parties and democracy in cases like Turkey.
One of the important points that should be asserted in this context is that
by 2015, in collaboration with a Muslim religious cult (the GC—the Gülen
Community) that had colonized important state institutions for decades
since the 1980s, Erdoğan’s AKP had crippled the military–bureaucratic leg
of the ‘double tutelage’ in Turkey. They did this by promulgating laws dimin-
ishing the role of military elites (Gürsoy 2014), which was supported by the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ongoing EU negotiations at the time, and with dubious legal cases carried out
by Gülenist prosecutors against an alleged ‘coup plan’.
The rift between the GC and the AKP should be further explored, for it has
implications regarding the relationships between parties and non-party orga-
nizations in Turkey: while the symbiosis between these two groups benefited
both of them until the beginning of the 2010s, the power struggle between
them reached an irreversible point in 2012 when the GC started to use its
cadres in state institutions (such as the police and judiciary) to corner the
AKP government (Çakır 2014). Such non-party influences on party poli-
tics in Turkey become more intelligible when these religious communities
are seen as powerful patronage networks and/or pressure groups with vested
interests in the private sector and functioning as economic actors. The distin-
guishing feature of the GC was that, towards the end of the 2000s, it became
colossal with a very well-organized and semi-clandestine elite core embrac-
ing an elitist Islamist authoritarian ideology and controlling key bureaucratic
institutions. The GC was also based on a remarkably broad social back-
ing consisting of people benefiting from patronage resources provided by
the community. From a liberal democratic point of view, while both groups
had tendencies towards authoritarianism, the GC’s position was more ques-
tionable. Perhaps it was more culpable in undermining Turkish electoral
democracy since it was a semi-clandestine organization that was not officially
part of the party competition. More importantly, it was almost completely
lacking any kind of (vertical or horizontal) accountability while engaged in a
power struggle with the AKP.
After 2015, with a series of emblematic incidents and important changes
in government institutions, it became clear that Turkey had moved into a
‘personalistic hybrid regime’ under the AKP’s predominance. This regime
was called ‘authoritarian’ (Arat and Pamuk, 2020), ‘competitive authori-
tarian’ (Özbudun 2015; Esen and Gümüşçü 2016; Castaldo 2018) or ‘new
authoritarian’ (Somer 2016). But in all cases, the authors make it clear
that the democratic dimension of Turkey’s deficiently democratic system
184 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

progressively degraded from 2015 onwards. After a bloody putsch to topple

the Erdoğan government in the summer of 2016 (mostly carried out by des-
perate Gülenists within the army), the AKP transformed the Turkish political
system from parliamentarianism to presidentialism in 2017. They did this
with a constitutional referendum which equipped the head of the executive
(Erdoğan) with extensive rights and diminished the veto power of the parlia-
ment and the judiciary’s capacity to check the executive (Gözler 2017). The
parliament, since Turkey’s transition to presidentialism, has become almost
powerless; the rule of law has deteriorated considerably; and the progressive

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

deinstitutionalization has rendered Erdoğan almost the sole decision maker
in governmental affairs. Hence, the demise of Turkey’s deficiently democratic
system of ‘double tutelage’, despite the optimistic expectations at the begin-
ning of the 2010s, ironically resulted in a more authoritarian system under
the control of Erdoğan’s AKP.
Both the AKP’s transformation and strategies and the inadequacies of
opposition parties to respond to the changing electoral environment paved
the way for the consolidation of the civilian leg of the ‘double tutelage’ in
Turkey with the rise of the AKP as a ‘fragile’4 hegemonic party with some
marked ‘sultanistic’ tendencies (Linz 2017), despite the existence of fairly
complex social and economic structures in a highly urbanized and remark-
ably industrialized country. The ability of a strongman to accumulate such
extensive powers within such a complex socio-economic structure is certainly
a puzzle in its own right, which can only partly be explained by the presence
of a robust party organization (Baykan 2018).

The Ruling AKP and the Main Opposition CHP

The AKP

The AKP was founded under the leadership of Erdoğan in 2001 as a reformist
splinter from the strictly Islamist National View tradition. While it was
founded within the parliament with the participation of deputies from the
Islamist Fazilet Partisi, the party was in fact partially based on an Islamic
social movement. One of its main organizational characteristics, particularly
throughout its first decade, was its successful blending of features of a classi-
cal mass party (local embeddedness, ideologically motivated mass following,
strong grassroots organizations, year-round routine organizational activity)
with modern political marketing techniques and a catch-all (Kirchheimer
1966) orientation that highlights the role of the party leadership. This hybrid
 Parties and the Party System in Turkey 185

model provided the AKP with superior leverage compared with its rivals
within the party system in the 2000s.
An important point that should be asserted here is that this hybrid model
was very different from the organizational culture of pre-existing and effec-
tive right- and left-wing parties which heavily relied on amalgamations of
various patronage networks across Turkey. In those parties, power was much
more dispersed among a plethora of locally embedded elites, and despite
the predominance of the top leadership role (the party chair), there were
always powerful figures within these parties that could counterbalance the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

national leadership. Parties as amalgamations of these patronage networks
(ranging in size and influence) formed the civilian leg of the ‘double tute-
lage’ in Turkey. The AKP, to start with, had the capacity to destroy this
civilian leg too (alongside the military–bureaucratic leg) by institutionaliz-
ing a programmatic party with a clear political identity, akin to the Christian
Democratic parties of Europe.5 However, the AKP did not choose to do so
and has increasingly become a nationwide personalistic and clientelistic elec-
toral machine. But the hybrid model that the party initially embraced worked
very well.
The party’s membership quickly enlarged following its foundation, and
official records state that the party currently has 11,241,230 members.6 In
2018, the total AKP electorate was 20,981,842, and the total number of
registered voters for Turkish general elections was 59,369,960.7 Thus, the
members/voters ratio for the AKP is a staggering 53.5%, and the party has
managed to recruit more than 20% of the Turkish electorate as members.
These extraordinary numbers and ratios certainly require closer examination
given the trends in other parts of the world, particularly in Europe, towards a
marked decline in membership numbers (Biezen et al. 2012). While a small
segment (most probably around 10% of the entire membership body) of
this large body of membership within the AKP could be considered active
supporters, an overwhelming majority of these members could be consid-
ered sympathizers and, more recently, people who are seeking clientelistic
benefits. Hence, even the extraordinary volume of the party’s membership
indicates the choices of the leadership throughout the party’s evolution.
While the AKP had a chance to construct a remarkably different party orga-
nization that completely took down the system of ‘double tutelage’ in Turkey,
throughout the years it decided to corroborate the civilian leg of this sophisti-
cated semi-authoritarian control system by deploying highly centralized and
effective clientelistic linkages with society.8
This choice to drive the party from a programmatic and institutional route
to a personalistic and clientelistic direction certainly had consequences for
186 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

intra-party democracy and leadership (Lancaster 2014; Baykan 2018). Such

choices made Erdoğan the sole decision maker within the party regarding
important matters such as candidate and provincial party chair selections
(Baykan 2018: ch. 7). This control of Erdoğan over the party was com-
plemented by highly developed intra-party communication based on new
information technologies (Baykan 2018: ch. 6, Boyraz 2018) and an almost
total control over the mainstream media in Turkey (Yesil 2016; Yıldırım et al.
2020). Now, numerous newspapers and TV channels, including the official
Turkish Radio and Television, are under the firm control of the AKP, which

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

skilfully uses these instruments to shape public opinion. Some of these news
channels, such as Ahaber, embrace popular styles and have enormous influ-
ence on less educated groups within the electorate. Meanwhile, the AKP’s use
of social media has been problematic in two respects. Until the Gezi protests
(a weeks-long wave of demonstrations against the AKP government in the
summer of 2013 which started as an environmentalist reaction in İstanbul’s
Gezi Park), the AKP had problems deploying social media to reach out to
younger voter groups. But after the Gezi protests, the party attached great
importance to social media, even to the extent that various international orga-
nizations accused the AKP of hiring trolls to dominate Twitter.9 Nevertheless,
the party’s leadership, and most notably Erdoğan, still see the organization
on the ground as the main channel of communication between the party
and the electorate.10 Furthermore, the party’s increasing reliance on centrally
controlled clientelistic strategies requires a relatively strong organizational
mediation between the party elite and the electorate. Hence, the party’s
linkages with society (and particularly with lower socio-economic groups,
which comprise a considerable part of the party’s constituencies) trans-
formed mainly into a clientelistic bond, as revealed by a series of works on the
AKP’s clientelistic practices (Arıkan-Akdağ 2014; Çarkoğlu and Aytaç 2015;
Çeviker-Gürakar 2016; Çınar 2016, 2019; Ark-Yıldırım 2017; Arslantaş and
Arslantaş 2020; Yıldırım 2020). The party’s programmatic and ideological
appeal increasingly became blurred.
Currently, it is hard to define the AKP as an Islamist, conservative, or
nationalist party in any precise doctrinaire senses of these terms. The AKP
is now, first and foremost, a right-wing personalistic and clientelistic elec-
toral machine under the command of Erdoğan, akin to some populist parties
in Latin America. As well as clientelistic linkages with dispersed low-income
social sectors, the party has close unofficial ties with various NGOs, including
some religious communities (Göçmen 2014; Lord 2018). However, in their
relationship to the party, such groups have no meaningful autonomy, and the
upper hand belongs to the party.
 Parties and the Party System in Turkey 187

According to the party’s official records,11 in 2019 approximately 335

million Turkish Liras (equivalent to 33,216,400 euro at the time of writ-
ing in 2021) of the AKP’s total income of approximately 383 million Liras
(37,975,800 euro), stemmed mainly from state subsidies. The rest came pri-
marily from income stemming from the party’s property (46 million Turkish
Liras, equal to 4,561,060 euro). The contribution of dues and donations to
the party revenues are negligible. Thus, almost the entire income of the party
comes from sources other than its members. In this sense, the AKP really
approximates to the ‘cartel party model’ proposed by Katz and Mair (1995).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Nevertheless, its clientelistic linkages with its supporters and its control over
the state are well beyond the scope of a cartel party in a ‘consolidated democ-
racy’. The AKP’s clientelistic practices and its authoritarian control over state
institutions, in fact, provide the party with vast resources for clientelistic
exchange, presumably well beyond the amount cited in official party records.
The crony relations between the AKP and a segment of businesspeople across
Turkey is the key to the clientelistic practices of the party that include aid in
cash and kind to poor constituencies as well as employment in the enterprises
of those businesspeople who support the party (Esen and Gümüşçü 2018).
The outcome of such strict and authoritarian control over state resources,
combined with an already centralized and disciplined organizational culture,
indicates a high degree of party cohesion and highly disciplined legislative
behaviour by AKP deputies throughout the party’s incumbency.12 It is very
costly for deputies to diverge from party decisions in the AKP in such an
authoritarian context. However, this discipline could not inhibit the splitting
of two senior elite members of the AKP (the former Prime Minister Ahmet
Davutoğlu and the former Minister for the Economy Ali Babacan) and the
establishment of two new parties by these actors in 2019 and 2020.

The CHP

The CHP is the founding party of the modern Turkish Republic; as such,
its position within the Turkish party system has always been profoundly
defined by the party’s historical legacy. The party was incorporated into
the state institutions throughout the decades after the foundation of the
Republic in 1923. However, with the transition to multi-party politics, except
for a couple of short periods in office, the CHP remained in opposition
throughout the following 75-year period of tumultuous democratic experi-
ence. As a consequence of its origins as the party of ‘secular nation builders’,
the CHP always struggled to directly appeal to broad, mostly conservative
188 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

lower-class constituencies in Turkey. Instead, it either appealed to better-off

secular segments of Turkish society or to provincial and rural constituen-
cies through various negotiations with provincial power holders. Hence, the
CHP, like most of the other parties of the Turkish party system since the
1950s, remained a kind of elite-based entity. It was based partially on large
patronage networks, on the one hand, and cadres embedded in the state appa-
ratuses, on the other (at least until the rise of the AKP in the 2000s). With
this characteristic of the party coupled with the absence of national office
(and the patronage resources this could have provided), the intra-party pol-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

itics of the CHP has always remained publicly and visibly contentious. For
example, the party’s mayors, who are in control of some important economic
resources, always had a decisive influence on the intra-party decisions of
the CHP (Kocaaga 2019), and their defiant positions vis-à-vis the local and
national party centres usually further corroborated the contentious politics
within the party (Savaşkan 2020). Hence, the CHP always had a contested
leadership, but it is hard to claim that these challenges to the leaders were the
reflection of a democratic intra-party life. Many general conventions of the
party in the recent past resulted in the re-election of the current chair of the
party, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. On the contrary, even when the party embraced
primaries for selecting its candidates in localities, the results remained
similar to the previous, less participatory candidate-selection processes.
A plethora of established local bosses have always dominated the party’s
seats in the parliament (Kocaaga 2019). This certainly has implications for
party cohesion and discipline, as well as intra-party communications. It
is common to come across incidents in which party members (deputies
and provincial and sub-provincial chairs) publicly criticize the party’s
leadership.13
The intra-party communications in the party, as Turan (2006) highlights,
has always been erratic, and the CHP has not yet been able to resolve the
ongoing issues regarding communicating the party’s message to the elec-
torate.14 The party’s communication with the electorate mainly relies on its
organizations, but their use as communication channels is far from perfect
because of contentious intra-party politics within the CHP. Due to the AKP’s
control over the mainstream media, the CHP has found itself in increas-
ing difficulty with regard to appealing to broad and heterogeneous masses
using conventional media such as newspapers and TV channels. However,
the party also supports channels like Halk TV, which it uses to appeal to
broad segments of the electorate, albeit with less success compared to the
AKP. Furthermore, some media outlets, such as Sözcü and Cumhuriyet, par-
tially support the party. When it comes to the use of social media, the CHP’s
 Parties and the Party System in Turkey 189

performance is far from impressive, but it certainly harnesses the anti-AKP

mood on platforms like X, formerly Twitter.
According to official records, the CHP currently has 1,369,430 members.15
In the 2018 general elections the party received 11,275,577 of 59,367,469 total
votes.16 Hence, the members/voters ratio for the CHP is 12%, and the party
could only recruit 2% of the electorate as its members. However, just like the
membership structure of the AKP, an overwhelming majority of these mem-
bers are no more than party sympathizers, and the active core of this large
body of membership is much smaller in the CHP. Nevertheless, one should

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

point out the dramatic rise of membership numbers in both the AKP and the
CHP since 2010 compared with the figures in previous studies (Tosun and
Tosun 2010: 52). Such a rapid increase in membership numbers could well be
explained by the extraordinary rise of polarization in Turkey (Somer 2019).
However, there is also compelling evidence to think that such a dramatic
rise in membership numbers, staggeringly contradicting with the trends in
Western democracies, had something to do with the renewal of the impor-
tance of clientelistic linkages in Turkish politics, at least since 2010, under
an ‘electoral autocracy’ (Laebens and Öztürk 2021). Although the CHP is
not as successful as the AKP in constructing clientelistic linkages with its
supporters as the party lacks the vast resources that the national office can
provide, it has nonetheless never shied away from constructing clientelistic
relations with its supporters where it had the chance to distribute municipal
resources (Schüler 1999; Ayata 2010). It is evident that the party still engages
in clientelistic relations with local constituencies (Joppien 2018; Kılıçdaroğlu
2019) as the logic of clientelism has started to increasingly define electoral
competition in Turkey.
Another important point regarding the membership of the CHP is that
it is considerably older than that of other parties (Tosun and Tosun 2010:
137). This was even the case in 2010 when the AKP’s predominance was
not very evident. Currently, due to the authoritarian and clientelistic nature
of Turkey’s personalistic hybrid regime, young people try to stay away
from the CHP and other opposition parties lest they encounter partisan
discrimination in applications for jobs in public bureaucracy. The CHP
also has close, unofficial relations with a cluster of left-leaning, Atatürkist
non-governmental organizations such as the ADD (Atatürkçü Düşünce
Derneği—Atatürkist Thought Association) and trade unions such as the
DİSK (Devrimci İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu—Confederation of Revo-
lutionary Worker Trade Unions).17 Nevertheless, it would be misleading to
think that the CHP enjoys a kind of superiority (akin to the one enjoyed
by the AKP) in these relationships. The relationships between these actors
190 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

in civil society and the CHP are not stable at all, and such associations and
trade unions are completely autonomous entities.
Having said all this, the CHP also had a non-clientelistic appeal to a broad
and better-off constituency in Turkey as the representative of a certain type
of secular middle-class lifestyle. While the party defines the principles of
Atatürk as its raison d’être and embraces a social-democratic identity,18 it
is misleading to think that these principles constitute a well-defined ideology
like socialism, liberalism, or Islamism. It is at best a broadly defined world-
view appealing to secular segments of society. Hence, the party’s ideology

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

and programme should be seen from the perspective of lifestyle choices. The
party’s constituency in the developed Western parts of Turkey, for example,
is deeply nationalist when it comes to the Kurdish issue. Such attitudes can
hardly be seen as compatible with a modern social-democratic orientation.
In a ‘CHP Party Assembly Activity Report’, it is indicated that the total
income of the party in 2018 was 276,962,959 Turkish Liras (equal to approx-
imately 27 million euro at the time of writing in 2021).19 Of this total income,
213,295,284 Liras (approximately 21 million euro) consists of state subsidies
to the party. In other words, almost 77% of the total income of the CHP
derives from state subsidies, while only 14% comes from donations. The per-
centage of the party’s income stemming from dues is negligible. From a very
narrow point of view focusing solely on party finances, the CHP could well
be described as a cartel party, but it would be misleading to call it so given
the authoritarian predominance of the AKP. Nevertheless, the AKP and the
CHP should be seen as colliding in certain localities when it comes to some
material benefits that local elites of both parties could enjoy (Joppien 2018:
144–145). However, this certainly requires a substantial re-interpretation of
the cartel party thesis that could adapt it to the context of electoral autocracies
and local politics.

Concluding Remarks

The prevalence of clientelistic linkages between parties and voters in Turkey

has been one of the factors facilitating a deficient democracy which has strug-
gled to consolidate since the 1950s. Turkey’s elite-based parties have not been
entirely successful in representative terms, and the elites controlling these
parties usually opted for ‘government stability’ instead of ‘fair representation’
in their legislative decisions regarding the design of political institutions. In
fact, this preference resulted in the consolidation of Turkey’s elite tutelage
rather than providing government stability. While the party system in Turkey
 Parties and the Party System in Turkey 191

has undergone profound changes since the 1950s, the firm hold of political
and military–bureaucratic elites over society remained intact despite the rel-
ative decline of the latter in recent decades under populist AKP rule. The
decline of the military–bureaucratic leg of double tutelage ironically resulted
in a further deterioration of democracy, and Turkey moved into a fragile,
personalistic hybrid regime under a civilian government.
This outcome testifies to the fact that, at least in their personalistic, clien-
telistic and centralized shape (Sayarı 2014; Laebens 2020; Massicard 2021),
Turkish parties have been part and parcel of the perennial problems of

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

democracy in Turkey. It is not surprising to see that Turkey has experienced
the most authoritarian episode of the multi-party era since the mid-20th cen-
tury with the rise of the AKP’s powerful single-party governments. Hence, as a
civilian force, the AKP helped the authoritarian proclivities of civilian party
politics in Turkey to fully unfold in the wake of the weakness of military–
bureaucratic veto players. However, it is worth noting the merit of this elite
tutelage, which has gained a markedly civilian character during the AKP rule.
Despite their democratic deficiencies, patronage and clientelism-based hier-
archical parties tightly controlled by elites, and a party system with its own
peculiar authoritarian proclivities, have always rendered Turkish society sur-
prisingly fused, integrated, and orderly even in the face of major genuine
crises such as ethnic tensions, economic problems, terror, the influx of mil-
lions of refugees, or natural disasters. Hence, the system of ‘double tutelage’
in Turkey has provided a remarkable degree of security and social stability,
albeit at the cost of democracy.
Although the state of Turkish democracy currently seems bleak,20 there are
signs that sustaining the AKP-led tutelage over society is becoming increas-
ingly difficult.21 In the absence of a military–bureaucratic system of control,
the fragmentation (and pluralization) of the political system in Turkey that
we have witnessed in recent years (especially outside the parliament) may
well pave the way for a more democratic system after a prolonged period of
democratic struggle among the political elites. Currently, another promising
feature of the Turkish party system for the future of democracy is the high
degree of coordination among opposition parties, making them capable of
challenging the AKP’s predominance (Selçuk and Hekimci 2020).
There are other positive structural features that offer hope for Turkey’s
future democratization. Despite all the limitations and inadequacies of par-
ties and the changing party systems addressed so far, competitive party
politics (including a considerable degree of territorial penetration by indi-
vidual parties with strong organizations) have been substantially internalized
by political and bureaucratic elites as well as broad social sectors. Here, an
192 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

unintended outcome of the AKP’s prolonged and firm hold on power, relying
on widespread clientelistic relations, should also be emphasized: a powerful,
routinized organization that has penetrated the veins of Turkish society. The
AKP today seems under the total control of Erdoğan, but it is by no means
a ‘personal party’ (Calise 2005; McDonnell 2013) lacking a solid, routinized
organization. Although the party’s demise after Erdoğan is certainly a possi-
bility, it should be noted that the AKP today is a 20-year-old, bureaucratic
entity with its own life. Under a skilful new leader with a democratic orien-
tation,22 it may survive after Erdoğan. Under the circumstances of a more

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

competitive party system with considerable checks and balances curbing
clientelistic linkages and ‘executive aggrandizement’, as now being proposed
by opposition parties as a ‘consolidated parliamentary system’23 before the
elections in 2023, the AKP may well lean towards establishing more program-
matic linkages with its electorate and may be more willing to accept genuine
grassroots participation in party decisions.
In addition, while the AKP’s move towards a more autocratic system was
feasible, it has not been possible to suppress the organizational capacities of
opposition parties below a certain level (which may render them electorally
irrelevant), and the AKP has not been able to inhibit the emergence of new
effective parties such as the liberal nationalist İYİ Parti (The Good Party)
and smaller splits from within its own ranks. The AKP’s move towards a
more autocratic system is also clearly observed by the electorate and seen by
most ordinary citizens as stifling the competitive system that Turkey used to
have.24 Nonetheless, it should be noted that democratization of the AKP—
and the entire party system—requires the empowerment of non-partisan
political institutions (i.e. checks and balances mechanisms) in the service of
democratic consolidation more than stiff party competition. And building
liberal democratic institutions certainly requires time and, more importantly,
political agency in favour of democracy.

Notes
1. The impact of the law on political parties should be seen in combination with a previ-
ous regulation promulgated just after the military coup in 1960s which banned all the
sub-district level official organizational activity of political parties in Turkey lest there be
social polarization. From the introduction of this regulation onwards, ‘linkages between
parties and society gradually deteriorated’ (Kabasakal 1991: 233).
2. Party typologies widely used for describing organizational characteristics of parties have
recently been subject to compelling, empirically robust criticism. See the volume by Scar-
row et al. (2017). Nevertheless, distinctions between cadre, mass, catch-all, and cartel
 Parties and the Party System in Turkey 193

models still have value in guiding empirical research and presentation of findings in an
accessible way.
3. For the role of military elites in Turkish politics, see Cizre (1999) and Karaosmanoğlu
(2016).
4. From the perspective of the distinction between ‘predominant’ and ‘hegemonic’ parties
proposed by Sartori (2005), it is currently hard to fit the AKP clearly into one of these
categories. While the AKP enjoys privileges in the Turkish party system that a predomi-
nant party in a democratic system cannot benefit from, the AKP’s position is not as safe
as a consolidated ‘hegemonic party’ in an authoritarian system, such as the PRI analysed
by Magaloni (2006) and Greene (2007) in Mexico or Putin’s United Russia analysed by

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Reuter (2017). As the AKP faced some major electoral setbacks recently and has had to
rely on a minor party to sustain its position, I propose to define it as a ‘fragile’ hegemonic
party.
5. There were clear signs that the top leadership groups within the party had a strong
proclivity for such an institutionalization process at the beginning. For example, Yalçın
Akdoğan, one of the top elites of the party, wrote a short book on the notion of ‘con-
servative democracy’ which was expected to be the ideological framework of the party’s
institutionalization process. See Akdoğan (2004).
6. https://www.yargitaycb.gov.tr/icerik/1095 (Accessed 28 February 2023).
7. https://sonuc.ysk.gov.tr/sorgu (Accessed 28 February 2023).
8. We are focusing on these novel clientelistic strategies in a joint work (Baykan and Somer
2022).
9. https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-dunya-56663072; https://www.birgun.net/haber
/twitter-ak-trol-agini-ifsa-etti-akp-muhaliflere-karsi-cikmasi-icin-6-bin-kisi-calistiriyor
-304294 (Both accessed 28 October 2021).
10. https://www.trthaber.com/haber/gundem/cumhurbaskani-erdogandan-teskilatlara-
2023-talimati-570824.html (Accessed 28 October 2021).
11. https://www.akparti.org.tr/media/337783/01-01-2019-31-12-2019-genel-merkez-gelir-
gider-cetveli.pdf (Accessed 12 May 2021).
12. A longitudinal analysis of the AKP’s legislative discipline is unfortunately not avail-
able; however, divergent voting behaviour by the AKP deputies in the parliament is an
extremely rare occurrence.
13. For the criticism of one of the top figures of the party towards the party headquar-
ters, see https://www.cnnturk.com/turkiye/muharrem-inceden-parti-yonetimine-sert-
elestiri (Accessed 14 May 2021). Many similar criticisms towards CHP HQ by national
and provincial party elite can be found in the media.
14. See the news regarding an intraparty discussion marking ‘communication problems’
as one of the weaknesses of the party at https://www.cnnturk.com/video/turkiye/chp-
kendini-analiz-etti-video (Accessed 14 May 2021).
15. https://www.yargitaycb.gov.tr/icerik/1110 (Accessed 28 February 2023).
16. https://sonuc.ysk.gov.tr/sorgu (Accessed 28 February 2023).
17. In the 1960s and 1970s, DİSK was a remarkably revolutionary organization founded
mostly by workers in line with socialist ideals and a socialist programme (Algül 2015).
Since the 1980s, however, trade union activity, and most notably the DİSK, has been
under increasing pressure and subject to effective restrictions. I would like to thank Erhan
Özşeker for providing me with a perspective regarding the transformation of DİSK.
194 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

18. See page 9 of the party’s constitution for these principles: https://content.chp.org.tr/file/
chp_tuzuk_10_03_2018.pdf (Accessed 14 May 2021).
19. See page 606 of the party’s ‘activity report’ on the period between 2018 and 2020 for
party income in 2018: https://chp.azureedge.net/56b9d40cdf3b478b8f24da9887a9c05e.
pdf (Accessed 14 May 2021).
20. Turkey was defined as ‘not free’ by Freedom House in 2020. See https://freedomhouse.
org/country/turkey/freedom-world/2021 (Accessed 16 May 2021).
21. Two important trends are worthy of indication here. One is that the AKP lost two
major municipalities (İstanbul and Ankara metropolitan municipalities) to the opposi-
tion alliance among the CHP, İYİ Parti, and the HDP. The other trend is, as addressed

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

in the main text, party splits from the AKP. For the socio-cultural and political basis of
these splits, see Baykan (2021).
22. While Erdoğan always occupies the centre stage, the AKP, in fact, has brought up a gen-
eration of new political elites in the centre and in provinces containing some young and
skilful figures. For a look at the party’s central decision and administration board reveals
this phenomenon, see https://www.akparti.org.tr/ak-kadro/merkez-karar-ve-yonetim-
kurulu/ (Accessed 28 October 2021).
23. https://chp.org.tr/yayin/guclendirilmis-parlamenter-sistem-anayasa-degisikligi-
onerisi/Open (Accessed 1 March 2023).
24. See page 92 of a report on democratic demand in Turkey by the KONDA research com-
pany: https://www.stgm.org.tr/sites/default/files/2020-09/denge-ve-denetleme-agin
dan-turkiyede-demokrasi-talebi-raporu.pdf (Accessed 28 October 2021).

References

Akarlı, Engin D. and Ben-Dor, Gabriel (eds). 1975. Political Participation in Turkey.
İstanbul: Boğaziçi University Publications.
Akdoğan, Yalçın. 2004. Ak Parti ve Muhafazakar Demokrasi. İstanbul: Alfa.
Algül, Süreyya. 2015. DİSK (1967–1975). İstanbul: İletişim.
Arat, Yeşim and Şevket Pamuk. 2020. Turkey between Authoritarianism and Democ-
racy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ark-Yıldırım, Ceren. 2017. ‘Political Parties and Grassroots Clientelist Strategies
in Urban Turkey: One Neighbourhood at a Time’. South European Society and
Politics, 22(4):473–490.
Arıkan-Akdağ, Gül. 2014. Ethnicity and Elections in Turkey. London: Routledge.
Arslantaş, Düzgün and Şenol Arslantaş. (2020). ‘How Does Clientelism Foster Elec-
toral Dominance? Evidence from Turkey’. Asian Journal of Comparative Politics,
7(3):559–575.
Aslan-Akman, Canan. 2012. ‘The 2011 Parliamentary Elections in Turkey and Chal-
lenges ahead for Democratic Reform under a Dominant Party System’. Mediter-
ranean Politics, 17(1):77–95.
Ayan-Musil, Pelin. 2011. Authoritarian Party Structures and Democratic Political
Setting in Turkey. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
 Parties and the Party System in Turkey 195

Ayan-Musil, Pelin. 2015. ‘Emergence of a Dominant Party System after Multiparty-

ism: Theoretical Implications from the Case of the AKP in Turkey’. South European
Society and Politics, 20(1):71–92.
Ayata, Ayşe Güneş. 2010. CHP: Örgüt ve İdeoloji (trans. B. Tarhan and N. Tarhan).
İstanbul: GündoğanYayınları.
Baykan, Toygar Sinan. 2018. The Justice and Development Party in Turkey. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Baykan, Toygar Sinan. 2021. Deva, Gelecek Partisi ve Türkiye’nin sosyo-kültürel
dönüşümü: Post-popülist muhafazakârlığın yükselişi. Birikim, 384:12–32.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Baykan, Toygar Sinan and Murat Somer. 2022. ‘Politics of notables versus national
machine: social, political and state transformations, party organizations and clien-
telism during AKP governments’. European Journal of Turkish Studies, 34. https://
journals.openedition.org/ejts/8111, accessed: 18.8.2023.
Bektaş, Arsev. 1993. Demokratikleşme Sürecinde Liderler Oligarşisi: CHP ve AP
(1961–1980). İstanbul: Bağlam.
Biezen, Ingrid van, Peter Mair, and Thomas Poguntke. 2012. ‘Going, Going, . . .
Gone? The Decline of Party Membership in Contemporary Europe’. European
Journal of Political Research, 51(1):24–56.
Boyraz, Cemil. 2018. ‘Neoliberal Populism and Governmentality in Turkey: The
Foundation of Communication Centers during the AKP Era’. Philosophy & Social
Criticism, 44(4):437–452.
Calise, Mauro. 2005. ‘Presidentialization, Italian Style’. In Thomas Poguntke and Paul
Webb (eds), The Presidentialization of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
88–106.
Casal Bértoa, Fernando. 2022. ‘Database on WHO Governs in Europe and Beyond:
Party Systems and Governments Observatory’. https://whogoverns.eu/ (Accessed
12 December 2023).
Castaldo, Antonino. 2018. ‘Populism and Competitive Authoritarianism in Turkey’.
Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 18(4):467–487.
Cizre, Ümit. 1999. Muktedirlerin Siyaseti (trans. C. Ekiz). İstanbul: İletişim.
Çakır, Ruşen. 2014. 100 Soruda Erdoğan x Gülen Savaşı. İstanbul: Metis.
Çarkoğlu, Ali and Selim Erdem Aytaç. 2015. ‘Who Gets Targeted for Vote-buying?
Evidence from an Augmented List Experiment in Turkey’. European Political
Science Review, 7(4):547–566.
Çeviker-Gürakar, Esra. 2016. Politics of Favoritism in Public Procurement in Turkey.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Çınar, Kürşat. 2016. ‘A Comparative Analysis of Clientelism in Greece, Spain, and
Turkey: The Rural–Urban Divide’. Contemporary Politics, 22(1):77–94.
Çınar, Kürşat. 2019. The Decline of Democracy in Turkey. London: Routledge.
Döring, Holger, Constantin Huber, and Philip Manow. 2022. Parliaments and
Governments Database (ParlGov): Information on Parties, Elections and Cabinets
196 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

in Established Democracies. Development version. https://www.parlgov.org/data-

info/ (Accessed 1 February 2024).
Ete, Hatem, Mustafa Altunoğlu, and Galip Dalay. 2015. ‘Turkey under the AK Party
Rule: From Dominant Party Politics to Dominant Party System?’ Insight Turkey,
17(4):171–192.
Esen, Berk and Şebnem Gümüşçü. 2016. ‘Rising Competitive Authoritarianism in
Turkey’. Third World Quarterly, 37(9):1581–1606.
Esen, Berk and Şebnem Gümüşçü. 2018. ‘Building a Competitive Authoritarian
Regime: State–Business Relations in the AKP’s Turkey’. Journal of Balkan and Near

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Eastern Studies, 20(4):349–372.
Göçmen, Ipek. 2014. ‘Religion, Politics and Social Assistance in Turkey: The Rise
of Religiously Motivated Associations’. Journal of European Social Policy, 24(1):
92–103.
Gözler, Kemal. 2017. ‘16 Nisan’da Oylayacağımız Anayasa Değişikliği Bir “Suis-
timalci Anayasa Değişikliği” midir?’. Legal commentary, 1 March 2017. www.
anayasa.gen.tr/suistimalci.pdf (accessed: 27 December 2017).
Greene, Kenneth F. 2007. Why Dominant Parties Lose: Mexico’s Democratization in
Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gümüşçü, Şebnem. 2013. ‘The Emerging Predominant Party System in Turkey’.
Government and Opposition, 48(2):223–244.
Gürsoy, Yaprak. 2014. ‘Türkiye’de Sivil-Asker İlişkilerinin Dönüşümünün Sebepleri’.
Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi, 11(43):157–180.
IDEA. 2022. Voter Turnout Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-
turnout (Accessed 1 February 2024).
Joppien, Charlotte. 2018. Municipal Politics in Turkey. London: Routledge.
Kabasakal, Mehmet. 1991. Türkiye’de Siyasal Parti Örgütlenmesi 1908–1960.
İstanbul: Tekin Yayınevi.
Kabasakal, Mehmet. 2016. ‘Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler’. In M. Kabasakal (ed.),
Türkiye’de Siyasal Yaşam. İstanbul: Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 221–251.
Karaosmanoğlu, Ali L. 2016. ‘Siyaset ve ordu’, in M. Kabasakal (ed.), Türkiye’de
Siyasal Yaşam. İstanbul: Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 127–153.
Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 1995. ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and
Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’. Party Politics, 1(1):5–28.
Keyder, Çağlar. 2003. Türkiye’de Devlet ve Sınıflar. İstanbul: İletişim.
Keyman, E. Fuat. 2014. ‘The AK Party: Dominant Party, New Turkey and Polariza-
tion’. Insight Turkey, 16(2):19–31.
Kılıçdaroğlu, Kerem. 2019. Gelişmekte Olan Ülkelerde Siyasi Partiler ve Parti Strate-
jileri (trans. K. Turanlı). Ankara: Tekin Yayınevi.
Kirchheimer, Otto. 1966. ‘The Transformation of the Western European Party Sys-
tems’. In J. L. Palombara and M. Weiner (eds), Political Parties and Political
Development. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 177–200.
 Parties and the Party System in Turkey 197

Kocaaga, Osman. 2019. Siyasal Vekalet Eylemi Üzerinden Tahakküm İlişkilerini

Düşünmek: CHP’de Aday Belirleme Süreçleri. Unpublished PhD dissertation,
İstanbul: Galatasaray Üniversitesi.
Laebens, Melis G. 2020. ‘Party Organizations in Turkey and Their Consequences
for Democracy’. In Güneş Murat Tezcür (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Turkish
Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–25.
Laebens, Melis G. and Aykut Öztürk. 2021. ‘Partisanship and Autocratization: Polar-
ization, Power Asymmetry, and Partisan Social Identities in Turkey’. Comparative
Political Studies, 54(2):245–279.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Lancaster, Caroline. 2014. ‘The Iron Law of Erdogan: The Decay from Intra-party
Democracy to Personalistic Rule’. Third World Quarterly, 35(9):1672–1690.
Linz, Juan J. 2017. Totaliter ve Otoriter Rejimler (trans. E. Özbudun). Ankara:
Liberte.
Lord, Ceren. 2018. Religious Politics in Turkey. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Magaloni, Beatriz. 2006. Voting for Autocracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Massicard, Elise. 2021. ‘Parties and Politics in Turkey’. In Joost Jongerden (ed.), The
Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Turkey. London: Routledge, 103–116.
McDonnell, Duncan. 2013. ‘Silvio Berlusconi’s Personal Parties: From Forza Italia
to the Popolo Della Liberta’. Political Studies, 61(S1):217–233.
Meeker, Michael. 2001. A Nation of Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Özbudun, Ergun. 2011. Otoriter Rejimler, Seçimsel Demokrasiler ve Türkiye.
İstanbul: Bilgi.
Özbudun, Ergun. 2013. Party Politics and Social Cleavages in Turkey. London: Lynne
Rienner Publishers.
Özbudun, Ergun. 2015. ‘Turkey’s Judiciary and the Drift toward Competitive
Authoritarianism’. The International Spectator, 50(2):42–55.
Plaggenborg, Stefan. 2015. Tarihe Emretmek (trans. H. Demirel). İstanbul: İletişim.
Reuter, Ora John. 2017. The Origins of Dominant Parties. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Sartori, Giovanni. 2005. Parties and Party Systems. Colchester: ECPR Press.
Savaşkan, Osman. 2020. ‘Türkiye’de Belediye Başkanı Olmak: Sınırlar, Stratejiler ve
Meşruiyet’. Çağdaş Yerel Yönetimler, 29(2):57–83.
Sayarı, Sabri. 2014. ‘Interdisciplinary Approaches to Political Clientelism and
Patronage in Turkey’. Turkish Studies, 15(4):655–670.
Selçuk, Orçun and Dilara Hekimci. (2020). ‘The Rise of the Democracy–
Authoritarianism Cleavage and Opposition Coordination in Turkey (2014–2019)’.
Democratization, 27(8):1496–1514.
Scarrow, Susan, Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke. (eds). 2017. Organizing
Political Parties. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
198 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Schüler, Harald. 1999. Particilik, Hemşehrilik, Alevilik. (trans. Y. Tonbul). İstanbul:

İletişim.
Somer, Murat. 2016. ‘Understanding Turkey’s Democratic Breakdown: Old vs. New
and Indigenous vs. Global Authoritarianism’. Southeast European and Black Sea
Studies, 16(4):481–503.
Somer, Murat. 2019. ‘Turkey: The Slippery Slope from Reformist to Revolutionary
Polarization and Democratic Breakdown’. The Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science, 681(1):42–61.
Sözen, Yunus. 2020. ‘Studying Autocratization in Turkey: Political Institutions,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Populism, and Neoliberalism’. New Perspectives on Turkey, 63:209–235.
Tosun, Tanju and Gülgün Erdoğan Tosun. 2010. Türkiye‘de Siyasal Parti Üyeliği ve
Katılım. İstanbul: Kalkedon.
Turan, İlter. 2006. ‘Old Soldiers Never Die: The Republican People’s Party of Turkey’.
South European Society & Politics, 11(3–4):559–578.
Turan, İlter. 2016. ‘Türkiye’de Parlamento ve Seçimler’. In Mehmet Kabasakal (ed.),
Türkiye’de Siyasal Yaşam. İstanbul: Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 99–125.
Yavuzyılmaz, Hakan and Dimitris Tsarouhas. 2022. ‘Opening the Box of Parties and
Party Systems under Autocratization: Evidence from Turkey’. Southeast European
and Black Sea Studies, 23(4):901–920.
Yesil, Bilge. 2016. Media in New Turkey. Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
Yıldırım, Kerem. 2020. ‘Clientelism and Dominant Incumbent Parties: Party Com-
petition in an Urban Turkish Neighbourhood’. Democratization, 27(1):81–99.
Yıldırım, Kerem, Lemi Baruh, and Ali Çarkoğlu. 2020. ‘Dynamics of Campaign
Reporting and Press-party Parallelism: Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism and
the Media System in Turkey’. Political Communication, 38(3):326–349.
10
The Portuguese Party System
A Realignment?

Marina Costa Lobo

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Introduction

Largely due to the huge economic and financial crisis that befell Europe from
2009 onwards, there have been important electoral and voting consequences
(Bellucci et al. 2012). Across Europe, the last few years have been character-
ized by a greater fluidity in party systems (Hutter and Kriesi 2019), with the
emergence of challengers to mainstream parties. In Southern Europe, and
in general in the eurozone countries that were forced to implement difficult
austerity measures, there was first the emergence of parties to the left of the
socialist parties in countries where the far left had long since become resid-
ual (Hernández and Kriesi 2016). This was the case of Syriza in Greece and
Podemos in Spain (Santana and Rama 2018). More recently, in Spain and
Portugal the extreme right has also established itself, namely Vox in Spain
and Chega in Portugal (Mendes and Dennison 2021). In Northern Europe,
the fragmentation of the party system was already much more pronounced,
as a result of the greater number of cleavages existing in the societies of the
oldest EU member states in more permissive electoral systems but also due
to realignments that occurred in the eighties, which led to the emergence of
Green parties and far-right parties (Hutter and Kriesi 2019) at an earlier stage.
In the case of Portugal, which had hitherto had a tendentially majoritarian
party system but underwent a bailout in 2011, recent analyses have marked
the small, incremental change which has occurred in the Portuguese party
system since the eurozone crisis (Morlino and Raniolo 2017; Jalali 2018, Lisi
et al. 2021).
Our argument is in line with these analyses, namely that the Portuguese
party system has evolved with comparative stability in the last decade.
The continuing strength of the two main parties in the system, as well

Marina Costa Lobo, The Portuguese Party System. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Marina Costa Lobo (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0010
200 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

as the Socialist Party’s absolute majority in the 2022 election testifies to

this. Yet this does not mean that the Portuguese party system has been
completely impervious to change. Rather, the crisis accelerated a process of
new parties entering the system. Long seen as an exception to the emergence
of populist radical right parties, one such party, Chega (‘Enough’), has
consolidated to become the party with the third-highest vote share in 2022,
getting 12 MPs elected, having entered parliament only in 2019. Besides
Chega, three other parties have also entered parliament in recent times—the
ecological PAN (Pessoas Animais Natureza, ‘People Animals Nature’) in

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2015, as well as left-wing Livre (Free) and right-wing IL (Iniciativa Liberal,
‘Liberal Initiative’) in 2019. In 2022, IL managed to win eight MP seats,
while PAN and Livre each had one MP elected. Thus, the party supply
is increasing, even though overall fragmentation declined in 2022 due
to the absolute majority obtained by the Socialist Party (PS). This was a
relatively surprising result as it was only the second time in its history that
the Socialist Party had achieved this. Moreover, the victory occurred in a
difficult economic climate and during the slow ebbing of the COVID-19 pan-
demic, with the PS having governed in the previous six years as a minority
government.
The chapter is developed in the following way. We introduce the Por-
tuguese party system and its development throughout the period, including
the results of the most recent snap elections of January 2022, as well as the
transfer of votes which produced such a result. We begin with a brief char-
acterization of the party system since its inception after the transition to
democracy in 1974. Next, the way in which the party system consolidated
around four parties which dominated the system from 1974 until today is
explained. Portugal has indeed been a case of relative stability in comparison
to Spain, Greece, or other EU countries in recent times. In the second section
we introduce the main parties in the system, as well as some of the char-
acteristics which have contributed to their endurance and the resilience of
the party system. Next, we present the elections held in the post-bailout sce-
nario, namely 2015, 2019, and 2022. These elections saw some incremental
change to the party system, and so they deserve scrutiny. Given that 2015–
2019 pointed to a greater polarization of the party system, we consider the
change in ideological positioning of the parties using CHES (Chapel Hill
Expert Surveys) data for this period. Focusing on 2022, we present the degree
of vote-switching that contributed to the PS absolute majority. In the Conclu-
sion, we consider the degree to which the recent 2022 election results undo
the previous trends in party system change.
 The Portuguese Party System 201

The Portuguese Transition to Democracy and the

Portuguese Party System

Portugal initiated the third wave of democratization in 1974, after forty years
of authoritarian regime. The ‘rules of the game’ which were agreed to in 1976
largely reflect the historical and political circumstances of that period, which
was characterized by a strong presence of the military in the political life of
the country, an ascendancy of the left, and a strong cleavage concerning the
future nature of the political regime (Lobo et al. 2011). Following a turbu-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

lent period of transition to democracy and a revision of the constitution in
1982, democracy consolidated with a semi-presidential regime, where both
the president and the parliament are directly elected.
In the first elections for the Constituent Assembly, held in 1975, four par-
ties emerged that structured the Portuguese party system. With the exception
of the Communist Party (PCP), founded in 1922, these parties were formed
shortly before or after 25 April 1974.1 The Socialist Party was founded in
1973, while the centre-right Partido Social Democrata (PSD) and the con-
servative CDS-Partido Popular (CDS-PP)—which lost all its MPs in 2022—
were founded in mid-1974. Soon afterwards, a founding conflict emerged
over the political nature of the regime that would separate the two biggest left-
wing parties, which overrode the importance of the left–right cleavage in Por-
tugal and separated the PCP from the other parties. This party was opposed
to a liberal democracy along the lines of Western Europe, and this separated it
from the Socialist Party that emerged as the most committed defender of this
model with the consequent option for European convergence and member-
ship of the then EEC, an objective to which the PCP was opposed from the
outset. Electorally, the relative hegemony of the PS on the left was defined
right from the first election. However, given its fundamental disagreement
about the nature of the regime and about Portugal’s pro-European vocation,
the PS always refused any coalition with the PCP, appealing to a moderate
electorate, and won decisively in 1975–1976 (Lobo et al. 2011).
This explains how, in the first decade of democracy, the coalitions and
understandings of the PS were always carried out with the parties to its right
(i.e. the PSD or the CDS-PP), since the gap that separated it from the Com-
munists was greater than that between it and the other parties. It also explains
why, despite the social cleavages in Portugal being deep, they were never
strongly explanatory of voting (Jalali 2007). It must also be stated that the
radicalization of the transition to democracy during 1974–1976 had forced
the right-wing parties in Portugal to take positions more on the left, from
202 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

a programmatic point of view, for fear of being banned from competing

in elections. These two effects together served to create an electorate rela-
tively unpolarized around left–right issues. The way in which party system
dynamics worked in the first decade had consequences for government for-
mation and government stability: between 1976 and 1985 there were eight
executives formed in 11 years. Electoral and parliamentary fragmentation,
coupled with lack of polarization and Presidential interference in a difficult
socio-economic context, help to explain the lack of stability.
It was in this status quo that a decisive election took place that changed

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

this party dynamic born with 25 April—the 1985 election. In that election, a
new party, the centre-left Partido Renovador Democrático (PRD), captured
a remarkable 17.9% of the votes and divided the left into three roughly equal
parts. In the following elections, held in 1987, the PRD lost the majority of
its votes, falling to 4.9% of the electorate. Where did these voters go? Con-
trary to what could be expected, they did not return to the Socialists, which
between 1985 and 1987 rose from 20.8% to 22.3% of the vote share. These vot-
ers transferred their vote to the centre-right PSD, thus contributing decisively
to the absolute majority of that party. The partisan realignment that took
place between 1985 and 1987 was accompanied by a fundamental shift in
voting logic, with a refocusing of voters on the two centre parties (the PS and
the PSD) and losses for the smaller parties, both on the right (the CDS-PP)
and on the left (the PCP). On the right, CDS-PP voters showed for the first
but not last time that they were willing to vote strategically to contribute to
a right-wing government (Lobo et al. 2011). On the left, the fall of the Berlin
Wall in 1989, as well as the deep-rooted Euroscepticism of the Communists at
a time when an overwhelming consensus prevailed in Portugal in relation to
the benefits of the EU (from 1986 onwards), served to diminish their electoral
importance.
As democracy consolidated, the liberal political regime asserted itself, and
Portugal’s European vocation became a reality, the result was the emergence
of a centrist electorate that was not ideologically differentiated and very sen-
sitive to leaders of the main parties as well as to the economic performance
of governments (Magone 2003; Lobo 2009). Thus emerged a majoritarian
logic in Portugal, characterized by majority governments and democratic
alternation of PSD and PS governments.
The governing parties have traditionally been relatively personalized. This
historic trait is due to the late democratization of the country, which occurred
in a period of mass communication. This trait was then reinforced due to
changes in the mode of election of party leaders. In most parties, with the
exception of the Communists, leaders are now directly selected by militants.
 The Portuguese Party System 203

The introduction of direct election was a process initiated by the Socialists

in 1998 that has been followed by most other parties (Lisi 2010). More-
over, it is quite clear that the two main party leaders have become more
important explanatory factors of voting behaviour for their parties (Lobo
and Silva 2018). The result is that when forming a government, party leaders
have wide discretion to choose members of that government. The relatively
high percentage of independents close to the Prime Minister included in the
government are a symbol of the leaders’ power vis-à-vis the party (Pinto
and Almeida 2008). In addition, the electoral and party developments con-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

tributed to the strengthening of the position of the Prime Minister, which
has emerged as the main political role in the democratic regime (Lobo 2009;
Lobo and Ferreira da Silva 2018). Although parties do nonetheless remain
important in Portugal, as can be seen by the relative resilience of the party
system, they are leader centric.
It is also noteworthy to mention that this party system change occurred
virtually without any changes to the electoral system. Portugal employs a
D’Hondt PR system, with closed lists. The only change which the electoral
system underwent was a decrease in the total number of MPs from 250
to 230 from the 1991 elections onwards. As is known, PR systems tend to
favour parliamentary fragmentation, but the D’Hondt formula is the least
proportional. Also, electoral districts tend to be of moderate to small size,
with two large exceptions: Lisbon and Porto, which elect, respectively, 47
and 27 MPs.
Yet, the centrist majoritarian logic began to be threatened from 2009
onwards, albeit not dramatically, as can be seen from the electoral results.
Figure 10.1 shows electoral fragmentation growing from that election
onwards and also a decline in the vote for the two major parties, the PS and
the PSD.
Figure 10.1 gives an account of this phenomenon. While the average effec-
tive number of parliamentary parties between 1987 and 2005 is 2.47, this
value rises to 2.84 on average between 2009 and 2022. Yet, in the latest leg-
islative elections, which took place in 2022, the fragmentation once again
declined to 2.56. Considering the sum of the two centre parties’ vote share,
between 1987 and 2005 the average was 76%, while from 2009 to 2022 it
dropped to 68%. This value is still inflated considering that in 2015 the votes
of the CDS-PP were added in, taking into account that PSD and CDS-PP
formed a pre-electoral coalition in that year.
Thus, party system fragmentation in Portugal has been contained and the
two centrist parties are still dominant. Figure 10.2 shows the relative strength
of the centre-right and the centre-left parties. In the last two decades, the PS
204 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

100 5.00
4.57
90
80 3.72 4.18 4.23 4.26 3.66 3.75 4.00
3.54 3.49 3.49
70 3.20
2.99 2.97 3.05
3.43 2.91 2.78 3.41 2.80 2.86
60 2.61 3.13
3.00
2.93 2.87
50 2.71 2.66
2.56 2.61 2.57 2.57
40 2.37 2.00
2.24 2.56

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

30
20 1.00
10
59 70.3 75.1 63.3 50.6 72.4 79.7 77.9 76.4 78 73.8 65.7 66.7 71 64.6 70.9
0 0.00
1976 1979 1980 1983 1985 1987 1991 1995 1999 2002 2005 2009 2011 2015 2019 2022

Sum of the % of two largest parties Effective Number of Parliamentary Parties

Effective Number of Electoral Parties

Figure 10.1 The effective number of parliamentary and electoral parties in Portugal,
1976–2022 and the sum of the two major parties, PS and PSD
Source: Döring et al. 2022 (ParlGov) and National Electoral Committee

60%

50% 50%
50% 47%
44% 44% 45%
42% 40% 42%
38% 39%
40% 38% 36% 37% 37% 36%
35% 34%
32% 32%
28% 30% 29% 29% 29% 28% 29% 29%
30% 28% 27%
26%
24%
22%
21%
20%

10%

0%
1975 1976 1979 1980 1983 1985 1987 1991 1995 1999 2002 2005 2009 2011 2015 2019 2022

PS and allies PSD and allies

Figure 10.2 Comparing the votes for the two major Portuguese parties, PS and PSD,
1976–2022
Source: National Electoral Committee

has largely outvoted the PSD. As a result, the Socialists governed for 12 years
between 2002 and 2022, while in the same period the PSD governed for only
eight years. Following this long spell in opposition for the PSD, in the 2022
 The Portuguese Party System 205

election two new parties made large gains, both on the right: Chega (7%) and
IL (5%). They pose a threat to the PSD’s dominance on the right in future
elections.
What may explain such stability? Several hypotheses have been put for-
ward to explain the relative lack of change in the Portuguese party system
when compared to other Southern European countries. Morlino and Raniolo
(2017) develop the idea that the stability of the Portuguese party system can
only be understood in light of the high abstention levels which characterize it.
More recently, Lisi et al. (2021) also test this idea that abstention levels con-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

tribute to support for larger parties, considering electoral districts’ abstention
levels and the vote for the larger parties in 2015 and 2019. Related to political
attitudes, the lack of enthusiasm of Portuguese citizens for new parties may
also be related to high levels of political cynicism. Research has shown that
those with lower levels of trust in the political system tend to vote less often
(Cancela and Vicente 2019). Still, with the growing number of parties, 2022
saw an increase in turnout in the national territory the first time since 2005.
Second, there are also institutional reasons which favour party system sta-
bility. Lago and Lobo (2014) show that there is a correlation between district
magnitude and turnout which increases over time as a consequence of the
psychological effect of the electoral system, and that there is furthermore
a partisan turnout bias. This bias has favoured larger parties, and the PSD
especially, which tend to perform better in smaller districts.
Third, as we will explain later in the chapter, existing parties have been
able to set rules both for the constitution of parties as well as public finance,
which has given them an advantage over new parties.
Fourth, the context of interpenetration between television and the main
political parties, whose leaders tend to be a constant on public and private TV
channels, may also contribute to the incremental change in the party system.
Indeed, the entry into parliament of a substantial number of new parties coin-
cided with the growing importance of social media for political messaging in
Portugal. From 2015 onwards, four new parties have achieved representation
in the Assembleia da República for the first time since 1999.
We will now turn now briefly to the description of the organization of the
main parties which have dominated the system from 1976 onwards.

Party Organization

As explained above, the main Portuguese parties, with the exception of the
Communist Party, were formed on the eve of or just following the transition
206 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

to democracy. Not only the Communists but also the Socialists and the right-
wing parties adopted a proximate mass-based organization. This means they
are parties which tried to maximize the number of members, where mili-
tancy is highly prized. During the transition to democracy, the Communists
and the Socialists diverged on the issue of trade union membership, with the
resulting creation of two trade union umbrella organizations, one umbili-
cally linked to the Communists (the CGTP-IN) and the other closely aligned
with the Socialists and the PSD (the UGT). These two umbrella organizations
have been the major associations with links to the mainstream parties in Por-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

tugal. Despite their mass-based organization and their close links to mass
organizations, parties can also be characterized as considerably centralized.
Indeed, following Michels’ formula of the iron law of oligarchy for party
organizations, there is a tendency for parties to adopt oligarchic traits, where
the militants are dependent on the party leadership. Party leadership has
been central in all Portuguese parties, as these parties were formed in the
1970s in the age of mass communication. Television is the prime way for par-
ties to communicate with the electorate, which tends to strengthen leaders.
In addition, the party statutes give a lot of power to the central institutions
and to the party organization, rather than the party in office or the party on
the ground. In the PS, Mario Soares was the leader and a central figure until
1985. In the PSD, the founding leader died prematurely in 1980 in a plane
crash. Both the CDS-PP and the PCP also had dominant leaders who lasted
more than a decade and shaped their parties.
From the outset, parties have legislated to their own benefit regarding state
subsidies (Nassmacher 2006). Thus, this is a party system that was created
with a relative abundance of state financing. Although militancy has been
prized in accordance with the formal mass-based organization, the main par-
ties have been careful not to depend on militants for their financial needs,
instead legislating in favour of generous public subsidies (Table 10.1). A
law passed in 2003 was particularly important in that respect. The younger
parties, such as the Bloco de Esquerda (BE) or the PAN (People Animals
Nature Party), which entered parliament for the first time in 2011, depend
almost exclusively on state transfers. Not only are existing parties generous
to whomever is able to obtain parliamentary representation, they have made
party creation slightly more difficult, namely by raising the threshold of nec-
essary signatures for the constitution of a political party to 7,500, a measure
introduced in 2003. Thus, we can state that Katz and Mair’s conception of
the ‘cartel party’ is well suited to characterize the Portuguese party system
until recently (Jalali et al. 2012). Yet there are signs that despite this cartelis-
tic behaviour, fragmentation has been impossible to avoid. Since 2015, four
 The Portuguese Party System 207

Table 10.1 Organizational characteristics of Portuguese parties

Party M/E Income through Income through

members (%) state funding (%)

Socialist Party 0.94 25.00 72.00

Social Democratic Party 0.00 15.00 83.00
Communist Party 0.56 78.00 14.00
Left Bloc 0.09 14.00 85.60
Mean 0.40 33.00 63.65

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Note: Data were retrieved for 2017; the reported income share refers to the total party income;
M/E was multiplied by 100 and presents the percentage share of the electorate; the value for the
Social Democrats is 0.001.
Source: Political Party Database Round 2 V4 (Scarrow et al. 2022)

new parties have achieved representation in the Assembleia da República.

Yet, given their small size, the increase in number of effective parliamentary
parties has not been dramatic. We will now focus on the last three legislative
elections to understand the degree of party system change that has occurred
in the post-bailout scenario in Portugal.
While, as explained above, leaders have always been crucial for the func-
tioning of parties in Portugal, there has been further personalization of party
organization in the last decades. Namely, there has been the emergence of
direct election of party leaders by members or even party sympathizers.
This trend began in 1998 when the Socialist Party, followed by the centre-
right PSD and the CDS-PP in 2006, switched from having leaders elected
by their party congresses to having leaders elected by party members. This
trend has been maintained by the large parties, but the CDS-PP suspended
direct leader direct elections in 2011, returning to a congress-centric elec-
tion. The Communist Party has also resisted this tendency, with the leader
being selected from the party secretariat, while the Bloco de Esquerda, having
resulted from the amalgam of different extreme-left parties and movements,
has tended to have formally collegial leaderships, even if it has an offi-
cial coordinator since 2016 who is not directly elected. On the right, both
Iniciativa Liberal and Chega elect their leaders among the party members.
Thus, the Socialist Party led a trend which was followed by PSD, as well as
CDS-PP, for a while. More recently, in 2014, the PS held open primaries to
select its prime ministerial candidate, which saw António Costa beat António
José Seguro. This type of election has not been held since, even though in
2018 the Socialists changed their statutes to allow for ‘sympathizers’ to vote
for the party leader’s direct election, which occurred for the first time in the
re-election of António Costa as leader in 2020.
208 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

The Post-bailout Elections: A Time of Party System

Realignment?

2015 was marked by a recovery in the opinion polls of the government’s

right-wing PSD-CDS-PP coalition, Portugal Ahead, as economic indicators,
in particular household consumption, were improving after the end of the
troika-led adjustment programme implemented between 2011 and 2014.
Meanwhile, the right-wing government’s ‘economic narrative’ started to gain
credibility throughout 2015. The more optimistic perspective for the future

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

that the economic confidence indices confirmed still strongly contrasted with
the social reality and the memory of recent times: the previous four years
in Portugal had been characterized by huge increases in taxes, cuts in the
salaries of civil servants, cuts in pensions, and even cuts in social benefits
with consequent increases in unemployment.
It was in this context that, following the vote held on 4 October 2015, the
government coalition, which brought together the PSD and the CDS-PP, won
the elections (Table 10.1). Despite this victory, the coalition fell far short of
an absolute majority, securing 107 out of a total of 230 elected deputies. The
main opposition party, the PS, did not get more than 32% of the votes and 86
deputies. Further to the left, the Left Block won 10% of the electorate, placing
it for the first time ahead of the Portuguese Communist Party, which obtained
9% of the valid votes. In addition, PAN managed to elect one deputy to the
Assembly of the Republic (De Giorgi and Santana-Pereira 2016).
Faced with the parliamentary fragmentation resulting from these legisla-
tive elections in 2015, on election night Passos Coelho, PSD leader, was the
winner and promised to start talks with the other parties, but without success.
Given the uncertainty about the left’s capacity to generate understandings, the
President of the Republic nominated Passos Coelho to form a government.
The president inaugurated the XIX executive, which a few days later saw its
programme rejected in the Assembly of the Republic by all left-wing parties.
After several rounds of talks, it was announced that for the first time PS, BE,
PCP, and its satellite Green party, the PEV, had reached an understanding
with governability conditions for the formation of a PS minority government
with parliamentary support from the remaining three parties. Three differ-
ent documents were signed between the PS and each of the other parties,
all generally vague and without concrete goals for public policies. Thus, on
24 November 2015, after consulting the social partners, President Cavaco
Silva appointed António Costa, Socialist leader, the new Prime Minister of
Portugal. At the time, António Costa stated that ‘It’s as if we were tearing
down the rest of the Berlin Wall’. However, the PS did not move to the side
 The Portuguese Party System 209

of the anti-Europeans. They are the ones who agreed to negotiate a common
government programme without jeopardizing Portugal’s commitments as an
active member of the eurozone’2 .
This was the first time since democratization that the Socialists had agreed
to a coalition with the Communists. Indeed, in 40 years of democracy, no
such agreement had occurred, thus marking a fundamental change in the way
parliamentary parties in Portugal relate to each other. As explained above, the
divide between these two parties was key to explaining the Portuguese party
system dynamics up to that time.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The expectations on the durability of this novel coalition were quite low,
yet it proved remarkably resilient and completed the full mandate until 2019.
Across the whole period, the Socialists negotiated in parliament with the Left
Block and the Communist Party on each law to ensure its passing.
After the formation of the left-wing government in 2015, an interesting
puzzle has emerged regarding the extent to which these parties altered their
positioning on Europe. According to the manifesto data, it is possible to see
that the Socialists, the BE, and the PCP remained distinct in their stance on
Europe; the latter had traditionally been Eurosceptic (Lisi et al. 2021). Also,
Moury et al. (2019), considering bailout policy reversals, show that they were
more extensive in Portugal than in Spain, and most were enacted during the
‘Geringonça government’ (2015–2019). On the other hand, Fernandes et al.
(2018) argue that there was a balancing act in the Costa (2015–2019) govern-
ment, whereby the government decreased austerity in key policies such as pay
checks, pension checks, and tax returns, which ensured that key sectors of the
electorate had an increase in their disposable income. Yet, to comply with the
Stability and Growth Pact rules of the eurozone and keep to the targets for
public deficit, there was a corresponding decrease in public investment.
Between 2002 and 2015, no new party emerged in the political system, with
the exception of PAN, a centrist animal rights party. There was, however, a
decline in votes for the mainstream parties, an increase in abstention, and a
strengthening of the radical left. Namely, the BE’s vote share doubled from
5.2% in 2011 to 10.2% in 2015, whereas the Communists’ share increased
marginally, from 7.9% to 8.3% (De Giorgi and Santana-Pereira 2016; Lisi
2016). As Hutter and Kriesi (2019) note, there is indeed a pattern whereby
first voters turn to the traditional opposition before opting for more radical
alternatives.
Further, since 2019 there have been signs that fragmentation is also ensuing
on the right of the party spectrum. Indeed, in the last election, there were
three new entrants into parliament, two of them on the right: one MP from an
extreme-right party Chega, and a right liberal party, Iniciativa Liberal, both
210 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

managed to elect one MP. The entry of the far-right Chega into parliament
constituted an important watershed, as Portugal was one of the few remaining
countries of Europe without an extreme-right populist party (Mendes and
Dennison 2021).
Following the 2019 elections, the Socialists improved their share of the
vote; there was little change in the vote for the BE, while the Communists
actually lost votes (Table 10.2). There had been expectations that António
Costa would re-enact the left-wing parliamentary coalition government or
even enter a full-blown coalition with one or both of the left parties. Despite

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

this, the Prime Minister decided not to enter into any formal agreement with
the left-wing parties. The PS decided instead to reinforce its pivot role in the
political system, negotiating to its left and, to its right, with the main oppo-
sition party, the centre-right PSD, depending on the legislation in question.
From 2019–2022, the Socialists voted less often with its left partners, with the
exception of the budget approval3 . Then, the Left Block refused to support
the PS budget in 2020 and in 2021, both the Communists and the Left Block
voted against the Socialist government’s budget.
Faced with this fallout, the president decided to hold a snap election in
January 2022. In the event, both the PCP and BE were punished by the
electorate. In contrast, the Socialist Party was rewarded and achieved an
absolute majority in parliament. This majority, following six years in power,
places the Socialists as one of the most successful social democratic parties in
Europe. The 2022 result also counters the previous trend of fragmentation

Table 10.2 The distribution of votes in elections and seats in the Portuguese
Parliament, 2015–2022

Party 2015 2019 2022

Votes (%) Seats Votes (%) Seats Votes (%) Seats

PAF (CDS-PP and PSD) 38.36 107 - - - -

BE 10.19 19 9.52 19 4.40 5
CDS-PP - - 4.22 5 1.6 -
Chega - - 1.29 1 7.18 12
IL - - 1.29 1 4.91 8
Livre 0.73 - - 1 1.28 1
PAN 1.39 1 - 4 1.58 1
PCP 8.25 17 6.33 12 4.30 6
PS 32.31 86 36.34 108 41.37 119
PSD - - 27.76 79 27.67 78
Total Seats - 230 - 230 - 230

Source: Interior Ministry

 The Portuguese Party System 211

documented in Figure 10.1. While BE and PCP may have hoped that the
results of 2022 would force the Socialists to negotiate with these parties in
parliament, the results in effect spell the death knell of the left alliance and
ensure that the Socialists can govern for the full legislature.
In 2022, it seems the election campaign may have made a difference for
the election results. Opinion polls carried out late in the campaign seemed
to indicate a great proximity between the two major parties, the PS and PSD.
During the campaign, Prime Minister Costa on the one hand dramatized
the possible entry of Chega into government if the PSD came first with-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

out securing a majority of seats. He also repeatedly explained that the BE
and the PCP were irresponsible not to approve a budget which was rela-
tively left-wing. Not approving the budget and forcing elections also led to
delays in the implementation of the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Plan. While
economic perceptions had been declining in the previous twelve months
along with government popularity, the incumbent Prime Minister was seen
as rather more competent than the leader of the main right-wing party,
Rui Rio. In the event, the PS managed to attract left-wing voters who aban-
doned both the BE and the PCP, and to retain centrist voters who were not
convinced by the PSD’s alternative.
With the Socialists winning an absolute majority, the fragmentation was
reduced on the left, spelling the definitive end of the left-wing coalition which
lasted from 2015 to 2019. Thus, the resilience of the party system is main-
tained overall as is shown by the effective number of parliamentary parties
presented in Figure 10.1.
In addition, the absolute majority also pauses the seemingly inevitable ten-
dency towards the formation of coalition governments on the right and left.
Yet, on the right, fragmentation and change did accentuate. The centre-right
PSD did not manage to improve its voting, and the conservative CDS-PP,
the junior party on the right since democratization, did not elect any MPs.
In contrast, two new parties, far-right Chega and right-wing Iniciativa Lib-
eral, won 7% and 5% of the vote, respectively. In a report published following
the Portuguese post-election study which tracked the transfer of votes from
2019 to 2022, we can see that the PS majority was composed of voters which
had voted PS previously, had abstained, or had voted BE. The PSD did win
over voters from abstention too, but lost them to IL and Chega (Lobo et al.
2022). The latter party’s voters came from abstention as well as from the
PSD. Geographically, while Chega gathered more votes in the interior of the
country, due to the disproportionality of the electoral system, the new MPs
were elected in the largest districts on the coast. The leader will now hope to
capitalize on this growth to consolidate the party over the next four years.
212 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

A Realignment in the Partiesʼ Political Positioning?

Figure 10.3 presents the left–right positioning of the main parties from 2011
to 2019, using CHES data. From the point of view of programmatic evolu-
tion on the left–right axis, there had been a modest increase in polarization;
that is, there was a gap between PS and PSD. An ‘anti-austerity’ stance was
consolidated from the last quarter of 2014, when António Costa was elected
Secretary-general. This bipolarization occurred due to a growing divergence
in relation to the theme of the European Union. The parties’ positioning in

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

relation to Europe—understood as the crisis in the eurozone and the man-
agement of the bailout conditions administered by the troika in Portugal in
these years—came to divide the two ideological blocs in Portugal, left and
right. Indeed, in a recent analysis of parties’ issue polarization, Da Silva and
Mendes (2019) note that economic issues became even more important after
the onset of the eurozone crisis in 2009, and polarization was increasing
between the centre-right and the centre-left concerning these issues. Not only
were these issues important, but the political space in Portugal also became
unidimensional during the crisis period. Thus, before the 2015 elections, the
politicization of Europe through the lens of austerity brought the PS slightly

Trends in Left-Right Party Positioning in Portugal

2011–2019

10
8.8
9 8.5
8.0 8.0
8
6.7 6.7 6.4
7
Left-right Scale

6.0
6
5 4.5
4.2 4.1
4 3.4 3.4
3.3
3
2 1.2 1.3
0.7 0.9
1 0.5
0
2011 2015 2019

PSD PS CDS-PP CDU BE

PAN LIVRE IL CHEGA

Figure 10.3 Trends in left–right party positioning in Portugal, 2011–2019

Source: CHES dataset
 The Portuguese Party System 213

closer to both the BE and the PCP. In addition, the importance of the left–
right issue has remained the main ideological anchor in Portugal (Heyne et al.
forthcoming), and this benefits the major existing parties which compete on
those issues.
Although this left-wing positioning and Euroscepticism marked the posi-
tion of the PS before the legislative elections in 2015, some fundamental
differences remained on the left. Namely, the PS maintained that it would
‘fulfil and honour all of Portugal’s external commitments’, while in their man-
ifestos both the BE and the PCP did not rule out a possible exit from the Euro;

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the ambivalence of the PS towards a restructuring of the public debt while
the BE and the PCP were both in favour of this measure; and the genetic
Europeanism of the PS, which contrasts with the Eurosceptic position in rela-
tion to the European project of the BE and the PCP (Lobo 2022). From an
economic perspective, the BE and PCP took much more extreme positions
in relation to favouring the nationalization of banks and other companies;
regulating the prices of fundamental goods; or of state intervention in the
economy than the PS, which remains quite moderate in these areas. Still, in
2019, at the end of the government mandate, the Socialists were perceived as
slightly more left-wing, having moved from 4.5 to 4.1 on the left–right scale.
Since the onset of the crisis there had been little revision of the BE’s and
PCP’s political programme with regard to an ideological approximation to
the PS, either from the point of view of the left–right axis or from the point
of view of pro- or anti-Europeanism.
On the right, the PSD is perceived as relatively right-wing at 6.7, both in
2011 and 2015, whereas the CDS_PP is conservative at 8. There is change,
however, from 2015 to 2019: in 2018 the PSD elected a new leader who insists
he is a social democrat, and he has been available for supporting the Social-
ist Party in ad hoc legislative proposals. The CDS-PP also elected a leader,
Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos, who is perceived as rather more right-wing
than his predecessor. Chega, the extreme-right party, entered the 2019 par-
liament with an 8.8 average positioning on the left–right scale. This is due to
the fact that in their 2019 electoral manifesto they combined a strict anti-state
perspective with a nationalist standpoint on the EU and an anti-immigration
stance.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we aimed to present the Portuguese party system and its
development since democratization. We explained the way in which the party
214 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

system consolidated around four parties which dominated the system since
1974, and how, from 1987 to 2009 it was characterized by a majoritarian logic
with alternation between the two major parties, the PS and the PSD.
Next, we introduced the main parties in the system, as well as some of the
characteristics which have contributed to their endurance. The main par-
ties have mass organizations, and links to interest groups. Yet, there is an
undeniable trend towards both personalization and dependence on public
funding.
We have been witnessing slow and hitherto modest changes to party system

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

format in Portugal with the entry of an extreme-right party and progressive
fragmentation of the system. In addition, there was a change in the party
system dynamics in Portugal from 2015–2019, driven by ‘opposition to aus-
terity’, which lead to the first left-wing coalition government (a coalition of
parliamentary incidence) since democratization. Whereas in other European
countries the onset of the Great Recession led to an increase in voting for
challenger parties based on issues such as EU politicization and immigration,
in Portugal economic issues remained predominant, framed around the topic
of austerity. As a result, in 2022, in a pandemic context, the voters decided to
reward the Socialists with an absolute majority when the two left parties—
which had hitherto supported the minority PS government decided to vote
against the budget law.
From the point of view of party positioning, the evolution of the crisis in
the Euro zone created the conditions for an ideological greater divergence
between the PSD and the PS. Yet, the government experience since 2015 has
shown that the Socialists kept its European and mainstream credentials. The
BE and the PCP did not change their programme, as we saw above. These
two parties suffered electoral defeats in 2022, losing votes and MPs. Strik-
ingly, they are no longer the third and fourth largest parties in parliament.
The decline of electoral support forces a rethink on their role within the left,
both in terms of representation and government support. On the right, the
entry of Chega into the system and its growth potential, following the opin-
ion polls, poses a challenge for the mainstream right-wing parties that will
be ongoing for the next few years. Namely, it remains to be seen whether
the PSD is able to maintain itself as the predominant party on the right in
the near future, and whether it will enforce a cordon sanitaire with Chega
or, on the contrary, will embrace a government coalition with this party.
While the factors which contribute to the party system stability seem strong
in Portugal, there are also seeds of change which have been sown in the past
few years.
 The Portuguese Party System 215

Notes
1. The military coup of 25 April 1974 marks the beginning of democratic transition.
2. https://www.tsf.pt/politica/e-como-se-estivessemos-a-deitar-abaixo-o-resto-do-muro-
de-berlim-diz-antonio-costa-4833329.html (Accessed 18 December 2023).
3. https://visao.sapo.pt/atualidade/politica/2022-01-27-ps-e-a-esquerda-o-divorcio-que-
ja-tem-dois-anos/ (Accessed 18 December 2023).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

References

Bellucci, Paolo, Marina Costa Lobo, and Michael S. Lewis-Beck. 2012. ‘Economic
Crisis and Elections: The European Periphery’. Electoral Studies, 31(3):469–471.
Cancela, João, Camacho Giestas, and Marta Vicente. 2019. Abstenção e Participação
Eleitoral em Portugal: Diagnóstico e Hipóteses de Reforma. Lisboa: IPRI.
Da Silva, Frederico Ferreira and Mariana Mendes. 2019. ‘Portugal: A Tale of Appar-
ent Stability and Surreptitious Transformation’. In Swen Hutter and Hanspeter
Kriesi (eds), European Party Politics in Times of Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 139–164.
De Giorgi, Elisabetta and José Santana-Pereira. 2016. ‘The 2015 Portuguese Legisla-
tive Election: Widening the Coalitional Space and Bringing the Extreme Left In’.
South European Society and Politics, 21(4):451–468.
Döring, Holger, Constantin Huber, and Philip Manow. 2022. Parliaments and Gov-
ernments Database (ParlGov): Information on Parties, Elections and Cabinets in
established Democracies. Development version. https://www.parlgov.org/about/
(Accessed 15 December 2023).
Fernandes, Jorge M., Pedro C. Magalhães, and José Santana-Pereira. 2018. ‘Portugal’s
Leftist Government: From Sick Man to Poster Boy?’. South European Society and
Politics, 23(4):503–524.
Hernández, Enrique and Hanspeter Kriesi. 2016. ‘The Electoral Consequences of the
Financial and Economic Crisis in Europe’. European Journal of Political Research,
55(2):203–224.
Heyne, Lea, Marina Costa Lobo, and Roberto Pannico. (forthcoming). ‘The Left–
Right Dimension, Europe and Voting in Bailout Europe’. In Marina Costa Lobo
(ed.), EU Politicization and Voting. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
Hutter, Swen and Hanspeter Kriesi. 2019. European Party Politics in Times of Crisis.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jalali, Carlos. 2007. Partidos e Democracia em Portugal: 1974–2005: da revolução ao
bipartidarismo. Lisboa: Instituto Ciências Sociais.
216 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Jalali, Carlos. 2018. ‘“The Times (May) Be A-changin”? The Portuguese Party Sys-
tem in the Twenty-First Century’. In Marco Lisi (ed.), Party System Change, the
European Crisis and the State of Democracy. Abingdon: Routledge, 213–230.
Jalali, Carlos, Patricia Silva, and Sandra Silva. 2012. ‘Givers and Takers: Parties, State
Resources and Civil Society in Portugal’. Party Politics, 18(1):61–80.
Lago, Ignacio and Marina Costa Lobo. 2014. ‘Partisan Turnout Bias and District
Magnitude’. Electoral Studies, 35:150–158.
Lisi, Marco. 2010. ‘The Democratisation of Party Leadership Selection: The Por-
tuguese Experience’. Portuguese Journal of Social Science, 9(2):127–149.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Lisi, Marco. 2016. ‘U-turn: The Portuguese Radical Left from Marginality to Gov-
ernment Support’. South European Society and Politics, 21(4):541–560.
Lisi, Marco, Edalina Rodrigues Sanches, and Jayane Dos Santos Maia. 2021. ‘Party
System Renewal or Business as Usual? Continuity and Change in Post-Bailout
Portugal’. The Exceptional Case of Post-Bailout Portugal. Routledge, 53–77.
Lobo, Marina Costa. 2009. ‘Um Sistema Partidário Sob Pressão: As Legislativas de
2005 e As Presidenciais de 2006 em Portugal’. in Marina Costa Lobo and Pedro
Magalhães (eds), As Eleições Legislativas e Presidenciais 2006. Lisboa: Imprensa de
Ciências Sociais, 19–36. https://repositorio.ul.pt/bitstream/10451/28233/1/ICS_
MCLobo_PMagalhaes_Eleicoes.pdf (Accessed 7 February 2024).
Lobo, Marina Costa. 2022. ‘Politicising Europe: How It Affects Political Competition
in Portugal’. In Jorge Fernandes, Pedro Magalhães and António Costa Pinto (eds),
Handbook of Portuguese Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 666–682.
Lobo, Marina Costa, António Costa Pinto, and Pedro Magalhães. 2011. ‘The Political
Institutions of Portuguese Democracy’. In Sebastián Royo (ed.), Portugal in the
Twenty-First Century: Politics, Society and Economics. Lanham: Lexington Books,
23–48.
Lobo, Marina Costa and Frederico Ferreira da Silva. 2018. ‘Prime Ministers in the
Age of Austerity: An Increase in the Personalisation of Voting Behaviour’. West
European Politics, 41(5):1146–1165.
Lobo, Marina Costa, Pedro Magalhães, José Santana Pereira, Alice Ramos, and
Paula Vicente. 2022. Sondagem ICS-ISCTE Março 2022. Available online at:
https://sondagens-ics-ul.iscteiul.pt/wpcontent/uploads/2022/03/SondagemICS_
ISCTE_Mar%C3%A7o_2022.pdf
Magone, José M. 2003. The Politics of Southern Europe: Integration into the European
Union. Westport: Praeger Publishers.
Mendes, Mariana S. and James Dennison. 2021. ‘Explaining the Emergence of the
Radical Right in Spain and Portugal: Salience, Stigma and Supply’. West European
Politics, 44(4):752–775.
Morlino, Leonardo and Francesco Raniolo. 2017. The Impact of the Economic Crisis
on South European Democracies. London: Springer.
 The Portuguese Party System 217

Moury, Catherine, Daniel Cardoso, and Angie Gago. 2019. ‘When the Lenders Leave
Town: Veto Players, Electoral Calculations and Vested Interests as Determinants
of Policy Reversals in Spain and Portugal’. South European Society and Politics
24(2):177–204.
Nassmacher, Karl-Heinz. 2006. ‘Regulation of Party Finance’. In Richard S. Katz and
William J. Crotty (eds), Handbook of Party Politics. London: Sage, 446–455.
Pinto, António Costa and Pedro Tavares de Almeida. 2008. ‘Portugal: The Primacy
of “Independents”’. In Keith M. Dowding and Patrick Dumont (eds), The Selection
of Ministers in Europe. London: Routledge, 165–176.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Santana, Andrés and José Rama. 2018. ‘Electoral Support for Left Wing Populist
Parties in Europe: Addressing the Globalization Cleavage’. European Politics and
Society, 19(5):558–576.
Scarrow, Susan E., Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke. 2022. ‘Intra-Party
Decision-making in Contemporary Europe: Improving Representation or Ruling
with Empty Shells?’ Irish Political Studies, 37(2):196–217.
11
Spain
Party System Change and Fragmentation

Luis Ramiro and María Salvador

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The Party System in Spain and Its Framework Conditions

Contemporary party politics in Spain is in a state of open-ended flux. Since

2015, the configuration of the party system has changed dramatically from
a de-facto two-party system to a plain multi-party system.1 The Spanish
party system in the current democratic period which began at the end of
the 1970s has always contained many parties winning parliamentary rep-
resentation (both nationwide parties and non-nationwide nationalist and
regionalist parties). However, the party system was usually dominated essen-
tially by two larger centre-right and centre-left parties, and the governments
were always single-party ones (although they were minority governments
on several occasions) (Gunther et al. 2004). The moderate political pref-
erences of Spanish voters during the first elections in the 1970s paved the
way for this party system configuration; further, the institutional framework
also contributed to this outcome. The parties and party system development
were certainly affected by some institutional and legal factors, particularly
the electoral system. This made the parliamentary representation of multi-
ple parties possible while favouring the dominance of two larger nationwide
ones. Some additional institutional rules contributed further to the stabi-
lization of the party system by consolidating the mainstream or established
parties and their dominance in the party system. Among these, the reg-
ulations on party funding and the provision of state subsidies, basically
distributing funds in accordance with parties’ parliamentary representation
and weight, have affected party development and favoured insiders against
challengers.

Luis Ramiro and María Salvador, Spain. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy. Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and
Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Luis Ramiro and María Salvador (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0011
 Spain 219

All this relative stability has changed radically since 2015. Until then,
Spain showed some patterns in common with other contemporary West-
ern democracies regarding the state of their political parties, although with
some specificities. Spanish parties had experienced the normal function-
ing of a democratic polity only since the end of the 1970s, without ever
having experienced an extended period of democratic politics and mass
political involvement. Some parties recovered their routine working or were
founded in a political environment dominated by mass media and TV.
They were dependent on state subsidies rapidly established by themselves

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

and acted upon a Spanish society that reflected—even with some delay
and at lower levels—the common Western trends of rising educational lev-
els and affluence. Spanish parties initiated their democratic activity in an
era in which Western party politics had already shown clear indications of
the crisis of party loyalties and identities, in which the distance between
parties and citizens started to grow, and in which a media-dominated
political environment favoured the presidentialization of politics. This con-
text was conducive to producing parties with strong leadership and weak
social roots, membership, and party–civic organization linkages. All Spanish
parties—dependent on state subsidies and with weak party-on-the-ground
organizations—responded to this pattern (Ramiro and Morales 2004, 2010).
However, another characteristic element of Western party and electoral pol-
itics was not so visible in the Spanish case: high electoral volatility and
party system instability were not so manifest in Spain. Parties with weak
social roots and limited membership enjoyed a relatively stable electorate fol-
lowing the last electoral earthquake of 1982 that defined the Spanish party
system once the democratic transition ended. However, this relative sta-
bility ended in 2015. In the 2015 parliamentary elections, Spanish party
politics and the Spanish party system acquired another two features com-
mon to other Western democracies, which were not fully evident in Spain
until then: Spanish politics entered a period of increasing party system
fragmentation and electoral volatility. Two additional elements characterize
Spanish party politics: First, the fragmentation is due not only to a change
in support among already present parties but also to completely new chal-
lenger parties entering the parliament. Second, the parties themselves show
a notable level of organizational instability, with some parties suffering noto-
rious internal crises and many parties experimenting with organizational
innovation.
How did the Spanish party system arrive at this open-ended period of
restructuring?
220 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Recent history of the Spanish party system

The peculiarities of the Spanish two-party system, 1977–2015

Sometimes considered a moderate multi-party system, the Spanish party
system between the democratic transition at the end of the 1970s and 2014–
2015, when a period of fragmentation and instability began, can be better
described as a two-party system. In the first two free elections, held in
1977 and 1979, a basic format was already visible, including two large state-
wide centre-right and centre-left parties (the Social Democrat PSOE/Spanish

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Socialist Workers’ Party and the centre-right UCD/Union of the Democratic
Centre) flanked by two much smaller state-wide parties (the Communist
PCE/Communist Party of Spain and the Conservatives grouped around
AP/Popular Alliance and, later, CD/Democratic Coalition), and several non-
nationwide regionalist and peripheral nationalist parties of diverse ideologi-
cal leanings (from the radical left to the right). After the reconfiguration of the
party system in the 1982 elections, the format of the party system remained
unaltered in its basic structure for more than 30 years—changing only the
protagonist parties in those different political and ideological fields.
After the 1982 general elections, the party system included as the main
state-wide parties the larger centre-left PSOE (in office during 1982–1996
and 2004–2011, enjoying strong parliamentary majorities during the 1980s)
and the centre-right PP (in office during 1996–2004 and 2011–2018). Besides
these two larger parties, there was always a radical-left party (since 1986,
IU/United Left) and a centrist party (in the 1980s, the CDS/Social and
Democratic Centre, and between 2008 and 2015, UPyD/Union, Progress,
and Democracy). The most important non-nationwide parties, the Cata-
lan and Basque nationalists, have always won parliamentary representation
together with many other MPs from peripheral nationalist or regionalist
parties from Galicia, the Canary Islands, Valencian Community, Aragón,
Asturias, Cantabria, Navarre, or Andalucía that have obtained a less regular
and fluctuating representation.2
The electoral system, as mentioned in the introduction, has played an obvi-
ous determinant role in the configuration of the party system. The electoral
rules favoured the formation of single-party majority governments, and this
has been the experience until very recently. This traditional single-party gov-
ernment characteristic of Spanish national politics also contributes to the
consideration as a two-party system of what could otherwise be judged a
moderate multi-party system. The PSOE during the 1980s and the PP dur-
ing 2000–2004 were in office, enjoying comfortable absolute majorities. In
legislative terms when the PSOE and PP got only a relative majority in
 Spain 221

Parliament, some Catalan and Basque nationalists (but also Canary Islands
regionalists or nationalists) played a key role in supporting them in Par-
liament and making the formation of single-party minority governments
possible (although the PSOE also counted on the support of the radical-left
IU at certain times during the Zapatero premiership).

The transformation of the Spanish party system after 2015: Instability

and fragmentation

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

This two-party system in Spain has completely transformed itself since the
2015 general elections (Orriols and Cordero 2016). The 2011 elections—the
first to be held after the effects of the 2008 Great Recession and the severity
of the austerity policies could be fully felt—already signalled some poten-
tially relevant changes. In the 2011 elections, won by the PP, the two larger
parties saw their combined vote share reduced. Most importantly, the PSOE
suffered a crushing defeat, and its support decreased compared to that in the
1970s during the democratic transition. Since the first democratic elections
in 1977, the weight of the two larger parties—the combined support of the
larger centre-right and centre-left parties—has varied according to the vot-
ers’ preferences; the fluctuating support received by the smaller state-wide
parties and the fragmentation level of the party system have not been static.
However, the party system definitively entered a new period of greater and
substantial fragmentation and ended 38 years of a two-party system after the
2015 elections (see Table 11.1).
The party system changes since 2015 have followed several phases demon-
strating also that, together with fragmentation and electoral volatility, an
open-ended general instability has characterized Spanish party politics since
the mid-2010s. The 2011 general elections resulted in the PP winning office
(44.6% of the vote) and the PSOE suffering a crushing defeat (28.8% of the
vote, 15.1 points below the party’s previous result). The nationwide radical-
left IU won 6.9% of the vote and the centrist UPyD 4.7%. However, the
electoral earthquake of 2015 did not consist of these minor parties increas-
ing their support by taking advantage of the losses of the larger mainstream
parties. On the contrary, in 2015 these smaller parties lost support (IU) or
collapsed (UPyD), while the larger PSOE and PP certainly suffered great
losses. The most relevant feature of the 2015 elections was that two new par-
ties gained very notable electoral support: the populist radical-left Podemos
(We Can) and its regional alliances got 20.7% of the vote (a staggering level of
support for a party created hardly one year before), and the right-wing liberal
Ciudadanos (Citizens, Cs) received 13.9% of the vote.
222 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Thus, the party system at the time included four state-wide parties of not-
so-unequal electoral weight (PP, 28.7%; PSOE, 22%; Podemos, 20.7%; Cs,
13.9%) and the still surviving nationwide IU (3.7% of the vote) (Vidal 2018).
While Cs had already existed in Catalonia before it decided to expand to the
rest of the country, the rise of Podemos was surely more spectacular: the party
was completely new having been created hardly a year before, at the begin-
ning of 2014 to run the European Parliament Elections of that year. Beyond
these parties, the party system included many non-nationwide peripheral
nationalist and regionalist parties where some electoral changes were also

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

visible (mainly regarding the balance of support among different Catalan
nationalist parties favouring the previously smaller Catalan nationalists of
the Republican Left of Catalonia, ERC).3
To some degree, the 2011 and 2015 elections can be understood as elections
in times of deep and concatenated economic and political crises (Bermeo and
Bartels 2014; Medina 2015; Hernández and Kriesi 2016). In 2011, the elec-
torate strongly punished the incumbent PSOE after, first, the effects of the
2008 Great Recession and its Spanish specificities (a housing and mortgage
bubble, the oversized construction sector, and very high unemployment,
among other key elements); second, the austerity policies implemented by
the incumbent PSOE were all fully felt. The PP, as the main opposition party,
benefited from the voters’ discontent and gained office. The PP government
maintained the austerity policies and fiscal consolidation measures under EU
supervision, confronted a bailout affecting the Spanish banking system, and
designed special measures to financially support the regional governments.
Although the economic situation started to improve, the public perception
of the economy and the very high levels of unemployment did not reflect
that improvement because of the depth of the crisis. Additionally, post-Great
Recession politics in Spain was characterized by not only economic discon-
tent but also an associated political discontent (with government, parties, and
other institutions), first demonstrated in 2011, accompanied by the constant
presence in the public debate and media of corruption scandals that chiefly
affected the incumbent PP.
This context culminated in the 2015 elections, in which voters punished
the incumbent PP, as would be expected. Moreover, the main opposition
party, the PSOE, still tainted by its 2008–2011 term in office when the coun-
try suffered the consequences of the Great Recession, did not benefit but
suffered an additional weakening. The context of economic crisis, political
crisis, corruption scandals, high political discontent, and distrust towards
parties and politicians was ripe for new and challenger parties.4 Two parties,
Podemos and Cs, were able to take advantage of this political environment
 Spain 223

by representing the newness and the promise of political, social, and eco-
nomic renewal against discredited old, traditional, and established parties
and politicians.
The 2015 elections were key not only because they transformed the party
system by putting an end to the two-party system configuration but also
because the fragmentation of the party system after the elections made gov-
ernment formation, government investiture, and getting a parliamentary
majority in support of a government more challenging tasks than ever. The
PP won the 2015 elections, although in a very weakened position, benefited

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

from an early election in 2016 slightly improving its result, and formed a
single-party minority government. However, government stability has been
a very salient aspect of Spanish politics since 2015 (Simón 2016). Frag-
mentation, difficulties in creating parliamentary majorities in support of
a cabinet, and government parliamentary stability are central features of
current Spanish politics.

An open-ended transformation: Political instability, electoral volatility,

and the rise and demise of new parties
These new features explain the no confidence vote in 2018 that succeeded
for the first time in forming a new government (where the incumbent PP
lost Parliament’s confidence and the PSOE won the Prime Minister’s posi-
tion)5 and led to the repeated early elections of 2019 (April and November).
Between December 2015 and November 2019, there were four general elec-
tions, with the parties unable to reach an agreement to form a government
amid a fragmented party system. The 2016 elections did not produce relevant
changes in the parties’ support apart from unavoidable minor fluctuations
(Cs and Podemos losing some ground, PSOE and, especially, PP improv-
ing their support). However, the April 2019 elections demonstrated again
that not only party system fragmentation but also electoral volatility was a
significant element defining Spanish party politics (see Table 11.1). In the
April 2019 elections, held after the successful no confidence vote promoted
and won by the PSOE, the PP suffered a harsh defeat (losing half of its sup-
port, scoring a very poor 16.7%), the PSOE grew to 28.7% of the vote, Cs got
15.9%, Podemos kept losing ground (14.3%), and a new radical-right party,
VOX, entered Parliament for the first time with 10.3% of the vote, up from
completely insignificant support in the previous elections.6 The end of the
two-party system was accompanied by a notable growth of affective polariza-
tion (measured through leaders’ evaluations), and especially inter-bloc (left
vs right) polarization after 2018 (Orriols and León 2021).
224 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

However, if the April 2019 elections showed the fragmentation and volatil-
ity reigning over Spanish party politics, the new early elections held in
November 2019 fully confirmed this picture. Again, the electorate showed
notorious levels of volatility. In this case, besides an additional weakening of
Podemos (12.9% of the vote), the elections showed how the other new party
that had entered Parliament in 2015 with astonishing success, Cs, suffered
important losses, receiving only 6.8% of the vote. Four years earlier, Pode-
mos and Cs had challenged the two-party system after entering Parliament
with high levels of support. In November 2019, they were electorally weak-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ened, and Cs had lost much of its political significance. More importantly,
the November 2019 elections resulted in the radical-right VOX becoming the
third largest state-wide party with 15% of the vote.7 The swift electoral rise
of the radical right was based on an expanding constituency that not only
showed high levels of political dissatisfaction, conservative cultural backlash,
and Spanish nationalism but also a willingness to be mobilized by what they
understood as the threat of Catalan secessionism (Turnbull-Dugarte 2019;
Turnbull-Dugarte et al. 2020; Anduiza and Rico 2022).
The mutation of the party system initiated in 2015 produced a multi-
party system with five state-wide parties, four of them receiving relatively
high levels of support after the 2019 elections. This political change has
resulted in a fragmented party system that makes the formation of single-
party governments difficult and that generated the first coalition government
(a minority coalition government between the Social Democrat PSOE and
the radical-left Unidas Podemos)8 since the democratic transition. Finally,
the transformation of voters’ electoral preferences and the notable electoral
volatility has produced the end of the Spanish exceptionality in the West
European context regarding the parliamentary presence of the radical right.

The legal framework conditions

As in all democracies, the legal framework has had a considerable influence

on the characteristics of the Spanish party system. However, as we will see,
the Spanish case is one of moderate constitutional regulation of party politics,
with the 1978 Constitution providing limited detail on party regulation.

The Constitution and party laws

The current Constitution was adopted in 1978 after 40 years of dictatorship.
It was the result of a process of democratic transition with the participation of
many political and social actors, and a basic consensus on the constitutional
 Spain 225

text was reached in most areas. Regarding the matter at hand, there was abso-
lute agreement that the new political order should be a pluralist democracy
and that political parties would be the leading protagonists. Thus, the Con-
stitution designed a parliamentary model and assigned a central and leading
role to political parties. As a result, they have (almost) a monopoly of political
representation, and there are very few channels of direct democracy partic-
ipation. One of the main goals at the time was to strengthen parties to bring
stability to the new democratic system.
The Constitution includes a provision in its preliminary part specifically

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

dedicated to political parties—Art. 6, which sets out the essential and defin-
ing elements of the new constitutional order. This article states as follows:
‘Political parties are the expression of political pluralism; they contribute
to the formation and expression of the will of the people and are a funda-
mental instrument for political participation. Their creation and the exercise
of their activities are free in so far as they respect the Constitution and
the law. Their internal structure and operation must be democratic’. The
drafting of the article was influenced by similar provisions in constitutions

Table 11.1 Larger partiesʼ electoral decline, party system fragmentation, volatility,
and turnout in Spain since 1977

Election year Votes for the two ENEP ENPP Volatility Turnout (%)
largest parties (%)

1977 63.76 3.94 2.89 - 76.96

1979 65.24 3.79 2.81 - 68.13
1982 74.47 3.00 2.33 19.70 79.83
1986 70.03 3.25 2.68 12.80 70.37
1989 65.39 3.69 2.85 10.00 70.01
1993 73.54 3.20 2.67 11.50 77.05
1996 76.42 3.10 2.72 6.00 78.06
2000 78.68 2.85 2.48 10.10 68.71
2004 80.3 2.81 2.50 10.20 75.66
2008 83.81 2.61 2.34 5.10 75.32
2011 73.39 3.22 2.60 16.10 68.94
2015 50.71 5.48 4.53 35.10 73.20
2016 55.64 4.82 4.16 5.50 69.84
2019 Apr 45.36 5.86 4.94 22.20 71.76
2019 Nov 48.81 5.93 4.68 10.70 66.20

Note: ENEP—Effective Number of Electoral Parties; ENPP—Effective Number of Parliamentary

Parties; Volatility as the total volatility; Turnout as share of all registered voters; ‘-’ —missing data.
Source: Parliaments and governments database (Döring et al. 2022); Database on WHO Governs in
Europe and beyond, PSGO (Casal Bértoa 2022); Voter Turnout Database (IDEA 2022); Votes for the
two largest parties (%): authors’ elaboration using electoral data from the Spanish Ministry of Interior
226 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

approved after the Second World War (those of Italy, Germany, and France)
and in the Constitution of Portugal, also approved after a period of dicta-
torship (Blanco 1990; Morodo and Lucas 2001). Thus, Art. 6 means that the
Constitution recognizes the central and crucial role played by parties in a
democracy and assumes the task of guaranteeing certain conditions so that
parties can correctly fulfil this role and, thereby, ensure the proper function-
ing of the democratic system. There are four of these conditions: freedom
from the state, internal democracy, equal opportunities, and transparency
and accountability. The development of these principles, however, has been

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

uneven, albeit ever-changing (Salvador 2021).
After the dictatorship, the priority was obviously to guarantee the freedom
of parties from the state. Moreover, it was understood that freedom was basi-
cally the only requirement of the parties to correctly fulfil their role in the
democratic system. The requirement of internal democracy is specifically set
out in Art. 6, but its legal development has been slow. Early in the 21st cen-
tury, an intense and interesting doctrinal and social debate started regarding
the significance of this principle and its materialization, and the first legisla-
tive measures were adopted in this respect. Meanwhile, the Constitutional
Court has ruled that the demand for internal democracy is materialized
in two elements: a principle of democratic internal organization and func-
tioning, and members’ rights that ensure their participation in the party’s
decision-making (STC 56/1997). The principle of equal opportunities for
parties is surmised from various constitutional provisions (the principle of
political pluralism, Art. 1.1; the principle of equality, Art. 9.2; and the right
to effective political participation, Arts. 9.3 and 23) and has been projected
in electoral law, in parties’ financing and access to media and other public
utilities. However, this principle has been understood basically as a ‘gradu-
ated equality’; that is, the state does not treat all parties equally but grades
its treatment according to the representation obtained in the last elections
(for example, the amount of financing subsidies is not the same for all the
parties: it is tied to the results of the last elections). Therefore, this prin-
ciple has clearly tended to maintain the status quo; in other words, it has
favoured the major parties with parliamentary representation and hindered
the emergence of new political actors. Legal doctrine considered this inter-
pretation to be justified during the first years of democracy because parties
were numerous and weak and there was a need to promote strong parties that
would sustain the new democracy. However, it is now thought that some of
these developments are no longer justified and should be modified to favour
new or small parties. Finally, the principle of transparency and accountabil-
ity is not explicitly included in Spain’s Constitution, although it is inferred
 Spain 227

from the general principles of the democratic state and the rule of law. Its
legislative development, however, was very limited until recent years, dur-
ing which there have been major reforms in funding and financial-economic
control and regarding parties’ organizational transparency, functioning, and
activities.
At a legal level, the legislator’s activity in the development of these con-
stitutional principles has undergone a significant evolution, from less to
more, and more intensive, regulation. The first Political Parties Act (LPP),
Law 54/1978, was approved by Parliament while the Constitution was being

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

passed, with a high degree of consensus, and was published just a few
days before the constitutional text. This law contained some minimal and
extremely concise provisions, as it was believed at the time that the legislator
should respect the freedom of parties and barely intervene in the determi-
nation of their legal structure. Parties were free to create themselves, decide
their organization and functioning, and act subject to hardly any kind of pro-
vision. As has been noted, at that time the primary objective was to guarantee
the freedom of parties and prevent state interference.
In 2002, the legislator approved a new law, Organic Law 6/2002 on Political
Parties (LOPP). The goal was to provide a response to some issues that were
salient at the time: the need to define the minimum requirements of internal
democracy and the need to regulate the dissolution of parties whose actions
are against the Constitution (in other words, the need to address the prob-
lem of support for terrorist organizations by certain Basque parties). Thus,
the LOPP responds to a historical moment different from that of the LPP
and to a phase of greater intervention by the legislator (Casal Bértoa et al.
2014). The new party law also assumes that the principle of freedom is not
the only one that determines the legal status of parties, and the legislator has
the responsibility to establish the limits and guarantees necessary to ensure
that parties would fulfil their function in the democratic state.
In the same spirit, in recent years, new laws have been passed on financing,
transparency, and economic-financial control.9 Their most significant aspect
is that they have been approved despite the hesitance shown by the parties
themselves in the context of political dissatisfaction and recurrent recom-
mendations of some international organizations, especially the reports issued
by the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) body of the Council of
Europe.

The influence of the legal framework

The legal decisions that have most influenced the development of the party
system refer to the following five issues:
228 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

a) Regarding the creation and existence of parties, the law establishes a reg-
ister system to acquire legal status, which has posed some abstract, but
not practical, problems. Only twice have the application for registration
of a party been rejected (during the early democratic years) but the Con-
stitutional Court ruled that the registrations should take place because
the registry could only perform mere formal control (SSTC 3/1981 &
85/1986).
However, the most significant decision on this matter was the adop-
tion of a dissolution system in 2002 to address the question of parties

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

that supported terrorism. Under these, a party can be dissolved ‘when
[it] violates in a continuous, repeated and serious manner the require-
ments of democratic internal structure and functioning established in the
law’ (an unlikely scenario in practice) or ‘when in a repeated and seri-
ous manner, a party’s activity violates democratic principles or seeks to
damage or destroy the system of freedoms or hamper or eliminate the
democratic system, through conduct stipulated in the law’10 (the law spec-
ifies in considerable detail the elements, conducts, and facts that would
make it possible to confirm when a party is guilty of this offence).
There was an intense legal and political debate about the new dissolu-
tion system. Most legal scholars believed that the grounds for dissolution
were consistent with the Constitution, although some technical aspects
were criticized (Bastida 2003; Montilla, 2003; Tajadura 2004). The Con-
stitutional Court confirmed the constitutionality of the new system, based
on the European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence. As expected,
the law’s adoption was followed by the dissolution of some parties (HB,
EH, and Batasuna) because the Court considered proven ETA’s partici-
pation in these formations and their conscious and reiterated activity as
a political complement to terrorist activity. This decision was ratified by
the Constitutional Court (SSTC 5/2004 and 6/2004) and the European
Court of Human Rights (Decision of 30 June 2009).11
b) The electoral system was adopted in 1977 to facilitate the political tran-
sition to democracy and to guarantee the political stability of the new
democratic order. The electoral regulation established many electoral dis-
tricts of low magnitude under a closed-list proportional representation
system using the D’Hondt formula. These rules have resulted in a notable
disproportional outcome of overrepresenting larger nationwide parties,
underrepresenting smaller nationwide parties with a scattered electorate,
and giving a representation closer to their electoral weight to peripheral
nationalist and regionalist parties. The electoral system is responsible for
the continuous overrepresentation in the parliament of the two larger
 Spain 229

centre-left and centre-right political parties, which receive a proportion

of seats in the lower chamber well above their proportion of national
votes. Besides, the system favours the representation of some scarcely pop-
ulated, mostly rural electoral districts (provinces) generating a relative
advantage for the centre-right. In any case, the electoral system has very
significant detrimental effects on the parliamentary representation of the
smaller nationwide parties who have seen their aspirations to political rel-
evance historically constrained by the effects of the electoral system. The
nominally proportional Spanish electoral system behaves in a very dis-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

proportional way with these parties. The electoral rules do not negatively
affect the representation of the non-nationwide regionalist and periph-
eral nationalist parties who, with a territorially concentrated support in a
few electoral districts, have seen their relevance increased and have often
become kingmakers in the Spanish party system. Although reform pro-
posals and studies have existed for years, the essence of the system is yet
to be modified.
c) The system of party funding was also established during the transition
to democracy and has been kept until now. It is a mixed system, with a
significant predominance of public funding (it covers the electoral, par-
liamentary, and ordinary activities of parties at local, autonomous and
national levels), in which public subsidies are distributed among the par-
ties that obtained parliamentary seats in the previous election, according
to their number of votes and seats in the parliament (graduated equal-
ity). It has favoured larger and parliamentary parties and penalized small
or new parties. Strong public funding was justified in 1978 because par-
ties had weak structures at that time. The outcome has been parties who
are over-dependent on public money (see Table 11.2). In any case, despite
this public funding, some parties have sought channels of illegal funding
(Pajares 1998; Sánchez 2013; Iglesias 2015).
Economic-financial control is mainly exercised by the Tribunal de
Cuentas (Court of Audit), but this control was relatively limited until
a few years ago. Parties have demonstrated considerable resistance to
imposing the obligations or constraints in this area on themselves. Ini-
tially, the economic-financial control established by the legislator was so
insufficient and flawed that it was effectively impossible to control either
the legality of channels of financing or the economic administration of
parties. Since 2007, and especially during the 2010s, some legislative mea-
sures have been adopted in this respect, owing to public opinion and the
intervention of international institutions such as GRECO.
230 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Table 11.2 Partiesʼ income, 2017

Party Income through Income through state

members (%) funding (%)

People’s Party 15.00 85.00

Spanish Socialist 21.00 55.00
Workers’ Party PSOE
We Can 4.80 95.20
Citizens 14.00 85.00
United Left IU 15.00 75.00

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Mean 13.96 79.04

Note: data were retrieved for 2017; the reported income share refers to the total
party income.
Source: Political Party Database Round 2 V4 (Scarrow et al. 2022)

d) The rules that regulate parliamentary activity have consolidated the cen-
tral position of parties in the Spanish political system, as all the initiatives
and decisions adopted in Parliament practically refer to the parliamentary
group and not to individual MPs. The MPs are the holders of parliamen-
tary seats; in theory, they are free to act but, in practice, they are subject to
strict party discipline. There have been several cases of MPs’ defection that
parties have faced by signing an anti-defection agreement, which seeks to
limit this practice and penalize individuals and parties who engage in it.
e) Finally, regarding internal democracy, the party law contains some mini-
mum requirements for internal organization and functioning and makes
it obligatory for parties’ statutes to regulate certain areas. This has led
to significant progress, for example, in relation to members’ rights and
parties’ transparency. However, the regulation is not detailed on certain
aspects of party organization, for instance, the internal selection of elec-
toral candidates. In this respect, since 2007, electoral lists must have a
balanced composition of men and women (a minimum of 40% of each
in the list of candidates or, in certain cases, the proportion of men and
women must be as close as possible to numerical balance).12 Nonetheless,
the legal provisions on parties’ internal democracy do not seem to have
been very influential. We will approach this aspect in the next section by
mapping some of the developments in this regard.

The Changing Models of Party Organization

Spanish political parties’ organizational model has classically corresponded

to a mass party model without ‘masses’. Spanish parties are all membership
 Spain 231

organizations. No Spanish party has appeared under any format other than
one of an organization formed by members; all the parties have formally
intended to create membership organizations extended across the territory.
The multi-level nature of Spanish domestic politics (with national, regional,
and local levels, and even other additional levels such as provincial or island
ones) involves the need to recruit thousands of candidates to be part of the
parties’ electoral lists at different levels, and this favours the recruitment
efforts by parties and the creation of territorial sublevels with parties’ local
branches at the base of the parties’ organizational structure. This basic model,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

adopted or attempted since the democratic transition in the 1970s, has not
been altered despite the multiple changes experienced by party politics in
Europe and those occurring specifically in Spain.
However, Spanish parties have usually not been very successful in attract-
ing members, and they remain weak in terms of the members/voters ratio,
social linkage and, in general, membership base.13 This relative weakness is
compatible with parties that, at least in the case of the larger state-wide and
non-state-wide parties, are present in most cities, towns, and villages and are
able to run the local elections with a party list. Therefore, the parties—at least
the larger state-wide and non-state-wide ones—have a territorially extended
organization but low levels of membership.
Party membership during the last two decades has remained at similar lev-
els; there is no clear indication of any other pattern than a flat trend. There
are two methods to approach the gathering of membership data: through the
data provided by the parties themselves and through the information gath-
ered by population surveys. Parties do not provide this information regularly
or frequently; the figures are only reluctantly publicly mentioned when jour-
nalists and media cover party events such as conferences and congresses; they
appear in internal party documents that are not supposed to circulate widely,
shown in partial ways on the parties’ web pages, or indicated in the reports
the parties provide to the Tribunal de Cuentas. In general, party information
in this area is not very reliable. The data coming from population surveys
might be more reliable except that the membership figures are so low that
the analysis should be made with some caution. According to the population
surveys from the publicly funded Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas,
party membership in Spain between 2000 and 2019 represented around 3%
of the total Spanish population. This means that despite the electoral changes
around the 2015 elections and afterwards, despite the creation of new parties
ranging from the radical left to the radical right, and despite the organi-
zational innovations that had been implemented by parties in the last two
decades, the general membership trend remains practically unaltered in a
significant or stable way.
232 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

The parties’ weak social roots are also discernible in the absence of clear
linkages between parties and groups or parties and social organizations.
Certainly, they do not exist at a formal level; they are also relatively weak
even at an informal level. The traditional close relationship between con-
servative parties and business organizations, or between centre-right parties
and the Catholic Church, exists only at an informal level of both parties
and social organizations sharing and agreeing on policies and principles.
Something similar can be said regarding the relationship between left-wing
parties and unions or new social movements. Spanish unions have clearly

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

been autonomous and independent of any political party since the 1980s;
the political concordance between them and the Social Democrats has even
suffered periods of serious disagreement. This relationship remains informal
but very close only in the case of the Spanish radical left, given the policy
concordance between the radical left and unions, and the radical left and the
‘traditional’ new social movements. Additionally, beyond some classic groups
(young people and, to a lesser degree, women), parties do not have special
internal groupings organizationally targeting socioeconomic groups in most
cases (some parties have internal groups for sexual orientation or citizens of
immigrant origin).
Parties have evolved since the 2000s, increasing their intra-party democ-
racy. The area in which party members’ participation has increased in the
most significant and general way is in the selection of the party leader. Par-
ties that are very different in their ideological leaning are now using open or,
most frequently, closed party primaries (restricted to party members only)
to select the party leader. However, the selection of party candidates, even
the selection of the candidate to the position of Prime Minister, is done
mostly through internal procedures involving different party organs with-
out involving mechanisms of individual members’ participation for most of
the parties. Podemos and Ciudadanos implemented certain modes of pri-
maries, while the PSOE and PP have followed less inclusionary methods
(Jaime-Castillo et al. 2018). Similarly, manifesto and policy drafting remains,
except in very specific cases and occasions, an area with hardly any relevant
or consequential innovation.
Another aspect in which some changes are visible, although they are far
from consolidated and not clearly consequential in terms of the internal
distribution of power, is the adoption by Spanish parties of the multi-speed
membership model (Scarrow 2014), with the creation of different types of
party members. Several Spanish parties have designed membership types
such as ‘friends’, ‘sympathizers’, ‘active members’, or ‘militants’, but these types
have been implemented half-heartedly or are still too recent to analyse their
impacts.
 Spain 233

In this regard, the fragmentation and change of the Spanish party sys-
tem since 2015 has meant changes of relatively modest consequence for
the parties’ organizational models. The rise of Podemos in 2014 certainly
involved very conspicuous innovations including, among others, lower bar-
riers to party membership, many participation procedures for the selection
of party elites and candidates and for manifesto drafting, and the adop-
tion of multiple online procedures for members’ participation (including
internal referendums on political decisions and policy drafting). However,
these important innovations now appear overshadowed by the organiza-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

tional weakening of Podemos, its declining internal participation, the party
splits, the very conflictual internal party culture, and their disputable impact
on members’ commitment and involvement (Gomez and Ramiro 2019).
While all parties make extensive use of social media in their communica-
tions, only Podemos consistently and intensively uses online participatory
tools in party decision-making. However, the democratic quality of these dig-
ital procedures was relatively low; they were top-down and sometimes even
elite-controlled plebiscitary processes (Gerbaudo 2021).
The parties’ weak social roots are to some degree compensated for by
considerably closer party–state links. This closeness can be observed on
two different dimensions. First is the party funding in which, as mentioned
before, state subsidies are of great importance. In short, most Spanish par-
ties are hugely dependent on state subsidies that constitute the larger part
of their income. The second dimension is the ongoing important influ-
ence and intervention of parties in the appointment of the members of
certain constitutional, professional, and administrative organs. However,
some significant changes have diminished the parties–state connections on
these two dimensions. Regarding the first, organizational innovation has
fostered new and significant instruments for party funding by individual
citizens (for example, micro-credits). Moreover, the entry of new chal-
lenger parties into Parliament has made some collusion and cartelization
dynamics more difficult. Regarding the second one, the disappearance of
regional public saving banks (as one of the consequences of the crisis of
the Spanish financial sector during the Great Recession), on which parties
exerted a considerable influence, has reduced some opportunities for party
patronage.
As well as having relatively weak social roots, Spanish parties are mostly
unified and disciplined. In the larger Spanish parties, formal factions do not
exist, and parties’ parliamentary groups behave in a very disciplined way
in comparative terms. This is strengthened by the notable overlap between
the party in central office and the party in public office. However, even if
this image of unified and disciplined parties is still the general pattern, the
234 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

economic and political crises experienced by Spain after the 2008 Great
Recession, the successive party system changes, and the rise of new parties
have somewhat modified this picture. First, the usual intra-party competi-
tion has certainly not generated formal factions as such, but the political
instability meant competitive leadership contests in both the PP and PSOE,
and the latter suffered a particularly conflictual period that included a very
unusual leadership resignation and breaking of party discipline in a key par-
liamentary vote. Second, the new parties—Podemos, Cs, and VOX—have all
experienced serious organizational problems and grave internal conflicts at

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the national, regional, or local level or at all of them, including party splits,
membership defections, and exit from the party of MEPs, local councillors,
and/or regional MPs.14

Conclusions: The Open-ended Change of the Spanish

Parties and Party System

The Spanish parties and party system are experiencing an ongoing and
open-ended period of change. The party system has ceased to respond to
a two-party system model and appears now as a multi-party system. The
2008 Great Recession and its consequences contributed to a change in party
preferences that reduced the support received by the larger centre-left and
centre-right parties. The Spanish party system joined the trend of increasing
fragmentation visible in other West European countries. However, Spanish
party politics have also shown high levels of electoral volatility and instabil-
ity that imply that the current party system format cannot be regarded as
definitive. These changes also include an increase in affective polarization
and the successive rise of electorally strong radical-left and radical-right par-
ties whose support, however, given their relative organizational instability,
cannot be considered stable.
Parties’ organizations have also experienced some significant although
uneven changes. The increase in party democracy or of individual mem-
bers’ involvement in decision-making processes—above all, in party leader
selections—is a change that deserves attention. However, apart from that
change, some other important party characteristics (reliance on state
subsidies, overlap between the party in central office and the party in public
office, and party cohesion) remain unaltered.
Some Spanish parties have implemented new approaches to party orga-
nization and have attempted innovative internal procedures closer to
 Spain 235

multi-speed membership party models or even to digital party models. Above

all, this has certainly been the case with Podemos, but the results seem to be
far away from their original goals or the party rhetoric in that regard. Over-
all, Spanish parties have a comparatively weak membership, and this has not
changed despite the rise of new parties.
The Spanish party system has entered uncharted territory since 2015. The
increased polarization and volatility, the electoral crisis of the larger main-
stream centre-left and centre-right parties and the rise of new parties, the
strengthening of the radical left, the formation of a minority coalition gov-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ernment in 2020 for the first time since the democratic transition, and the
ascent of a radical-right party with a very significant level of electoral support
marked a new era of Spanish party politics. This situation appears far from
consolidated, with these new features generating a conflictual and unstable
political climate.
Looking at Spanish party politics since the democratic transition in the
1970s, the parties seem to have consolidated their central role within the
political system favoured by the institutional rules. However, the parties’
weaknesses already identified at the beginning of the democratic period
(oligarchic trends, weak social roots, dependency on state funding, pub-
lic mistrust) seem to have consolidated as well. While parties are certainly
key for Spanish democracy, these weaknesses might challenge the parties’
responsiveness, and the organizational continuance of at least some of them,
and finally pose problems for the proper working of democracy. Addition-
ally, in party system terms, the new fragmentation, polarization, and electoral
volatility patterns are all features that might pose difficulties in relevant areas
such as government formation and stability. In this way, the party system and
the parties face the challenges affecting Spanish democracy.

Notes
1. The contribution of M. Salvador is part of the research project ‘El estado de partidos:
raíces intelectuales, rupturas y respuestas jurídicas en el contexto europeo’, PID2021-
124531NB-I00.
2. Party systems including different parties, competition patterns, and government forma-
tion dynamics dissimilar to the national party system exist at the regional level.
3. In this chapter, we focus on the nationwide Spanish party system and its main
changes. However, the multi-level nature of Spanish politics includes specific regional
partysystems in many autonomous communities where peripheral nationalist and
regionalist parties are significant actors. Since the mid-2010s, some important changes
have taken place in several of these party systems, and some non-nationwide parties have
236 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

experienced relevant political changes too. The growth of the nationalist mobilization in
Catalonia that climaxed in 2017 is particularly important due, first, to the changes in the
Catalan party system that this process fostered (notably the strengthening of the ERC’s
role and electoral support) but, second, to its influence on some changes at the national
level (the increased but temporary relevance of Cs and the later rise of VOX).
4. Spain has traditionally shown notable levels of political disaffection (Montero et al. 1997)
and anti-party sentiment (Torcal et al. 2002).
5. Spain has a constructive no confidence vote formula that favours government stability.
6. Until then, Spain remained one of the few West European countries where the radical
right was not represented in parliament (Llamazares and Ramiro 2006).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

7. The electoral rise of VOX was certainly spectacular. VOX presents a far-right programme
and rhetoric based on Spanish nationalism, nativism, law and order themes, neoliberal
economic policies, and conservative positions on sociocultural and moral issues; the
party is radical-right rather than extreme-right given that it does not appeal to the use
of violence and does not propose the creation of an authoritarian regime, and populist
tones are not very relevant in its discourse (Ferreira 2019). The party gained 0.2% of the
vote in the 2015 and 2016 elections but grew to 10.3% in the April 2019 elections and
15% in November 2019. The rapid electoral decrease of the centre–right new party Cs
was also remarkable: from 15.9% in April 2019 to 6.8% in November 2019.
8. Unidas Podemos is the name of the coalition between Podemos, IU, and their regional
alliances. In any case, the transformation of the unstable Spanish radical left seems to be,
like the general change of the party system, an ongoing and open-ended process (Plaza-
Colodro and Ramiro 2023).
9. Organic Law 8/2007 on financing of political parties, subsequently reformed by Organic
Law 5/2012; Law 19/2013, on transparency, access to public information, and good gov-
ernance, which establishes some obligations of transparency for parties; and Organic Law
3/2015 on control of the economic-financial activity of parties, which introduces rele-
vant reforms in internal democracy, intensifies regulation of sources of financing, and
reinforces mechanisms of economic-financial control.
10. Art. 9.2, Organic Law 6/2002 on Political Parties.
11. Following these proceedings, Batasuna reorganised itself and attempted to register on
various occasions as a new political organization, but use was made of the legal measures
envisaged to prevent the creation of a party that was the continuation of one that had
already been banned, until an application was finally submitted to register a new party,
Sortu, whose statutes included the objective of contributing to the definitive and complete
disappearance of any kind of violence and terrorism, in particular that of ETA, and in
which the break with the dissolved parties was evident.
12. The legal quota was implemented when there had already been a steady progress in
women’s representation and, especially, left-wing parties had been advancing towards
parity in the preceding years (Verge 2012).
13. In this way, the M/E ratio (membership as a proportion of the electorate) in 2017 was
0.25 for PP, 0.54 for PSOE, 1.32 for Podemos, 0.07 for Cs, and 0.06 for IU (Scarrow et al.
2022).
14. Podemos is a notable case in this regard. Since 2015, it has run general elections through
different regional alliances including, apart from Podemos, different groupings in dif-
ferent regions. The party experienced significant splits in Andalucía and Galicia, and
another more relevant one at national level with the formation of Más País.
 Spain 237

References

Anduiza, Eva, and Guillem Rico. 2022. ‘Sexism and the Far-right Vote: The Individ-
ual Dynamics of Gender Backlash’. American Journal of Political Science. https://
doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12759.
Bermeo, Nancy and Larry Bartels (eds). 2014. Mass Politics in Tough Times: Opinions,
Votes and Protest in the Great Recession. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bastida, Francisco. 2003. ‘Informe sobre el borrador de la LO de partidos políticos’.
Debates Constitucionales, 5:1–23.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Blanco, Roberto. 1990. Los partidos políticos. Madrid: Tecnos.
Casal Bértoa, Fernando. 2022. Database on WHO GOVERNS in Europe and
beyond, PSGO. https://whogoverns.eu/ (Accessed 13 December 2023).
Casal Bértoa, Fernando, Juan Rodríguez Teruel, Oscar Barberà, and Astrid Barrio.
2014. ‘The Carrot and the Stick: Party Regulation and Politics in Democratic
Spain’. South European Society and Politics, 19(1):89–112.
Döring, Holger, Constantin Huber, and Philip Manow. 2022. Parliaments and
Governments Database (ParlGov): Information on Parties, Elections and Cabi-
nets in established Democracies. Development Version. https://www.parlgov.org/
(Accessed 13 December 2023).
Ferreira, Carles. 2019. ‘Vox Como Representante de La Derecha Radical En España:
Un Estudio Sobre Su Ideología’. Revista Española de Ciencia Política, 51:73–98.
Gerbaudo, Paolo. 2021. ‘Are Digital Parties More Democratic than Traditional
Parties? Evaluating Podemos and Movimento 5 Stelle’s Online Decision-making
Platforms’. Party Politics, 27(4):730–742.
Gomez, Raul and Luis Ramiro. 2019. ‘The Limits of Organizational Innovation and
Multi-speed Membership: Podemos and Its New Forms of Party Membership’.
Party Politics, 25(4):534–546.
Gunther, Richard, José Ramón Montero, and Joan Botella. 2004. Democracy in
Modern Spain. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Hernández, Enrique and Hanspeter Kriesi. 2016. ‘The Electoral Consequences of the
Financial Crisis in Europe’. European Journal of Political Research, 55(2):203–224.
Iglesias, Mercedes 2015. ‘La reforma de la financiación de partidos políticos en
España: modelo y antimodelo’. In Carlos Garrido and Eva Sáenz (eds), La reforma
del Estado de partidos. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 87–107.
IDEA. 2022. Voter Turnout Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-
turnout (Accessed 13 December 2023).
Jaime-Castillo, Antonio, Xavier Coller, and Guillermo Cordero. 2018. ‘New Par-
ties and New Ways of Candidate Selection in Spain’. In Xavier Coller, Guillermo
Cordero, and Antonio Jaime-Castillo (eds), The Selection of Politicians in Times of
Crisis. London: Routledge, 226–242.
238 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Llamazares, Iván, and Luis Ramiro. 2006. ‘Les espaces politiques restreints de la
droite radicale espagnole’. Pole Sud, 25:137–152.
Medina, Lucía. 2015. From Recession to Long-lasting Political Crisis? Continuities
and Changes in Spanish Politics in Times of Crisis and Austerity. Barcelona: Insti-
tut de Ciènces Polítiques i Socials. https://www.icps.cat/archivos/Workingpapers/
wp334.pdf ?noga=1 (Accessed 13 December 2023).
Montero, José Ramón, Richard Gunther, and Mariano Torcal. 1997. ‘Democ-
racy in Spain: Legitimacy, Discontent and Disaffection’. Studies in Comparative
International Development, 32:124–160.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Montilla, José Antonio. 2003. ‘A lgunos cambios en la concepción de los partidos.
Comentario a la STC 48/2003, sobre la LO 6/2002 de partidos políticos’. Teoría y
Realidad Constitucional, 12–13:559–586.
Morodo, Raúl and Pablo Lucas. 2001. El ordenamiento constitucional de los partidos
políticos. México: UNAM.
Orriols, Lluis and Guillermo Cordero. 2016. ‘The Breakdown of the Spanish Two-
party System: The Upsurge of Podemos and Ciudadanos in the 2015 General
Election’. South European Society and Politics, 21(4):469–492.
Orriols, Lluis and Sandra León. 2021. ‘Looking for Affective Polarisation in Spain:
PSOE and Podemos from Conflict to Coalition’. South European Society and
Politics, 25(3–4):351–379.
Pajares, Emilio. 1998. La financiación de las elecciones. Madrid: Congreso de los
Diputados.
Plaza-Colodro, Carolina and Luis Ramiro. 2023. ‘Spain’. In Fabien Escalona, Daniel
Keith, and Luke March (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Radical Left Parties in
Europe. London: Palgrave, 481–513.
Ramiro, Luis and Laura Morales. 2004. ‘Latecomers but “Early-adapters”. The
Adaptation and Response of Spanish Parties to Social Changes’. In Kay Lawson
and Thomas Poguntke (eds), How Political Parties Respond. London: Routledge,
198–226.
Ramiro, Luis and Laura Morales. 2010. ‘Spanish Parties and Democracy: Weak
Party–Society Linkage and Intense Party–State Symbiosis’. In Kay Lawson (ed.),
Political Parties and Democracy, vol. 2. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 71–95.
Salvador, María. 2021. Partidos políticos. El estatuto constitucional de los partidos y
su desarrollo legal. Madrid: Marcial Pons.
Sánchez, Óscar. 2013. ‘La financiación de los partidos políticos en España: ideas para
un debate’. Revista Española de Derecho Constitucional, 99:161–200.
Scarrow, Susan. 2014. Beyond Party Members: Changing Approaches to Partisan
Mobilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Spain 239

Scarrow, Susan E., Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke. 2022. ‘Intra-party Decision-
making in Contemporary Europe: Improving Representation or Ruling with
Empty Shells?’ Irish Political Studies, 37(2):196–217.
Simón, Pablo. 2016. ‘The Challenges of the New Spanish Multipartism: Government
Formation Failure and the 2016 General Election’. South European Society and
Politics, 21(4):493–517.
Tajadura, Javier. 2004. Partidos políticos y constitución. Un estudio de la LO 6/2002,
de partidos políticos y de la STC 48/2003. Madrid: Civitas.
Torcal, Mariano, Richard Gunther, and José Ramón Montero. 2002. ‘Anti-party Sen-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

timents in Southern Europe’. In Richard Gunther, José Ramón Montero, and Juán
J. Linz (eds), Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Turnbull-Dugarte, Stuart. 2019. ‘Explaining the End of Spanish Exceptionalism and
Electoral Support for VOX’. Research & Politics, 6(2):1–8.
Turnbull-Dugarte, Stuart, José Rama, and Andrés Santana. 2020. ‘The Baskerville’s
Dog Suddenly Started Barking: Voting for VOX in the 2019 Spanish General Elec-
tions’. Political Research Exchange, 2(1):1 https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2020.
1781543.
Vidal, Guillem. 2018. ‘Challenging Business as Usual? The Rise of New Parties in
Spain in Times of Crisis’. West European Politics, 41(2):261–286.
Verge, Tània. 2012. ‘Institutionalizing Gender Equality in Spain: From Party Quotas
to Electoral Gender Quotas’. West European Politics, 35(2):395–414.
12
Party Organizational Development
in Poland, 2001–2021
The Cases of Law and Justice (PiS) and Civic
Platform (PO)

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Wojciech Gagatek

Introduction

The year 2021 marked the 30th anniversary of the first democratic par-
ties in Poland, which had contested the first fully democratic parliamentary
election in 1991. After 45 years of communist centralism and authoritari-
anism, the democratic transformation was expected to stop public apathy,
reduce mistrust of politicians, and increase public activism. However, it was
soon clear that building a functioning democracy with parties competing for
votes based on different programmes would be more difficult than expected.
Since 1991, voter turnout in Poland’s national elections has oscillated around
40–50% (only recently exceeding 60%), and party membership has been
among the lowest in Europe at approximately 1% of the electorate.
Such a picture was presented in the academic literature dating back to the
1990s, when Poland was portrayed as an extremely unstable party system
coupled with feeble party organization (Mair 1996; Millard 2009b). How-
ever, since the early 2000s, the party system has stabilized, the number of
effective parties has decreased, and the number of major parties has remained
(roughly) the same (Walecka 2018). Usual explanations indicate the impact of
electoral rules (most notably, a 5% electoral threshold) and the introduction
of public financing of political parties in 1997, the full effects of which had
been felt since the 2000s (Casal Bértoa and Walecki 2017). While the party
system stabilized and parties received stable public financing, by the 2010s

This work was supported by the Polish National Science Centre (NCN), grant number 2017/26/M/
HS5/00824. The manuscript was finalized by mid-2023.

Wojciech Gagatek, Party Organizational Development in Poland, 2001–2021. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Wojciech Gagatek (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0012
 Party Organizational Development in Poland, 2001–2021 241

Poland was commonly portrayed in various rankings and analyses as a model

example of a fully fledged democracy, thanks to stable political institutions
and a good economic situation. Thereafter—somewhat surprisingly—since
the Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power in 2015, the country has wit-
nessed dramatic democratic backsliding, with the result that it is no longer
classified as a full democracy (Hellmeier et al. 2021), and the level of political
polarization, commonly portrayed as top-down political strategy by PiS, has
increased significantly (Tworzecki 2019).
Based on this perspective, while both the intentions and actions of the PiS

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

government seem to be clear, one may wonder what kind of party organi-
zation PiS is. Long-standing arguments in the literature highlight that the
condition of parties as organizations indicates the health of a democratic sys-
tem. However, can we surmise that the way PiS has structured Polish politics
since 2015 reflects its internal organization? Alternatively, is the vision of
democracy that this party is implementing in Poland reflective of its internal
democracy?
In order to place this question in a broader context, it needs to be noted that
research identifies two simultaneous tendencies to explain the recent organi-
zational development of political parties. On the one hand, because of falling
membership figures (Mair et al. 2012), the model of party activism is evolving
(Biezen and Poguntke 2014). Some parties try to retain members by increas-
ing intra-party democracy (Bolin et al. 2017) and by experimenting with
different types of less formal affiliations (Scarrow 2015). This process occurs
despite the fact that in most European countries parties are now directly
subsidized from state budgets (Biezen and Kopecký 2014). On the other
hand, together with the presidentialization of politics in general (Poguntke
and Webb 2007; Elgie and Passarelli 2020), we also observe the presiden-
tialization of political parties (Passarelli 2015) and a general empowerment
of party leaders. So, theoretically, greater intra-party democracy does not
exclude strengthening the role of leaders, particularly when they benefit from
being directly elected by party members. Passarelli argues that the level
of party presidentialization is affected by constitutional structures and, fol-
lowing Panebianco (1988), by the genetic characteristics of parties. I follow
this perspective, but the key point in which I extend the above approach is
based on including into an analysis not only the constitutional structures but
also a constitutional vision, that is, the view of the preferred shape of the
political system that individual parties have and its potential reflection in
party organization. Therefore, a comparative approach is required to focus
on the question of how similar or different the Polish political parties are.
242 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Additionally, we must examine how stable their organizational structures

have been since their establishment.
This study is based on a combination of primary and secondary sources.
First, we will present an overview of Polish party politics since the beginning
of Poland’s democratic transformation, moving on to case selection. Second,
a quick overview of the legal and regulatory framework that regulates party
activities will be presented. Third, based on the analysis of party statutes, I
will present the organizational development of two major political parties in
today’s Poland, namely PiS and PO. Finally, this picture will be illustrated by

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the results of various studies and press coverage on the practices of internal
democracy and the role of members in Polish parties.

General Information on Polish Party Politics

When democratic transformation began in Poland in 1989, the country was

divided into two large camps. The first comprised the communist party
(PZPR) and its two so-called satellite parties, agrarian ZSL and another small
party, SD, designed as a representation of the so-called intelligentsia. The sec-
ond was a united block of all major democratic forces that had not yet formed
a party. Only in 1990 were the first democratic parties created, as the divisions
within the democratic camp proved too strong (Millard 2009a). After that,
parties mushroomed, reaching about 1,000 registered entities. Party labels
were constantly changing, which meant that a fresh set of parties was con-
testing every subsequent election, and the lack of any electoral threshold
resulted in an extreme level of party fragmentation. The post-communist
party organizations proved much more durable; after changing their names
in 1990, their organizations have survived until today. The PZPR became
the Social Democratic Party of Poland (SdRP, later SLD, and most recently
the New Left) and the agrarian ZSL became the Polish People’s Party (PSL).
In 1993, a 5% nationwide electoral threshold was introduced, which sig-
nificantly decreased party fragmentation in parliament. The party system
stabilized in the early 2000s, when the liberal Civic Platform (PO) and con-
servative Law and Justice (PiS) parties were formed. Since 2001, PiS, PO,
SLD, and PSL (regardless of the fact that they sometimes formed a coalition
with some smaller parties) together received on average 82% of the vote and
88.8% of seats in the lower house of parliament (Sejm). However, the period
after 2005 marks yet another development, when the SLD lost its relevance
and two newer parties rooted in the anti-communist opposition began their
dominance of the electoral process, which is most visible at the level of seats
 Party Organizational Development in Poland, 2001–2021 243

Table 12.1 Key indicators of the format of the party system in Poland, 1991–2019

Indicators/Election 1991 1993 1997 2001 2005 2007 2011 2015 2019
year

Turnout (% of 43.2 52.08 47.93 46.18 40.57 53.88 48.92 50.92 61.74
active voters)
ENEP 11.62 9.58 4.55 4.45 5.64 3.24 3.68 4.39 3.35
ENPP 10.80 3.88 2.95 4.04 4.26 2.87 3.00 2.75 2.83
Volatility N/A 28.9 19.30 35.20 34.00 23.70 7.70 29.70 7.40
Sum of two biggest 24.31 35.81 60.96 53.72 51.13 73.62 69.07 61.67 70.99

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

parties (votes, %)
Sum of two biggest 26.52 65.87 79.35 61.09 61.96 81.52 79.13 81.09 80.22
parties (seats, %)
Biggest to second 1.03 1.32 1.25 3.24 1.12 1.29 1.31 1.56 1.59
party ratio (votes)
Biggest to second 1.03 1.29 1.22 3.32 1.14 1.26 1.32 1.70 1.75
party ratio (seats)

Note: ENEP—Effective Number of Electoral Parties; ENPP—Effective Number of Parliamentary

Parties; Volatility as the total volatility; Turnout as share of all registered voters
Source: Markowski (2020), Parliaments and governments database (ParlGov: Döring et al. 2022),
Database on WHO Governs in Europe and beyond, PSGO (Casal Bértoa 2022), Voter Turnout Database
(IDEA 2022)

in the parliament. PiS governed from 2005 to 2007 (in coalition with two
junior radical partners), and then, after 2015, in coalition with a group of dif-
ferent parties running for parliament on PiS’s ballot; PO, with PSL as a junior
coalition partner, governed from 2007 to 2015. Table 12.1 presents standard
indicators of the party system in Poland since 1991, documenting its overall
stabilization and consolidation.

Party Competition and Political Organization

But what Table 12.1 does not reveal is that the agendas of PiS and PO have
strongly dominated political competition since 2005, and although nominally
they would be categorized as (centre) right, the ideological distance between
them has always been significant (Kwiatkowska et al. 2016). One can easily
notice this by inspecting various databases and expert surveys, such as the
Chapel Hill Expert Survey or the Comparative Manifesto Project, alongside
the party programmes. For this chapter—and with some simplification—it
suffices to say that, on the one hand, there is PiS, with its emphasis on social
spending and redistribution in the economic field; traditional, conservative
views on moral issues; soft Euro-scepticism regarding European integration;
244 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

and a negative view on the general record of democratic transformation in

Poland. On the other hand, there is PO, with its liberal economic orthodoxy
of a ‘small’ state; progressive views on moral issues; pro-EU attitudes; and
a more positive overall evaluation of the Polish democratic transformation.
Around 2005, a metaphor of a competition between ‘solidary’ (PiS) and ‘lib-
eral’ (PO) Poland was commonly used—the term liberal being pejoratively
associated with the Polish political context. However, later—and definitely
since the 2015 general election when PiS took all executive power—the pat-
terns of political competition extended to the general nature of the political

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

system, including the practice of checks and balance, the rule of law, the inde-
pendence of the Constitutional Court and the judiciary, and the freedom of
the media, among other factors.
However, what is particularly important from the perspective of this
chapter concerns certain elements of the constitutional vision of the political
system cherished by PiS, which can be reconstructed based on its programme
(PiS 2005; 2014) and interviews with Jarosław Kaczyński (Rzeczpospolita
2013). PiS has always emphasized the preponderance of the state central
apparatus in all spheres of political, economic, cultural, and social activities;
all other actors, such as regional and local governments or NGOs, have to play
second fiddle. Regarding the division of power, PiS never favoured the pow-
erful role of the Constitutional Tribunal as a sort of veto player. They argued
that it is not a healthy situation when—replicating their jargon—a few judges
can overturn the will of the people reflected in the election results. The con-
cept of ‘impossibilism’ was coined to characterize the situation of an elected
government that cannot execute its programme because of the role of veto
players. In other words, once people support a certain political programme,
no other institution should interfere in its implementation and execution.
Hence, PiS strongly criticized the 1997 Constitution, and in its 2010 pro-
posal for a new constitution, it wanted to significantly strengthen the role
of the President and, in practice, limit the Montesquieu separation of pow-
ers by increasing the supervision of the judiciary by the executive (PiS 2010).
Since 2015 (Maatsch 2021), the parliament is fully subordinate to the gov-
ernment: legislative bills must be fast-tracked and adopted with little or no
debate—virtually overnight, with no amendments or consultation with stake-
holders except, perhaps, those that are close to the government. If, despite
commanding an overall majority in the parliament, PiS loses an important
vote, then the ballot is repeated by using a procedural trick. The same applies
to a parliamentary group and ministers. In a much-quoted pre-national elec-
tion interview in 2013, when asked who would be in his government if PiS
wins, Kaczyński did not reveal the names but said: ‘not everyone will be a
 Party Organizational Development in Poland, 2001–2021 245

genius, not everyone particularly talented, but they have to be disciplined,

honest and know what they want to achieve’ (Rzeczpospolita 2013).
Although PO was established by politicians, it has always emphasized its
civic, deregulatory, and decentralizing vision of the role of the state: its belief
that things get done better at the lowest possible level and that it is bet-
ter to empower individual citizens at the cost of political parties. The party
strongly backed the proposal that led to direct election of mayors in cities,
towns, and villages (in force since 2002); a few years later, it suggested direct
election of regional presidents (marszałek), but this proposal was not passed.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

At that time, the party strongly promoted the introduction of the majoritar-
ian, first-past-the-post electoral system for both national and local elections.
In its rhetoric, it often used metaphors such as ‘let’s activate the energy of
the Poles’. It has unequivocally supported the 1997 Constitution and, unlike
PiS, never questioned the major contours of the political system (PO 2007).
Needless to say, since 2015 PO has strongly criticized the constitutional and
parliamentary practices of PiS.
All these factors led me to select PO and PiS for further analysis. Unlike
SLD and PSL, PO and PiS were established in the same year, when both
the new Constitution and the new party law were adopted (see the follow-
ing discussion). Therefore, they were subject to the same (potential) impact
of the political and regulatory environment that influences party activi-
ties. To date, they have had comparable membership rolls and budgets (see
Table 12.2). They have had similar governing experience: from 2005–2021,
the two parties governed and remained in the opposition for eight years each.
Additionally, both faced electoral defeats that removed them from office.

Table 12.2 Membership figures and party finances in the four largest Polish political
parties

PiS PO PSL SLD

Membership roll (2018) 33,500 37,409 100,320 33,554

National party income (in Polish 22,540,879 17,541,176 7,720,336 6,168,769
zloty, in 2017)
Share of total party income from 3.8% 5.2% 28% 8%
individual member donations
Part of total party income from 82% 88% 58% 70%
direct public subsidies
Election expenditure (in Polish 30,029,081 30,220,938 8,468,107 9,641,495
zloty, 2019)

Source: author’s own work regarding collection of membership data; the official election reports by the
Polish Election Committee for other items in the table: www.pkw.gov.pl (Accessed 15 December 2023)
246 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Therefore, juxtaposing PiS and PO, we can ‘control’ the impact of party age,
membership numbers, financial resources, and governing experience. What
clearly emerge as principal differences are their ideologies and origins as
far as personal history is concerned—the impact of this is difficult to show
but worth investigating. Overall, we could argue that these two are the most
similar cases of parties that could be selected.
I will begin the empirical part of this study conventionally, with party
statutes. Analysing the organizational development of the parties, I will high-
light their main differences, which will be contextualized in the subsequent

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

section by reconstructing the narrative that the parties use when referring
to internal democracy and the role of members. However, first let me briefly
explain the legal and financial settings in which political parties operate in
Poland.

The Constitution and Party Law

The current legal framework to regulate party activities dates back to

1997. First, the Constitution adopted that year—and in force ever since—
confirmed several principles that had been governing the functioning of
political parties since the beginning of the democratic transformation; polit-
ical parties appear in the Constitution in four instances. First, it ensures that
the creation and functioning of political parties are based on the princi-
ple of freedom and equality, that parties are voluntary organizations based
on the membership of Polish citizens, and that they are transparent in
their financing (‘the financing of political parties shall be open to pub-
lic inspection’), while their goals shall be achieved by democratic means
(Art. 11 of the Constitution). Second—and in the latter context—Article 13
lists criteria for banning certain types of parties, and it is worth quoting in
full:

Political parties and other organizations whose programmes are based upon total-
itarian methods and the modes of activity of Nazism, fascism, and communism, as
well as those whose programmes or activities sanction racial or national hatred,
the application of violence for the purpose of obtaining power or to influence the
State policy, or provide for the secrecy of their own structure or membership, shall
be prohibited. (The Constitution of the Republic of Poland 1997)

Third, the competence to adjudicate whether the purposes and activities of

political parties conform to the Constitution is vested in the Constitutional
 Party Organizational Development in Poland, 2001–2021 247

Tribunal (Art. 188, Para. 4 of the Constitution). Finally, the power of

nomination of candidates to become Members of Parliament is granted to
political parties and voters (Art. 100, para. 1). No other elements of the func-
tioning and activities of political parties are regulated, and the above rules
were not amended since the adoption of the Constitution. They have also
caused little controversy in constitutional practice.
In the same year, 1997, the new party law was adopted; like the Con-
stitution, it has been in force ever since, though with a few amendments
(Sejm 1997). This law introduced direct subsidies to those parties that

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

received at least 3% of the vote in the last parliamentary elections, or 5%
in the case of coalitions. As far as party organization is concerned, Arti-
cle 8 of the party law rules that parties ‘shape their structure and rules of
work according to the principles of democracy, in particular by ensuring
the transparency of these structures, appointing party bodies through elec-
tions, and taking decisions by majority of votes’. The law specifies areas of
party activities that must be regulated in party statutes, including the rights
and obligations of members and the procedure for selecting the governing
bodies of the party; at least 1,000 people must support a motion for reg-
istration. The registrar court examines whether the motion for registration
and, in particular, party statutes, conform to the conditions stipulated in the
party law and in the Constitution. Later, I will discuss how such inspection
can interfere with the freedom of establishment of parties by using the PO
example.

The Origins of PiS and PO Party Organizations

The year 2001 saw a spectacular electoral failure of the broad-church post-
solidarity government of the right-wing Electoral Action of Solidarity (AWS)
and the liberal Union for Freedom (UW) that governed from 1997 to 2001;
the post-communist SLD won and governed (in coalition with PSL) from
2001 to 2005. In the same election, PO and PiS contested for the first time,
attaining 12.68% and 9.50% of the vote share, respectively.
PiS, established in 2001, capitalized on the popularity and authority of
Jarosław Kaczyński’s twin brother, Lech, as justice minister in the AWS-
UW government (2000–2001). In the popular imagination, the party and its
leader were inseparable. Lech was the first chair of the party (2001–2003);
after he was elected as Mayor of Warsaw in 2002, his brother Jarosław took
over as party chair and has remained in that role until the time of writ-
ing. However, during the eight years of PiS government, Jarosław Kaczyński
248 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

served as Prime Minister for only one year, favouring the position of party
leader on whom the Prime Ministers from PiS are strongly dependent.
Three politicians—referred to as the three tenors—with significant politi-
cal experience in government and party politics established PO in 2001. Most
party members were drawn from a split in the UW, and others were remnants
of the AWS. The criticism of their former party organizations (portrayed
using oligarchical metaphors and an inability to enthuse members) formed
the basis for a new movement. The term ‘party’ was avoided in its name, and
the organization pictured itself as a (civic) movement that would not only

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

propose different policies but also organize differently—that is, in a less hier-
archical and more deregulated manner, allowing members a greater say in
party activities. Gradually, one of the ‘tenors’, Donald Tusk, marginalized the
other two and became a powerful party leader, serving as Prime Minister
from 2007 until 2014.
I will later discuss the organizational development of PiS and PO from
2001 until 2021, first by analysing their statutes and internal rules, then by
reconstructing the narrative that party leaders used regarding party organi-
zation and, especially, the roles and rights of members.

Law and Justice (PiS)

A reading of the statutes of PiS adopted in 2001 reveals that it was an

extremely centralized and hierarchical party. Local and regional party orga-
nizations were subordinated to national organs; the latter could suspend or
replace the former. In most important matters, decisions of the regional exec-
utives needed a 2/3 majority, failing which, the matter was decided by the
national executive. Another example of this centralism concerned the youth
section of the party, whose leaders, both at the national and regional levels,
were nominated by the party executive on the motion of the party leader, not
by the members of the youth section.
Although party congress remained the most important body, the centre of
attention in party statutes comprised the leader and the main, small executive
organ (Zarząd Główny) including the party chair, vice-chairs, and the leader
of the parliamentary group. A common phrase in party statutes was ‘on the
motion of the party chair’, revealing their dominant role in major party deci-
sions. Zarząd Główny played a crucial role in candidate selection, defining
the procedure, and taking the final decision on the candidate list. Similarly,
the regional executive organized and took a decision on candidate lists in
regional and local elections (with local party branches only giving an opinion
 Party Organizational Development in Poland, 2001–2021 249

on the already completed list of candidates) and suggested candidates for

national elections to the Zarząd Główny.
Membership applications were accepted by the regional executive, not
the local party branch. Apart from their membership application being
supported by two existing members, applicants had to fill in a personal infor-
mation form, after which they could be accepted as probationary members
for a period of one year. One of the national executive organs, the Polit-
ical Committee, could veto the decision of the regional executive on the
acceptance of membership applications.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Although the list of members’ rights seemed conventional—with the excep-
tion that the party would help those who were oppressed because of their
membership of PiS—the list of obligations was much more demanding. This
suggests that the party expected active, loyal, and engaged members with
unquestionable moral and ethical credentials. Therefore, considerable space
was devoted in the statutes to sanctions and disciplinary procedures in case
of the violation of obligations.
PiS transformed its internal organization considerably after losing the 2007
election by making it slightly less hierarchical and centralized. The Zarząd
Główny was dissolved and its powers given to a broader executive organ
(the Political Committee) comprising both ex-officio and elected members.
The competence to elect party vice-chairs or treasurers—still on a motion
of the party chair—was attributed to a broad intermediary legislative organ
(the Political Council), whose members were elected by the congress. A larger
consultative role was also given to regional party chairs and regional execu-
tive organs by giving them the right to select candidates for regional elections.
The leader received the sole power to present the list of candidates in all types
of election for the approval of the Political Committee, with the regional
party structures being able to express their non-binding opinion. Overall,
compared to the earlier period, this was still a centralized party—both ver-
tically and horizontally—and strongly centred on the leader; however, the
decision-making system now included a wider set of inclusive organs.
Equally important is the noticeable attempt to loosen the party’s restric-
tive membership criteria. The newly adopted party statutes did not mention
any probationary period; support of two existing members to submit a mem-
bership application was not required (although, in practice, the membership
application had to be sponsored by two existing members); and the decision
on accepting an application, while still taken by the local executive, could not
be vetoed by central party organs. However, as before, the party listed a long
and extensive catalogue of obligations and gave strong disciplinary functions
to the national executive organs.
250 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Civic Platform (PO)

PO presents an entirely different case. One inspiration for the emergence of

this party was its criticism of conventional party politics and the pitfalls of
Polish parties of the 1990s. Its first statutes adopted in 2001 contained two
revolutionary proposals.
First, instead of a congress, the most important party organ was a parlia-
mentary group of the party and its presidium. The group not only adopted
the party statutes and political programme but also selected the party chair,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

vice-chairs, and other positions of influence within the party from among
members of the group. The only organ that was not composed of group mem-
bers was the national convention, tasked with establishing party values and
adopting an election platform. The parliamentary group was adopting candi-
date selection procedures for all types of elections. The group presidium was
competent to interpret the statutes and decide on membership fees. The party
was based on strong independence of regional and local structures, while
still dominated by elected representatives. For example, the regional leader
was a PO member with the highest regional vote share. The acceptance of
membership bids was the prerogative of a branch chair. Second, PO wrote
in its statutes that candidate selection would be based on closed primaries in
which all members would participate equally. This is how the party selected
its candidates, but only for the election in 2001.
However, the registrar court rejected the party statutes on the grounds
of not fulfilling the criteria set in the 1997 party law. The most impor-
tant reservation was that in the court’s opinion, the party law excluded
a situation in which the most important party organ, capable of adopt-
ing statutes and deciding on party termination, was not a delegate-based
representation of all members. For this reason, PO had to place these com-
petences with the national convention. A party must also have a represen-
tative organ in between the congresses; hence, the decision to establish the
National Council (Rada Krajowa). Given that there were controversies about
how the party primaries were organized in 2001 (as discussed later in the
chapter), they removed this mode of candidate selection from the statutes,
and instead, the rules on candidate selection were attributed to the National
Council.
Since the mid-2000s, compared to PiS, PO was still a case of a much more
decentralized party, with a clear division of competences between different
territorial levels of party structure. The internal structure created at the begin-
ning of the party’s history has remained unchanged since the early 2000s,
as characterized earlier in this section. The same applies to the rights and
 Party Organizational Development in Poland, 2001–2021 251

obligations of members, with a small exception worth mentioning: the new

rules specify that the right to participate in internal elections begins only
six months after joining the party. This rule was introduced to prevent a sit-
uation typical for PO in its early years, when boosting membership figures
in a region just before party congress was a means to increase the number of
congress delegates attributed to that region.
Although party primaries were no longer held to select candidates for leg-
islative elections, the party introduced them in two cases: when selecting a
candidate for the office of President of Poland (for the first time in 2009) and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

when electing the leader of the party (2013). The rules of these primaries
are not stipulated in the statutes but were adopted by the party Board. As far
as the selection of candidates for national elections is concerned, it is based
on a bottom-up process, in which the regional legislative organ of the party
submits candidates for the approval of the National Council of the PO. In
special cases, the Board, on the motion of the party chair and under an abso-
lute majority of Board members, may alter the choice of candidates made by
the National Council.
Overall, in the initial period, both parties started with completely different
visions regarding party organization. In the case of PO, the registrar court
crushed this vision, and in the case of PiS, the level of centralization was
only slightly reduced because of an electoral defeat. However, do these parties
really need members, and how do they attract them?

The Role of Party Members in PiS

It is common to emphasize the positive role of inclusive and active member-

ship for effective social engagement; much less common is acknowledging
the costs and risks associated with members. However, the latter perspec-
tive is necessary to understand the vision for and role of members in PiS.
In a 2001 interview (Gazeta Wyborcza 2001c), Jarosław Kaczyński argued
that post-Solidarity parties of the 1990s expanded excessively by inviting
too many members of dubious quality that later led to their decomposi-
tion. To avoid this mistake, Kaczyński declared that PiS would carefully
verify the application of every potential candidate. Hence, the references to
building a cadre-based party were understood by Kaczyński in this man-
ner. The plan was to open the party for membership at a later stage but to
remain quite selective. From this perspective, while it would be far-fetched
to argue that members were a necessary evil, it is fair to say that PiS was not
enthusiastic about rhetoric that would emphasize their extremely positive
252 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

role. The success of the party had to lie elsewhere—in the ability to have a
smaller, reliable, and tightly controlled membership. To be included on a
candidate list in the 2001 national elections, members had to be thoroughly
cross-checked (Gazeta Wyborcza 2001b, 2001d).
In subsequent years, it became clear that the national leader tightly con-
trolled the party, being surrounded by a small group of the most reliable
members that stood with Kaczyński from the early 1990s. Only the chair
could submit candidacies for major positions of influence, including regional
leaders, and the regional congress of the party could only accept or reject

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

them, without the right to suggest another. No candidate suggested by
Kaczyński was ever rejected. Only in 2009 did party statutes include the pos-
sibility that party chairs in boroughs did not need to be suggested by the
regional leader but could be proposed by branch members. However, this
change did not weaken Kaczyński and his sole competence in suggesting
candidates for regional leaders. These changes were meant to attract new
members. One of the closest advisors to Kaczyński, Adam Bielan, declared
this explicitly by saying, ‘[t]he largest number of membership applications
are submitted to the party while in government, but the most precious are
those that are sent when the party is in opposition’ (Gazeta Wyborcza 2009).
He added that the party needed members for a better selection of potential
candidates for local and regional elections (in 2010 PiS submitted 32 000 can-
didates in these elections) and to draw greater revenue from dues, as at that
moment PO was discussing the possibility of scrapping public funding for
political parties. More recent data revealed in the study by Jacuński et al.
(2021) confirmed that Kaczyński repetitively encouraged local branches to
expand their membership base.
Until 2015, despite repeated election losses, when the party witnessed
splits, Kaczyński could still rely on the loyalty of the most trusted collabo-
rators that ensured his prolonged tenure as the party leader. Since the 2015
victory, he has not become Prime Minister and has focused on running the
party and parliamentary activities. During this period, the issue of organi-
zation of party membership emerged only rarely, and that too, in a negative
light. The PiS, especially, gained notoriety not only for curtailing democracy,
the rule of law, and media freedom, but also for a high level of clientelism,
patronage, politicization, and nepotism of state-owned companies, central
state administration, and the like, whereby either PiS members or their fam-
ilies received various economic benefits or influential positions. PiS officially
admitted this in the declaration adopted during its 2021 congress (PiS 2021),
and which Kaczyński described in his congress speech as a potential cause of
failure in the next election (Rzeczpospolita 2021).
 Party Organizational Development in Poland, 2001–2021 253

Party Members in PO

As depicted above, in their initial statutes, PO and PiS stood at completely

different poles. In fact, the entrepreneurial spirit characteristic of the party
programme was also reflected in the party organization. Tusk declared at the
first convention of PO in 2001 that ‘we are not against democracy, and hence
we are not against political parties, but we are against such political parties’.1
However, the experiment with organizing party primaries was only partially
successful. The event took place outdoors in an atmosphere reminiscent of

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

a barbecue party. An impressive figure of 187,000 citizens signed a mem-
bership declaration (though at that time PO was not formally formed as a
party), but only 69,000 took part in primaries. The biggest problem was that
in some places candidates brought ‘busloads’ of supporters to achieve nom-
ination (Gazeta Wyborcza 2001a). For this reason, in some constituencies,
the party leaders had to cancel the result or alter the order of the candi-
dates. In subsequent years, the new party suffered throughout the country
from a well-known tendency that in Polish political language is called ‘pump-
ing the branches’. The method is very simple: before internal elections, local
or regional leaders do everything they can to bring in as many member-
ship applications as possible, as this directly translates into the number of
delegates in party organs such as the national convention or the congress.
This was possible because the statutes gave the right to accept a member-
ship application to a branch chair. However, as the national leadership of
the time admitted, once these newly arrived members did their job, that is,
voted in branch elections, they usually became passive (Gazeta Wyborcza
2010c). Sometimes, their membership applications were faked, leading to
the disbandment of all local party structures (Gazeta Wyborcza 2011). In
these circumstances, PO was hesitant to run any special campaign to bring
more members to the party but still tried to audit its membership to exclude
such practices. A proposal considered in 2013 but not implemented was to
introduce probationary periods for new members and the need to have a rec-
ommendation from an existing member (Gazeta Wyborcza 2013c). What the
party did add to its statutes in 2013, however, was the requirement that each
candidate should present himself or herself during a meeting of the party
branch, which was meant to limit the risk of admitting a non-existent per-
son. Overall, about half of PO members do not pay membership dues and
are thus excluded from direct elections and primaries, which translates into
an average turnout of 45–50% (Gazeta Wyborcza 2010b, 2019).
When, after the changes ordered by the registrar court (see previous discus-
sion), the organization of the party remained unchanged until 2006 despite
254 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

two lost elections (presidential and parliamentary), an internal opposition

arose against Donald Tusk and his ‘authoritarian’ leadership. Not only did
Tusk remove his critics from the party (the Board agreed that these mem-
bers acted against the party’s interests), but he also managed to centralize
some aspects of its functioning, such as candidate selection, which became
less inclusive, and the Board was given the competence to expel members
without the right to appeal to a peers’ court. Later, in 2010, Tusk strength-
ened his statutory role as party leader (e.g. by receiving the sole prerogative
to nominate party vice-chairs) in order to quell internal opposition (Gazeta

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Wyborcza 2010a). However, at the same time, the party supported a motion
to organize primaries for candidates in presidential and mayoral elections,
subject to approval by the delegates’ assembly, and, since 2013, direct elec-
tions to the party chair. At that moment, Tusk was confident that he could
bypass the internal, middle-level opposition, capitalizing on the low level of
party support in the opinion polls, by directly calling on individual mem-
bers. Although the internal campaign before these primaries was planned for
almost a year, Tusk reduced it to six months, as internal divisions and fac-
tional divides were one of the major headlines in the news, thus undermining
the public image of the party. Tusk won convincingly against another candi-
date and, drawing on his direct mandate, ruled the party with a firm grip,
marginalizing his internal opponents first in the regional and then in the
national party organization. ‘Party leadership must be singular, not plural’,
he said at the time (Gazeta Wyborcza 2013a, 2013b). However, when Tusk
was elected President of the European Council in 2014 and resigned from
the party leadership, the leader of his former internal opposition was elected
party chair. To keep the party united and allow greater control over various
factions, in 2017 it introduced direct elections for regional and county chairs
and members of the regional and county delegate assemblies, and it increased
the number of national Board members elected by the National Council, thus
limiting the power of the party leader (Gazeta Wyborcza 2017).
Regardless of their different origins and histories, scholars argue that Pol-
ish parties are quite similar to each other both with regard to campaign
patterns and communication strategies (Cwalina and Drzewiecka 2019;
Jacuński et al. 2021). This way, while progressive professionalization is visible
over the years, what is common are the leader-oriented, centralized, rather
repetitive and reactive campaigns led by party leaderships (rather than cam-
paign professionals) who pay considerable attention to opinion polls, focus-
ing on external audiences through media presence. Cwalina and Drzewiecka
(2019) argue that during the 2015 election campaign PiS mobilized better
than PO on the internet. Still, in both parties, internal communication with
 Party Organizational Development in Poland, 2001–2021 255

party members plays little or no role. Jacuński et al. (2021) argue that from
this perspective PiS and PO are alike. Based on the 2018 survey of party mem-
bers, these authors showed that when parties ask members for help, they
mostly need it to help collect signatures to support the registration of the
list of candidates for elections (more than a quarter of all cases), but they
hardly ever put their input into the programmatic work and rarely get in
touch directly with voters (Jacuński et al. 2021). Recent studies (Jacuński
et al. 2021; Wincławska et al. 2021) revealed that PiS members are united
in their overall positive view of the role they play within the party, whereas

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

PO members are much more divided and critical. It is worth mentioning that
Kaczyński was hesitant to allow researchers to survey members of his party,
and in the end did not let them send a survey to all members; instead, they
had to distribute it by themselves during local party meetings. In this light, it
will not be a surprise to learn that last congress of PiS was also, for most part,
closed to the public.

Conclusions

Based on the above analysis, we can conclude the following. First, in terms
of the organizational development of political parties, the case of PiS shows
a strong overall level of continuity in organizational choices. Although the
party slightly decentralized after the electoral defeat in 2007 and then con-
tinued in this manner until today, it has kept its overall organizational logic
constant. This is an extremely centralized party organization, with national
levels dominating regional levels, a powerful role of the chair, and low levels
of intra-party democracy. Members are mostly needed as potential candi-
dates for elected representatives, but they must be loyal and disciplined and
avoid criticizing the party leader. In contrast, PO has created a sort of circle.
Starting with revolutionary proposals, it gradually centralized many aspects
of party functioning, most notably by increasing the role of the chair. Unable
to control internal party debates, it even considered copying the solutions for
membership policy typical of PiS. However, after Tusk left, the party returned
to a higher level of dispersion of influence. In this sense, this is not a full cir-
cle, but at least a symbolic reference to the early days of the party. At the same
time, and quite systematically, the party introduced participatory mecha-
nisms, first as primaries for presidential elections and then as direct elections
to the party chair. In this sense, the case of PO fits the general description of
the development of some parties in the world today that I presented at the
beginning of this chapter.
256 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Second, while it would not be justified to argue that the different structure
of PO and PiS originated from their different constitutional visions, or even
more to try to prove the impact of the former on the latter, nevertheless, the
link between the two seems visible. PiS as a party, like the state it governs,
must act quickly; so, discussions and deliberations are not a priority. The
leadership should not be limited, checked, or counterbalanced by anything
or anyone, either in the party or in the state, as it draws its legitimacy directly
from the voters (state) or party members (party); internal opposition in the
party or in the parliament is crushed by the power of majority; lower levels

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

of state (regional and local governments) and party (regions and branches)
must be subordinate to the government. In general, executive aggrandize-
ment, both at the national and party levels, is the key to understanding this
process. The case of PO is more problematic from this perspective. Initially,
it seemed that the way they wanted to organize the party reflected their
constitutional vision quite strongly. It is not the structure, but agency and
individuals who should be empowered at all spheres of party and state activ-
ities, with both words (state and party) avoided in the political rhetoric as
representing old politics. The cost of such a vision was party fragmentation
and fractionalization, which the leader of the party, Donald Tusk, tried to
organize by increasing his powers and responsibilities. During his govern-
ment, while the narrative and rhetoric of individualism, support for state
decentralization, and deregulation as a programme for the state continued,
at the party level, it was the opposite.
A common argument in recent Polish public debate has been that peo-
ple do not care about the independence of the Constitutional Tribunal, the
judiciary, or any other less ‘monetized’ issue as long as the PiS government
provides social and economic benefits. The same could perhaps be argued
about the importance of party organization or, to be more precise, its poten-
tial in attracting new voters. The cases of organizational development of other
parties lead to such conclusions. Kukiz’15 was a movement established by
a former punk rock star. From formal and practical perspectives, it was a
non-party and the only parliamentary force that rejected public subsidies.
Although it started with a great ambition, it was soon decimated and lost
political steam.
Only when the opposition captures the majority in the parliament are
prospects for the revival of liberal democracy possible. In fact, the very neg-
ative opinion of how PiS dismantled liberal democracy in Poland is the main
factor uniting opposition forces, rather than a clear programmatic set of
views. Still, even if PiS does not govern beyond the 2023 election, it is likely to
remain a very strong player in the parliament, with its own president ending
their term only in 2025. Furthermore, PiS successfully created a dense chain
 Party Organizational Development in Poland, 2001–2021 257

of political, institutional, and economic networks that are likely to stand

against a rapid return to liberal democracy. However, if PiS wins again, we
may expect even greater steps back from liberal democracy, in particular tar-
geting media freedom, which has been observed in the last months before the
2023 election.

Note

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZHSUvcj_Lc.

References

Biezen, Ingrid van and Petr Kopecký. 2014. ‘The Cartel Party and the State: Party–
State Linkages in European Democracies’. Party Politics, 20(2):170–182.
Biezen, Ingrid van and Thomas Poguntke. 2014. ‘The Decline of Membership-based
Politics’. Party Politics, 20(2):205–216.
Bolin, Niklas, Nicholas Aylott, Benjamin von dem Berge, and Thomas Poguntke.
2017. ‘Patterns of Intra-party Democracy across the World’. In Susan E Scarrow,
Paul Webb, and Thomas Poguntke (eds), Organizing Political Parties: Representa-
tion, Participation, and Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 158–184.
Casal Bértoa, Fernando, and Marcin Walecki. 2017. ‘Party Regulation and the
Reshaping of Party Politics in Poland’. In F. Casal Bértoa and I. van Biezen (eds),
The Regulation of Post-Communist Party Politics. New York: Routledge, 31–55.
Casal Bértoa, Fernando. 2022. Database on WHO governs in Europe and beyond,
PSGO. https://whogoverns.eu/party-systems/electoral-volatility/ (Accessed 14
December 2023).
Cwalina, Wojciech and Milena Drzewiecka. 2019. ‘Poland’. In Otto Eibl and Miloš
Gregor (eds), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe.
Springer International Publishing, 131–148.
Döring, Holger, Constantin Huber, and Philip Manow. 2022. Parliaments and Gov-
ernments Database (ParlGov): Information on Parties, Elections and Cabinets
in established Democracies. Development Version. https://www.parlgov.org/data-
info/ (Accessed 14 December 2023).
Elgie, Robert and Gianluca Passarelli. 2020. ‘The Presidentialization of Political
Executives’. In Rudy B. Andeweg, Robert Elgie, Ludger Helms, Juliet Kaarbo and
Ferdinand Müller-Rommel (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Executives.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 357–381.
Gazeta Wyborcza. 2001a. Kandydaci 69 tys. Wyborców. https://classic.wyborcza.pl/
archiwumGW/1462736/Kandydaci-69-tys--wyborcow (Accessed 12 May 2023).
258 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Gazeta Wyborcza. 2001b. Kandydaci po weryfikacji. wyborcza.pl. https://classic.

wyborcza.pl/archiwumGW/1521401/Kandydaci-po-weryfikacji (Accessed 14
December 2023).
Gazeta Wyborcza. 2001c. PiS mój widzę szeroki. wyborcza.pl. https://classic.
wyborcza.pl/archiwumGW/1596078/PiS-moj-widze-szeroki (Accessed 14
December 2023).
Gazeta Wyborcza. 2001d. Zajrzą w kieszeń i przeszłość. wyborcza.pl. https://classic.
wyborcza.pl/archiwumGW/1464509/Zajrza-w-kieszen-i-przeszlosc (Accessed 14
December 2023).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Gazeta Wyborcza. 2009. Jarosław Kaczyński, wyjadacze i świeża krew. wybor-
cza.pl. https://classic.wyborcza.pl/archiwumGW/7078411/Jaroslaw-Kaczynski--
wyjadacze-i-swieza-krew
Gazeta Wyborcza. 2010a. Platforma grzęzˊnie w rozgrywkach. wyborcza.pl. https://
classic.wyborcza.pl/archiwumGW/7287702/Platforma-grzeznie-w-rozgrywkach
(Accessed 14 December 2023).
Gazeta Wyborcza. 2010b. Platforma mało obywatelska. wyborcza.pl. https://classic.
wyborcza.pl/archiwumGW/7190238/PLATFORMA-MALO-OBYWATELSKA
(Accessed 14 December 2023).
Gazeta Wyborcza. 2010c. Platforma na pompowanych kołach? wyborcza.pl. https://
classic.wyborcza.pl/archiwumGW/7191912/Platforma-na-pompowanych-
kolach- (Accessed 14 December 2023).
Gazeta Wyborcza. 2011. Martwe dusze zabiły Platformę. wyborcza.pl. https://
classic.wyborcza.pl/archiwumGW/7438451/Martwe-dusze-zabily-Platforme
(Accessed 14 December 2023).
Gazeta Wyborcza. 2013a. Trzy Platformy. wyborcza.pl. https://classic.wyborcza.pl/
archiwumGW/7721163/Trzy-Platformy (Accessed 14 December 2023).
Gazeta Wyborcza. 2013b. Upadek Schetyny. wyborcza.pl. https://classic.wyborcza.
pl/archiwumGW/7825125/Upadek-Schetyny (Accessed 14 December 2023).
Gazeta Wyborcza. 2013c. Wojny baronów. wyborcza.pl. https://classic.wyborcza.pl/
archiwumGW/7790647/Wojny-baronow (Accessed 14 December 2023).
Gazeta Wyborcza. 2017. Młodzi z Platformy dostaną szansę? wyborcza.pl. https://
classic.wyborcza.pl/archiwumGW/8296346/Mlodzi-z-Platformy-dostana-szanse-
(Accessed 14 December 2023).
Gazeta Wyborcza. 2019. Platforma stawia na prawybory. wyborcza.pl. https://
classic.wyborcza.pl/archiwumGW/9071769/Platforma-stawia-na-prawybory
(Accessed 14 December 2023).
Hellmeier, Sebastian, Rowan Cole, Sandra Grahn, Palina Kolvani, Jean Lachapelle,
Anna Lührmann, Seraphine F. Maerz, Shreeya Pillai, and Staffan I. Lindberg.
2021. ‘State of the World 2020: Autocratization Turns Viral’. Democratization,
28(6):1053–1074.
 Party Organizational Development in Poland, 2001–2021 259

International IDEA. 2022. Voter Turnout Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/

data/voter-turnout (Accessed 14 December 2023).
Jacuński, Michał, Barbara Brodzińska-Mirowska, Anna Pacześniak, and Maria
Wincławska. 2021. Party Organization and Communication in Poland. Cham:
Palgrave.
Kwiatkowska, Agnieszka, Mikołaj Cześnik, Marta Żerkowska-Balas, and Ben Stan-
ley. 2016. ‘Ideologiczna treść wymiaru lewica–prawica w Polsce w latach 1997–
2015’. Studia Socjologiczne, 4(223):97–129.
Maatsch, Aleksandra. 2021. ‘Disempowerment through the Backdoor: The Impact

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

of Populist Parties on the National Parliament in Poland’. Parliamentary Affairs,
74(4):786–801.
Mair, Peter. 1996. What Is Different about Post-communist Party Systems? Centre for
the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, 259.
Mair, Peter, Ingrid van Biezen, and Thomas Poguntke. 2012. ‘Going, Going, . . .
Gone? The Decline of Party Membership in Contemporary Europe’. European
Journal of Political Research, 51(1):24–56.
Markowski, Radoslaw. 2020. ‘Plurality Support for Democratic Decay: The 2019
Polish Parliamentary Election’. West European Politics, 43(7):1513–1525.
Millard, Frances. 2009a. Democratic Elections in Poland, 1991–2007. London: Rout-
ledge.
Millard, Frances. 2009b. ‘Poland: Parties without a Party System, 1991–2008’. Politics
& Policy, 37(4):781–798.
Panebianco, Angelo. 1988. Political Parties: Organization and Power. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Passarelli, Gianluca (ed.). 2015. The Presidentialization of Political Parties. London:
Palgrave Macmillan UK.
PiS. 2005. IV Rzeczpospolita. Sprawiedliwość dla wszystkich. Prawo i Sprawiedliw
ość Program 2005. http://www.wybory2005.pis.org.pl/download.php?g=doc&f=
program.pdf
PiS. 2010. Konstytucja Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej. Projekt Prawa i Sprawiedliwości.
http://niezniknelo.com/konstytucjaPiS2010.pdfaw0RYrxq9yoMiuOXks1ruLGu
PiS. 2014. Zdrowie. Rodzina. Praca. Program Prawa i Sprawiedliwości 2014. http://
pis.org.pl/document/archive/download/128 (Accessed 20 September 2021).
PiS. 2021.Uchwała nr 14/VI/2021 VI Kongresu Prawa i Sprawiedliwości z dnia
3 lipca 2021 r. http://pis.org.pl/aktualnosci/vi-kongres-prawa-i-sprawiedliwosci
(Accessed 14 December 2023).
PO. 2007. Program wyborczy Platformy Obywatelskiej. By żyło się lepiej! Wszys-
tkim! www.mamprawowiedziec.pl%2Ffile%2F14512&usg=AOvVaw2RbCY_9XJ
LmtCGNN1cQCqR (Accessed 14 December 2023).
260 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Poguntke, Thomas and Paul Webb (eds). 2007. The Presidentialization of Politics.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rzeczpospolita. 2013. Kaczyński: Biznes często to przystań ludzi PRL. Rzecz-
pospolita. https://www.rp.pl/wydarzenia/art12879901-kaczynski-biznes-czesto-
to-przystan-ludzi-prl (Accessed 14 December 2023).
Rzeczpospolita. 2021. Kaczyński: Łyżka nepotyzmu jest mała w porównaniu z
naszymi sukcesami. https://www.rp.pl/polityka/art53091-kaczynski-lyzka-nepot
yzmu-jest-mala-w-porownaniu-z-naszymi-sukcesami (Accessed 14 December
2023).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Scarrow, Susan E. 2015. Beyond Party Members: Changing Approaches to Partisan
Mobilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sejm, R. P. 1997. Ustawa z dnia 27 czerwca 1997 r. O partiach politycznych, tekst
jednolity. https://www.sejm.gov.pl/prawo/partiepol/kon12.htm (Accessed 14
December 2023).
The Constitution of the Republic of Poland. 1997. The Constitution of the Repub-
lic of Poland of 2 April 1997. As published in Dziennik Ustaw No. 78, item 483.
https://www.sejm.gov.pl/prawo/konst/angielski/kon1.htm (Accessed 14 Decem-
ber 2023).
Tworzecki, Hubert. 2019. ‘Poland: A Case of Top-down Polarization’. The Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 681(1):97–119.
Walecka, Katarzyna. 2018. ‘(In)Stability of the Party System in Poland’. In Marco Lisi
(ed.), Party System Change, the European Crisis and the State of Democracy. New
York: Routledge, 194–212.
Wincławska, Maria, Anna Pacześniak, Barbara Brodzińska-Mirowska, and Michał
Jacuński. 2021. ‘Party Management from the Perspective of Party Members:
Evidence from Poland’. Problems of Post-communism, 68(4):315–326.
13
Political Parties and Democracy
The Israeli Case

Assaf Shapira

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Background: Parties and the Party System in Israel

The political map

Israel is a developed parliamentary democracy with a closed-list PR electoral

system. In the November 2022 elections for the 25th Knesset (Israel’s unicam-
eral parliament), 10 electoral lists (among them joint lists consisting of more
than one party) won seats (see Figure 13.1). While some are veteran parties
with origins dating back to the pre-state period—first and foremost Likud
and Labour—there are also many new parties, some of which were estab-
lished less than a decade ago (e.g. Yesh Atid, Hosen Yisrael, New Hope). Some
are distinctly sectoral parties—representing especially ultra-religious (United
Torah Judaism, Shas), religious (Religious Zionism), and Arab (Hadash, Ta’al,
Ra’am) electorates—while others are more aggregative. Additional important
distinctions concern the patterns of party organization and the political bloc
to which they belong.

Legal background

Israeli law distinguishes between a party, a list, and a (Knesset) faction. A

party is an extra-parliamentary institution that is regulated by various laws,
including the Parties Law, 1992. One or more parties can submit a list of
candidates to the Central Elections Committee. Once a list is elected to the
Knesset, it becomes a faction.
The relevant laws regulate certain intra-party aspects yet neglect others
completely. For example, unlike some democracies, there are no rules relat-
ing to gender representation (some parties adopt voluntary gender quotas).
There are also no requirements concerning intra-party democracy. However,
Assaf Shapira, Political Parties and Democracy. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Assaf Shapira (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0013
262 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

35
32
30

25 24

20
Seats

15 14
12 11
10
7 6 5 5 4
5

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

0
ism
d

id

as

ism

’am

ur
u
y

’a
rt
ku

ein
At

Sh

Ta

bo
Pa

Ra
on

da
Li

eit

h-

La
sh

ty

Ju
Zi

lB

as
Ye

ni

h
us

ad
ea
lU

ra
io

H
sr
To
na
lig

Yi
d
io
Re

ite
at

Un
N

Figure 13.1 Results of the 2022 Knesset elections∗

∗
Joint Lists: Religious Zionism (Ichud Leumi-Tkuma, Jewish National Front, Noam); National Unity
Party (New Hope, Hosen Yisrael); United Torah Judaism (Agudat Yisrael, Degel Hatora); Hadash-Taʼal
(Hadash, Taʼal)
Source: Central Elections Committee, 2022. ʻActual Results of the Elections to the 25th Knessetʼ.
https://votes25.bechirot.gov.il/ (Accessed 14 October 2023)

parties that voluntarily decide to conduct intra-party candidate or leadership

selection, as well as elections for their internal organs, are subject to detailed
regulation, mainly concerning their candidates’ financial conduct.
Like most developed democracies, Israel provides parties with public fund-
ing (both ongoing and electoral) based on their electoral achievements and
their size in the Knesset. In return, the state imposes restrictions on parties,
such as ceilings for donations and expenses. Parties are required to submit
financial reports to the State Comptroller, who examines them and publishes
reports on their conduct. Since funding in Israel is comparatively generous
and the donation ceiling is low (Ben-Bassat and Dahan 2014), parties almost
exclusively rely on state funds. In 2018, for example, 86.6% of the parties’ rev-
enue came from state funding, while only 8.3% was from membership fees
and 0.5% from donations (the rest was drawn from other sources, mostly
payments for the employment of parliamentary advisors to Members of the
Knesset (MKs); State Comptroller 2021a).

Intra-party democracy

As mentioned, the Israeli party law does not require parties to be inter-
nally democratic, and thus each party selects its own path. Some Israeli
 Political Parties and Democracy 263

political parties (e.g. Likud, Labour, Meretz, Ichud Leumi-Tkuma, Hadash,

and Balad) are relatively democratic, especially in terms of participation
and inclusiveness. They have representative institutions that are selected by
party members, and they select their leader and candidates via democratic
competitive processes (primaries or selection by the representative party
institution).
By contrast, other parties are non-democratic. Prominent among these are
personal (or personalistic/personalist) parties. In recent years, a number of
researchers have found that personal parties have become more widespread

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

in developed democracies and have sought to define their characteristics—
especially the dominance of the leader, who is often also the founder of
the party, and the party’s very weak organizational structure (for example:
Kostadinova and Levitt 2014; Calise 2015; Kefford and McDonnell 2018).
Since the 2013 elections, all new parties that were elected to the Knesset have
been personal parties. In the 2022 elections, Yesh Atid, Yisrael Beiteinu, New
Hope, Hosen Yisrael, and Ta’al constitute clear examples.
The religious and ultra-religious sectoral parties are also non-democratic
(except for Ichud Leumi-Tkuma). However, in these parties, the politicians
are subordinate to, or more often influenced by, other intra-party actors. In
the ultra-religious Shas, United Torah Judaism, and Islamic Ra’am, internal
bodies composed of religious leaders have the final say on leader and candi-
date selection as well as policy formation (although in Shas the dominance
of the political leader, Aryeh Deri, has greatly increased in recent years).

The decline of Israeli political parties

Like parties in many other developed democracies, over recent decades

Israeli political parties have suffered from a decline. This has resulted from
a variety of economic, social, and cultural factors that are also relevant to
Israel: cultural trends such as individualization; social phenomena such as
the decline in traditional cleavage politics; and technological developments
that created alternative channels for political information and participation
(Dalton and Wattenberg 2000). It also resulted from the difficulties that
specific parties have encountered.
The decline of Israeli political parties is particularly pronounced because
in the first decades following its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel was
described as a ‘parties state’ (Akzin 1955). Mapai and its successor Labour,
as well as other parties, controlled the bureaucracy, local authorities, and
unions; enjoyed mass membership; and had affiliated youth movements,
sports clubs, newspapers, healthcare associations, and banks.
264 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

However, since the 1970s, and more prominently since the 1990s, Israel’s
parties have radically weakened. In fact, Israel is an extreme example of
this universal phenomenon. Rahat and Kenig found that Israeli parties
experienced the third largest decline—measured as an average of a dozen
indicators—among a group of 26 democracies (Rahat and Kenig 2018). This
decline may have been especially sharp due to the fact that Israel’s starting
point was very high—as noted, it was described as a parties state—but also
due to the adoption of institutional reforms that enhanced political person-
alization and fragmentation. These include the direct elections of mayors in

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the 1970s and of the Prime Minister (1996–2001) and the adoption of party
primaries by Labour and Likud in the early–mid-1990s. All of these reforms
made individual politicians more prominent than their own parties. The long
personalistic rule of Netanyahu (2009–2021, 2022–present) accelerated this
process. Not only has Likud, his own party, been personalized, but the main
challenges he faces increasingly come from new personal parties; parties with
more collegial patterns seem to fail.
One of the most prominent indicators of this phenomenon in Israel is the
decrease in institutionalized political participation. Indeed, while at the end
of the 1970s 17% of adult citizens were party members, by 2022 the number
had fallen to less than 4% (see Table 13.1) (Kenig and Rahat 2023). Voter
turnout, which stood at 78.5–83% in the years 1959–1999, fell sharply in the
early 2000s, and since 2003 stands at 63.5–72.3% (see Figure 13.2). Like-
wise, public trust in parties has severely deteriorated, and today they are
the least-trusted institutions in Israel (in a 2020 survey, only 17% of Jews
and 30% of Arabs expressed ʽvery much’ or ʽquite a lot’ of trust in Israeli
political parties) (Hermann et al. 2020). The presence of national parties in
various institutions, such as labour unions, student associations, and local
government, has also declined (Kenig and Rahat 2023).

Table 13.1 Party members in Israel, 2022

Party Members (in thousands) M/E

Likud 140 2.06

Labour 40 0.59
Ichud Leumi-Tkuma 24 0.35
Meretz 20 0.29
Others (Yesh Atid, Yisrael Beiteinu, 10 (est.) 0.15 (est.)
Hadash, Balad, Jewish Home)
Total 234 3.4

Source: Author’s own work based on Kenig and Rahat (2023)

 Political Parties and Democracy 265

90
86.9
85
82.8 83.0
81.681.6 81.7
80 79.7 79.3
78.679.278.578.8 78.7
77.4
75
72.3 71.5 70.6
70 69.8
67.8 64.8 68.5 67.4
65 64.7
63.5
60

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

55

50
49
51
55
59

19 1
65
69
73
77
81
84
88
92
96
99
03
06
09
13
20 15
20 9–I
I
20
21
22
–I
6
19
19
19
19
19

19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
20
20
20
20
20

20
20
20
19
1
Figure 13.2 Voter turnout in Knesset elections, 1949–2022 (%)
Source: Central Elections Committee, 2022. ʻVoter Turnout in previous Electionsʼ. https://www.gov.il/
he/Departments/Guides/election-committee-history?chapterIndex=4 (Accessed: 14 October 2023)

Relevant processes of increasing fragmentation, volatility, and dealign-

ment will be discussed below. It should be noted, however, that party decline
has not affected all parties equally. It particularly harmed the large aggrega-
tive parties (Likud and especially Labour) yet had little impact on sectoral
parties such as the ultra-religious and Arab parties. One of the main reasons
for this is the pathologies that have accompanied the primaries system that
these parties have used since the 1990s to select their leader and candidates.
The impact of the primaries on Israeli parties that use them, particularly
Likud and Labour, is multi-faceted. Although this system has positive effects,
such as encouraging politicians to maintain close contact with the public,
thus allowing the party to preserve a grassroots presence, it also has clear
negative consequences: it imposes a heavy economic burden on the party—
indeed, a primary election can cost more than $1 US million; it places a heavy
regulatory burden on the candidates, who are required to submit detailed
reports regarding their expenses and income to the State Comptroller; the
party’s democratic and judicial institutions are occupied with endless internal
confrontations—and consequently they find themselves increasingly deal-
ing with procedures rather than substance; the over-influence of pressure
groups—such as Jewish settlers and labour unions in Likud, and kibbutzim
(a unique form of collective communities, identified with the Israeli–Jewish
left) in Labour—whose members are over-represented among the parties’
266 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

members; problematic phenomena such as suspicions of forgery and the vio-

lation of financing rules; and increasing incentives for harmful behaviour by
politicians, such as populist conduct designed to achieve media exposure, as
well as increasing numbers of internal conflicts.
At least some of these pathologies stem from the specific model of primaries
adopted by Israeli parties, in which party members are the sole body involved
in the process of candidate selection. From a comparative perspective, this
is an extreme model—in most parties in democratic countries the selection
process is more centralized, with the participation of bodies such as the party

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

leader, an inner circle of the party elite, representative party institutions, and
sometimes also supporters who are not party members.
These pathologies have severely damaged the image of the primaries and
the parties that hold them. Likewise, they have led, over the past decade, to
the increasing success of the exact opposite model, meaning personal parties
such as Yesh Atid. These non-democratic parties are exempt from all the diffi-
culties detailed above, and they even have inherent advantages. For example,
it is clearly easier for them to attract new ‘stars’, among them senior military
leaders and media figures, to join the party: in personal parties, the leader
determines the composition of the list and accordingly can simply place such
a star in the list at his/her discretion. By contrast, in parties that hold pri-
maries, the same star will have to undergo an exhausting process in order to
attain a high place on the list.

The party system since the 90s

Israel has always had a multi-party system. This is due to two main factors.
First, Israeli society is extremely heterogeneous, in both social and ideologi-
cal terms. Ideologically speaking, while the disparity between socialist and
capitalist views has faded over recent decades, other divisions—especially
concerning Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbours and the relationship
between state and religion, and more recently also the status of the judi-
cial system—have become more pronounced (Kenig and Tuttnauer 2017;
Shamir et al. 2017). Israeli society is also divided by various cleavages. In addi-
tion to the divide between Arabs and Jews, there are also various politically
relevant divisions, among them the divisions in Jewish society among sec-
ular, religious, and ultra-religious; veterans and newly arrived immigrants;
and Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews (immigrants from Asia-Africa or Europe,
respectively, and their descendants). Each of these social groups has been
represented by or through various parties in the Knesset.
 Political Parties and Democracy 267

Second, the electoral system in Israel is highly proportional. The legal

electoral threshold, which was initially very low, was raised over the years
(from 0.83% in the first elections to 3.25% in 2014). Yet Israel lacks any
regional component: The entire country constitutes one nationwide elec-
toral constituency of 120 seats, and thus the system is highly proportional
in comparison to most countries.
Israel’s party system has become much more fragmented since the 1990s.
The reasons for this include internal splits within Labour and Likud, the
two largest parties (as will be discussed later), and demographic changes that

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

increased the sectoral parties’ share of the vote.
The implementation of the direct election of the Prime Minister in the 1996
and 1999 Knesset elections gave a boost to this trend. It allowed and even
encouraged voters to split their vote, voting for their preferred Prime Minis-
ter, a Labour or Likud candidate, and using a second ballot to elect a smaller,
usually sectoral, party. Consequently, the combined power of the two largest
lists sharply decreased from 76 seats (out of 120) in 1992 to 46 seats in 1999,
and the effective number of parliamentary parties increased from 4.39 to a
peak of 8.69 (see Figure 13.3 below). The effect of direct elections did not fade
when this system was abolished before the 2003 elections. While the share of

10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1949
1951
1955
1959
1961
1965
1969
1973
1977
1981
1984
1988
1992
1996
1999
2003
2006
2009
2013
2015
2019 - I
2019 - II
2020
2021

ENPP ENEP

Figure 13.3 Effective number of parliamentary parties (ENPP) and effective number of
electoral parties (ENEP) in Knesset elections, 1949–2021
Source: Döring et al. 2022, https://www.parlgov.org/data-info/ (Accessed 1.2.2024)
268 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

the major lists somewhat increased (and political fragmentation decreased),

it has never returned to its previous level: since 1996, the effective number of
parliamentary parties has remained higher, and the two largest lists weaker,
than in all elections held between 1965 and 1992.
While some sectoral parties (e.g. Shas) lost support compared to their peak
period during the direct elections, they have still been able to preserve a
relatively solid power base to this day. Centrist parties, especially personal
parties, have become stronger and increasingly won the support of the elec-
torate that used to vote for Likud and, especially, Labour. A detailed analysis

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

of the reasons for this phenomenon is beyond the scope of this chapter, but it
can be linked to the steep personalization of Israeli politics and the growing
feelings of distrust in institutionalized politics.
The increasing political fragmentation is closely related to the process of
dealignment, which continues to this day. The evolution of Israel’s party
system can be broadly divided into three phases (Hazan 2021).

(a) Until the 1970s, Mapai and its successor party Labour were dominant
parties. They were both ruling parties and the largest parties in the
Knesset from the first elections, held in 1949, to the 1973 elections,
although they never won a majority of seats.
(b) The weakening of Mapai/Labour began as early as the 1960s. Fol-
lowing the 1977 elections, for the first time in the country’s history,
Mapai/Labour was no longer the largest or the ruling party—it was
replaced by the right-wing Likud. From 1981 until the late 1990s, a
competitive bipolar system existed. The two largest parties in each
bloc, Likud and Labour, switched positions as the ruling party (though
as before they never won a majority of seats).
(c) As noted, the power of Likud and Labour greatly weakened in the
1996 and 1999 elections. Although the direct election of the Prime
Minister was abolished before the 2003 elections, the competitive
bipolar system did not reemerge. While Likud eventually managed
to recover and maintain its status as a large party, Labour has been
in a near-continuous process of deterioration since the 1990s, and
no other party replaced it as a stable alternative. Potential candidates
included Kadima (2006 and 2009) and the Blue and White electoral
alliance (2019–2020), but these prematurely disintegrated. These days,
centrist, personalistic, Yesh Atid is the second-largest party, but its
electoral achievements are far behind those of Likud. For some time
it seemed that Likud might become a dominant party. It held power
 Political Parties and Democracy 269

from 2009, but it was unable to form a government in 2019, and in

2021 found itself in opposition before it once again became the ruling
party after the 2022 elections.

These developments are clearly reflected in the increase in electoral volatil-

ity over the years (see Figure 13.4). The first two periods, the 1950s–1960s
and 1980s, were characterized by increasingly stable voting patterns, with the
1977 elections constituting the turning point of realignment; however, dur-
ing the 2000s no similar process of stabilization occurred (the low levels of

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

volatility in the 2019b and 2020 elections were due to the fact that each was
held only a few months after the previous elections).
The best description of the Israeli party system since the early 2000s is thus
a ‘mess’: ʽa unique, fluid, and perplexing category, excluded from most typol-
ogy . . . no clear pattern has yet emerged from this volatile era’ (Hazan 2021:
pp. 363–363). Only a few parties maintained stability—mainly the sectoral
ultra-religious parties, and to some extent the Arab parties, and since 2009
also Likud.
Personal parties are particularly likely to reap ephemeral success, dis-
appearing quickly. Prominent examples are Tzipi Livni’s Hatnu’a, which
won 6 seats in 2013 but disappeared before the April 2019 elections;
Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu, which won 10 seats in 2015 and ceased to exist

35 32.4

30
Electoral Volatility (Pedersen Index)

25.9 25.2
23.9
25
19.8
20 17.6 17.5 17.3
15.6 16.4
14.1 13.7
15 12.6 12.7
10.0 9.2 9.0
10 7.7 7.4 7.3
5.4 5.0
5 2.9

0
21
51
55
59
61
65
69
73
77
81
84
88
92
96
99
03
06
09
13
20 5
20 a
b
20
19
1

19

20
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
20
20
20
20
20

20

Figure 13.4 Net volatility in Knesset elections

Source: Kenig and Tuttnauer 2017, and authorsʼ calculations
270 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

in practice before the September 2019 elections; and parties that managed
to emerge and disappear during the 2019–2022 elections, such as Orly
Levi-Abekasis’ Gesher, Moshe Ya’alon’s Telem, and Naftali Bennet’s Yem-
ina. Interestingly, also from a comparative perspective, personal parties are
often characterized by a short lifespan: it is quite unlikely that a personal
party successfully survives after the founder-leader leaves, given his/her
centrality.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Case Studies of Specific Parties

In this chapter, I will focus on three prominent parties: Likud, which at the
time of writing is the ruling party and has been the most successful party
in Israel since 1977; Yesh Atid, which is the second-largest party and the
main governing alternative in Israel today; and the Labour Party, which,
together with its predecessors, dominated Israeli politics from the establish-
ment of the state until 1977 and later returned to power three times (1984 in a
unity government, 1992, and 1999). However, since then Labour constitutes
the clearest example of the process of party decline. The changing Knesset
representation of the three parties is shown in Figure 13.5.

50
45 44
40 40
39 38
35 34 35
34
32 31 32
30 30 29
27 Likud
MKs

25 24
22 23
Labor
20 19 20 19
18 18 19
17 Yesh Atid
15 15 15
12 13 13 13
10 11
6 7
5 5
3 4
0
88

92
96

99

03

06
09

13

15

a
b
20

21

22
19
19
19

19
19

19

20

20
20

20

20

20

20

20
20
20

Figure 13.5 Likud, Labour, and Yesh Atid in Knesset elections∗

∗
In cases of joint lists, the data indicate the number of Members of the Knesset (MKs) that
represented the specific parties, which is smaller than the number of seats won by the list.
Source: Kenig and Rahat, 2023; Central Elections Committee, 2022.
 Political Parties and Democracy 271

Likud

The roots of Likud (‘union/consolidation’) can be traced back to movements

and parties that were founded with and before the establishment of the State
of Israel, mainly Herut and the General Zionists/Liberal Party. These two
competed on the same joint list (Gahal) since 1965, together with other
smaller parties establishing Likud as a list in 1973 and a party in 1988.
In terms of ideology and supporters, Likud is an aggregative party. While
traditionally defined as a moderate right-wing party in terms of economics

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

as well as foreign affairs and security issues, it nevertheless contains a wide
range of positions. In recent years, it abandoned its previous liberal doctrines,
increasingly adopting a populist stand directed against both the Arab public
and Jewish ‘elites’, especially human rights organizations, the judicial sys-
tem, and law enforcement institutions (the last mainly in light of the criminal
proceedings against its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu).
Its support base comprises Jews from the middle and lower classes, many
of them of Mizrahi origin, with close ties to Jewish tradition. In the 2021
elections, for example, Likud won close to 40% of votes in the so-called
‘development towns’ (low and middle-class Jewish, mostly peripheral munic-
ipalities). Yet it also has many supporters from other publics—it received 20%
of votes in the West Bank settlements and affluent cities in the centre of the
state (near Tel Aviv), as well as some support among the ultra-religious and
Arabs (about 5%).1
The Likud is democratic in terms of its internal conduct. It has vibrant
democratic institutions including a conference attended by thousands of del-
egates. It had a long and continuous tradition of heated debates in those
institutions as well as competitive internal elections to these bodies from the
1980s and up to 2012. In the 1990s it also instituted primaries for the selec-
tion of its leader and candidates and, apart from a few short periods, has
continued to use them to this day.
Although Herut/Likud has demonstrated great loyalty to its leaders—only
four have held office since 1948—it was not a personal party. However,
since Netanyahu returned to power as prime minster in 2009, the party has
become increasingly identified with him, to the extent that internal democ-
racy and party institutions, which continue to exist on paper, have been
largely paralysed. Netanyahu and his loyalists control the party’s campaigns
and its apparatus, and any politician who (sometimes only potentially) has
dared to challenge his leadership has been excluded from the party’s upper
echelons. While potential or actual challengers have not been ousted from the
party, Netanyahu and his supporters have used their power to harm them in
272 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

various ways, including by accusing them of collaborating with other parties,

calling party members not to vote for them in the primaries, and refrain-
ing from granting them senior government positions. Consequently, in some
primaries, no candidate ran against Netanyahu.
However, even during this period we can still define Likud as a democratic
party. An index that examined the level of internal democracy according to
five dimensions gave Likud relatively high scores: on the eve of the 2015 elec-
tions, it received a score of 75/100, putting it in second place among Israeli
parties; and on the eve of the April 2019 elections it achieved a score of

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

67/100, putting it in fifth place (Rahat and Shapira 2015; Shapira and Freed-
man 2019). However, the representation of women in Likud—despite the
adoption of (low) voluntary gender quotas in the 1990s and gradual improve-
ment in this respect—is still low. After the 2022 elections, 19% of its MPs were
women, with the first located only in ninth place on the candidates list (as
noted, Israel has a closed-list electoral system, and each list submits a ranked
list of candidates to the Central Elections Committee before the elections).
Throughout its history, Herut/Likud has constituted a classic mass party,
with mass membership, affiliated institutions, and internal elected institu-
tions. During the competitive bipolar period in the 1980s, it also reached
impressive electoral achievements, winning over 40 seats in the Knesset.
However, it has not evaded the crisis of political parties that has developed
since the 1990s. In particular, the direct elections for Prime Minister had neg-
ative electoral ramifications for Likud. Later, in the 2006 elections, it suffered
a steep decline and won as few as 12 seats. More than half of its voters from
2003 voted for Kadima (see below). Yet in 2009 most of them returned. The
party has recovered (although never returning to its peak of the 1980s), and
in recent elections it won between 29 and 35 seats.
The party also declined in local government. If in the 1993 local elections
11 of the 30 mayors in Israel’s largest cities were Likud representatives, by
2018 this number had dropped to 4. The share of Likud’s representatives in
these cities’ local councils fell from 22% to 8%.2
Since the 1990s, Likud has also suffered from many splits and retire-
ments that harmed—albeit mostly temporarily—its electoral power. The
most notable case was the 2005 defection of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
together with 14 of the 40 Likud MPs, who created a new centrist party,
Kadima. In recent years, senior politicians who disapprove of Netanyahu’s
populist line have also left the party.
Likud also suffered from difficulties stemming from its democratic inter-
nal proceedings. Many of these difficulties concern the primaries, especially
suspicions of forgeries and financial irregularities and the excessive influence
 Political Parties and Democracy 273

of interest groups such as the unions and right-wing settlers. As noted, these
factors have also damaged the party’s public image. The primaries likewise
imposed a heavy economic and regulatory burden on the party. Moreover,
the party’s democratic and judicial institutions have been embroiled in end-
less internal confrontations and find themselves increasingly occupied with
procedures rather than essence.
Furthermore, Likud has experienced financial difficulties. Like other par-
ties in Israel, most of the party’s revenue comes from party funding (in 2018,
85%; State Comptroller 2021a). The party generates some money from mem-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ber fees (the exact amount is not specified in the State Comptroller’s report
for 2018, but presumably this represents the largest share of the remaining
15%), but it hardly gets any donations (in 2018, no donations were received).
Its economic conduct is based on accumulating deficits in Knesset and local
authority elections, which are subsequently covered by the state’s ongoing
party funding. A combination of extremely irresponsible economic con-
duct during elections and the proliferation of elections resulted in a heavy
deficit throughout most of the 2000s (about $17 million in 2009) (Kenig
and Rahat 2023). Subsequently, thanks to the use of ongoing funding (and
despite continuously irresponsible conduct in elections), the deficit shrunk,
disappearing by the end of 2018 (State Comptroller 2021a). Yet, since the
2019–2021 electoral cycles, the deficit has returned to its previous level. The
use of ongoing funding for election purposes makes it difficult for the party to
maintain continuous intra-party activities between elections, thus harming
its ability to function as a democratic party.
Likud’s impressive ability to survive and recover should be attributed to the
popularity of its leaders, Sharon and Netanyahu, but also to the fact that it has
been the governing party since 2009. This enabled it to maintain significant
ties to, and presence in, society, through patronage.
Moreover, despite a decline in numbers compared to the past, Likud
remains the Israeli party with the largest number of members. Since 2005 it
has had 95,000–130,000 members (in the 1990s it often had over 200,000).3
Moreover, despite the deterioration in its internal democratic procedures, its
vibrant internal life characterizes it as a popular party with deep roots among
the public. It is still the closest party in Israel to the ideal type of a mass party.
One of the main channels through which Likud maintains contact with
its supporters and conducts campaigns is the internet and especially (since
2013) social media networks. Today, Likud, its leader, and its representatives
operate on all relevant platforms—Facebook, Twitter/X, Telegram, YouTube,
WhatsApp, and more. In the run-up to the April 2019 elections, the party also
launched its own TV channel, Likud TV, with various broadcasts uploaded
274 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

to YouTube and Facebook. However, Likud’s online activity reflects the per-
sonalization of the party: politicians, first and foremost Netanyahu, are much
more prominent on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter than the party
itself (Rahat 2022).

Labour

The Labour Party was established in 1968 as a unification of three parties:

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Mapai, Ahdut Ha’avoda, and Rafi. Mapai/Labour dominated Israeli politics
before 1977. After 1977 it became one of the country’s two main parties.
From 2009 (save for a revival in 2015) it lost its status as the second-largest
party and as a governing alternative. Labour suffered most severely from the
crisis of Israel’s political parties, as its electoral achievements demonstrate:
since the early 1990s, it has weakened almost continuously. Before the 2021
and 2022 elections, polls even predicted that it would hardly pass the 3.25%
electoral threshold.
Like Likud, Labour is an aggregative party. It is usually identified with
the Social Democratic party category, although over the years it has moved
between ‘third way’ stances and more genuine Social Democratic approaches.
Unlike the hawkish Likud, in recent decades it is mainly identified by its
dovish positions in regard to Israel’s relations with its neighbours. Since
the 2000s, it has also emphasized issues relating to human and civil rights.
Indeed, the current party chairwoman is a quintessential feminist.
In the past, most Labour voters originated from the more affluent sectors
and were mainly secular Ashkenazi Jews, yet it also received significant sup-
port from other publics: in the 1992 elections, it received nearly 30% of the
vote in development towns, more than 20% in Arab localities, and about 10%
in settlements. However, in the 2021 elections it received little support from
all these sectors and only maintained relatively significant support, around
20%, in places such as kibbutzim and Tel Aviv.
Labour is a democratic party, and in this respect transcends Likud. Its
internal democracy received the highest scores of the intra-party democracy
index among Israeli parties on the eve of the 2015 elections and the April 2019
elections (85/100 in both cases; in 2019, Meretz received the same score)
(Rahat and Shapira 2015; Shapira and Freedman 2019). It has used primaries
to select its leader and candidates continuously since the eve of the 1992 elec-
tions; it has representative democratic institutions, including a conference
attended by thousands of delegates that are selected by party members. It
adopted voluntary gender quotas for its candidate list in the early 1990s, and
 Political Parties and Democracy 275

before the 2021 elections employed, for the first time, the zipper mechanism
to ensure gender equality. As a result, four of its seven MPs after the 2021 elec-
tions, and three out of four following the 2022 elections, were women. Unlike
Likud, it has had female leaders—Golda Me’ir in 1969, Shelly Yachimovich
in 2013, and Merav Michaeli since 2021.
In stark contrast to Likud, Labour demonstrates little loyalty to its leaders.
Between 1992 and 2022 it had 12 leaders. This indicates high competitive-
ness, a democratic feature. However, such turnover seems to have reached a
damaging level. Like most other parties, Labour has witnessed political per-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

sonalization. However, unlike Likud, it is much more decentralized in nature;
it concentrated not only on the leader but on several senior politicians.
Traditionally a mass party in terms of mass membership, affiliated institu-
tions, and control of various state institutions, its ties with and presence in
society have dwindled over the past decades. For example, Mapai/Labour’s
connection to the Histadrut, Israel’s largest labour union (in fact an asso-
ciation of many unions), was for years considered one of the pillars of its
success. In the first decades following the establishment of Israel, the His-
tadrut was a very powerful organization, controlling almost all unions and
owning central institutions such as the largest health association (General
Sick Fund, or Kupat Holim Clalit). The ties between the Histadrut and the
party were largely based on patronage, and any of its leaders were also mem-
bers of Labour. The Histadrut provided support for the party in various ways,
notably by mobilizing voters and campaign workers, providing funding, and
promoting the party’s platform and ideology. In return, the Labour Party was
expected to implement policies and programmes that were beneficial to the
Histadrut and its members, such as collective bargaining rights, social welfare
benefits, and employment protection. Moreover, the leaders of the Histadrut
received considerable political influence, including within the party’s inner
cycles, and many of them later became Labour MKs and ministers.
Indeed, Labour continued to rule the Histadrut even after the 1977 elec-
tions. Yet in the 1994 elections for the Histadrut, Labour was defeated. During
the same period, the power of the Histadrut also significantly weakened,
among other reasons because it no longer owned institutions such as the
health association. Since then, the relationship between Labour and the His-
tadrut became weaker. Today, the connection is through personal channels,
and its status therein is not better than that of other parties, including those
that do not belong to the Social Democratic family (Mandelkern and Rahat
2017).
Labour’s decline is also evident at the municipal level. Until 1973,
Mapai/Labour held the majority of city mayorships (in Jewish and mixed
276 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

communities). Its power gradually decreased, and by the late 1990s it had
almost disappeared from this arena. In 1993, eight mayors among the 30
largest cities were Labour Party representatives, but in 2018 this number
decreased to 1. The proportion of Labour representatives in these cities’
councils decreased from 23% to 2%.
There are several reasons for Labour’s steep decline. First, like Social
Democratic parties in Europe, Labour suffered from the decline and to
some extent disintegration of the working class. Second, the dovish positions
espoused by the party became much less popular with the outbreak of vio-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

lent protests by (and conflict with) the Palestinians in the early 2000s (the
Second Intifada). Third, demographic changes—an increase in the size of the
Arab and ultra-religious population and mass immigration from the former
USSR in the 1990s—reduced the proportion of the population that consti-
tutes Labour’s ‘base’. Fourth, internal difficulties played a significant role. The
frequent changes in leadership were mentioned above. In addition, Labour
has suffered from some of the same difficulties that affected Likud: inter-
nal disputes and splits (especially the move of prominent MPs to Kadima in
2005), and the various pathologies of the primaries. Yet, unlike Likud, since
the early 2000s it has not spent many years in government to compensate for
them through patronage.
Labour continues to exist, and from time to time (in 2015 and to some
extent 2021) it has even seemed to recover slightly. One reason for this is that
it has always continued to be a democratic party, with elected institutions
and primaries, as well as a grassroots presence. Thus, while the number of
party members has declined dramatically, it continues to be impressive in
Israeli terms—around 2008 it stabilized at about 50,000 (compared to at least
150,000 in the 1990s). The party also maintains many local branches and
conducts activities among young people and in other sectors.
The party’s financial conduct also reveals the difficulties that it encoun-
tered as well as its ability to survive and recover. Like Likud, it largely relies
on party funding (in 2018–81%; State Comptroller, 2021a) and to a lesser
extent on membership fees and income from its real-estate assets; it receives
barely any donations (1% in 2018). Due to its electoral decline and irrespon-
sible economic conduct in the Knesset and local elections, it accumulated a
large deficit that had to be covered by ongoing state funding (a practice that
impairs its ability to function between elections). In the early 2000s the party
accrued very heavy debts of about $38 million (Kenig and Rahat 2023). Yet
with the help of a recovery plan and more responsible economic behaviour, it
reached a positive balance sheet at the end of 2018 (State Comptroller 2021a).
 Political Parties and Democracy 277

After the four rounds of elections in 2019–2021 it has accumulated a relatively

moderate deficit of a few million dollars.

Yesh Atid

Yair Lapid, a journalist and media celebrity, founded Yesh Atid (‘There Is a
Future’) on the eve of the 2013 elections. The party has won between 11 and
24 seats in each Knesset election since then. In the 2019–2020 elections Yesh

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Atid was part of the Blue and White alliance. In 2020, after the alliance broke
up, Yesh Atid chose to stay in opposition. In the 2021 elections it positioned
itself as the main centre party and as a governing alternative. After these elec-
tions it played a crucial role in forming the new government, in which Lapid
served as foreign minister and later, for a short time, as Prime Minister. After
2022, the party once again became the largest opposition party.
Yesh Atid is a rare example of a successful, stable, aggregative personal
party.4 Not only have most personal parties quickly disappeared, but those
that are represented in the current Knesset are much younger (and likely to
have a short life expectancy) and smaller than Yesh Atid.
Ideologically, Yesh Atid is a centrist party. While in 2013 it joined
Netanyahu’s government, in recent years it has clearly belonged to the anti-
Netanyahu bloc. This is both in terms of its desire to oust Netanyahu from
power and its opposition to his populism. The party blurs its stance on secu-
rity and foreign affairs issues, trying to capture a pragmatic middle ground
between doves and hawks. In the civic spheres, it is clearly a liberal party. It
presents itself as the champion of the middle class, supporting a free econ-
omy, relatively secular stands, and the protection of human and civil rights.
Accordingly, its supporters are predominantly upper-middle-class secular
Jews. While the national support rate for the party in the 2021 elections was
13.9%, in Tel Aviv, affluent central cities, and kibbutzim it stood at 22–25%.
By contrast, it received zero support among Haredim and very little support
in Arab localities (2.1%) However, it would be erroneous to define Yesh Atid
as a sectoral party. It also appeals to a religious-liberal Jewish public (some of
its leading members are indeed liberal-religious Zionists) and to immigrants
from the former USSR (from which it gets significant support).
The most striking feature of Yesh Atid is its almost complete identifica-
tion with its leader and his absolute control of the party. These features are
openly entrenched in the party’s regulations. Between its establishment in
2012 and late 2021, the party did not reform its autocratic structure at all; its
278 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

electoral success, especially compared to the decline of its democratic com-

petitors (Labour and Meretz), gave it no incentive to reform. In November
2021, the party announced that the procedures for selecting the leader and
the list of candidates would become somewhat more inclusive. However, as
will be explained later, it is highly likely that Lapid will continue to exercise
actual control over these proceedings.
Here are some expressions of the personal nature of the party. First, the
party’s official registered name is Yesh Atid—Headed by Yair Lapid. Second,
from its formation there has been no competition for the leadership position:

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Lapid’s status as leader was secured by party bylaws. While these bylaws stip-
ulated that this is a temporary situation and that competitive elections will
be held in the future, in practice this has been delayed repeatedly. In Novem-
ber 2021 the party announced that the first elections for its chairmanship
will be held in January 2022. However, no candidate challenged Lapid’s posi-
tion, therefore no elections took place. Moreover, the elections were supposed
to be held at the party conference, which is attended by prominent activists
and the party’s representatives in various arenas, most of them nominated by
Lapid himself.
Third, Lapid exclusively draws up the party’s list for the Knesset. Here,
too, in November 2021 it was declared that in the run-up to the next Knes-
set elections at least some of the candidates would be selected not by Lapid
but by a small nominating committee. Yet in practice, as far as we know, the
committee that chose the candidates before the 2022 elections was totally
controlled by Lapid. Naturally, Lapid’s control over the selection of candi-
dates incentivizes MPs to maintain high party cohesion—and great loyalty
towards Lapid.
Fourth, the party does not have any elected internal institutions such as
a conference, although according to the bylaws such institutions should be
established. In January 2022 a party conference was convened for the first
time, but as noted, it was not an elected or representative institution. The
party has a low number of members (an estimated number of 1,700 in 2017; it
can be assumed that most of them are prominent party activists and relatives
of politicians) with no influence over the party’s conduct. There are still no
signs that Lapid or the party intend to empower the members. Centralized
personalization is also evident in the online arena, in which Lapid is much
more prominent than his party and its other politicians (Rahat 2022).
The undemocratic nature of the party is reflected by the intra-party democ-
racy index—in 2015 it received a score of 23/100, and in 2019 this rose by only
one point. Two aspects in which the party nevertheless demonstrates demo-
cratic features concern transparency (measured as a combination of public
 Political Parties and Democracy 279

exposure of various aspects connected to its internal affairs) and female rep-
resentation (Rahat and Shapira 2015; Shapira and Freedman 2019). Lapid
determines the gender balance of the party candidate list (it has no gen-
der quotas). Nine out of 24 of the party’s MPs after the 2022 elections were
women (37.5%), of which three were located in the top five positions on the
party list.
However, all these undemocratic characteristics are also found in the other
personal parties. The interesting question is, therefore, what distinguishes
Yesh Atid? Why has it succeeded where other personal parties have failed?

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Yesh Atid’s success may be attributed to specific circumstances, in partic-
ular the disintegration or significant weakening of other centrist and leftist
parties, but it also has to do with the political skills of Lapid. Beyond that,
Yesh Atid conducts itself, internally, differently from other personal parties.
Although autocratic in character, with no intra-party actors to balance the
leader’s power or exert any influence over the party’s conduct, it is not a ‘hol-
low’ party or merely a platform for the leader. Yesh Atid presents a unique
model—an undemocratic leader party that keeps ties with society and main-
tains a grassroots presence as well as a highly professional management style.
This is in contrast to other personal parties that have operated in Israel,
especially in the past decade, and are characterized by the absence of any
grassroots presence.
The party has a large pool of activists that conduct various field activities. It
is operated in a centralized manner by the professional echelon of the party,
which is headed by its CEO. It has 11 sectoral ‘headquarters’ (such as women,
youth, LGBT, and French-, Russian-, and English-speakers) and about 120
municipal branches, as well youth and student organizations. It also oper-
ates in the local arena. As early as the 2013 local elections, shortly after its
establishment, 30 local Yesh Atid lists won seats on local councils, and four
mayors were elected on its behalf. Lapid also made efforts to incorporate may-
ors into his Knesset list. In this respect it differs from other leader parties
(besides Yisrael Beiteinu), whose activities in the local arena are very lim-
ited, at most. As noted, Yesh Atid and especially Lapid also maintained from
the outset a significant social media presence, with Lapid managing to posi-
tion himself as one of the most prominent politicians in this arena (Rahat
2022).
To this we can add responsible economic conduct. Yesh Atid relies almost
exclusively on party funding (in 2018, 98%; State Comptroller 2021a) and,
like Likud and Labour, barely collects donations (2% in 2018). Yet, unlike
Likud and Labour, it has not accumulated heavy deficits. In fact, it ended
the 2013 elections with the largest surplus, more than that of any other party
280 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

(about $3 million), mainly due to its impressive electoral achievements. It

subsequently accumulated a small deficit (about $300,000) due to wasteful
conduct in the 2013 local elections and its decline in the 2015 national elec-
tions (Kenig and Rahat 2023). However, it soon covered the deficit, and by
the end of 2018 it once again had a positive balance sheet (State Comptroller
2021a). As a lesson from the 2013 local elections, in the 2018 local elec-
tions it invested in fewer candidates but more wisely, thus achieving similar
accomplishments yet reaping a financial surplus (of about $360,000; State
Comptroller 2021b). After the 2019–2021 cycle, it accumulated a deficit of

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

around $6–7 million. This is significant, but much lower than that of Likud,
its main competitor.

Summary and Conclusion

Israeli democracy faces severe challenges. Among them are veteran chal-
lenges such as the occupation of parts of the West Bank, whose residents are
not Israeli citizens; the status of Arab citizens of Israel; and the influence of
the Jewish religion on the public sphere. A newer challenge is the populist and
to some extent anti-liberal and anti-democratic tendencies that have emerged
in recent years.
This last trend culminated in the current government, which was formed
following the 2022 elections, with the participation of Likud, the ultra-
religious parties, and the parties that make up the Religious Zionism electoral
list. The coalition agreements signed before the formation of the govern-
ment include highly problematic clauses from a liberal-democratic point of
view, such as the abolition of some of the bans on discrimination, espe-
cially on an ethnic and gender basis; expanding the influence of religious
institutions and practices on public life; and amendments to the Knesset Elec-
tions Law that will make it easier to disqualify Arab lists and candidates. The
government itself includes ministers such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, chairman of
the far-right Jewish National Front party, who was previously convicted of
incitement to racism and membership in a terrorist organization. At the time
of writing (March 2023), the coalition is rapidly advancing a series of bills
that would severely undermine the independence and power of the Israeli
judicial system—placing the judicial selection process under the control of
the coalition as well as almost cancelling the High Court’s ability to review
bills and government decisions. This legislation has met with a large protest
movement, which includes many of the Israeli (legal, economic, security,
academic) elite, and it is difficult to predict the final result.
 Political Parties and Democracy 281

Regarding political parties, the most significant phenomenon to arise since

the 1990s seems to be the weakening of the large, aggregative, democratic par-
ties. This is a universal phenomenon, but in Israel it is particularly extreme.
The party crisis alone may not pose an immediate danger to Israeli democ-
racy, but it certainly harms it, even seriously, by encouraging or accelerating
the populist, anti-liberal, and anti-democratic processes that jeopardize lib-
eral democracy in Israel.
I would like to propose several channels via which the crisis of the major
parties might be related, directly or indirectly, to the danger of democratic

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

backsliding in Israel.
First, the weakening of the large, moderate parties has been accompanied
by the growth of smaller and more extreme ones. Some of them, the ultra-
religious and far-right parties, are members of the current coalition, strong
supporters of its anti-democratic agenda, and—especially Religious Zionism
politicians such as Simcha Rotman, chairman of the Knesset’s Constitutional,
Law, and Justice Committee—are among the main actors pushing for the
promotion of anti-democratic legislation.
Second, Likud itself has also become more extreme, as a result, among
other reasons, of the influence exerted by pressure groups such as the Jewish
settlers in the West Bank, who have gained considerable power in the party
through the primaries. In general, the primaries in Israel incentivize politi-
cians to adopt populist behaviour and positions, and this has also influenced
the transformation of the Likud into a more populist party.
Third, the extreme political fragmentation and instability of the party sys-
tem (especially the blooming of the short-lived personal parties) impairs the
ability of the Knesset and government to function, as well as affecting politi-
cians’ accountability (which is based on citizens’ ability to reward or punish
parties for their past performance, thus requiring a certain level of stability)
and public trust in institutionalized politics. The weakness of the aggregative
parties also contributes to ‘dismantling’ Israeli society into separate sectors
because, in contrast to the instability of the aggregate parties, the sectoral par-
ties maintain impressive stability, enabling them to significantly influence
policymaking. Indeed, according to studies that have comparatively exam-
ined the phenomenon of democratic backsliding around the world, processes
such as increasing political polarization and decline in trust in democratic
institutions are among the main factors driving backsliding (Haggard and
Kaufman 2021).
Finally, from a cultural perspective, the deterioration of intra-party democ-
racy limits political participation in institutionalized politics and may harm
the democratic political culture in general. Personal parties signify and
282 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

encourage the transformation of the central type of authority in politics from

legal-rational (most compatible with democratic principles), in which lead-
ers derives their authority from the fact that they were formally selected by
the party, to a personal-charismatic authority.
Looking at the future of Israel’s party system and its ability to contribute to
democracy, two main questions can be asked:
First, given that the model of the personal party has become the default
for new parties in Israel, as well as a popular model also in other developed
democracies, one must ask whether such a party can serve Israeli democracy,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

for example by stabilizing the party system and renewing the party-society
linkage? It is not totally unlikely. While most of the personal parties have
not done so, the case of Yesh Atid shows that this is possible. It is a relatively
stable party, professionally managed, with a grassroots presence. However,
Yesh Atid has not yet experienced the challenge of replacing its leader, and
it is impossible to tell whether it will survive this. The advantage of the old
democratic parties, which have replaced their leaders more than once, is
evident.
Moreover, not only Yesh Atid but most of the personal parties that have
operated in Israel over the past decade have strongly defended liberal-
democratic institutions and procedures. These include right-wing personal
parties such as New Hope and Kulanu. By contrast, Likud is a democratic
party that recently adopted a populist and to some extent anti-liberal-
democratic stance. In this sense, in the Israeli case, we can find no correlation
between populist or anti-democratic agenda and intra-party conduct, as was
found in general (Böhmelt et al. 2021).
Second, is it possible to rehabilitate the democratic parties—to build demo-
cratic, aggregative parties that will maintain success over time? It is true that
the decline of these parties resulted from socio-economic and cultural phe-
nomena that are difficult to counter. However, the largest party in Israel today
is a democratic party (although less democratic than in the past), and even
the Labour Party has survived (although barely). Even if there is no proof of
a causal relationship, this can indicate the advantages that democratic parties
with grassroots presence enjoy, especially in terms of their ability to survive
and recover. Therefore, one must look for a way to rehabilitate the parties
while adapting them to the current era, especially in the face of technolog-
ical (especially social media), social (e.g. individualism), and political (in
particular political personalization) challenges.
We will not be able to detail here all the necessary changes.5 We note
only that parties in Israel can learn both from the experience of (success-
ful) parties in other developed democracies and from some of the patterns
 Political Parties and Democracy 283

that have made Yesh Atid successful. It seems that parties these days need to
be more professional and less political in their management; to adopt more
flexible models for intra-party participation, especially allowing activists to
choose their preferred forms (e.g. adding the status of ‘supporters’ who are
not official members) and areas of activity; to strengthen ties with society in
various arenas, such as local government; to conduct themselves in a more
responsible manner, including increasing grassroots fundraising efforts; and
to expand and upgrade social media activity in a way that will integrate the
personal and the partisan.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

At the same time, democratic parties must counter the pathologies of pri-
maries by adopting complex selection methods that also involve less inclusive
selectorates, such as the party elite (Rahat 2009). It seems that such a change is
especially necessary in Israel. In particular, the result of a transition to a can-
didate selection system that grants nearly all power to party members has led
the Likud to adopt more extreme and populist tendencies. The adoption of a
moderate, mixed system may, perhaps, change this trend—thereby helping to
reduce the serious dangers that these trends pose to Israeli liberal democracy
today.

Notes
1. All data concerning the parties’ electoral support in different sectors and localities are
based on: Kenig and Rahat (2023).
2. All data concerning the parties’ achievements in local elections are based on: Kenig and
Rahat (2023).
3. All data concerning party membership are based on: Kenig and Rahat (2023).
4. Yisrael Beiteinu, founded by Avigdor Lieberman in the run-up to the 1999 elections, is
also a successful personal party. Yet it is significantly smaller than Yesh Atid and partially
relies on a sectoral basis of immigrants from the former USSR.
5. For more recommendations, see: Shapira et al. (2021).

References

Akzin, Benjamin. 1955. ‘The Role of Parties in Israel Democracy’. Journal of Democ-
racy, 17(4):507–545.
Ben-Bassat, Avi and Momi Dahan. 2014. Reforms, Politics, and Corruption.
Jerusalem: The Israel Democracy Institute (in Hebrew).
Böhmelt, Tobias, Lawrence Ezrow, and Roni Lehrer. 2022. ‘Populism and Intra-Party
Democracy—Do They Practice What They Preach?’. European Journal of Political
Research, 61(4):1143–1154.
284 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Calise, Mauro. 2015. ‘The Personal Party: An Analytical Framework’. Italian Political
Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, 45(3):301–315.
Central Elections Committee. 2022. ‘Actual Results of the Elections to the 25th
Knesset’. https://votes25.bechirot.gov.il/ (Accessed 14 October 2023).
Dalton, Russel J. and Martin P. Wattenberg. 2000. Parties without Partisans: Political
Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Döring, Holger, Constantin Huber, and Philip Manow. 2022. Parliaments and Gov-
ernments Database (ParlGov): Information on Parties, Elections and Cabinets in
Established Democracies. Development Version. https://www.parlgov.org/data-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

info/ (Accessed 1 February 2024).
Haggard, Stephan and Robert Kaufman. 2021. ‘The Anatomy of Democratic Back-
sliding’. Journal of Democracy, 32(4):27–41.
Hazan, Reuven Y. 2021. ‘Parties and the Party System of Israel’. In Reuven Y. Hazan,
Alan Dowty, Menachem Hofnung, and Gideon Rahat (eds), The Oxford Handbook
of Israeli Politics and Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 351–366.
Hermann, Tamar, Or Anabi, Ayelet Rubabshi-Shitrit, Avraham (Rami) Ritov, and
Ella Heller. 2020. The Israeli Democracy Index 2020. Jerusalem: The Israel Democ-
racy Institute.
Kefford, Glenn and Duncan McDonnell. 2018. ‘Inside the Personal Party: Leader-
owners, Light Organizations and Limited Lifespans’. The British Journal of Politics
and International Relations, 20(2):379–394.
Kenig, Ofer and Gideon Rahat. 2023. The Parties in Israel, 1992–2021. Jerusalem:
The Israel Democracy Institute (in Hebrew).
Kenig, Ofer and Or Tuttnauer. 2017. ‘The Decline of the Large Mainstream Parties’.
In Michal Shamir and Gideon Rahat (eds), The Elections in Israel 2015. New York:
Routledge, 21–46.
Kostadinova, Tatiana and Barry Levitt. 2014. ‘Toward a Theory of Personalist Par-
ties: Concept Formation and Theory Building’. Politics and Policy, 42(4):490–512.
Mandelkern, Ronen and Gideon Rahat. 2017. ʽParties and Labour Federations in
Israel’. In Elin H. Allern and Tim Bale (eds), Centre-left Parties and Trade Unions
in the Twenty-first Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 149–169.
Rahat, Gideon. 2009. ‘Which Candidate Selection Method Is the Most Democratic?’.
Government and Opposition, 44(1):68–90.
Rahat, Gideon. 2022. ‘Personalization and Personalism in the 2019–2021 Elections:
Another Record of Personal Politics?’. In Michal Shamir and Gideon Rahat (eds),
The Elections in Israel 2019–2021. London: Routledge, 87–120.
Rahat, Gideon and Ofer Kenig. 2018. From Party Politics to Personalized Poli-
tics? Party Change and Political Personalization in Democracies. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
 Political Parties and Democracy 285

Rahat, Gideon and Assaf Shapira. 2015. The Intra-party Democracy Index 2015.
https://www.idi.org.il/articles/3501 (Accessed 31 October 2021) (in Hebrew).
Shamir, Michal, Shira Dvir-Gvirsman, and Rafael Ventura. 2017. ‘Taken Captive by
the Collective Identity Cleavage: Left and Right in the 2015 Elections’. In Michal
Shamir and Gideon Rahat (eds), The Elections in Israel 2015. New York: Routledge,
139–164.
Shapira, Assaf and Avital Freedman. 2019. The Intra-Party Democracy Index 2019,
Available at: https://www.idi.org.il/articles/26503 (Accessed 31 October 2021) (in
Hebew).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Shapira, Assaf, Gideon Rahat, and Ofer Kenig (eds). 2021. A Roadmap for Strength-
ening Parties in the Current Era. https://www.idi.org.il/articles/34691 (Accessed:
31 October 2021) (in Hebrew).
State Comptroller. 2021a. Report on the Results of the Audit of the On-going Accounts
of the Factions in the 20th Knesset for the Period 1.1.2018-31.12.2018 (in Hebrew).
State Comptroller. 2021b. Report on the Results of the Audit of the Accounts of
the Parent Factions that Participated in the Local Elections in October 2018 (in
Hebrew).
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRATIC
CHALLENGES IN LATIN AMERICA
II
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
14
The Weakening of the Mexican Party
System
The Rise of AMLOʼs MORENA

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Aldo F. Ponce

Introduction

Until recently, the Mexican party system was one of the most stable and insti-
tutionalized in Latin America. Mexican parties were disciplined and relatively
strong organizations (Greene 2007; Greene and Sánchez-Talanquer 2018a,
2018b; Mainwaring 2018). However, these conditions have changed with the
two recent national elections (presidential elections in 2018 and legislative
elections in 2021)1 revealing a very different outlook (Garrido and Freiden-
berg 2020). The electoral outcomes portray the recently formed National
Regeneration Movement (MORENA hereafter) as unequivocally dominant
over long-standing political parties in Mexico. A dominant party in Mexican
politics is not a new phenomenon; witness the seven-decade rule of the Insti-
tutional Revolutionary Party (PRI hereafter) until the 2000 national election
(Greene 2007).2 But is MORENA’s swift ascendancy the product of the inher-
ent instability that poor governance outcomes and presidential multi-party
systems create in Latin America, or is it the result of some of the factors that
helped the PRI achieve dominance in the past?
I pose that poor governance outcomes are relevant factors that have led to a
weakening of parties in Mexico and instability in the Mexican party system. I
also pose that some factors that contributed to the PRI maintaining power for
seven decades are enabling the current dominance of MORENA. In addition,
the popularity, populist appeals, and electoral strategies of President Andrés
Manuel López Obrador (AMLO hereafter) have played a relevant role in the
rise of MORENA as currently the dominant party in Mexican politics. Fol-
lowing this, I argue that MORENA’s dominance in the future will depend on
the extent to which MORENA continues strengthening its connections with

Aldo F. Ponce, The Weakening of the Mexican Party System. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Aldo F. Ponce (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0014
290 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

society, and on the future success of the populist appeals of its leader, AMLO,
who was elected President of Mexico in 2018.
Before the victory of AMLO and MORENA in the 2018 national elec-
tion, the Mexican party system comprised three major parties—the PRI, the
National Action Party (PAN), and the Party of the Democratic Revolution
(PRD)—and some minor parties with a much lower share of electoral sup-
port. The PAN is a centre-right confessional party founded in 1939 which
remained relatively small during the PRI’s dominance; it won its first guber-
natorial elections and legislative seats in the 1990s (Loaeza 1999). Until 2018,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the PAN was relatively stronger in the west and northern states of Mexico
(Klesner 2005, 2007; Johnson and Cantú 2020). The PRD is a leftist party
formed in 1989 that brought together former members of the PRI and small
leftist parties, and social movements of poor people (Bruhn 1997). Until 2018,
the PRD received relatively more support in the southern states of Mexico
(Klesner 2005, 2007; Camp 2014; Johnson and Cantú 2020). During the leg-
islative period from 2012 to 2015, these three parties held 86% of seats in the
Chamber of Deputies. Minor parties—the Labour Party (PT hereafter), the
Mexican Green Ecologist Party (PVEM hereafter), the Citizens’ Movement
(MC), and the New Alliance Party (PANAL)—together held only 14% of the
seats. The 2018 and 2021 national elections brought overwhelming victories
for MORENA, which together with its close allies, the PT, the PVEM, and
the Social Encounter Party (PES), achieved control of the legislative branch.
Figure 14.1 shows how electoral support for Mexican parties has changed
over time, as measured by the number of seats held by each Mexican party
in the Chamber of Deputies. Overall, we can distinguish three stages in the
recent history of the Mexican party system: 1) PRI dominance before 2000;
2) a competitive period between 2000 and 2018, with power-sharing among
the three previous major parties—the PRI, the PAN, and the PRD; and 3) the
dominance of MORENA following the 2018 national elections.
Electoral support has not only shifted political power towards MORENA
in absolute terms (as Figure 14.1 shows), but it has also concentrated power
on MORENA in relative terms. The steep decline in the effective number of
both electoral parties and legislative parties since 2018 suggests such greater
concentration of power. Figure 14.2 displays this change. The effective num-
ber of parties after 2018 resembles that of the authoritarian period led by the
PRI.
While the major Mexican parties of recent decades share some organi-
zational similarities in terms of participation of members and supporters,
and also in the designation of leaders and representatives, they differ in
their capacities, as Table 14.1 shows. In 2015, the PRI was still the largest
 The Weakening of the Mexican Party System 291

61

51

41

31

21

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

11

1
7

4*
99

00

00

00

00

01

01

01

02

02
–1

–2

–2

–2

–2

–2

–2

–2

–2

–2
–9
94

97

00

03

06

09

12

15

18

21
19

19

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) National Action Party (PAN)
Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) National Regeneration Movement (MORENA)
Labor Party (PT) Mexican Green Ecologist Party (PVEM)
Citizens’ Movement (MC) New Alliance Party (PANAL)
Social Encounter Party (PES)

Figure 14.1 Evolution of seat shares in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies by party
Source: Authorʼs elaboration based on data from the National Electoral Institute ∗estimated; taken
from Infobae (2021)

organization, with almost 10 million members registered.3 The PRI’s income

and campaign spending were also the highest among the major Mexican par-
ties, totalling 1,360 million and 307 million Mexican pesos, respectively.4
However, its major rivals had also developed robust organizations and mem-
berships over the years5 , enabling the PAN to defeat the PRI in the 2000
and 2006 presidential elections. Table 14.1 also shows how all major parties
have created sub-organizations to improve their connections with society.
The PAN possesses a well-organized party with professional staff and a
membership strongly identified with PAN’s ideals. In terms of membership
requirements, the PAN has set higher barriers than other parties (Langston
2007), with the requirement that new members be sponsored by existing
members. These stricter membership standards help explain why the PAN
holds a lower number of members than rival parties. Opposition parties
during the authoritarian period led by the PRI created partisan identities
based on strong ideological beliefs to attract and retain members, as selec-
tive incentives were hard to offer (Greene and Sánchez-Talanquer 2018a).
292 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

4.5

3.5

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

3

2.5

2
1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009 2012 2015 2018 2021

ENEP ENLP

Figure 14.2 Evolution of the effective number of electoral parties and the effective
number of legislative parties
ENEP—effective number of electoral parties; ENLP—effective number of legislative parties; figures
for the periods 1991–1994 and 1994–1997 are taken from Garrido and Freidenberg (2020)
Source: Authorʼs elaboration based on data from Gallagher (2023)

The requirement of affirming principles is likely to have been inherited from

this authoritarian past.
By 2015, MORENA had already created an organization with 923,861
members. As Table 14.1 shows, MORENA had also established several types
of sub-organizations to strengthen its connections with society, resembling
to some degree PRI’s strategies during its dominance. Although it had cre-
ated a competitive organization, MORENA did not hold any advantage over
the other major parties in terms of organizational strength before its victories
in the 2018 presidential election and the 2021 legislative election. Therefore,
how was MORENA able to achieve an astounding victory in the 2018 presi-
dential and legislative elections? How could MORENA achieve an additional
electoral triumph in the mid-term 2021 legislative elections (as MORENA,
together with its allies, held on to its majority in Congress)?
I contend that two different types of factors explain the rapid transforma-
tion of the Mexican party system and how it is evolving, and, in turn, the
 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
Table 14.1 Organizational differences among major parties in Mexico, 2015

Organizational capacities and rules MORENA PRI PAN PRD

Organizational
Organizational capacities
capacities
Membership as a proportion of the electorate + 0.38% 7.62% 0.45% 6.29%
Number of party members 923,861 9,934,820 484,800 2,590,972
Number of party members (updated December 2020) ∗∗ 278,322 1,578,242 234,450 1,250,034
National party income 101,648,192 1,360,270,592∗ 969,531,648 870,428,928
Percentage of income from state funding + 98.4% 97.48% 96.34% 97.78%
Percentage of income from party members + 1.6% 2.52% 3.66% 2.22%
Share direct public subsidies of party’s national income 90% 90% 90% 90%
Subsidy allocation based on Votes Votes Votes Votes
Campaign spending 23,457,274 306,726,482 257,623,465 196,394,734
Full-time employees in national party headquarters 90 132 352 200
∗∗∗
Sub-organizations
Sub-organizations
Women’s sub-organizations Yes Yes Yes Yes
Youth sub-organizations Yes Yes Yes Yes
Senior sub-organizations No Yes No No
Farmer’s sub-organizations Yes Yes No No
Ethnic/linguistic groups Yes Yes No Yes

Continued
 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
Table 14.1 Continued

Organizational capacities and rules MORENA PRI PAN PRD

Rules
Rules regulating
regulating participation
participation
Voting eligible at party congress All attending All attending All members, All attending
members members attending or not members
Membership must be sponsored No No Yes No
Members must affirm principles Yes Yes Yes Yes
Dues requirement for members Yes Yes Yes Yes
Voting eligible at party congress: All party members in Yes Yes No Yes
attendance∗∗∗∗
Voting eligible: All party members, attending or not∗∗∗∗
Women’s representation at party conferences, party statute rules 50% gender 50% gender 50% gender 50% gender
equality equity equity equity
Women’s share of party’s total candidates in the most recent 50% 42.9% 50% 50%
national elections for the national legislature
Local-level organizations’
Local-level organizations’ prerogatives
prerogatives
Voting eligible: delegates from local or regional parties Yes Yes No Yes
Receives subsidy Yes Yes Yes Yes

Note: Data on finance in Mexican pesos.

Source: PPDB (Poguntke et al. 2020, 2022)
+
These figures refer to 2017
∗
This figure corresponds to 2013
∗∗
The Instituto Nacional Electoral requested to update these figures
∗∗∗
Organizations with individual memberships (types of sub-organizations that are mentioned in the party statutes)
∗∗∗∗
Only members are eligible to vote in all parties
 The Weakening of the Mexican Party System 295

success of MORENA. The next section elaborates on the first type of fac-
tors, which are the structural determinants that explain the recent instability
and fragility of the Mexican party system. The following section discusses the
reasons why the Mexican party system appears dislocated, with one relatively
new party currently dominating the others. In doing so, I offer an analysis on
how MORENA has been constructing its swift dominance over other parties.
The last section concludes the discussion and offers suggestions for further
research.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The First Type of Factors (the Structural Effect):
Explaining the Instability and Fragility
of the Mexican Party System

The current literature has identified three possible explanations for the rise
of MORENA. First, voters’ frustration about persisting levels of poverty and
inequality, as well as low economic growth, could have led voters to support
a party advocating change (Greene and Sánchez-Talanquer 2018b; Espinoza
Pedraza 2019; Gegg 2020; Sánchez-Talanquer and Greene 2021). Neither the
PRI nor the PAN offered solutions to these social problems. The Mexican
state falls short in providing sufficient capacities and resources to guarantee
social and citizen rights (Sánchez-Talanquer and Greene 2021). For instance,
its social spending represents only 10.9% of gross domestic product (in 2019),
far below the spending levels of other OECD countries (Hannan et al. 2021;
Sánchez-Talanquer and Greene 2021). It is difficult for the Mexican state to
boost productivity, as it has relatively low taxes and public investment levels
remain low compared to those of other OECD countries (Sánchez-Talanquer
and Greene 2021). The scale of the problem is highlighted by the fact that 51%
of Mexicans prior to the 2018 election were earning less than enough to afford
basic goods and services (Greene and Sánchez-Talanquer 2018b, Sánchez-
Talanquer and Greene 2021). Employing a populist discourse, AMLO has
repeatedly criticized this poor performance to weaken support for his rivals
(Greene and Sánchez-Talanquer 2018b).
The second potential explanation relates to Mexico’s high crime rates
since 2007 (Greene and Sánchez-Talanquer 2018b; Gegg 2020; Prud’Homme
2020; Sánchez-Talanquer and Greene 2021). When former President Felipe
Calderón from the PAN decided to shift policy to a confrontational crack-
down on illegal drug trafficking, the public security forces concentrated on
capturing or killing leaders or lieutenants of criminal organizations (Flores
2009; Chabat 2010; Montero 2012; Ríos 2012; Atuesta and Ponce 2017). This
296 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

strategy led to an increase in inter-organizational violence, as sub-leaders of

the affected organizations fought among themselves for new leadership posi-
tions (Phillips 2015; Atuesta and Ponce 2017). Such internal fights led to splits
within organizations and the formation of new factions, resulting in greater
competition6 and rivalry, and the rapid increase of violence (Phillips 2015;
Atuesta and Ponce 2017).7 In addition, other types of violent crimes, such
as disappearances, torture, extortion, and kidnappings, affected a substantial
portion of the population. The 2013 Instituto Nacional Electoral and El Cole-
gio de Mexico (INE-COLMEX) Survey indicated that approximately 14% of

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

respondents had suffered a violent crime within the previous 12 months. In
addition, members of governments at all levels were continuously accused of
being linked with organized crime (Espinoza Pedraza 2019).
The third source of discontent pertains to extensive corruption among
public officials in Mexico (Córdova Guzmán and Ponce 2017; Greene
and Sánchez-Talanquer 2018b; Ang 2020; Prud’Homme 2020; Sánchez-
Talanquer and Greene 2021). In particular, police corruption has been
rampant in Mexico (Ponce et al. 2021). The 2018 Latin American Public
Opinion Project (LAPOP) survey reports that approximately 25% of Mex-
icans have experienced police corruption. Ponce et al. (2021) found that
such experiences increase the likelihood of victims taking to the streets in
protest. Thus, discontent and anger are likely to be prevalent in Mexican
voters (Ponce et al. 2021). AMLO cunningly criticized the main Mexican
parties as being ‘corrupt’ and part of the ‘mafia of power’, and promised a
deep change if MORENA won the election (Greene and Sánchez-Talanquer
2018b; Espinoza Pedraza 2019).
I argue that one more factor could be proposed to explain the high volatil-
ity apparent in the 2018 election. Latin American party systems are, sooner or
later, victims of instability. Like the Mexican party system, other previously
stable party systems in Latin America, like the Chilean, Costa Rican, and
Colombian party systems, have experienced substantial electoral instability
and the deinstitutionalization of their main parties (Sánchez 2008; Roberts
2014; Albarracín et al. 2018; Lupu 2018). This recurrent pattern suggests
that the combination of strong presidentialism8 and proportional represen-
tation in elections might create a noxious macro-political environment for
parties (Ponce 2022).9 Proportional rules, which dominate in Latin America
in elections to Congress, tend to be permissive to the emergence of populist
presidents and new parties, and some such parties might become successful
in the short term, weakening the support base of existing ones. Greene and
Sánchez-Talanquer (2018a) found that the Mexican electoral system allows
for the existence of up to around 17 competitive parties. Therefore, although
 The Weakening of the Mexican Party System 297

private contributions are restricted in Mexico and public funding is allocated

mainly to the major parties,10 the electoral system is still permissive and par-
tisanship volatile enough to allow for the emergence of new parties.11 The
destabilization of established parties in such contexts appears more likely
when the president holds a populist or/and an authoritarian agenda (as is
the case with AMLO) (Weyland 2021). Overall, this is a macro institutional
context that could hinder the consolidation of Latin American democracies.
Further research will deepen the knowledge on this possible factor and its
causal mechanisms.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The combination of these four factors could have produced the observed
instability of the Mexican party system. Whatever the relative importance
of each of these four factors, these fragile conditions appear to have given
MORENA fertile political ground and a receptive audience for the emo-
tive and personalist appeals of AMLO. This new party, characterized in its
beginning as a movement, won the 2018 presidential12 and 2021 legisla-
tive13 elections. For the moment, at least, MORENA is occupying a dominant
position among Mexican parties.

The Second Type of Factors (AMLO and the Party Effect):

The Rise of MORENA

The second type of factors relate to decisions made by Mexican parties in

recent years. Although the triumph of MORENA in the 2018 presidential
election was overwhelming, it did not completely come as a surprise. In fact,
AMLO was already a well-known, popular, charismatic, and professional
politician, a former leader of the PRD who had run twice before for the Mexi-
can presidency, in 2006 and 2012 (Espinoza Toledo and Navarrete Vela 2016,
Lucca 2020; Navarrete Vela 2020a; Johnson and Cantú 2020).14 MORENA’s
triumph was accompanied by the highest levels of nationalization of electoral
support among major parties in Mexico (Johnson and Cantú 2020).
In the 2006 electoral contest, the PAN candidate Calderón defeated AMLO
by just 243,934 votes (36.69% of votes for PAN and 36.09% of votes for the
coalition of parties led by AMLO, called ‘Coalición por el Bien de Todos’).15
AMLO again ran for the presidency in 2012, losing to Enrique Peña Nieto
from the PRI, who won with 38.2% of the vote. AMLO again came in second,
with 31.6% of the votes.
After these two defeats, AMLO modified his strategy. He abandoned the
PRD and formed a new political party as his own electoral vehicle out of a
political protest movement he had established in 2011, MORENA (Espinoza
298 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Toledo and Navarrete Vela 2016).16 The party was born from an alliance of
several groups with diverse ideologies (mostly leftists, but also conservatives
from evangelical organizations) and from different parties and organizations,
the majority from the PRD, but also from the PAN, the PRI, and labour
unions (Greene and Sánchez-Talanquer 2018b; Espinoza Pedraza 2019).
Several reasons could have led AMLO to form this new party. First, he
could have perceived the weakening of the political establishment due to
the economic and societal problems discussed in Section II. In particular,
given the PRD’s weakness, AMLO initially planned that MORENA would be

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the main leftist party. Second, although the PRD had not previously ruled
the Mexican federal government, it had already ruled some state govern-
ments. Mexican voters could have therefore perceived it as a traditional party,
partially responsible for the entrenched societal problems in Mexico. The
creation of MORENA allowed AMLO to more freely develop a populist dis-
course that was separate from but not in conflict with the PRD’s party brand
and other PRD leaders (Espinoza Toledo and Navarrete Vela 2016). Third,
AMLO aimed to develop a party organization strong enough to succeed in
electoral contests. He retains considerable power within MORENA’s orga-
nization, especially in the selection of candidates (Lucca 2020. AMLO also
paid special attention to strengthening the local presence of the party and
forming strategic alliances with unions and other civil society organizations
(Lucca 2020 Navarrete Vela 2020b), attempting to emulate, to some extent,
the strategies the PRI developed at the local level during its authoritarian
rule.
The rise of MORENA can be explained by not only the party’s actions but
also their rivals’ self-defeating decision making and internal conflicts. For the
2018 presidential election, the PRI presented a technocrat, José Meade, with
scarce chances of becoming a popular candidate (Aragón et al. 2018; Greene
and Sánchez-Talanquer 2018a). The other traditionally strong parties—the
PAN, the PRD, and the MC—formed an electoral alliance called ‘Frente
Ciudadano por México’ (Aragón et al. 2018; Prud’Homme 2020). The com-
bination of a party holding a rightist and religious brand (PAN) with one
representing a leftist ideology (PRD) is likely to have damaged their party
brands’ reputation, and consequently their electoral chances (Lupu 2014;
Greene and Sánchez-Talanquer 2018b).
In addition, the PAN faced internal conflict when Gustavo Madero, elected
president of the party in 2010, faced internal pressure from several local
branches and the followers of former President Calderón, with demands for
greater participation of members in the selection of candidates and lead-
ers (Prud’Homme 2020). Internal conflict within the PRD became stronger
 The Weakening of the Mexican Party System 299

when AMLO resigned following his electoral defeat in 2012. AMLO stated
that he resigned because the PRD had signed the ‘Pacto for México’, an inter-
party agreement to implement structural reforms in Mexico (Lucca, 2020).
Since the PRD was formed by different leftist groups and parties, the absence
of AMLO as a unifying force prompted the reemergence of differences among
these groups (Prud’Homme 2020). Internal conflicts reached a boiling point
when one faction of the party, ‘Nueva Izquierda’, opposed the resignation
of the governor of the state of Guerrero, Ángel Aguirre, who was somehow
linked to the massacre of 46 students (El Universal 2020). Due to this oppo-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

sition, other PRD factions requested the resignation of the party’s leadership
(Prud’Homme 2020). The later alliance with the PAN also exacerbated inter-
nal divisions within the PRD. The product of these crises was that several
PRD members changed their affiliation to MORENA (Prud’Homme 2020).
Overall, these internal divisions are likely to have made coordination and
mobilization within the PRD and PAN more difficult to accomplish.
After its outstanding triumph in the 2018 elections, MORENA continued
being successful. Despite its underperformance in ruling the federal govern-
ment17 and the societal costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, MORENA was
able to retain a majority in the Chamber of Deputies (in coalition with the
PES and the PVEM) in the 2021 legislative elections.18 Several factors have
contributed to MORENA’s continued dominance over opposition parties.
First, AMLO continued employing a populist discourse criticizing the
opposition parties’ leaderships as corrupt, for being ‘neoliberal’, and for hav-
ing failed to develop the country in the past. AMLO often promises to ‘purify
public life’ and punish the ‘mafia of power’. AMLO portrays himself as a loyal
representative of the ‘pueblo bueno’ (‘the people’) who have been mistreated
by the corrupt and powerful opposition parties. This is an image that AMLO
regularly cultivates and that has undoubtedly contributed to his popularity.
And in a departure from previous presidential incumbents, AMLO broad-
casts his own TV show every morning, exploiting the opportunity to criticize
rivals and publicize his reformist agenda. Overall, AMLO frequently seeks to
undermine existing opposition parties through his populist tactics.
Second, this prominent role of MORENA’s leader has helped keep the
party relatively united compared to competitors (Lucca 2020; Prud’Homme
2020). Although MORENA’s internal dynamic is far from being united in
absolute terms, as several MORENA leaders have fought one another pub-
licly (Acuña Murillo 2019; Monroy 2019; Zepeda et al. 2020), these battles do
not seem to have significantly affected MORENA’s electoral support. AMLO
deliberately minimized his public interference in these battles. This strategy
helped him construe the image of being a ‘democratic’ leader in his own party
300 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

and insulate him from problems arising from these conflicts. Unlike these
skirmishes in MORENA, conflicts in opposition parties have tended to pro-
duce scandals, breaks in their ranks, and difficulties in rapidly adapting to
the overwhelming competition from MORENA.
Third, AMLO has also criticized the functioning of several constitutionally
autonomous institutions, undermining independence from the executive.
This strategy has also contributed to strengthening his reputation as a keen
reformist. Rather than cultivating a typical reputation as a leftist party,
AMLO has aimed to shape MORENA’s image as a reformist and inclu-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

sive party that rejects the past and constructs a new future in different
ways (Espinoza Toledo and Navarrete Vela 2016). AMLO calls this reformist
agenda ‘La Cuarta Transformación’, which aims at weakening and replacing
the PRI as the main party by following a catch-all strategy (Aragón et al. 2018;
Navarrete Vela 2020a; Freidenberg and Casullo 2020).
Fourth, MORENA’s campaigns have emphasized connections to diverse
groups and sectors in society, in particular women, rural people, the youth,
students, the elderly, and marginalized peoples (Alva and Díaz 2019; Navar-
rete Vela 2020b). In similar fashion to the tactics employed by the PRI during
its dominance, MORENA has continued expanding local networks and
mobilizing followers for electoral purposes or party meetings. More specifi-
cally, MORENA has established alliances with teachers’ unions: ‘el Sindicato
Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación’ (CNTE) and ‘la Coordinadora
Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación’ (Navarrete Vela 2020b).19 AMLO
stopped educational reforms aimed at teacher evaluations in exchange
for teachers unions’ support (Rojas and Ponce 2021). AMLO also forged
alliances with women’s organizations, such as ‘Mujeres de Hierro’, and other
diverse organizations throughout Mexico, such as ‘Colectivo de Asociaciones
AC’, ‘el Movimiento Amplio Social’, ‘el Colectivo 19-S-17’, ‘el Movimiento
Ruta 5’, and ‘el Movimiento Esperanza Ciudadana #2018’ (Navarrete Vela
2020b).
Finally, although under AMLO’s presidency unemployment has soared
in Mexico and certain social programmes, such as childcare services, have
been cancelled or dismantled, he has created other social programmes,
such as those supporting unemployed young people, and increased the
number of social programme beneficiaries, and therefore potential sup-
porters. The number of families benefiting from social programmes was
26% in 2019, 28% in 2020, and 30% in 2021,20 giving MORENA addi-
tional advantages over rival parties while in government. Still, we cannot
be certain whether this short-term dominance will consolidate into a new
order. The institutional macro-environment coupled with persisting societal
 The Weakening of the Mexican Party System 301

problems might ultimately put an end to this advantage. In all probabil-

ity, the answer also depends on how strong MORENA becomes in both its
organizational capacity and its links with society. If MORENA continues
to build on these strengths, it may retain control of the legislative branch
and most of the governorships. But, since the electoral fate of the party
depends on AMLO’s popularity, it is also likely that MORENA’s dominance
will be temporary. As the re-election of a Mexican president is not allowed,21
AMLO’s reputation and character is likely to play a less prominent role for
the 2024 national elections in ensuring MORENA’s victory by an ample

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

margin.
If MORENA’s fortunes fade, the Mexican party system is likely to experi-
ence more changes in coming years. Since the Mexican party system has been
until recently one of the most institutionalized in Latin America, many of the
societal benefits related to this condition, such as greater representation and
accountability, cannot be taken for granted.

Conclusions: Mexican Democracy Under Stress

It is possible to learn several lessons from this chapter. First, the Mexican
political system is currently under stress. While the first group of factors,
which I call the ‘structural effect’, partially explains the rise of MORENA
and the recent instability of the Mexican party system, it falls well short
of accounting for MORENA’s electoral success in the most recent legisla-
tive election which occurred in 2021. The second group of factors seems
to better explain this outcome. These factors pertain to the strategies and
actions that AMLO and MORENA adopted. MORENA has been increasingly
acquiring more organizational capacity and political power at the expense
of other parties in Mexico. AMLO implemented an aggressive populist dis-
course against opposition parties’ leadership that portrays them as ‘corrupt’.
AMLO’s attacks also targeted governors, high-level public bureaucrats, physi-
cians, and scholars22 that criticize MORENA’s government or hold (or held)
links with opposition parties to weaken them. Simultaneously, AMLO sought
to increase support for his ‘crusade’ against the ‘corrupt’ (Sánchez-Talanquer
and Greene 2021). On many occasions, AMLO complemented his populist
rhetoric with accusations that the Attorney General of Mexico made against
certain troubling rivals or critics.
Second, AMLO’s skill in connecting with voters through these pop-
ulist tactics has contributed to MORENA’s current advantageous position.
MORENA currently holds control of Congress and has been compromising
302 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

the independence of Mexico’s judiciary and key autonomous institutions23

(Sánchez-Talanquer and Greene 2021). Moreover, other parties have become
weaker, in part due to their previous performance in government but also
because of AMLO’s relentless smear campaigns. Overall, the current stress
in the health of the Mexican party system extends to Mexican democracy.
There has been a disproportionate accumulation of power in the Mexican
presidency since 2018 at the expense of the Mexican Congress, autonomous
agencies, the judiciary, and academia. Because of fears of retaliation from
the executive, freedom of expression and the freedom of the press have been

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

compromised to some degree. AMLO has also forged a close alliance with
the military and enhanced the military’s roles, budget benefits, and prerog-
atives. For instance, the Mexican police are now under the control of the
military. AMLO has also granted concessions and property of key projects
to the military such as the ‘Tren Maya’ and the construction and admin-
istration of the ‘Santa Lucía Airport’ close to Mexico City (Linares 2019;
Brooks 2020; Reina 2021). In sum, AMLO systematically intimidates his crit-
ics. Although this institutional deterioration could cease once AMLO's rule
ends, Mexican democracy might again become prey to another authoritarian
leader who might adopt the same populist strategies. Relevant institutional
reforms are needed to prevent this outcome from repeating in the future.
These reforms might range from moderate changes, such as the strengthen-
ing of autonomous agencies and the judiciary, to more radical ones including
the reduction of presidential powers, reforms in the electoral system to reduce
permissiveness, or the replacement of presidentialism with a parliamentary
system.
Third, opposition parties have suffered due to both AMLO’s populist
discourse that criticizes them as ‘corrupt’ and their own strategies to mini-
mize electoral losses in the short-term (e.g. the alliance between the rightist
PAN and the leftist PRD in the 2018 elections). Despite the low perfor-
mance outcomes of AMLO and MORENA in government and the effects
of the COVID-19 pandemic, the major opposition parties of Mexico—the
PRI, the PAN, and the PRD—have not recovered sufficient electoral support
to counterbalance MORENA’s dominant position. While core supporters
and members enable them to remain potentially (electorally) competitive,
these parties have yet to implement successful strategies to enhance their
reputations, and to strengthen their parties’ brands and followers’ party iden-
tification. If the PRI and the PAN adjusted their strategies successfully, they
might recover in the future as their organizations remain reasonably com-
petitive. Of course, a decline in MORENA’s support would also contribute to
this outcome.
 The Weakening of the Mexican Party System 303

At the same time, MORENA’s advantage over competitors is likely to be

temporary given the magnitude of entrenched societal problems, such as
poverty, inequality, violence, and corruption, in combination with presiden-
tialism that have weakened the other major parties, and indeed party systems
in other Latin American countries. Considering no significant improvements
have been made in any of these societal domains during MORENA’s rule,
these failures might produce electoral losses for MORENA in future elec-
tions. In addition, if AMLO is unable to stand as MORENA’s candidate for
the 2024 presidential election, or the degree of his influence on electoral out-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

comes diminishes significantly, MORENA’s chances of maintaining power
are expected to be lower. If this were to be the case, divisions within the
party might grow further among prominent leaders who would fight to win
the candidacy of MORENA for the presidency. Therefore, the electoral fate
of MORENA depends on the extent to which it continues strengthening
both its roots with society and organizational capabilities, as well as whether
it continues to expand the social programmes that the federal government
provides.
Temporary or permanent, the weakening of the Mexican party system
seems to fit well with the typical context of institutional crisis in Latin Amer-
ica: strong presidentialism in highly unequal countries breeding authori-
tarian populists who actively look to undermine political competition, dis-
crediting other parties’ leaders as ‘corrupt’ and ‘mafiosos’, and accumulating
political power at the expense of institutions’ independence. The rise of
Bolsonaro in Brazil, Morales in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador, Bukele in El
Salvador, AMLO in Mexico, Fujimori and Vizcarra in Peru, and Chávez
in Venezuela exemplify this extended phenomenon in the region. The ulti-
mate outcome is the existence of populist illiberal cycles that produce the
weakening and instability of Latin American party systems. It is certainly
very difficult for democracies to flourish and/or consolidate in such political
systems.

Notes
1. In Mexico, while presidential and Senate elections occur every six years, the Chamber of
Deputies is renewed every three years.
2. PRI’s dominance was possible thanks to a broad coalition of organizations and soci-
etal sectors such as labour unions, the industrial bourgeoisie, regional elites, government
workers, and the working classes (Greene 2007; Greene and Sánchez-Talanquer 2018a).
3. This figure, like those of the other parties, is likely to be inflated as parties do not
update their membership lists. In order to keep their registration as parties, they
304 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

must demonstrate they have a number of members no less than 0.26% of those
who could have voted in the previous federal election. Recently, the electoral author-
ity, the Instituto Nacional Electoral, asked parties to update their membership lists.
For further information, see https://centralelectoral.ine.mx/2020/02/18/concluye-ine-
procedimiento-actualizacion-padrones-militancia-los-partidos-politicos/
4. The source of these figures is the Political Party Database Project (Poguntke et al.
2020).
5. The PRI inherited its strong party organization from its authoritarian past. The PAN and
the PRD had invested in building strong organizations to put an end to the PRI regime.
Such strategies have been also observed in other countries ruled by dominant parties

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

(Hicken and Martinez-Kuhonta 2015; Greene and Sánchez-Talanquer 2018a).
6. The number of criminal organizations grew from 20 in 2007 to almost 80 in 2011 (Atuesta
and Ponce 2017).
7. For instance, homicides resulting from confrontations among members of criminal
organizations increased from 2,347 in 2007 to 12,896 in 2011 (Atuesta and Ponce 2017).
8. For further discussion on the effects of presidentialism, consult Shugart (1998) and
Martínez (2021).
9. In the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, of the 500 deputies, 300 are elected by plurality
rule from single-member districts. The remaining 200 deputies are elected by propor-
tional representation in 5 constituencies (40-seat constituencies). In the Senate, of the 128
senators, 96 are elected in three-seat constituencies (representing each of the 31 Mexican
states and Mexico City). Two of these three seats are awarded to the winning party and
the third seat to the party in the second place. Finally, the other 32 senatorial seats are
elected by proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency.
10. A total of 70% of public funding is allocated by vote share. The remaining 30% of public
resources are equally distributed among registered parties.
11. The threshold for registering new parties or keeping registration is 3% of votes. In addi-
tion to the parties shown in Figure 14.1, several other small parties have emerged since
2000, though some were short-lived. Examples of new parties are Partido Democra-
cia Social, Partido Auténtico de la Revolución Democrática, Democracia Social Par-
tido Nacional, Convergencia por la Democracia, Partido de la Sociedad Nacionalista,
México Posible, Partido Liberal Mexicano, Fuerza Ciudadana, Convergencia, Partido
Socialdemócrata, Primero México, Salvemos México, and Partido Humanista (data from
the National Electoral Institute).
12. AMLO from MORENA received 53.2% of votes, Ricardo Anaya from PAN received
22.3% of votes, and José Antonio Meade from the former dominant PRI got only 16.4%
of votes (INE 2018).
13. In the Senate, MORENA secured 55 of 128 available seats (42.97% of the Senate). Fur-
thermore, MORENA together with its allies—the PES and the PT—were able to take
control of 69 seats (53.9% of Senate seats). Meanwhile, the PRI secured just 13 seats and
the PAN 23 seats (10.16% and 17.97% of the Senate seats, respectively). In the Chamber
of Deputies, MORENA’s advantage was even greater, because while it only obtained con-
trol of 191 seats (38.2% of Chamber of Deputies’ seats), it achieved a majority in coalition
with the PES and the PT, together taking 308 seats of the available 500 (61.6% of Chamber
of Deputies seats). The PRI and the PAN achieved control of 45 and 81 seats, respectively
(9% and 16.2% of Chamber of Deputies seats).
 The Weakening of the Mexican Party System 305

14. AMLO was a prior member of the PRI and then of the PRD. When the PRD was formed
in 1989, AMLO decided to join this party, and he repeated the same strategy with
MORENA.
15. This coalition was formed by the PRD, the PT, and Convergencia.
16. AMLO resigned as a member of the PRD on 9 September 2012 (Prud’Homme 2020).
MORENA was then registered as a political party in 2014 (Zepeda 2014).
17. The rate of economic growth was −0.05% in 2019 and −8.24% in 2020 (The World Bank
2021).
18. The alliance of MORENA, the PT, and the PVEM, called Juntos Haremos Historia,
achieved 56% of available seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

19. PANAL also established close links to these organizations.
20. Data from the National Survey on Employment (ENOE)
21. A constitutional reform would be needed to allow for presidential re-election. MORENA
and its allies do not hold the required supermajority to implement this reform.
22. AMLO has dissolved public trust funds that finance research in universities, the arts, and
protections for journalists and human rights activists.
23. Sánchez-Talanquer and Greene (2021: 60) state as an example: ‘the autonomous National
Electoral Institute (INE)—which organizes elections and anchored Mexico’s democratic
transition—has been subject to scathing verbal attacks from AMLO and his allies, budget
cuts in the name of “republican austerity”, and proposals for a major overhaul that could
presage an attempt to subdue it’.

References

Acuña Murillo, Ivonne. 2019. ‘MORENA: De Movimiento Social a Partido Político

en Crisis Precoz’, Blog IBERO, November 1. https://ibero.mx/prensa/analisis-
morena-de-movimiento-social-partido-en-crisis-precoz (Accessed 15 December
2023).
Albarracín, Juan, Laura Gamboa, and Scott Mainwaring. 2018. ‘Deinstitutionaliza-
tion without Collapse: Colombia’s Party System’. In Scott Mainwaring (ed.), Party
Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay, and Collapse. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 227–254.
Alva Rivera, Miguel Eduardo, and Oniel Francisco Díaz Jiménez. 2019. ‘Propuestas
Temáticas de Oposición en Plataformas Electorales y Spots Político-Electorales: El
Caso del PAN, PRD y MORENA en las Elecciones a Gobernador en el Estado de
México 2017’. Global Media Journal Mexico, 16(30):45–66.
Ang, Milena. 2020. ‘Criminal Contagion: How Governor Detentions Weakened the
PRI’. Política y Gobierno, 27(2):1–35.
Aragón Falomir, Jaime, Alfredo Edmundo Fernández de Lara Gaitán, and Juan
Bautista Lucca. 2018. ‘Las Elecciones de 2018 en México y el Triunfo del
Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (Morena)’. Estudios Políticos, 54:286–308.
306 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Atuesta, Laura H. and Aldo F. Ponce. 2017. ‘Meet the Narco: Increased Competition
among Criminal Organisations and the Explosion of Violence in Mexico’. Global
Crime, 18(4):375–402.
Brooks, Daruis. 2020. ‘México: El Inédito Rol del Ejército y la Marina en el Gobierno
de AMLO (Más Allá de la Seguridad Pública)’, BBC News Mundo, December 1.
https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-54850024 (Accessed 15 December 2023).
Bruhn, Kathleen. 1997. ‘The Seven-month Itch: Neoliberal Politics, Popular Move-
ments, and the Left in Mexico’. In Douglas Chalmers, Carlos Vilas, Katherine Hite,
Scott Martin, Kerianne Piester, and Monique Segarra (eds), The New Politics of

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Inequality in Latin America: Rethinking Participation and Representation. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 144–169.
Camp, Roderic A. 2014. Politics in Mexico: Democratic Consolidation or Decline? 6th
edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
Chabat, Jorge. 2010. La Respuesta del Gobierno de Calderón al Desafío del
Narcotráfico: Entre lo Malo y lo Peor. CIDE Working Paper 196.
Córdova Guzmán, Jassel and Aldo F. Ponce. 2017. ‘Los Tipos de Corrupción y la
Satisfacción con los Servicios Públicos. Evidencia del Caso Mexicano’. Región y
Sociedad, 29(70):231–262.
El Universal. 2020. ‘Exgobernador Ángel Aguirre, Dispuesto a “Aclarar” su
Papel en Caso Ayotzinapa’. 1 July. https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/estados/
exgobernador-angel-aguirre-dispuesto-aclarar-su-papel-en-caso-ayotzinapa
(Accessed 15 December 2023).
Espinoza Pedraza, Lisdey. 2019. ‘The Current Political Challenges to the Mexican
Democratisation Process: 2012 to 2018’. Acta Hispanica, 24:87–113.
Espinoza Toledo, Ricardo and Juan Navarrete Vela. 2016. ‘MORENA en la
Reconfiguración del Sistema de Partidos en México’. Estudios Políticos, 37:
81–109.
Flores Pérez, Carlos. 2009. El Estado en Crisis: Crimen Organizado y Política.
Desafíos para la Consolidación Democrática. Mexico City: Centro de Investiga-
ciones y Estudios Superiores de Antropología Social.
Freidenberg, Flavia and Maria E. Casullo. 2020. ‘Vaciar el Centro (para Volver
a Llenarlo)’, El Universal, January 28. https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/opinion/
flavia-freidenberg/vaciar-el-centro-para-volver-llenarlo (Accessed 15 December
2023).
Gallagher, Michael. 2023. Election Indices Dataset. https://www.tcd.ie/Political_
Science/about/people/michael_gallagher/ElSystems/Docts/ElectionIndices.pdf
(Accessed 17 February 2023).
Garrido, Sebastián and Flavia Freidenberg. 2020. ‘El Poder del Voto. Cambio Elec-
toral y Sistemas de Partidos a Nivel Federal en México en 2018’. Política y Gobierno,
27(2):1–22.
 The Weakening of the Mexican Party System 307

Gegg, Madeline. 2020. ‘The Mexican Voter Transformed: MORENA Success in the
Wake of Party System Failure’. Honors Theses, 1401. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/
cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2406&context=hon_thesis (Accessed 15 December
2023).
Greene, Kenneth F. 2007. Why Dominant Parties Lose: Mexico’s Democratization in
Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Greene, Kenneth F. and Mariano Sánchez-Talanquer, M. 2018a. ‘Authoritarian Lega-
cies and Party System Stability in Mexico’. In Scott Mainwaring (ed.), Party Systems
in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay, and Collapse. New York: Cambridge

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

University Press, 201–226.
Greene, Kenneth F. and Mariano Sánchez-Talanquer. 2018b. ‘Mexico’s Party System
under Stress’. Journal of Democracy, 29(4):31–42.
Hannan, Swarnali A, Juan Pablo Cuesta Aguirre, and David Bartolini. 2021. ‘Social
Spending in Mexico: Needs, Priorities, and Reforms’. International Monetary
Fund, Issue 244. https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513599618.001
Hicken, Allen and Erik Martinez-Kuhonta. 2015. Party Institutionalization in Asia:
Democracies, Autocracies, and the Shadows of the Past. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Infobae. 2021. ‘El Antes y Después de la Cámara de Diputados: Así se Ve en Realidad
el “Golpe” a Morena’. July 2. https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2021/06/
08/el-antes-y-despues-de-la-camara-de-diputados-asi-se-ve-en-realidad-el-golpe-
a-morena/ (Accessed 15 December 2023).
Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE). 2018. Cómputos Distritales 2018. Elec-
ciones Federales. https://computos2018.ine.mx/#/presidencia/nacional/1/1/1/1
(Accessed 15 December 2023).
Johnson, Paul and Francisco Cantú. 2020. ‘The Nationalization of Mexican Parties’.
Política y Gobierno, 27(2):1–25.
Klesner, Joseph L. 2005. ‘Electoral Competition and the New Party System in Mexico’.
Latin America Politics and Society, 47(2):103–142.
Klesner, Joseph L. 2007. ‘The 2006 Mexican Elections: Manifestation of a Divided
Society?’. PS: Political Science and Politics, 40(1):27–32.
Langston, Joy. 2007. ‘Strong Parties in a Struggling Party System. Mexico in the
Democratic Era’. In Paul D. Webb and Stephen White (eds), Party Politics in New
Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 243–273.
Linares, José R. 2019. ‘De AMLO a las Fuerzas Armadas, Insólitos Premios’. CASEDE
Colectivo de Análisis de la Seguridad con Democracia, 19 March. https://www.
casede.org/index.php/nuestro-trabajo/casede-en-medios/de-amlo-a-las-fuerzas-
armadas-insolitos-premios (Accessed 15 December 2023).
Loaeza, Soledad. 1999. El Partido Acción Nacional: la larga marcha: 1939–1994.
Oposición leal y partido de protesta. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
308 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Lucca, Juan Bautista. 2020. ‘Teoría y Política en la Génesis de MORENA como Nuevo
Partido’. Estudios Políticos, 49:37–59.
Lupu, Noam. 2014. ‘Brand Dilution and the Breakdown of Political Parties in Latin
America’. World Politics, 66(4):561–602.
Lupu, Noam. 2018. ‘Party Brands, Partisan Erosion, and Party Breakdown’. In Scott
Mainwaring (ed.), Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay, and
Collapse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 359–379.
Mainwaring, Scott (ed.) 2018. Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization,
Decay, and Collapse. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Martínez, Christopher A. 2021. ‘Presidential Instability in Latin America: Why
Institutionalized Parties Matter’. Government & Opposition, 56(4):683–704.
Monroy, Jorge. 2019. ‘La Pelea por el Partido que Fundó López Obrador’,
El Economista, October 15. https://www.eleconomista.com.mx/politica/La-
pelea-por-el-partido-que-fundo-Lopez-Obrador-20191015-0135.html (Accessed
15 December 2023).
Montero, Juan C. 2012. ‘La Estrategia contra el Crimen Organizado en México:
Análisis del Diseño de la Política Pública’. Perfiles Latinoamericanos, 20(39):7–30.
Navarrete Vela, Juan P. 2020a. ‘El Desempeño de MORENA en la Elección Presiden-
cial de 2018′ . Apuntes Electorales, XVIII(61):213–268.
Navarrete Vela, Juan P. 2020b. ‘MORENA y su Relación con las Organizaciones
Sociales’. In Esperanza Palma and Sergio Tamayo (eds), México 2018: Elecciones,
Partidos y Nuevos Clivajes Sociales. Ciudad de México: Universidad Autónoma
Metropolitana Press, 157–183.
Phillips, Brian J. 2015. ‘How Does Leadership Decapitation Affect Violence? The
Case of Drug Trafficking Organizations in Mexico’. Journal of Politics, 77(2):
324–336.
Poguntke, Thomas, Susan E. Scarrow, and Paul D. Webb. 2020. ‘PPDB_Round1a_
1b_consolidated_v1’, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NBWDFZ, Harvard Data-
verse, V1, UNF:6:7TqxInvGFY2Kh4OGcviQ+A==
Poguntke, Thomas, Susan E. Scarrow, and Paul D. Webb. 2022.
‘PPDB_Round2_consolidated_v4’, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NBWDFZ,
Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:7TqxInvGFY2Kh4OGcviQ+A==
Ponce, Aldo F., Ma Fernando Somuano, and Rodrigo Velázquez López Velarde.
2021. ‘Meet the Victim: Police Corruption, Violence, and Political Mobilization’.
Governance, 35(3):887–907.
Ponce, Aldo F. 2022. ‘The Causes of Party Strength. A Systemic Approach’. Paper
presented at the Annual Conference of the American Political Science Association,
Montréal, Québec, Canada, 15–18 September.
Prud’Homme, Jean-François. 2020. ‘Partidos y Sistemas de Partidos en las Elecciones
Mexicanas de 2018’. Foro Internacional, 2(240):397–450.
 The Weakening of the Mexican Party System 309

Reina, Elena. 2021. ‘López Obrador le Otorga más Poder al Ejército: El Tren
Maya será Patrimonio Militar’. El País, March 17. https://elpais.com/mexico/
2021-03-18/lopez-obrador-le-otorga-mas-poder-al-ejercito-el-tren-maya-sera-
patrimonio-militar.html (Accessed 15 December 2023).
Roberts, Kenneth M. 2014. Changing Course: Parties, Populism, and Political Rep-
resentation in Latin America’s Neoliberal Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Rojas, Javier and Aldo F. Ponce. 2021. ‘Lento or Presto? Subnational Government
Capacities and the Pace of Implementation of Contentious Policies’. Education

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Policy Analysis Archives, 29(107):1–22.
Ríos Contreras, Viridiana. 2012. How Government Structure Encourages Criminal
Violence: The Causes of Mexico’s Drug War. PhD dissertation, Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University. https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11156675 (Accessed 15
December 2023).
Sánchez, Omar. 2008. ‘Transformation and Decay: The De-institutionalisation of
Party Systems in South America’. Third World Quarterly, 29(2):315–337.
Sánchez-Talanquer, Mariano and Kenneth F. Greene. 2021. ‘Is Mexico Falling into
the Authoritarian Trap?’. Journal of Democracy, 32(4):56–71.
Shugart, Matthew S. 1998. ‘The Inverse Relationship between Party Strength and
Executive Strength: A Theory of Politicians’ Constitutional Choices’. British Jour-
nal of Political Science, 28(1):1–29.
The World Bank. 2021. Data on Economy and Growth. https://data.worldbank.org/
indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=MX (Accessed 15 December 2023).
Weyland, Kurt. 2021. ‘How Populism Corrodes Latin American Parties’. Journal of
Democracy, 32(4):42–55. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2021.0051
Zepeda, Aurora. 2014. ‘Aprueban tres Nuevos Partidos; a Partir de Agosto Recibirán
Dinero Público’, Excelsior, 10 July. https://www.excelsior.com.mx/nacional/2014/
07/10/970028 (Accessed 15 December 2023).
Zepeda, Aurora., Ivonne Melgar, and Leticia Robles de la Rosa. 2020. ‘Año Electoral
Enardece Pelea en MORENA; Disputa por la Dirigencia’, Excelsior, 21 Septem-
ber. https://www.excelsior.com.mx/nacional/ano-electoral-enardece-pelea-en-
morena-disputa-por-la-dirigencia/1406882 (Accessed 15 December 2023).
15
The Colombian Party System,
1991–2022
Deinstitutionalized but Flexible and Resilient

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Laura Wills-Otero

Introduction

Colombia’s political party system is a multi-party one.1 At the beginning of

the third decade of the 21st century (2022), 9 political parties (8 in the Sen-
ate of the Republic and 9 in the House of Representatives) and 14 coalitions
obtained political representation in the country’s legislative elections.2 These
included traditional parties such as the Partido Liberal (PL) and the Partido
Conservador (PC) that have existed for over 150 years and that were the dom-
inant actors within the restrictive two-party system that operated until 1991.
They included organizations that were created following the enactment of
that year’s Political Constitution, which through its political reforms induced
a multi-party system and the consequent decline of the two traditional par-
ties. They also included parties that emerged at a critical juncture for the
country, resulting from the peace negotiations between the National Gov-
ernment of Juan Manuel Santos and FARC-EP, the oldest guerrilla group in
Latin America, during 2012–2016.
The party system is also a deinstitutionalized one (Albarracín et al. 2018).
It exhibits high electoral volatility due to the entrance of new parties and
the decline of traditional ones. In addition, the levels of partisan attachment
and trust are low (Plata Caviedes et al. 2021) and most parties are internally
fragmented.
Despite the high levels of party system fragmentation and electoral volatil-
ity, it is important to point out that, unlike other countries in the region
(i.e. Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela), Colombia’s party system has
not collapsed (Albarracín et al. 2018). Although the traditional parties have
declined in their electoral power, nationally in particular, they have been able

Laura Wills-Otero, The Colombian Party System, 1991–2022. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Laura Wills-Otero (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0015
 The Colombian Party System, 1991–2022 311

to survive and have remained key players (Wills-Otero 2014). Other parties
that emerged after the enactment of the 1991 Constitution and the politi-
cal reform of 2003 have become prominent actors in the coalitions of the
different governments, or in the opposition.
Thus, although the high levels of volatility and effective parties explain the
system’s tendency towards deinstitutionalization, they also demonstrate its
flexibility. At critical junctures in particular, flexibility has prevented crises
similar to those that have occurred in some of the region’s other countries
mentioned above. The collapse of party systems in these countries has pro-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

duced power vacuums and low levels of governance or has led to the rise
of populist leaders who lack an effective counterweight in the representa-
tive institutions. These leaders’ accumulation of power has put democratic
regimes at risk. In Colombia, many parties have suffered electoral weakening,
uprooting, or internal fragmentation. Clientelism negatively affects electoral
competition and de-ideologizes the parties. In spite of this and the limi-
tations that such problems place on political representation, the country’s
democratic regime has survived.
In a rapidly and substantively changing political context, long-standing
parties have been able to adapt, and new parties have been able to over-
come the thresholds imposed by the electoral system by obtaining political
power in multiple elections. Some of these new parties have been formed
to represent interests arising from new divisions that the existing parties
have not been able to integrate. The existence of alternative parties, in some
cases opposed in their programmatic agendas and ideological identifica-
tion, has revitalized the country’s representative democracy. The rules of
the electoral game have created conditions for actors that were politically
excluded or marginalized until three decades ago to become legitimate party
options, with rights and guarantees—at least in theory—for their operation
and security.
The scope of this chapter is to observe the political and electoral perfor-
mance of two parties that were created at a critical juncture triggered by
the peace negotiations between the national government and the FARC-EP
guerrillas in 2012–2016. The emergence of two ideologically opposed parties
(Centro Democrático and Comunes) illustrates some of the characteristics
of the Colombian party system: It is volatile to the extent that in short peri-
ods of time new parties are created and others disappear; it has an effective
number of parties that determines it as a multi-party system; it is flexible
and permeable to the arrival of alternative options; and party performance
varies significantly, in spite of the common conditions that define the rules
of the game. Finally, its internal organizations have a significant impact on
312 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

the variation in the electoral results. In the next section, I provide a brief
overview of the rules of the electoral system over time (1991–2022) and their
consequences for the party system. I then analyse and compare the electoral
performance of the Centro Democrático (CD) and Comunes and discuss
how these two cases illustrate some of the broader characteristics of the sys-
tem. Finally, I offer a set of conclusions on the prospects for Colombian
democracy in light of its party system.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The Rules of the Game and Their Consequences

The electoral system from the 1991 Political Constitution

until the 2016 Peace Agreement

The political charter enacted in 1991 defined the ground rules that were
intended to open up the political regime, which was classified as a restrictive
two-party system (Botero et al. 2016). Rights, guarantees, and requirements
were established to create new parties and promote their participation in
the country’s political life. As of that year, the number of parties in the sys-
tem increased significantly, with some of these involving dissidents from the
PL and PC. Others emerged as new political alternatives. Among the latter,
the Alianza Democrática M-19 (AD-M-19) emerged from successful negoti-
ations between the National Government and various insurgent groups that
agreed to demobilize in exchange for the possibility of becoming a politi-
cal option (Boudon 2001). The 1991–2002 period saw an explosion of new
political parties and movements, leading to the fragmentation of the multi-
party system. During the same period, the electoral system that had been in
place, which had allowed political parties to register an unlimited number of
lists in the elections to collegiate bodies, promoted internal party fragmenta-
tion. In 2002, about 40 political parties and movements elected seats in the
Congress of the Republic (Wills-Otero 2011). Several of these parties were
dissidents from the two traditional parties, and very few of the new play-
ers managed to consolidate themselves as stable and viable organizations.
The sub-national sphere was also subject to an average increase in parti-
san options. The political decentralization that began at the end of the 1980s
with the popular election of mayors and further consolidated after the 1991
Constitution with the popular election of governors led to the emergence of
new local and regional electoral mechanisms. After the introduction of these
reforms, political competition, and configurations at the national, regional,
and local levels varied significantly (Hoyos 2007; Batlle et al. 2020; Pino
 The Colombian Party System, 1991–2022 313

2020). At each level—although not in all constituencies—there was a clear

shift from an entrenched two-party system—in some cases, a single-party
system—to a multi-party system.
In 2003, 12 years after the implementation of institutional changes that
determined the opening of the political system and the transition to a multi-
party system, a new reform of the electoral system was approved. The focus
at that time was on organizing the system by reducing the number of organi-
zations and promoting their internal cohesion (Botero and Rodríguez-Raga
2006; Botero et al. 2016). The possibility of each party presenting an unlim-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ited number of lists to legislative bodies in the elections was eliminated.
As of the following contests, they could only present one list for each elec-
toral district. On the other hand, an electoral threshold was determined,3
establishing the need for each list to obtain a minimum number of votes
to participate in the distribution of seats. The electoral formula of higher
residuals (Hare) was changed to the distribution figure (d’Hondt) to pro-
mote greater proportionality in representation (Wills-Otero 2009). It was
also established that political parties would define whether their lists would
be closed or be subject to preferential voting. In the former case, voters
choose the party as a whole, while in the latter, they have two options:
they can either vote for the party or for the candidate of their preference
within the list they choose. In either case, the votes are added up at the
party level. In addition to these reforms, the Congress of the Republic passed
a caucus law to promote cohesive and disciplined behaviour by political
parties (Law 974 of 2005), along with other constitutional provisions (Leg-
islative Act No. 1 of 2009 and Legislative Act No. 1 of 2011). The first of
these (AL1/2009) makes it mandatory to establish mechanisms of internal
democracy in candidate selection processes and in making other decisions
concerning principles and rules related to its organization and operation.
The second (AL1/2011) prohibits double militancy; in other words, it forbids
whoever participates in the internal proceedings of a political party or move-
ment from registering for another in the same electoral process (Hernández
Becerra n.d.).
Regarding women’s political participation, Law 1475 of 2011 mandates a
legal gender quota, by which ‘political party lists for the election of five seats
or more should include at least 30 percent of candidates of each gender’ (UN
Women 2019: pp. 15). In 2020, this percentage was intended to rise to 50%
in a draft Legislative Act presented and processed in the Congress of the
Republic. However, in 2022 the Constitutional Court rejected the reform.
Political parties are responsible for ensuring that their statutes comply with
the provisions of the law.
314 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Finally, the signing of the peace agreement in 2016 between the National
Government and FARC-EP established that as of the following elections
and for two consecutive periods (2018–2026), the political party emerging
from the demobilized group would be guaranteed a portion of power in the
Congress of the Republic. The agreement defined 10 seats—5 in the Senate of
the Republic and 5 in the House of Representatives. In addition, an Opposi-
tion Statute was approved as law (Law 1909 of 2018) that provided guarantees
to opposition and independent parties. This includes, for example, rights
such as obtaining state financing, access to the state’s social communication

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

media and to official information and documents, the right to reprisal, and
the unrestrained exercise of political rights, among others. Finally, in 2021
a constitutional reform was approved that, through the creation of 16 new
seats in the House of Representatives, grants political power to the victims of
the armed conflict for two consecutive periods (2022–2026 and 2026–2030).
Candidates who aspire to occupy these positions are presented through vic-
tim organizations in civil society. In 2022, representatives of victims were
elected for the first time.

The impact of the rules of the game on the party system

In general terms, those mentioned above are the main characteristics of

the Colombian party system in 2023. However, how do these conditions or
rules of the game influence the party system? As noted above, the changes
enacted by the 1991 Constitution gave way to the establishment of an atom-
ized multi-party system, with more than 40 political parties—only 8 of them
effective—between 1994 and 2002 (Castañeda 2018). The reforms intro-
duced after 2003 to counteract this outcome led to the configuration of a
party system with fewer organizations. The absolute number of parties began
to decrease in 2006—to about 13 parties—and the effective number of par-
ties (ENEP) decreased from 8 (2006) to 5.97 in legislative elections by 2010
(Gallagher 2022). This number increased to 8.74 by 2022. This resulted from
the fact that more parties and coalitions competed after 2014 and that some
of them had greater relative weight following the 2003 reform. The increased
size of the organizations is partly explained by inter-party alliances. Smaller
parties (or in some cases, their members), which need to obtain a minimum
number of votes to win seats and maintain their legal status, form strategic
electoral alliances (not necessarily programmatic ones) with larger parties.
Table 15.1 illustrates the evolution of the ENEP and the effective number of
parliamentary parties (ENPP) for Colombian legislative elections between
2010 and 2022.
 The Colombian Party System, 1991–2022 315

Table 15.1 The Colombian party systemʼs fragmentation, 2010–2022

ENEP ENPP Turnout (%)

2010 5.97 4.95 43.75

2014 7.36 5.69 43.58
2018 8.46 6.38 49.00
2022 8.74 N/I 47.43

Note: ENEP—effective number of electoral parties; ENPP—Effective number of

parliamentary parties; Turnout as share of all registered voters.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Source: Gallagher (2022); IDEA (2022)

The possibility of establishing lists with preferential voting—most parties

do this—hampers parties’ internal cohesion. The candidates that make up
the lists compete with their party members, and electoral campaigns focus
more on individuals than organizations. Despite this, single-party lists have
prevented further personalization and internal atomization.
Regarding the gender quota, the lists have complied with the requirement
of integrating women to at least 30%. However, it was only in the 2022 legisla-
tive election that a similar percentage of women won political power (28.8%).
Until then, the percentage of women in representative institutions was lower,
at around 20% (UN Women 2019). The latter outcome is explained, in part,
by most parties’ decision to register lists with preferential voting rather than
closed lists, reducing the possibility for more women to be elected. This is
accentuated by the fact that there is no mandate requiring that the women
on the lists be interspersed with the men in the top positions (Ortega and
Camargo 2015, Camargo and Ortega 2022). In fact, the coalition that won
the most power in 2022 (Pacto Histórico), made the decision to intercalate
men and women from the first to the last position in its list for the Senate
election, effectively closing it. This decision helps to understand the increase
in the number of women in Congress.
Finally, the individualization or personalization of politics in the electoral
arena is transferred to the political arena where the discipline established by
the caucus law is not an obvious result. The level of discipline varies between
and within parties (Bitar et al. 2023).
In the 2022 legislative elections, the coalition that held the most seats
in the Congress of the Republic was Pacto Histórico (PH) with 16.6%.
This was followed by the PL (15.6%), the PC (13.9%), Cambio Radical
(CR) and CD (9.5%). Meanwhile, the organizations with the least power
were most electoral coalitions (between 0.3% and 1%), a Christian coali-
tion between Colombia Justa y Libre and Movimiento Independiente de
Renovación Alternativa (1.7%), the leftist Comunes (3.4%), and the centrist
316 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Alianza Verde (3,7%). When comparing this information with the previous
four-year period (2018–2022), there appear to be changes that account for
the electoral volatility of the party system. Between 2018 and 2022, politi-
cal parties emerged and disappeared. Those that were able to obtain political
representation in both elections increased or decreased their relative power.
This behaviour was repeated in each election and is mainly due to the emer-
gence of new parties and the decline (and eventual disappearance) of existing
ones (Gutiérrez 2007). Table 15.2 presents the political composition of the
legislature between 2018 and 2022.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The following section describes the emergence of two parties that were cre-
ated in 2014 and 2018 and analyses their electoral and political performance
as well as some of their internal characteristics. The study of these two parties
illustrates some of the features of the party system. It shows that it is flexible,
particularly at critical junctures. Flexibility promotes political plurality, but
at the same time, it produces electoral volatility and increases the absolute
number of parties and the system’s fragmentation. The party system is open
to ideologically opposed parties. However, it also shows how much easier it is
for pro-status quo new parties to be more successful than parties that oppose
it. Finally, the analysis of these two parties illustrates variation in their elec-
toral performance and the influence that internal organizations have on it.

Centro Democrático and Comunes: A Rift over Peace

Negotiations (2012–2016)
Origins and electoral performance

The negotiations between the Colombian government and the oldest guer-
rilla group in Latin America, the FARC-EP, caused a political split that
resulted in the creation of two new ideologically opposed parties: CD
and Comunes (originally called the Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del
Común, or FARC-EP). The first was created in 2014 under the leadership
of former president Álvaro Uribe, with one of its main objectives being to
oppose the negotiations that the then-government was holding in Havana,
Cuba. The second was a concrete derivation of the agreement that was estab-
lished around the issue of political participation by the former guerrilla
group. Without the certainty of obtaining a share of power in the Congress of
the Republic, as well as rights and guarantees to exercise opposition, FARC-
EP would not have committed itself to moving towards demobilization,
disarmament, and reinsertion into civilian and political life.
Table 15.2 Colombian party system in the legislature, 2018–2022

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Political Party 2018 2022
Senate House Congress Senate House Congress Change in
Congress

Partido Conservador 13.1 13.0 13.0 14.0 13.8 13.9 0.9

Partido Liberal 13.1 21.6 18.2 13.1 17.0 15.6 −2.6
Coalición Alianza Verde y Centro Esperanza 12.1 4.4 4.4
Centro Democrático 17.8 19.8 19.0 12.1 8.0 9.5 −9.5
Cambio Radical 15.0 18.5 17.1 10.3 9.0 9.5 −7.6
Partido de la U 13.1 15.4 14.5 9.3 8.0 8.5 −6.0
Comunes 4.7 1.9 4.7 2.7 3.4 1.5
Partido Verde 8.4 5.6 6.7 −6.7
Polo Democrático Alternativo 4.7 1.2 2.6 −2.6
MIRA 2.8 0.6 1.5 −1.5
Colombia Justa Libres 2.8 0.6 1.5 −1.5
Decentes 2.8 1.2 1.9 −1.9
Indígenas 1.9 0.0 0.7 −0.7
Opción Ciudadana 0.0 1.2 0.7 −0.7
Coalición Alternativa Santandereana 0.0 0.6 0.4 −0.4
MAIS 0.0 0.6 0.4 0.9 0.5 0.7 0.3
Pacto Histórico 18.7 15.4 16.6 16.6
Coalición MIRA-Colombia Justa Libres 3.7 0.5 1.7 1.7
Movimiento Alternativo Indígena y Social 0.9 N/A 0.3 0.3
Alianza Verde 5.9 3.7 3.7
Liga de Gobernantes Anticorrupción 1.6 1.0 1.0

Continued
 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
Table 15.2 Continued

Political Party 2018 2022

Senate House Congress Senate House Congress Change in
Congress

Alternativos (AV-PDA) 1.1 0.7 0.7

Coalición Centro Esperanza 1.6 1.0 1.0
Gente en Movimiento 0.5 0.3 0.3
Fuerza Ciudadana La Fuerza del Cambio Magdalena 0.5 0.3 0.3
Coalición Cambio Radical—Colombia Justa Libres 0.5 0.3 0.3
Coalición Partido Liberal—Colombia Justa Libres 0.5 0.3 0.3
Coalición Partido Conservador—Partido de la U 0.5 0.3 0.3
Coalición Partido Conservador—CD 0.5 0.3 0.3
Coalición Cambio Radical—MIRA 0.5 0.3 0.3
Coalición Juntos por Caldas 0.5 0.3 0.3
Partido Colombia Renaciente 0.5 0.3 0.3
Nuevo Liberalismo 0.5 0.3 0.3
Coalición Partido de la U—Colombia Justa Libres 0.5 0.3 0.3
Consejo Comunitario de Comunidades Negras Palenque 0.5 0.3 0.3
Consejo Comunitario Fernando Rios Hidalgo 0.5 0.3 0.3
Curules de Paz 8.0 5.1 0.3
Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 0

Source: Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil; MOE, 2018

 The Colombian Party System, 1991–2022 319

Table 15.3 Centro Democrático and Comunes election results, 2014–2020 (% of valid
votes)

Elections Centro Democrático Comunes

Presidential first round 2014 30.28% N/A

Presidential second round 2014 47.02% N/A
Senate 2014 14.3% N/A
House of Representatives 2014 9.5% N/A
Presidential first round 2018 39.34% Candidate withdrew
during the campaign

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Presidential second round 2018 53.98% N/A
Senate 2018 16.4% 55,587 votes (0.36%)
House of Representatives 2018 16.02% 33,956 votes
Presidential first round 2022 Candidate Zuluaga resigned N/A
before the first round
Presidential second round 2022 N/A N/A
Senate 2022 11.85% 0.19%
House of Representatives 2022 9.86% 0.12%

Source: Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil

CD participated in the national elections—presidential and legislative—for

the first time in 2014. It subsequently competed in the 2015 and 2019 regional
and local elections and in the 2018 and 2022 national elections. Meanwhile,
Comunes participated in the 2018 and 2022 national elections and in the
2019 sub-national elections. The electoral performance of the former party
has been better at the national level than locally, while the results for the latter
have been very poor at both levels. Table 15.3 presents the results obtained
by these two parties in the 2014, 2018, and 2022 national elections.
These results show that the two parties differ significantly in their capacity
to attract voters and to obtain political power. CD reached the presidency
of the country the second time it presented a candidate, and in the legislative
elections of 2014 and 2018, it was one of the three parties with the greatest rel-
ative vote share. At the sub-national level, the results were not as conclusive,
but it also managed to elect some governors, mayors, deputies, and munici-
pal council members. The party’s performance in those elections was better
in 2015 than in 2019. In 2022, the party experienced a decrease in its share
of power in the legislative elections and did not participate in the presiden-
tial elections. With the victory of Gustavo Petro from PH as the first leftist
president in the country’s history, the party shifted to become part of the
opposition. The pro-status quo rightist party received fewer votes and seats
than the leftist coalition led by Petro. At that time, the party was affected by
the poor performance of the then-president, Iván Duque, and by the decline
320 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

suffered by its leader, former President Uribe, who faced a judicial process.
Several prominent militants left the party/retired from politics (Ortiz and
Wills-Otero 2023).
Meanwhile, Comunes’ performance was very poor at each of the three
times it participated following its demobilization and reintegration into polit-
ical and civilian life. In 2018, its presidential candidate, Rodrigo Londoño
(alias Timochenko), withdrew from the campaign due to security concerns,
as he had received several death threats. In the 2018 and 2022 legislative
elections, the party aspired to obtain more seats than it had agreed with

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the national government (10 in total, for two consecutive four-year terms)
but was equally unsuccessful. It did not manage to obtain enough votes
to participate in the distribution of additional seats in either of the two
chambers. In 2018, it obtained (for the Senate) ‘in the vast majority of
municipalities…only…less than one percent of the total valid votes’ (Bolívar
et al. 2023: 6). For the House of Representatives, ‘it only presented candidates
in five territorial constituencies: Antioquia, Atlántico, Bogotá, Santander and
Valle del Cauca’ (Bolívar et al. 2023). In 2022, the situation was similar. The
party obtained a very small number of votes and was unable to increase its
number of seats in Congress.
What factors can explain the differences in the electoral results of these two
new political parties? Although the objective of this chapter is not to provide a
systematic answer to this question, it is possible to suggest some hypotheses to
be tested in future works. First, the origin of each of these parties is a central
variable in understanding the differences. CD rose in reaction to a poten-
tial rupture of the status quo that would occur upon the signing of a peace
agreement between the government and an insurgent group. Comunes, on
the other hand, is the result of this agreement. That is, it is the consequence of
the very rupture that the other party opposed. Thus, one hypothesis would be
that the electoral performance of these parties is mediated by the electorate’s
preferences regarding changes in the economic, political, and social models.
The increased resistance to change would explain the better performance of
CD and poorer one of Comunes.
Secondly, although the organizational structures of the two parties are
hierarchical in nature, the leadership of their top echelons has influenced
the electoral results in different ways. In the first, popular former president
Álvaro Uribe has been decisive in attracting voters in line with his political
and ideological project. Uribe was a candidate in the 2014 legislative elec-
tions when he headed the closed list presented by the party, which aspired
to seats in the Senate of the Republic. The more than two million votes
(2,045,564) obtained, equivalent to 14.3% of the political representation,
 The Colombian Party System, 1991–2022 321

earned the organization 20 Senate seats and made it the second strongest
force in the institution. In the presidential elections, the former president was
also a deciding factor in the newly created party’s victory in the first electoral
round in 2014, and in reaching the presidency in the second round in 2018.
In 2022, the decline of Uribe’s prestige harmed the political party.
In the case of Comunes, Rodrigo Londoño’s leadership and presidential
candidacy were detrimental to the party. During the public events in which
he participated throughout the 2018 campaign, he was the target of aggres-
sive attacks by his detractors. Several threats to his life led him to withdraw

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

from the political race, and, although the new party was assured of 10 seats
in the Congress of the Republic (5 in each chamber), the lists put together by
the party to increase the number of seats were headed by former comman-
ders of the insurgent group considered by the public to be responsible for the
prolongation and degradation of the armed conflict. Thus, the hypothesis in
this case suggests that the greater the popularity of the party leader or leaders,
the greater their electoral success.
Third, the organizations’ electoral success was influenced by their dif-
ferentiated origins and legacies. As mentioned above, CD emerged under
the leadership of Álvaro Uribe, former president for two consecutive terms
(2002–2006 and 2006–2010) and previously a politician who had forged his
political career as a governor and senator in the traditional PL. In 2002, he
launched his candidacy under the new movement ‘Primero Colombia’ and
was re-elected four years later, also under this movement. His background in
traditional politics provided him with material resources and support from
local and regional leaders. Partido Social de Unidad or Partido de la U was
created under his leadership in 2005, bringing together politicians from dif-
ferent organizations, especially from the traditional PL and PC. This new
organization, which ran in the 2006 legislative elections, supported Uribe’s
candidacy and became the main coalition party of his second government.
It obtained 17.03% of the political representation in Congress, the highest
share obtained by any party. The programmatic agenda that Uribe promoted
during his two presidencies focused primarily on military combat against
the existing guerrilla groups and bolstering the military forces. The so-called
Seguridad Democrática (‘democratic security’) also included aspects aligned
with a conservative agenda that promoted the status quo in the political,
economic, and social spheres. This legacy was taken up by CD in 2014
when it participated in its first elections. The new party, whose logo clearly
alludes to its leader, ‘became an attractive alternative for some sympathiz-
ers of the blurred and de-ideologized PC who ceased to feel identified with
it’ (Rodríguez-Raga and Wills-Otero 2021: 83). It also attracted other voters
322 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

who viewed this alternative as an opportunity to convert programmatic

proposals into public policies.
Meanwhile, the Comunes party emerged as a result of the final peace
agreement, which established the conditions for guaranteeing the political
participation of the demobilized group. The promoters of the new party were
mainly the former commanders who had participated in the peace nego-
tiations in Havana. They drew on their previous experience gained in the
insurgent group’s organizational structures. Within these structures, which
evolved differently from one region to another, there was a clandestine polit-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ical faction or party that imparted ideological content to the insurgent actions
of the armed group. The other organizations were made up of the people’s
army and militias. It was from these structures that the new party emerged.
Its construction was inspired by the Leninist model and was permeated by the
regional political work of the armed organization and by its multiple linkages
with local communities (Bolívar et al. 2023). These features of the legacy that
inspired the new party influenced its first electoral results as well as its per-
formance in the political arena. It did not emerge as an internally cohesive
organization, but as one with different leaderships and with different posi-
tions on the various issues on its programmatic agenda. The original name
given to the party—Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común (FARC)—
kept the acronym of the armed group, a decision that could have affected its
electoral results, as it reminded the public of the group’s past illegal and vio-
lent struggle. The hypothesis that emerges from this approach is that electoral
success is conditioned by the availability of material, political, and organi-
zational resources. The more resources a party accumulates, the better its
electoral performance.

Partiesʼ internal characteristics

What are the organizational characteristics of these parties? Clearly, both

parties have hierarchical structures, in which a leader (CD) or group of lead-
ers (Comunes) holds great power in setting the political agenda, selecting
candidates for elections, and in deciding upon campaign strategies, among
other activities. Former president Uribe is the main leader of CD, while
Comunes is led by a collegiate group of former FARC commanders. This
structure is determined by both parties’ statutes. Article 40 of the CD’s statute
‘exalts and honours the administration of President Álvaro Uribe Vélez and
recognizes him as the party’s leader and guide’. It also determines that he
‘shall have a seat with voice and vote in all of the party’s organs of direction
 The Colombian Party System, 1991–2022 323

and representation’. The bodies defined in the organizational structure (six

in total) are headed by the ‘Founding President’, a figure defined as the orga-
nization’s highest authority, above the collegiate bodies, which consist of the
national convention, the national leadership, the congressional caucus, and
the sectorial committees (Losada and Liendo 2016).
On the other hand, the statute of Comunes does not specify who the party
leaders are. They determine a structure that considers the country’s different
levels of administrative organization: the nation, the departments, and the
municipalities. The highest leadership body is the National Assembly, which

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

is made up of delegates from local, departmental, and national councils. The
assembly discusses, formulates, and approves the party’s political line, its ide-
ological platform, strategic plan, and national political action plan. Although
the other levels fulfil important functions, it is the National Assembly that
has the greatest decisive power within the party and determines its direc-
tion. The hierarchical structures of the two parties influence their electoral
performance (Wills-Otero 2014). In the first case, the popularity of the CD
leader, along with his charisma, explains part of the party’s success. Many
of its voters, and even its militants, support Uribe, or ‘whatever Uribe says’,
over the party. He determines the candidates for elected office (mainly for the
country’s presidency) and the programmatic agenda that the elected leaders
should promote. The personalization of politics embodied in this leader has
brought electoral benefits to the party. However, it also explains the internal
fractures, and even withdrawals, by militants who have expressed their dis-
agreement with his decisions (Ortiz and Wills-Otero 2023). The popularity
decline of the sole leader and his followers puts the political and electoral
capacity of the party at risk. Its concentration of power at the top prevents
the renewal of leadership at other levels of the organization and therefore
creates incentives for ambitious politicians within the party—who have no
chance of achieving their goals—to defect and seek other party alternatives.
Meanwhile, the leadership of Comunes, headed by former leaders of the
organization, has also influenced (in this case, negatively) its electoral perfor-
mance. The leaders, and those who decided to occupy seats in the Congress
of the Republic, came from the organization’s high military command, thus
damaging the party. Middle-level and base commanders did not have the
opportunity to occupy seats, resulting in ruptures between these groups and
the leaders. Thus, a more horizontal structure—contemplated in principle in
the statutes—could hardly be put into operation. The operation of these hier-
archical structures can be observed, for example, in the candidate selection
processes. Although the statutes of the two parties define internal democracy
mechanisms regarding decision making, the rules defined therein are not
324 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

fully complied with, and are even changed during the selection process. In the
case of CD, Uribe centralizes the process and is the one who makes many of
the final decisions concerning the definition of candidacies (Ortiz and Wills-
Otero 2023). For Comunes, in contrast, the party’s internal fragmentation
hinders the selection process.
Political parties in Colombia are still not clear about how many militants
and affiliates are involved in them. Their estimates are made on the basis of
the number of votes they obtain in each election (El Nuevo Siglo 2019). Even
so, the information offered by different media and other sources suggests that

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the affiliation of militants within CD and Comunes has varied throughout
their trajectories. Both have been subject to accessions and defections over
time. In CD, there are a greater number of affiliates and militants than in
Comunes, which coincides with the levels of party affinity that correspond
to each of these parties. CD ranks third among parties with which the elec-
torate feels the greatest affinity (18.9%), while the percentage of affinity for
Comunes is so low that it is listed under the ‘others’ category in the survey
(Plata Caviedes et al. 2021). According to current Comunes congresspeople,
‘less than half of the 13589 signatories of the peace agreement are currently
party members or belong to the official party’ (El Espectador 2021). Added
to this is the call by some of its members to authorize their split from the
party as a result of internal investigations and sanctions they have faced for
diverging from decisions adopted by the party’s leadership (El Espectador
2021). CD has also seen the resignation of some of its militants, some of
whom participated in electoral contests after having been endorsed by the
party. Fundamental programmatic disagreements, and the rupture of rela-
tions with the top party leaders (Uribe in CD and Londoño in Comunes),
explain the decision of former militants to withdraw from these organiza-
tions (La Silla Vacía 2020; Ortiz and Wills-Otero 2023; El Espectador 2021).
On the other hand, in CD, a variable that explains why new militants join
the party is their admiration for its leader, former president Uribe, which is
based on his legacy, charisma, and closeness to his followers (Ortiz and Wills-
Otero 2023). Although this strengthens the party, it raises questions about its
durability if its leader retires from the party.
CD defines itself as a party composed of citizens from different political
backgrounds who are attracted to the seven pillars it promotes: ‘democratic
security, investor confidence, social cohesion, an austere and decentralized
state, dialogue with communities, transparent management of public insti-
tutions and international relations, and respect for the environment and
for regional diversity’ (Ortiz 2021). Those who are closest to the organi-
zation and its leaders are those on the right of the ideological spectrum,
 The Colombian Party System, 1991–2022 325

adults over 50 years of age, and people from the highest (6) and lowest
(1) socio-economic strata (Semana 2019).4
The two parties can be differentiated in terms of their ideologies and pro-
grammatic agendas, and it is these characteristics that point to the rupture
that gave rise to their emergence. As mentioned above, the 2012–2016 peace
process involving the national government and the guerrilla group produced
incentives for the formation of these parties. CD was created in 2014 and
participated in the national elections of that year. Its goal at that time was to
gain political power, prevent the re-election of the president, and redefine the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

course of the peace process negotiations, with which it disagreed. Comunes
was born as a result of the second point of the Peace Accord, related to its
political participation. It participated in the 2018 national elections and the
2019 local elections (see Table 15.2). Ideologically, the parties are located on
opposite sides of the spectrum. CD identifies with the right and Comunes
with the left. The pillars of the former, mentioned above, focus on the princi-
ples once promoted by President Uribe during his term in office (2002–2010).
One aspect of particular importance in understanding the rift between the
two parties is CD’s predominant objective to strengthen the state’s secu-
rity apparatus, and with it to confront the threat posed by subversive actors
(terrorists, according to the party) to the country’s stability. Military defeat
prevails over peaceful solutions to the conflict, even following the agreement
signed between the previous government and the former guerrillas. The delay
during the government of Iván Duque (2018–2022) in the implementation
of the Havana agreement was a manifestation of the disagreement with the
peace agreement.5
In turn, the left-wing ideological orientation of Comunes focuses, accord-
ing to its statutes, on overcoming a number of factors, including:

[the] capitalist social order in force in Colombian society…, and the promotion of
an alternative model in which there is social justice; real and advanced democracy;
the overcoming of all exclusion, discrimination or segregation for economic, social,
ethnic or gender reasons; the guarantee of life and dignified existence…, the con-
struction of a new political economy that guarantees the material realization of
human rights. (Art. 5, Estatutos del Partido)

In practice, the party has promoted legislative initiatives that are in

line with some of these principles. However, as discussed in the following
paragraphs, Comunes has been unsuccessful in pushing through bills and
constitutional reforms to fulfil its political agenda. Its condition as a new
party, emerging from an insurgent organization with several complex
326 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

structures, added to its status as an opposition party with little relative power
and weak internal cohesion.
The internal discipline of the two parties and their ability to act cohe-
sively vary both between the two and within each. The early years of CD’s
political activity (2014–2018) were characterized by the high level of disci-
pline that the party recorded in its legislative performance. At the time, CD
defined itself as an opposition party, and its purpose was to delay initiatives
promoted by the coalition parties of the government of Juan Manuel San-
tos, especially those related to the implementation of the peace agreement

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

signed in 2016. Uribe, the party’s leader and then senator, was successful in
promoting and maintaining high levels of internal cohesion. Subsequently,
when CD became the governing party in 2018 and obtained the most seats
in the Congress of the Republic, it was also successful in securing a broad
coalition to support government initiatives. However, fractures within the
party emerged throughout the quadrennium. In 2020, Uribe resigned from
his seat in the Senate of the Republic after the opening of a judicial process
against him. In 2022, CD became part of the opposition in Congress.
Comunes, on the other hand, has struggled to behave in a cohesive and
disciplined manner in the Congress of the Republic, the main focus of demo-
cratic representation. Intitally, the decision on who would occupy the 10
seats guaranteed to them by the Peace Accord caused internal fractures in the
new organization. Two of the seats were designated to former commanders,
who did not take them up. One of these commanders—alias Iván Márquez—
withdrew from the list and did not participate in the elections after alleging a
lack of security conditions. He was replaced by another former militant. The
other—alias Jesús Santrich—was arrested before his inauguration for alleged
drug trafficking activities following the peace accord. His seat was declared
empty, which took political power away from the party (Bolívar et al. 2023).
Throughout its first three years in the Congress of the Republic, Comunes
acted as an opposition party, and most of the legislative initiatives it pre-
sented (150 as of 31 March 2021) were co-authored with members of other
opposition parties. The issues discussed in the legislative agenda have been
varied (Bolívar et al. 2023) and are not limited to aspects related to the imple-
mentation of the peace agreement. Only two bills and two legislative acts filed
during the aforementioned period have been successful in the legislative pro-
cess and have been sanctioned either as laws or constitutional reforms. In
none of these four initiatives did all the members of the party participate as
co-authors. Nor have they done so in most of the projects. The party has
not appeared to be disciplined. Its members’ performance has been variable,
with some being more active than others (Bolívar et al. 2023), and there have
 The Colombian Party System, 1991–2022 327

been internal fractures, which led some of its members of Congress to request
a split (El Espectador 2021).

Conclusions

CD and Comunes—created at the political juncture of the negotiations

between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and FARC-EP—are 2 of the
political parties that currently have legal status in Colombia. They are part

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

of a multi-party system, which in the two decades of the 21st century has
been deinstitutionalizing (Albarracín et al. 2018) given the electoral decline
of traditional parties—the PL and the PC—and the entry and exit of new par-
ties. As illustrated in Table 15.1, the effective number of parties has changed
between elections. The instability of the first period (1991–2006) coincides
with the transition from the two-party system that lasted until the early 1990s
to the multi-party system that emerged as a result of the political opening pro-
moted by the 1991 Constitution. Meanwhile, the reduced volatility observed
since 2010 is a consequence of the political reforms that began in 2003, whose
main objective was to reorganize the system through rules of the game that
would encourage internal party cohesion and induce inter-party alliances
that would lead to a reduction in the absolute number of parties in the system.
Despite the evidence showing the deinstitutionalization of the Colombian
party system, it is important to highlight its resilience in the midst of a num-
ber of significant critical junctures. One such juncture was the 2012–2016
peace process; the other was the accession to power in 2018 of a government
that opposed that process; and one more was the election the first leftist pres-
ident in history. It was during the first juncture that the two parties observed
in this chapter were created while the existing parties adapted, even though
in some cases their power diminished. The entry of the new parties into the
system resulted in volatility. In 2022 new parties and coalitions won politi-
cal power in Congress, as shown in Table 15.2. Despite this, the system has
demonstrated both an ability to adapt and the permeability to make room
for diverse and ideologically opposed political expressions. Although it is not
clear whether the CD and—especially—Comunes will survive, their mem-
bers may find a place in other existing parties, or they may opt to create new
alternatives. The existing multiparty system is pluralistic in ideological terms,
and at the same time flexible. There are parties located on different parts
of the ideological spectrum, and there is room for alternatives that repre-
sent new divergences. Traditional parties retain substantive power, especially
at the sub-national level (Albarracín et al. 2018), while others that formed
328 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

after the 1991 Constitution have managed to establish themselves. Among the
latter, left and centre parties that had no place in the system before 1991—
e.g., Polo Democrático, Partido Verde and more recently the PH coalition
(2022)—have become options that revitalize and strengthen the country’s
democracy. Over time, they have gained rights and guarantees that create
favourable conditions for their survival.
Thus, without ignoring the problems arising from the deinstitutionaliza-
tion of the party system, we must also recognize that preventing system
collapse favours the democratic regime, and that the existence of plural-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ism and variety in the parties’ profiles reduces the chances of the successful
emergence of personalist leadership that threatens political institutions. The
challenges to the democratic regime are enormous: high levels of corrup-
tion; increased violence, poverty, and inequality; political polarization and
personalization; and social mobilization, among others. Political parties are
responsible for designing public policies to find solutions to these problems,
and, to this end, overcoming their internal fractures and creating inter-party
agreements will be fundamental. Without this, personalist leaders with aspi-
rations of concentrating power and acting above the institutions may gain
ground.

Notes
1. This chapter was drafted for the ‘Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy’ confer-
ence, organized by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Foundation, held in Madrid, Spain,
on 7–8 October 2021. I want to thank the conference participants for their questions
and feedback, and particularly, Wilhelm Hofmeister and Thomas Poguntke for their
comments. Also, I would like to thank Editage (www.editage.com) for English language
editing.
2. Before 1991, the effective number of parties was two. It increased to eight between 1991
and 2002 and decreased to seven in the senate elections after 2003 (Castañeda 2018).
3. For the Senate, the threshold corresponds to 3% of the valid votes. For the lower chamber,
the threshold corresponds to half of the electoral quotient, which is calculated by dividing
the total number of votes in a specific constituency by the total number of seats available
in that constituency.
4. This information needs to be confirmed. In the case of Comunes, there are no sources
that provide any relevant information.
5. During Uribe’s two consecutive administrations, the guerrillas were militarily under-
mined and paramilitary groups were demobilized as a consequence of a law passed by
congress (Law 975 of 2005). The rate of extortive kidnappings and homicides dropped
significantly during this period (Rettberg 2020). This was one of the factors behind the
former president’s popularity and his ability, years later, to lead the creation of the new
party.
 The Colombian Party System, 1991–2022 329

References

Albarracín, Juan, Laura Gamboa, and Scott Mainwaring. 2018. ‘Deinstitutionaliza-

tion without Collapse: Colombia’s Party System’. In Scott Mainwaring (ed.), Party
Systems in Latin America. Institutionalization, Decay and Collapse. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 227–254.
Batlle, Margarita, Carlos A. Hoyos, and Laura Wills-Otero. 2020. ‘Electoral Compe-
tition at the Subnational Level: Emeralds and Politics in Colombia, 1997–2015’.
Colombia Internacional, 103:57–83.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Bernal Olarte, Angélica. 2015. Las mujeres y el poder político: una investidura
incompleta. PhD dissertation. Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona.
Bitar, Sebastián, Laura Wills-Otero, Daniela Romero y Melissa Téllez. 2023. ‘Petro
y el Congreso en su segundo año. ¿Qué pasará con las reformas sociales?’. En El
Espectador: https://www.elespectador.com/politica/gustavo-petro-y-su-relacion-
con-el-congreso-en-el-segundo-ano-de-gobierno-que-pasara-con-las-reformas-
sociales/ (Accessed 16 March 2024).
Bolívar, Íngrid, Felipe Botero, Mateo Restrepo, and Laura Wills-Otero. 2023. ‘Armas
por urnas y escaños: los retos electorales y legislativos del Partido Comunes’. In
Laura Betancur and Angelika Rettberg (eds), Después del acuerdo, ¿cómo va la paz
en Colombia? Vol. 1. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 3–16.
Botero, Felipe, Rodrigo Losada, and Laura Wills-Otero. 2016. ‘Sistema de Partidos en
Colombia 1978–2014 ¿La evolución hacia el multipartidismo?’. In Flavia Freiden-
berg (ed.), Los sistemas de partidos en América Latina. Cono Sur y Región Andina.
México City: Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE), 339–400.
Boudon, Lawrence. 2001. ‘Colombia’s M-19 Democratic Alliance: A Case Study in
New-party Self-destruction’. Latin American Perspectives, 8(1):73–92.
Camargo, Gabriel and Bibiana Ortega. 2022. ‘La ley de cuotas en las elecciones
nacional de Colombia de 2018’. In Botero, Felipe, Bibiana Ortega, Juan F. Pino
and Laura Wills-Otero (eds), En configuración permanente. Partidos y elecciones
nacionales y subancionales en Colombia 2018 y 2019. Bogoá: Universidad de los
Andes and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, 285–308.
Castañeda, Nestor. 2018. ‘Volatilidad electoral y regulación del financiamiento
político en Colombia’. Colombia Internacional, 1(95):3–24.
El Espectador. 2021. ‘Se formaliza división política: excombatientes piden escisión
de Partido Comunes’, 10 August. https://www.elespectador.com/politica/se-
formaliza-disidencia-politica-excombatientes-pide-escision-del-partido-comunes
/ (Accessed 16 December 2023).
El Nuevo Siglo. 2019. ‘Partidos, rajados en registro de sus afiliados’, 14 May. https://
www.elnuevosiglo.com.co/articulos/05-2019-partidos-rajados-en-registro-de-
sus-afiliados (Accessed 16 December 2023).
330 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Gallagher, Michael. 2022. Election Indices Dataset. https://www.tcd.ie/Political_

Science/about/people/michael_gallagher/ElSystems/Docts/ElectionIndices.pdf
(Accessed 16 December 2023).
Gutiérrez, Francisco. 2007. ¿Lo que el viento se llevó? Los partidos políticos y la
democracia en Colombia 1958–2002. Bogotá: Editorial Norma.
Hernández Becerra, Augusto. n.d. S.f. Regulación Jurídica de los Partidos en Colom-
bia. Working paper.
Hoyos Gómez, Diana. 2007. ‘Evolución del sistema de partidos en Colombia 1972–
2000. Una mirada a nivel local y regional’. In Diana Hoyos Gómez (ed.), Entre

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

la presistencia y el cambio. Reconfiguración del escenario partidista y electoral en
Colombia. Bogotá: Universidad del Rosario, 21–48.
IDEA. 2022. Voter Turnout Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-
turnout (Accessed 16 December 2023).
La Silla Vacía. 2020. ‘Las Farc enfrenta su primera crisis existencial’, 6 February.
https://www.lasillavacia.com/historias/silla-nacional/la-farc-enfrenta-su-primera
-crisis-existencial (Accessed 16 December 2023).
Losada, Rodrigo and Nicolás Liendo. 2016. ‘El partido “centro democrático” en
Colombia: Razones de su surgimiento y éxito’. Analisis Politico, 29(87):41–59.
MOE. 2018. Elecciones Presidencia & Congreso. 2018–2022. Bogotá: Misión de
Observación Electoral.
Ortiz, Johan. 2021. Los dilemas de un Partido personalista en la reproducción de su
vibrancia: caso de estudio partido político Centro Democrático. Master’s Thesis.
Department of Political Science, Universidad de los Andes.
Ortiz, Johan and Laura Wills-Otero. 2023. ‘Dilemas de la vitalidad del partido Centro
Democrático (CD), 2013–2020’. Colombia Internacional, 114:93–122.
Ortega, Bibiana and Gabriel Camargo. 2015. ‘Ley de cuotas en Colombia: elecciones
al Congreso de la República 2014-2018’. In Barrero, Fredy and Margarita Batlle
(eds), Elecciones en Colombia, 2014 ¿Representaciones fragmentadas? Bogotá:
Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 197–220.
Plata Caviedes, Juan Camilo, Carlos Arturo Ávila García, and Miguel García
Sánchez. 2021. Colombia: un país en medio de la pandemia 2020. Observatorio
de la Democracia. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes.
Pino, Juan Federico. 2020. ‘Trayectorias de desarrollo de la competitividad electoral
subnacional en las alcaldías colombianas: 1988–2015’. Dados Revista de Ciencias
Soicais, 63(3):1–43.
Rettberg, Angelika. 2020. Colombia in 2019: The Paradox of Plenty. Revista de
Ciencia Política:40(2):235–258.
Rodríguez-Raga, Juan Carlos, and Felipe Botero. 2006. ‘Ordenando el caos. Elec-
ciones legislativas y reforma política en Colombia’. Revista de Ciencia Politica,
26(1):138–151.
 The Colombian Party System, 1991–2022 331

Rodríguez-Raga, Juan Carlos, and Laura Wills-Otero. 2021. ‘La renovación del
conservadurismo tradicional a través de nuevos partidos: El caso del Centro
Democrático en Colombia, 2014–2018’. Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política,
30(1):79–104.
Semana. 2019. ‘¿Quiénes son los duquistas?’, 9 June. https://www.semana.com/
nacion/articulo/quienes-son-los-colombianos-que-apoyan-a-duque/619007/
(Accessed 16 December 2023).
UN Women. 2019. El camino hacia la paridad en el Congreso Colombiano: la
Representación política de las mujeres de las elecciones de 2018. Bogotá: UN Women

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

and USAID.
Wills-Otero, Laura. 2009. ‘Electoral Systems in Latin America: Explaining the Adop-
tion of Proportional Representation Systems during the Twentieth Century’. Latin
American Politics and Society, 51(3):33–58.
Wills-Otero, Laura. 2011. ‘Crisis en los sistemas de partidos y en los partidos políticos
de la región Andina, 1978–2006: Explicaciones y perspectivas’. Controversia,
196:93–122.
Wills-Otero, Laura. 2014. ‘The electoral performance of Latin American tradi-
tional parties, 1978-2006. Does the internal structure matter?’. Party Politics 1(1),
pp. 1–15.
Wills-Otero, Laura. 2016. ‘The Electoral Performance of Latin American Traditional
Parties, 1978–2006: Does the Internal Structure Matter?’. Party Politics, 22(6):
758–772.
16
Political Parties in Brazil
Tradition and Trends in the New Democracy

Silvana Krause and Bruno Marques Schaefer

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Introduction: The Tradition and Trust

Since 1985, Brazil has been going through a process of democratic stabi-
lization while facing a series of challenges: party fragmentation, polarization
between political forces, fluid political careers, corruption, and widespread
distrust of the electorate in relation to the parties. All the factors that led to the
critical 2018 election with the victory of a right-wing populist candidate, Jair
Bolsonaro, mirror this scenario (McKenna, 2020). Elected by a party with-
out wide national representation, Bolsonaro shortly thereafter left that party
and remained two years in government without party affiliation.1 His gov-
ernment, with anti-partisan strategies in Congress, marks a cycle of crises for
traditional parties that began in 2013. These conjunctural aspects are added
to historical and structural aspects that reflect the characteristics and trends
of the new Brazilian democracy.
The development of the Brazilian case allows us to assess to what extent
and in which ways the country’s parties have performed the basic functions
demanded of them in representative democracies: political representation,
selection and recruitment of members, and the elaboration of public policies.
The history of instability and short-lived parties in the country also reveals a
rationale with characteristics that do not always align with classical typolo-
gies such as the emergence of modern parties of ‘cadres and masses’ at the
end of the 19th century (Duverger 1979), or of catch-all parties that arose
from transformations in the European political and electoral market after
1945 (Kirchheimer 1966). Moreover, the changes in organizational models
highlighted in contemporary theories, such as the phenomenon of carteliza-
tion of parties and party systems (Katz and Mair 1995) and the formatting
of the professional–electoral party (Panebianco 2005), are not sufficient to

Silvana Krause and Bruno Marques Schaefer, Political Parties in Brazil. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Silvana Krause and Bruno Marques Schaefer
(2024). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0016
 Political Parties in Brazil 333

understand the complexity of Brazilian parties or their different dimensions

of action.
Throughout its republican history since 1889, Brazil has had six different
configurations of party systems: a) 1889–1930: non-competitive system with
state parties, nominally identified with the federate units; b) 1930–1937: an
early-stage competitive and multi-party system, with the formation of nation-
ally prominent parties; c) 1937–1945: prohibition of the legal existence of
parties; d) 1945–1964: a competitive multi-party system comprising three
parties with significant representation; e) 1966–1979, a bipartisan system,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

imposed by the military regime; f ) 1979–1989: a moderately fragmented
multi-party system; and g) 1990–present: a highly fragmented multi-party
system. Despite this instability, it is possible to highlight a few persistent
elements indicating ongoing challenges to the new Brazilian democracy
inaugurated with a civil government in 1985.
Brazilian parties underscore a tradition of fragile ties with social groups
and cleavages, predominantly representing regional oligarchies; disputes
between family clans; and groups associated with economic activities, invest-
ment, and public subsidies. This weakness in the bonds of party representa-
tion needs to be considered when analysing the factors for the party’s lack of
centrality in the conduct of important moments in the country’s political life.
From gaining independence in 1822, to liberation from enslaved labour in
1888, the proclamation of the Republic in 1889, the fall of the authoritarian
regime in 1945, and the civil–military coup in 1964, the parties did not lead
political movements. It was only during the democratic transition process
negotiated in 1984 that the country’s main opposition party played a leading
role in the formation of a civil government and building the new democracy.
The legacy of the small number of social ties for party organizations
comes from an originating model with a mostly top-down profile, induced
and driven by incentives from the executive power and the state machin-
ery (Souza 1983). This origin, in other words, hardly comes close to the
traditional model of the emergence of modern European parties, with clear
differences in social cleavages and functions of organizing interests, interme-
diation, and political integration.
Consequently, there is a consolidation of a culture with minimized focus
on political parties and a tradition of personalist leaderships in conducting
the lives of the parties. If, in the 21st century, parties with long-standing tra-
ditions in mature democracies face profound challenges with a reduction
in members and rejection in the electorate, the panorama in Brazil is more
334 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

accentuated. For example, the voters’ confidence in parties reached its low-
est percentage in 2018 (6.20%), with the most trusted institutions being the
church and the armed forces (Barômetro das Américas 2019)

The Parties in the New Brazilian Democracy: Macro

Institutional Environment and Legislation
Institutions and fragmentation

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Despite the new Brazilian democracy facing considerable legal instability
regarding the norms and rules of electoral competition, which also influence
political disputes and the organizational life of parties, certain institutional
elements have remained. In general, the following are highlighted as encour-
aging factors of Brazil’s scenario of low institutionalization of parties: the
presidential system of government associated with an open-list proportional
system in electoral districts throughout 27 federal units (these elections being
of great scope, each district electing between 7 and 70 seats) and a robust
political federalism (Abranches 2018).
The arrangement of presidential elections with an open-list proportional
system for legislative elections must be considered to understand the party
landscape, because they foster the development of a fragmented party sys-
tem in the national legislature and difficulties for parties to generate national
leaders or deliver cohesive action at the national level with party agendas.
The open list reinforces a vicious cycle of party weakening, encouraging
individual political careers which are largely independent of the party’s
organizational life.
Figure 16.1 summarizes the evolution of important indicators of the party
system in the country: the vertiginous growth of the number of parties in the
Chamber of Deputies, with its peak in the 2018 election,2 and overall party
fragmentation, which follows the same trend. Throughout the new democ-
racy, the parties of elected presidents have not reached a majority in the
legislature and have turned to forming alliances with various parties. Nev-
ertheless, it should be noted that in the 2022 elections there was a decrease
in party fragmentation.
Electoral volatility was higher during the political transition period (1982–
1986) because of the entry of new parties into the political market, and since
2010, it has entered a phase of a continuous cycle of growth. The absence
of stable party preferences for voters with a panorama of instability in party
representation is aggravated by constant party switching by parliamentarians
(Melo 2004).
 Political Parties in Brazil 335

Number of parties in the Chamber of Deputies ENPP

Volatility Party switching
Turnout (%)
100

80

60

40

20

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022

Figure 16.1 Evolution of the number of parties, effective number of parliamentary

parties (ENPP), and party switching in the Chamber of Deputies. Party switching:
percentage of deputies who switched parties during their term. In 2022, new legislation
made it possible to form party federations. They must act as single party in electoral
competition and inside parliament are hence counted as one party.
Sources: Superior Electoral Court (TSE); Chamber of Deputies; Gallagher (2022) Election indices;
Voter Turnout Database (IDEA 2022)

Legislation: Party autonomy and resources

The Federal Constitution of 1988 established general principles for party

organizations, and it reflected the concerns of the lawmakers in guaranteeing
the administrative autonomy of parties (Article 17). Moreover, introduced in
1995, the Party Law (9.096/95) set regulations for the operation, financing,
and accounting of parties and emphasized parties’ ample autonomy for the
elaboration of their statutes, forms of organization, and internal functioning.
However, subsequent changes to party legislation challenged this, reflect-
ing the reactions of parties and political leaders. These initiatives were
implemented by different actors: partly by the judiciary, through consulta-
tions with the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), and partly by the legislature,
responding to public opinion or echoing survival strategies by party leaders.
Mainly, these have focused on three dimensions: strengthening party orga-
nization, improving political financing, and confronting the fragmentation
of the party system.
To strengthen party organizations, four central fronts of initiatives and
reactions emerged: a) tools to prevent and inhibit party switching by par-
liamentarians and political leaders; b) definition of ownership over the
political mandate; c) membership time necessary to be nominated; and d)
requirements for the formation of new parties.
To discourage party switching, it was an influential initiative by par-
liamentarians to change the internal regulations of the Chamber of
336 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Deputies (Resolution 34/2005): the distribution of positions in parliamen-

tary committees was tied to the party’s electoral result and no longer to their
representation on the date of inauguration of the Chamber of Deputies. This
resolution also established punishment with the deputy’s loss of office and the
guarantee of the affected party to maintain its quota of nominations for leg-
islative offices in accordance with its election result. Along these lines, parties
impacted by the loss of mandates consulted the TSE to clarify the definition
of ownership over the political mandate. The TSE Resolution 22.526/2007
defined that the mandate belongs to the parties. This measure was relativized

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

by TSE Resolution 22.610/2007, which established the possibilities of not los-
ing a mandate: in cases of incorporation, merger, or formation of a new party,
as well as programmatic changes and persecution of the party, the mandate
is guaranteed to the migrant deputy. This instability especially weakened
traditional and consolidated parties, as switching deputies saw ‘windows of
opportunity’ in their careers with alternatives for new parties or mergers.
This measure, reinforced by another decision of the Supremo Tribunal Fed-
eral (STF)3 in 2012, established that the Free Electoral Propaganda Schedule
and the Party Fund are to be distributed not according to the number of
seats acquired in the election, but during the year in which the election will
take place, encouraging switching of parties and formation of new parties
between election and inauguration.4 Another disincentive to political careers
with long-term political ties was the reduction in the requirement of affilia-
tion time for candidacies in 2015 (Law 13.165). It no longer requires one year
of membership to be a candidate, reducing that time to six months. The same
legislation still allows politicians with mandates to change parties within 30
days prior to the six-month membership period.
Recent legal modifications, in 2017, moved in the opposite direction by
targeting lower campaign costs, changing party funding, and introducing
a performance clause.5 The expected effect of the establishment of greater
restrictions is to limit the formation of new parties and inhibit so-called
‘parties for hire’—those without programmatic identities and predominantly
instrumentalized by leaders with little political reach.
Regarding the financing of Brazilian parties and elections, the model that
was in force for more than 20 years (1993–2015) was mixed: private contribu-
tions to candidates and parties by companies, individuals, and the candidates
themselves, as well as public funding through the Party Fund. In 2015, after
a decision by the Supreme Court, corporate contributions were declared
unconstitutional.
Reforms to party/electoral finance legislation have been a reaction to scan-
dals. Corruption allegations served as an exogenous influence for changes in
the law. In 1993, Law 8713 was passed after a corruption scandal involving
 Political Parties in Brazil 337

the campaign accounting of Collor, elected president in 1989 and impeached

in 1992. Until that moment, legislation originating from the military regime
did not allow donations from companies to campaigns or parties. The scan-
dal and the subsequent Parliamentary Inquiry Commission culminated in
the approval of a law that allowed electoral financing by companies. Subse-
quently, the Law on Political Parties and the Law on Elections consolidated
the model of private and public financing.
Until 2015, this model favoured the influence of large donors, while not
regulating the expenses of candidates and parties. The laws of 1993 and 1997

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

allowed business donations without nominal caps: the limit for contributions
from firms was proportional, up to 2% of gross sales. This criterion favoured
companies with higher revenues. In the case of individuals, the limit contin-
ues to be as set in 1993: up to 10% of gross earnings in the year preceding the
election. This also favours contributions from large donors.
The data shown in Table 16.1 indicate that the Brazilian general elections
were almost exclusively financed by companies until 2014. In 2018, public
resources represented more than 70% of the total value of campaigns. In 2022,
public resources represented more than 80%.
Table 16.1 also shows the Gini Index for business donations and indicates
a trend towards growth in the concentration of resources between donors
and economic sectors. In the latter case, there is no correlation between
the weight of each economic sector in the national gross domestic product
(GDP) and the weight of campaign contributions (Mancuso et al. 2021). It

Table 16.1 Sources of the resources for Brazilian general elections, 2002–2022 in
million dollars ($) and proportional (%) values

Source Statistics 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022

Companies Total ($) 25.4∗ 37.3 78.3 81.4

% 60.11 61.64 71.48 70.93
Gini 0.87 0.89 0.92 0.93
Individuals Total ($) 65.2 98.8 145.2 149.5 86.3 171.3
% 15.41 16.31 13.25 13.03 14.41 14.25
Own Resources Total ($) 59.0 84.7 112.7 101.2 75.7 35.9
% 13.95 13.99 10.29 8.82 12.64 2.99
Public Resources Total ($) 44.5 48.8 54.6 82.7 436.8 994.97
% 10.52 8.06 4.98 7.21 72.95 82.76
Total 422.9 605.4 1095.5 1146.9 598.8 1202.2

Source: Elaborated from data by Mancuso (2020) and information available with the Supreme Electoral
Court
∗
The resources were adjusted for inflation as in December 2020. After this procedure, it was further
adjusted considering the dollar quotes for the same period.
338 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

was the sectors most dependent on the state, such as civil construction, which
ended up investing proportionally more in elections. In 2014, companies in
the civil construction sector represented around 6% of the Brazilian GDP
but 27% of total business donations. The manufacturing sector represented
12% of GDP but 35% of total contributions. The distribution of company
resources followed a catch-all pattern for the benefit of the largest Brazilian
parties (and several candidates within them) and without ideological distinc-
tions (Krause et al. 2015). In the case of the 2014 presidential elections, the
three best-placed candidates in electoral polls accounted for 99.7% of the total

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

donated by companies to all candidates.
After the ban on business donations, politicians and parties came together
to increase the value of public resources available for financing both party
organizations and electoral campaigns. In the first case, between 2014 and
2015, there was an increase in the value of the Party Fund (from US$70
million to more than US$180 million). In the second case, also in the 2017
electoral reform, the Special Fund for Campaign Financing (FEFC) was cre-
ated. This is available to parties in both general and municipal election years
(hence, every two years), and is distributed to national directorates, which
subsequently transfer the funds in a discretionary manner to candidates
and/or other sections of the party (at state and municipal levels). In 2018,
the total value was US$330 million.
Resources available from the FEFC and the Party Fund are distributed to
the parties based on two criteria: equitable and proportional (to the electoral
weight).6 As can be seen in Figure 16.2, the increase in the supply of public
resources represented greater dependence of party organizations on the state.

Party members Companies Individuals Public resources

100.00
90.00
80.00
70.00
60.00
50.00
40.00
30.00
20.00
10.00
0.00
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

Figure 16.2 Sources of financing of Brazilian political parties (%), 2007–2021

Source: Elaborated from Superior Electoral Court (TSE) data
 Political Parties in Brazil 339

Considering the parties’ accounting and sources of resources, it can be

noted that after the STF’s decision, public resources represented more than
90% of the total party budgets. Considering Poguntke et al. (2016), Brazilian
parties compare to those in Hungary (81.63%), Israel (81.24%), and Aus-
tria (79.88%) in terms of party dependence on direct public subsidies. It is
interesting to note that, overall, Brazilian parties register a minuscule per-
centage of contributions from members. On average, from 2007 till 2018, only
four out of every 100 dollars collected by Brazilian parties came from their
members.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Overview of Main Political Parties

Why these parties?

In the following sections, we discuss the three main Brazilian parties in terms
of their origins, political representation, resources, ideologies, and internal
dynamics. The weight of these parties has declined. In 1994, the three par-
ties held 42.9% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies; in 2018 this figure
fell to 22.8%. Figure 16.3 illustrates membership development in relation to
total number of voters who are members of a party and to data on party pref-
erence.7 There was a trend of decreasing membership in all parties and a
decrease in preference, apart from the Worker’s Party (PT), which in 2018
had a significant recovery.

M/E MDB Preference MDB (%) M/E PSDB

Preference PSDB (%) M/E PT Preference PT (%)
25,00

20,00

15,00

10,00

5,00

0,00
2002 2006 2010 2014 2018

Figure 16.3 Party preference and membership as a proportion of the electorate (M/E)
Source: Brazilian Electoral Studies (ESEB) and TSE
340 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

MDB-PMDB

Origins and evolution of representation

Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (MDB8 ) is the oldest party, created in the
bipartisan system of the civil–military regime with the objective of keeping
the legislative power functioning with a consented and controlled ‘oppo-
sition’. The party welcomed leaders with different ideologies who sought
to maintain an institutional political role within the authoritarian period,
agglomerating from liberal democrats to leaders of the clandestine Commu-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

nist Party. A central element that ensured its initial internal cohesion was the
unifying banner of opposition to the regime and a return to democracy. In
the new democracy, the party became the centre of support in the formation
of governments, although it was not successful when it presented candidates
for the presidency of the country. In 1989, its candidates obtained only 4.9%
of the vote; in 1994 it reached 4.5%, and in the 2018 election, 1.2%. MDB
participated in national governments, whether establishing electoral alliances
for the vice-presidency or joining the administration of the elected govern-
ments of Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB) and PT, offer-
ing a legislative basis and occupying ministerial positions in the executive
power.
The importance of the party for the country’s governability is explained
by two reasons: first, the capillarity of the party’s presence in state exec-
utives, especially ascending from regional leaders with a legacy of a local
and regional organizational structure built since the civil–military regime
(Melo 2013). If, on the one hand, this was the organization’s strength, on
the other, the party was held hostage by regional leaders with little national
relevance, which explains their difficulty in building expressive national
leaders with competitive candidacies for the presidency of the country. Sec-
ond, the significant representation of the party in the national legislature
was of particular relevance in the context of fragmentation of the party
system.
MDB experienced a huge drop in its representation in the 1990 elections,
when it was blamed for the economic crisis, inflation, and frustration with
the first civil government. It went from 53% to 21% of representation in the
Chamber of Deputies and suffered substantial loss of control of state gov-
ernments, going from 95.7% to 26.9% of governors. More impactful was the
2018 election, when the party reached its lowest representation in the new
democracy, reaching 6.6% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 11.1%
of state governors. The reasons for this are associated with its participation
in PT governments, its leadership in the impeachment movement in 2016,
 Political Parties in Brazil 341

and corruption accusations.9 Moreover, in 2022 the party slightly increased

its representation in the Chamber of Deputies (8.18%) and maintained its
numbers in state governments (11.11%).

Funding
First, the financing profile of MDB reveals the insignificance of the party
members in sustaining its operation and their dependence on public
resources (in 2018, practically 100% of the budget). Second, the most sig-
nificant impact of corporate financing in election years (2008, 2010, 2014)

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

stands out, especially when the party had the winning candidacy for the
vice-presidency of the country. In 2014, the MDB received more than US$18
million from corporate donors, with around US$3 million originating from
just one company. The civil construction sector was responsible for more
than half of the resources from corporate donations.

Ideological positioning and agenda

Even with different methodologies applied to classify parties (surveys, leg-
islative voting, interviews with experts, and programmes), the party has been
identified at the centre of the ideological spectrum (Krause et al. 2017).
The unifying agenda for the ‘democratization’ of the country allowed the
party a minimum cohesion of action until participating in national govern-
ments. Although MDB is identified as in the centre, this suggestion exempli-
fies the limits of evaluating parties as indivisible units. Internal divisions are
often expressed as ‘sub-parties’ within the same party (Sartori 1982); these
are not based on ideological and programmatic disputes but, predominantly,
clashes between regional leaders. MDB’s agenda has ambiguous character-
istics, defending, on the one hand, the development of an economy of free
competition and, on the other, the need for greater state intervention in the
economy (MDB 1996). In the 2018 election, it defended both the privatiza-
tion of state-owned companies and a state that protects society and regulates
economic activities.
Two elements explain MDB’s capacity for electoral mobilization and access
to the state machinery: its programmatic–ideological hybridity with broad
alliances on the right and left, which resulted in participation in almost all
the country’s governments in the new democracy; and its flexibility regard-
ing the political dynamics of the country’s federated units, giving autonomy
to regional leaders, guaranteeing its local and regional territorial presence.
If, on the one hand, its structure as a ‘party federation’ (Ferreira 2002) and
its flexibility of alliances (Krause et al. 2017) was fundamental for the expan-
sion and maintenance of its electoral machinery, on the other, it brought a
342 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

challenge. Its loyalty ties with the electorate were tenuous and sustained by
regional leaders, which also explains its electoral downfall in recent years and
difficulties in controlling the country’s executive seat.

Internal operational dynamics and leaderships

Based on the premise that intra-party democracy is based on participation
and control by members in the organizational structure and decision-making
process, a recent study on the internal democracy index of Brazilian parties
(Salgado 2019) places MDB in 10th position in its general ranking.10

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

As for the provisions in MDB’s statutes on the composition of its governing
bodies, the party has a configuration of participation of minority slates with
the adoption of a proportional system and guarantees all members to present
themselves as a candidate for the party organizational bodies, provided that
their membership contributions are paid. Conversely, MDB does not estab-
lish quotas for the participation of minorities (women, blacks, young people,
indigenous people etc.).
Party leadership mandates have a limit of four years but no re-election pro-
hibition. During the period 2007–2018, MDB had three National Executive
Committees (CEN).11 The party is composed of politicians with elected posi-
tions or with experience in elections. During the period considered here, of
the 50 names, only one did not have this profile. The data corroborate other
findings in the literature on the party. Ribeiro (2014), for example, points
out that the party has a historical tendency of containing public officials on
its national leadership. Since the 1980s, the number of CEN members with a
political background (in elected and commissioned positions) has tended to
exceed 90%.
The party guarantees organizational decentralization in its statute, giving
wide autonomy regarding decisions on electoral alliances and forecasting
the distribution of public financial resources to local and regional bodies.
It is, however, up to the national executive to intervene regarding local and
regional bodies when deemed necessary.
The lack of focus on internal participation in the elaboration of the party
and government programmes is noteworthy, as the statute does not require
the involvement of members of local and regional bodies. These also do not
need to be consulted on strategies for electoral alliances.
As for the recruitment of candidacies, all members have guaranteed this
right, but there is no norm for the participation of minority candidacies or
guarantee of equal competition of members in the definition of candidacies. It
is important to highlight that there is no regulation regarding the distribution
of public resources for financing candidates from the party.
 Political Parties in Brazil 343

PSDB

Origin and evolution of representation

PSDB12 has its origin in a dissidence of parliamentary leaders from the MDB
in 1988, a classic case of internal origin. The parliamentary importance of
the party can be seen since its founding year. Even though it had not yet
participated in an election, when formed, it represented the third-largest rep-
resentation in the Chamber of Deputies with the inclusion of deputies to the
new party, and in its provisional national executive almost all its members

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

(91%) were politicians (Silva 2017).
The reasons for the split emerged in the context of the work on the new
Constitution in Congress. The dissidents defended a parliamentary system
of government and opposed extending the presidential term of office of five
years. In addition to these differences, the dispute between regional leaders
of the MDB in the largest electoral district in the country, São Paulo, was also
central to the creation of the party. In the founding meeting, the Southeast
region constituted 53.2% of the members of the board, and the state of São
Paulo provided the majority of its leaders (Silva 2017). The party welcomed
during its foundation distinct groupings from Social Democrats, Christian
Democrats, Democratic Socialists, and Progressive Liberals, but with few
links with civil society associations and trade union movements.
The legacy of programmatic–ideological heterogeneity in PSDB’s origins
and its essentially regional base impacted its expansion from electoral and
organizational viewpoints. However, the party rose with the corruption
scandals and impeachment of the first president elected in direct elections
in the new democracy and participated in President Franco’s government
between 1992–1994. Moreover, the presence in the government as minis-
ter (leader of the stabilization plan) proved to be essential for the victory of
the PSDB candidate in the 1994 presidential election, Fernando Henrique
Cardoso.13
The organization’s birth within the political system, without a solid base
of social groups and movements, limited its mobilization and national elec-
toral capillarity. Even during the years of electoral victory for the country’s
presidency (1994 and 1998), it did not reach a majority in the legislature,
winning 12.1% and 19.8% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies in 1994
and 1998, respectively. Its biggest loss was in the 2018 election, with only
5.6% representation in the Chamber of Deputies, but its representation had
been decreasing since PT’s presidential election with Lula in 2002. This is a
symptom of the struggle of the parties to maintain their electoral strength in
opposition and away from the structure of the state machinery.
344 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

From the viewpoint of regional strength, PSDB, since 1994, governed a

significant portion of the country’s federated units, but as of 2014 it has
lost this strong presence. Corruption scandals involving leaders and gov-
ernors in the states of the Southeast region (São Paulo and Minas Gerais)
impacted the 2018 election, and the party acquired 5.6% of representation
in the Chamber of Deputies—the worst result since its establishment. Addi-
tionally, in the 2022 elections it further lost representation in the Chamber of
Deputies and elected the same number of governors as the previous election
(11.1%).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Funding
The party’s funding profile reveals the insignificance of members in sustain-
ing the party’s life throughout the analysed period. The dynamics of corpo-
rate financing until their legal permission and of public resource financing
show a logic of strong impact of corporate financing in election years. In
practically every year of national, regional, or municipal elections contem-
plated (2008: 57%; 2010: 72%; 2014: 55%), the largest funding originated
from companies.

Ideological positioning and agenda

Being named ‘Brazilian social democracy’ could hastily classify the party as
centre-left. The boundaries for placing PSDB on the ideological dimension
are even more tenuous when we consider the original trajectory of European
social-democratic parties. These originated with a broad social and trade
union base and later, in the 1980s, underwent programmatic–ideological
transformations when they formed governments (Kitschelt 1994). The case
of PSDB is an inverse trajectory: a social democracy without the classical
roots of traditional parties of this lineage.
Since its first presidential campaign in 1989 and during its two gov-
ernments (1995–2002), PSDB has been notable for an agenda of liberal
conception of economic stabilization policies, privatization of state-owned
companies, control of public spending, and opening the Brazilian economy
to the international market. Its programmatic documents, however, are char-
acterized by clearly social-democratic proposals and formulations. The party
is located halfway between a ‘strong state’ and having a ‘market orientation’,
favouring the reduction of the state in certain sectors and the presence of a
regulatory state where necessary.
Moreover, the party’s trajectory in relation to the ideological programmatic
field is also related to its competitive environment. The growth and consol-
idation of PT on the left, especially from the mid-1990s onwards, ‘pushed’
 Political Parties in Brazil 345

PSDB further to the right. Electoral alliances and government coalitions in

confronting PT as its main opponent led the party to occupy the space from
the centre to the right.

Internal operational dynamics and leadership

PSDB statutorily ensures that minorities are incorporated in the direction of
its bodies through the system of proportional representation. All members
who are up to date with their membership fee contributions can apply for
leadership positions in the party bodies. There is also a quota policy requiring

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the representation of minorities.
Executive committee terms are limited to two years, the re-election of
chairpersons being prohibited. During the period 2007–2018, the PSDB had
five CENs. Analysis of the CENs reveals a prevalence of public officials in the
leadership: out of 83 names, only seven lacked a history of elected positions.
Within the executive committee, there is also the presence of the National
Political Council. Comprising six members, it has the power to deliberate
on national coalitions and determine the method of selection of presidential
candidates (Ribeiro 2013).14
The party statute guarantees the organization’s decentralization with the
right to regional and local leaders who have established their electoral
alliances, as well as providing the allocation of public financial resources to
local and regional party bodies. Yet the participation of members in these
decisions is not established. It is also not possible for the national board to
dissolve regional and local directorates. However, national committees have
the prerogative to replace and withdraw decisions made in local and regional
bodies and to maintain its nominations to local and regional provisional
committees indefinitely.
For the elaboration of the party programme, there is no requirement for
the participation of local, regional, and affiliated bodies; the agenda for the
party’s national election candidate also does not require the involvement of
party bodies and members. PSDB makes it possible for all its members to
run as candidates, but without a policy of quotas or incentives for minorities.
The central issue for the encouragement of candidacies, the criteria for the
distribution of public resources for financing campaigns, and free electoral
propaganda time in the media are not regulated by the statute.
The party has faced many internal conflicts in recent years. Involved with
previous corruption scandals, the governor of the state of Minas Gerais
(southeast region) and candidate for the presidency of the country in the
2014 elections, Aécio Neves, exacerbated internal rifts. There are also diver-
gent positions of party leaders in relation to the participation of the MDB
346 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

government after the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff (PT) in

2016. The party faces disputes between new regional leaders who intend to
succeed the founding generation of the party and are trying to run for the
country’s presidency in 2022. Furthermore, traditional party leaders have
threatened to abandon the party.

PT

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Origin and evolution of representation
PT originated through the 1979 party reform and the process of Brazil’s polit-
ical opening. The party appears as a ‘novelty’ in the Brazilian party system as
it emerged from outside parliament. It was the combination of diverse social
groups, such as the Basic Ecclesiastical Communities (CEB),15 the Catholic
Church, workers organized in the new Brazilian unions, and left-wing intel-
lectuals. This external origin, added to organizational innovations such as the
formalization of internal competition in factions, the mechanisms of internal
democracy, and a bold left-wing programme with incentives for participatory
democracy (in a context of democratic transition), gave the party a distinct
profile from the tradition of Brazilian parties.
The main leader of the party, Ignacio Lula da Silva, was the presidential
candidate. He was defeated in three elections: 1989, 1994, and 1998, before
winning in 2002 and 2006; his successor, Rousseff, won in the elections
of 2010 and 2014. In total, from the presidential conquest until Rousseff ’s
impeachment, the party remained in national power for 13 years. In 2018,
Lula led the presidential elections until he was prevented from compet-
ing.16 Even with this impediment, the party’s substitute candidate, Fernando
Haddad, managed to reach the second round.
Rousseff ’s impeachment and several corruption allegations involving
party officials affected PT in several ways. In addition to the loss of repre-
sentation at the national level and defeat in the 2018 presidential election,
the party’s rejection (anti-petismo) has reached high levels in recent years.
In the 2016 and 2020 local elections, PT lost a large part of its representa-
tion in Brazilian municipalities. Allied to this, there has been, since 2006,
the realignment of the social and geographic base of the party, more cen-
tred on the poorest population and, above all, on the Northeast region of the
country. The reasons for this transformation have been extensively studied,
and there is a certain consensus that public income transfer policies (such
as Bolsa Família), wage indexation, and the country’s own economic growth
(until 2014–2015), changed petismo significantly in recent years.
 Political Parties in Brazil 347

Lula’s 2022 victory, supported by numerous parties, led to a recovery in the

party’s representation in the Chamber of Deputies, while also maintaining
the same number of state governments (4 governors).

Funding
Resources from members represented, on average, more than 10% of the
party’s budget, considering the period 2007–2018, unlike the profile from
other parties. In recent years, however, the party has focused almost exclu-
sively on state resources for its maintenance.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

PT differentiates itself in terms of contributions from individuals.
Although this type of resource, on average, represents less than 1% of the
party’s budget, the organization has greater plurality in donations, that is, it
does not depend strictly on a specific donor. In 2018, more than 13,000 peo-
ple contributed to the party at the national level, with an average contribution
of $10. Business donations, however, were concentrated. While in charge of
the presidency, the party received more than US$14 million from companies
in 2014. Until the beginning of the 1990s, the party did not approve of this
type of financing, but it altered its position with time. Although the party
raised the agenda of ending corporate campaign donations, funds flowed
abundantly into the party’s coffers when it was legally permitted during the
analysed period.

Ideological positioning and agenda

PT is classified as a left-wing party; however, it has moderated its ideological
discourse over time (Power and Zucco 2009). This shift was already reflected
in its electoral strategies, establishing, in states and municipalities, alliances
with centrist and right-wing parties, especially from the mid-1990s onwards
(Krause et al. 2017). In the 2002 election, the very choice of Lula’s vice presi-
dent reflected this moderation: businessman José Alencar from the Liberal
Party. Shortly before the election, Lula released a manifesto entitled ‘Let-
ter to the Brazilian People’, in which he pledged to control inflation, pay off
the country’s foreign debt, and guarantee a surplus in the public budget. The
manifesto was aimed at the country’s business community, which was fearful
of PT’s possible victory.
PT’s organizational system contains internal tendencies that vary ideolog-
ically (Lacerda 2002). Since 2001, the trend that commands the party, led by
those with greater access to positions in the national structure, has been more
‘right-leaning’: in defence of alliances with conservative parties and reflecting
concerns that institutional and social struggles go together.
348 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Programmatic moderation can be seen in the manifestos and agendas of

the party. In 1987, for example, at the fifth PT National Meeting, one of
the resolutions pointed to: ‘radical democratisation of space and society—
tasks that are articulated with the denial of the capitalist order and with the
construction of socialism’ (Partido dos Trabalhadores 1998). The aspect of
building democratic socialism is progressively dropped from official party
documents in favour of greater emphasis on building a welfare state. The
arrival in power also changes the profile of the party’s militancy (which starts
to occupy public positions), while programmatic moderation moves PT away

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

from its historical social bases. In 2007, for example, the party’s National
Congress recognized the ‘loss of vigour’ in the dialogue with social move-
ments. Even with attempts to return to the base, it is only with Rousseff ’s
impeachment in 2016, and the significant loss of mayors in that same elec-
tion, that the party resumed a more left-focused agenda. For instance, in
2018 the party proposed, among other things, the taxation of large fortunes
and banks, investment induced by public banks, and regulation of media
ownership.

Internal operational dynamics and leaderships

The main bases of the party are the nucleus, directorates, and executive com-
mittees. A nucleus can be organized by at least nine members and is based on
the member’s place of residence, work, social movement, or place of study,
among other factors. The other bodies are based on the federative structure
of the Brazilian state: municipal, state, and national.
The national executives are elected by direct vote of the members, in a pro-
portional system, respecting criteria of gender parity, racial proportionality,
and at least 20% of members being under 30 years of age. Executive com-
mittees, in turn, are elected by the corresponding members at the regional
and national levels. The national leadership also has the so-called sectoral
secretariats dedicated to specific themes that have arisen with the aim of
bringing the party closer to social movements (Amaral 2010). The current
statute requires that minorities (women, blacks, young people, indigenous
people, etc.) are included in party bodies.
Since 2001, PT has adopted the Process of Direct Elections (PED) to
choose the members of the national leadership. The process of direct elec-
tion of the party leadership changes the incentive structure of both leaders
and members regarding the internal dynamics of the organization. The
PED is criticized by leaders within the party as a process of depoliticiza-
tion and has had fewer and fewer participants.17 The direct involvement
of members in the electoral process produced a ‘plebiscitary’ rather than
 Political Parties in Brazil 349

deliberative climate, removing the vitality of the internal collective debate,

which was structured and fostered by the nucleus and trends of political
thought. An effect of this process was also an ‘atomization’ and ‘individualiza-
tion’ of internal decisions, strengthening a verticalization and concentration
of power, a similar phenomenon to that observed in European democracies
(Ignazi 2020).
Party leadership mandates have a limit of four years, but re-election is
permitted. During the period 2007–2018, PT had three CENs, which were
proportionally composed of politicians and bureaucrats, the latter repre-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

senting 28 of the 55 members considered. The external origins of the party
partially explain the tradition of the lower weight of public officials in the
CEN (Ribeiro 2014). However, the number of political members of the board
increased and in 2014 represented the majority (15 out of 25 members). This
change must be considered in the context of PT assuming the command of
the federal government.
PT guarantees organizational decentralization in its statutes, giving auton-
omy regarding decisions on electoral alliances and instructing the distribu-
tion of public financial resources to local and regional bodies. It is possible
for the national management to intervene in local and regional organiza-
tions when it deems that necessary. In practice, however, the number of
interventions is low when compared to other parties (Guarnieri 2011).
The participation of members is not considered in the statutes for the elab-
oration of the party programme, but it is in the government programme.
Members are also consulted for settling electoral alliances. It should be noted
here that the party has two other structures that are not common in other
parties: the ‘Encounters’ and ‘Congresses’. In the case of the former, the objec-
tive is the definition of short- and medium-term strategies, and these are
scheduled by the national executive. In the latter, the objective is to define
long-term strategies and statutory changes. Delegates for these Encounters
and Congresses are chosen by the members.
As for the recruitment of candidacies, all members have guaranteed this
right, but there is no norm for the participation of minority candidacies or
guarantee of equal competition of members in the definition of candida-
cies. The distribution of public resources for financing candidates from the
party is not regulated. The party statute stipulates that pre-candidates must
be approved by a percentage of the corresponding executive or a percentage
of party members in the district where the electoral competition will take
place.
PT, unlike most Brazilian parties, has a unifying leadership and a broad
electoral reach. Lula da Silva’s leadership is undisputed in the party: he is
350 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

a facilitator of cohesive actions and vital in assuring that internal conflicts

do not challenge the party’s unity. However, new leaders struggle to achieve
generational succession.

Conclusion

In Brazil, political parties were held responsible for the low quality, or incom-
pleteness, of the new democracy during the 1990s and the beginning of

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the 21st century (Mainwaring 2001; Kinzo 2004). Studies have indicated
a reverse, more positive ‘wave’, highlighting trends in the development of
party organizations with the stability of electoral competition for the presi-
dency of the Republic between the PSDB and PT (Braga and Pimentel 2011),
as well as discipline and party cohesion in the legislature (Limongi 2006).
However, a more pessimistic assessment restarted with the political destabi-
lization in 2013 and was reinforced with the 2018 election, when the main
parties suffered large losses.
As we have shown, it is possible to see the upholding of some trends that
have already been observed since the 1990s: increased party fragmentation
with low levels of confidence in the parties and high levels of switching parties
among politicians. In contrast to other democracies, even with a small growth
in the number of voters affiliated to parties, from 9.5% to 11.4% during 2002–
2018 (Biezen et al. 2012), there was a decrease in membership among the
main parties in recent years. These variables, associated with an inherited
insecurity with the rules of the game (political–electoral reforms every two
years) and non-solid relationships between political and economic actors,
generate instability in Brazilian democracy. However, party fragmentation
rates decreased in the 2022 elections.18
Although the country has a significant percentage of party-affiliated voters,
they are insignificant for the financial survival of party maintenance. Depen-
dence on the government tends to be the rule, underpinning the vicious cycle
where the starting point is difficult to identify: do voters distrust parties and
not contribute, or do parties anticipate not depending on voters and reinforce
the distrust?
Brazilian democracy faces a challenging scenario given the weakening of
the parties central to the country’s political stability, posing the greatest threat
the political system has faced since democratization. Bolsonaro’s government
was characterized by constant initiatives that threatened democracy, such as
mobilizing undemocratic acts, questioning the suitability of elections, and
intimidating the press, the Supreme Court and Congress.
 Political Parties in Brazil 351

The rise of a right-wing populist government without stable party ties and
the deterioration of democracy19 was related to this scenario regarding the
main parties. These parties have been challenged to answer for their grow-
ing dependence on public resources, diminishing representation, difficulty
in mobilizing members and recruiting new leaders, and lack of cohesive
action in the face of a government that disrupted the country’s political
institutions.
The main leaders of the two centrist parties supported Bolsonaro’s right-
wing populist candidacy in the 2018 runoff. They also later failed to lead a

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

clear opposition to the president’s initiatives which threatened to destabilize
democracy during his first years in power.
Additionally, they needed to reduce the polarization which had allowed
the entry of a right-wing populist government, thus rescuing the democratic
agenda they sidelined in the 2018 elections due to populist anti-corruption
discourse. At the end of 2021, Bolsonaro faced low approval ratings due to
his mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis, investigations surrounding the
use of fake news by the government and Bolsonaro’s family members, and
the parliamentary commission created to inquire into the misallocation of
federal resources to states and municipalities.
MDB and PSDB found themselves divided on several points about the gov-
ernment. For instance, both parties supported the executive’s measures on the
economic agenda, which focused on liberalizing the economy, privatization,
and restriction of labour rights. On the political agenda, they were not cohe-
sive regarding their positioning on the government’s attempts to delegitimize
electronic voting machines and the electoral process in the country. More
than half of PSDB parliamentarians voted for the adoption of the printed
ballot, and MDB also had parliamentarians who voted for Bolsonaro’s pro-
posal, based on conspiracy theories about the quality of Brazilian electronic
voting machines. Yet, since 2021, Bolsonaro’s calls for radicalization of street
mobilizations, the closure of the Supreme Court, and a coup put PSDB and
MDB in a stronger position of opposition to the government and in favour
of defending democracy.
A strategy of launching a ‘third candidate’ placed at centre of the political
spectrum was not effective to break the polarization. The 2022 presidential
election was decided in a second round with the formation of a ‘Frente Ampla’
(translated as: ‘Broad Front’) in defence of Brazilian democracy, with Lula as
candidate. The construction of the ‘Frente Ampla’ had as its candidate for
vice president the former traditional leader of PSDB in São Paulo, Geraldo
Alkmin, who had broken with his party. Lula’s victory was narrow, with just
a 1.8% lead over Bolsonaro’s re-election candidacy.
352 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

The 2022 election presented distinct challenges and outcomes for the
two centrist parties. PSDB, for the first time, did not present a presidential
candidate and has since faced internal conflicts between leaders who have
positioned themselves for leadership in the organization. The party was the
one that lost the most representation in the legislature, and in the second
round it did not have a cohesive position on which candidate to support, leav-
ing the regional directorates free to decide for either Lula or Bolsonaro. MDB
had a recovery of representation in the legislature and presented a woman
as a candidate for the presidency: Simone Tebet. Her support grew during

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the presidential campaign, taking third place in the first round. In the sec-
ond round, the candidate took an engaged position in the candidacy of the
Frente Ampla led by Lula, but the party, without internal cohesion, left its
voters, affiliates, and militants free to position themselves in the polarized
campaign. The support of Tebet and important traditional regional lead-
ers gave the party space to occupy three ministries in the Frente Ampla
government.
PT not only recovered in 2022 and continued to be the reference point
through which the electorate’s voting intentions are structured, but it also led
the construction of a Frente Ampla government composed of leaders who
opposed the government in other cycles of the new democracy. The party
remains the most preferred and also the most hated in public opinion polls
(Paiva et al. 2017). Nevertheless, throughout its trajectory and government
experiences, it has demonstrated that its performance has been configured
within the rules of Brazilian democracy. It did not adopt strategies that would
delegitimize or threaten the institutions of the new democracy. In the lead-up
to the dismissal of the PT government in 2016, his arrest, and the subsequent
impediments to his candidacy in 2018, Lula did not become radicalized.
Instead, he continued to bet on defending himself within the rule of law and
running for elections under the rules of the new democracy.
Brazil has faced setbacks in the last few decades in the evaluation indica-
tors of democracies. This downward movement in the indices began with
the mobilizations of 2013, especially with the emergence of anti-corruption,
anti-partisanship, and impeachment movements against President Rousseff
of PT, and democracy in Brazil has been threatened and attacked through
attempted coups in January 2023.
If, on the one hand, the main parties analysed were central to the political
transition and governance of the new democracy, the longest achieved in the
country’s political history, on the other hand, they have been worn down
in recent decades, opening a window of opportunity for a government that
weakened democratic institutions.
 Political Parties in Brazil 353

Analysing the trajectory of Brazilian democracy presents trends with

dynamics in two directions. In the first, one can observe that parties with
inadequate and insufficient responsiveness have fed a scenario of the retro-
gression of democracy. The second tendency, observed in recent movements,
has indicated its importance in halting the weakening development of Brazil-
ian democracy.

Notes

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

1. This changed in November 2021 when he affiliated with the relatively minor party
Partido Liberal (PL).
2. Presidential and legislative elections have taken place simultaneously in the country since
1994. The first direct election for the presidency in the new democracy was in 1989
and without simultaneity with the legislative ones. Brazil has a bicameral legislative sys-
tem (Senate and Chamber of Deputies), and we have opted for analysing the Chamber
of Deputies, which currently has 513 deputies. The Senate consists of 81 seats (three
senators per federated unit).
3. Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal)
4. Elections are held in October or November, but the inauguration happens the following
year.
5. Starting in 2019, only parties that have received at least 1.5% of the valid vote, distributed
across one third of federal states, in the 2018 elections for the Chamber of Deputies have
access to the party fund and electoral propaganda time. If the party fails to achieve this
parameter, the party can have access to it if it has elected at least nine federal deputies,
distributed in at least nine federate units.
6. Of the FEFC, 48% divided among the parties in proportion to the number of represen-
tatives in the Chamber of Deputies in the last general election; 35% divided among the
parties in proportion to the percentage of valid votes obtained by those that have at least
one representative in the Chamber; 15% divided among the parties in proportion to
the number of representatives in the Senate. From the party fund, the remaining 95%
is distributed according to the vote.
7. Data from Brazilian Electoral Studies (ESEB) opinion poll. Respondents indicate their
preferred parties.
8. Translated as: Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), previously Party of the Brazilian
Democratic Movement (PMDB).
9. The vice-president of Rousseff (PT), Temer, was from MDB. He assumed the presidency,
and the party was pivotal in the approval of impeachment in Congress.
10. A total of 35 parties registered in the Superior Electoral Court.
11. See: https://www.tse.jus.br/partidos/partidos-registrados-no-tse/movimento-democra
tico-brasileiro. Data on profession, geographical origin, and elective roles were collected
through various websites and, especially, from the Dicionário Histórico Biográfico-
Brasileiro (DHBB), Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGB), and Barbosa (2013).
12. Translated as: Brazilian Social Democracy Party.
13. Vice-president who assumed the presidency in 1992 after Collor’s impeachment.
354 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

14. The 2022 presidential candidate was chosen through primaries.

15. Basic Ecclesiastical Communities represent communities which follow liberation theol-
ogy and are organized with the support of the church.
16. Arrested for a Lava-Jato operation conviction; later reversed in the Supreme Court.
17. In 2005, 40.6% of members participated in the process; in 2019, only 19.3%.
18. Two central structural changes explain this observed phenomenon. The first was the
introduction of a ban on electoral alliances for proportional elections. Research has
shown that in Brazil, electoral alliances permitted a higher number of parties reaching
the required electoral quota. This granted more parties political representation in the
legislature. The other initiative was the introduction of a ‘barrier clause’ that stipulated a

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

gradual increase in the requirements for the access of public financing by the parties.
19. See https://www.idea.int/our-work/what-we-do/global-state-democracy.

References

Abranches, Sérgio. 2018. Presidencialismo de coalizão: raízes e evolução do modelo

político brasileiro. São Paulo: Editora Companhia das Letras.
Amaral, Oswaldo. 2010. ‘Adaptação e resistência: o PT no Governo Lula entre 2003
e 2008’. Revista Brasileira de Ciência Política, 4:105–134.
Barbosa, Tiago Alexandre Leme. 2013. Dirigentes partidários e parlamentares do
PMDB no Mato Grosso do Sul (1980–2012): uma análise da origem social dos
membros da comissão executiva, deputados estaduais e federais no estado. Mas-
ter’s dissertation. Curitiba: Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Ciências
Humanas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência Política.
Barômetro das Américas. 2019. Brazil. Year of Study: 2018/2019. Vanderbilt Univer-
sity. https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/brazil.php (Accessed 16 March 2024).
Biezen, Ingrid van, Peter Mair, and Thomas Poguntke. 2012. ‘Going, Going, . . .
Gone? The Decline of Party Membership in Contemporary Europe’. European
Journal of Political Research, 51(1):24–56.
Braga, Maria do Socorro Sousa and Jairo Pimentel Jr. 2011. ‘Os partidos políticos
brasileiros realmente não importam?’. Opinião Pública, 17(2):271–303.
Duverger, Maurice. 1979, 2nd edn. Os Partidos Políticos. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar
Editores.
Ferreira, Denise Paiva. 2002. PFL x PMDB: Marchas e contramarchas. Goiânia:
Alternativa.
Gallagher, Michael. 2022. Election Indices Dataset. https://www.tcd.ie/Political_
Science/about/people/michael_gallagher/ElSystems/Docts/ElectionIndices.pdf
(Accessed 16 December 2023).
Guarnieri, Fernando. 2011. ‘A força dos partidos “fracos”’. Dados, 54(1):235–258.
IDEA. 2022. Voter Turnout Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-
turnout (Accessed 16 December 2023).
 Political Parties in Brazil 355

Ignazi, Piero. 2020. ‘The Four Knights of Intra-party Democracy: A Rescue for Party
Delegitimation’. Party Politics, 26(1):9–20.
Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 1995. ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and
Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’. Party Politics, 1(1):5–28.
Kinzo, Maria D’A lva. 2004. ‘Partidos, eleições e democracia no Brasil pós-1985’.
Revista Brasileira de ciências sociais, 19(54):23–40.
Kirchheimer, Otto. 1966. ‘The Transformation of the Western European Party Sys-
tems’. In Joseph La Palombara and Myron Weiner (eds), Political Parties and
Political Development. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 177–200.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Kitschelt, Herbert. 1994. The Transformation of European Social Democracy. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Krause, Silvana, Maurício Michel Rebello, and Josimar Gonçalves Da Silva. 2015.
‘O perfil do financiamento dos partidos brasileiros (2006–2012): o que dizem as
tipologias’. Revista Brasileira de Ciência Política, 16:247–272.
Krause, Silvana, Carlos Machado, and Luis Felipe Miguel. 2017. Coligações e disputas
eleitorais na Nova República. Aportes teórico-metodológicos, tendências e estudos de
caso. Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo: Fundação Konrad Adenauer e EDUNESP.
Lacerda, Alan Daniel. 2002. ‘O PT e a unidade partidária como problema’. Dados,
45(1):39–76.
Limongi, Fernando. 2006. ‘A democracia no Brasil: presidencialismo, coalizão
partidária e processo decisório’. Novos Estudos CEBRAP, 76:17–41.
Mainwaring, Scott. 2001. Sistemas partidários em novas democracias: o caso do Brasil.
Porto Alegre: Mercado Aberto.
Mancuso, Wagner Pralon. 2020. ‘The Incomplete Transition: A Review of the Recent
Changes in Brazil’s Electoral Financing Model’. In Markus Pohlmann, Gerhard
Dannecker, and Elizangela Valarini (eds), Bribery, Fraud, Cheating. Wiesbaden:
Springer, 121–144.
Mancuso, Wagner Pralon, Rodrigo Rossi Horochovski, Ivan Jairo Junckes, and
Neilor Fermino Camargo. 2021. Pragmatismo ou ideologia? Setores empresariais
e financiamento de campanha em 2014. Revista E-Legis, 14(34):29–49.
McKenna, Elizabeth. 2020. ‘Taxes and Tithes: The Organizational Foundations of
Bolsonarismo’. International Sociology, 35(6):610–631.
Melo, Paulo Victor Teixeira de. 2013. O PMDB e a sua manutenção no centro do jogo
político: de catch all a cartel. Master’s dissertation. Programa de Pós-Graduação
em Ciência Política/UFMG.
Melo, Carlos Ranulfo. 2004. Retirando as cadeiras de lugar: Migração partidária na
câmara dos deputados (1985–2002). Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG.
Paiva, Denise, Krause, Silvana, and Lameirão, Aadriana Paz. (2017). ‘O
eleitor antipetista: partidarismo e avaliação retrospectiva’. Opinião Pública,
22:638–674.
356 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Panebianco, Angelo. 2005. Modelos de partido. Organização e poder nos partidos.

Martins Fontes.
MDB. 1996. ‘Programa Partidário’. Available at: https://www.mdb.org.br/conheca/
programa-partidario/ (Accessed 24 January 2024).
Partidos dos Trabalhadores. 1998. Programas de governo – PT. https://fpabramo.org.
br/2010/02/16/programas-de-governo-pt/ (Accessed 16 March 2024).
Poguntke, Thomas, Susan E. Scarrow, Paul D. Webb et al. 2016. ‘Party Rules, Party
Resources and the Politics of Parliamentary Democracies: How Parties Organize
in the 21st Century’. Party Politics, 22(6):661–678.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Power, Timothy and Cesar Zucco Jr. 2009. ‘Estimating Ideology of Brazilian Legisla-
tive Parties, 1990–2005: A Research Communication’. Latin American Research
Review, 44(1):218–246.
Ribeiro, Pedro. 2014. ‘Em nome da coesão: parlamentares e comissionados nas
executivas nacionais dos partidos brasileiros’. Revista de Sociologia e Política,
22(52):121–158.
Ribeiro, Pedro. 2013. ‘Organização e poder nos partidos brasileiros: uma análise dos
estatutos’. Revista Brasileira de Ciência Política, 10:225–265.
Salgado, Eneida Desiree. 2019. Índice de Democracia Intrapartidária—Uma pro-
posta de mensuração a partir dos estatutos dos Partidos Brasileiros. Post-doctoral
research. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência Política da Universidade Fed-
eral do Paraná.
Sartori, Giovanni. 1982. Partidos e Sistemas partidários. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar
Editores, UnB.
Silva, Pedro Gustavo de Sousa. 2017. PSDB e PT: Análise da Organização Interna dos
Partidos. Doctorate’s dissertation. https://repositorio.ufpe.br/handle/123456789/
26616 (Accessed 16 March 2024).
Souza, Maria do Carmo Campello. 1983. Estado e partidos políticos no Brasil. São
Paulo: Editora Alfa-Ômega.
17
Democracy and Political Parties
in the Argentine Republic
Carlos Fara and José Emilio Graglia

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Introduction to the Party System

Argentina began to have more structured political parties towards the end of
the 19th century with the emergence of parties representing the middle- and
low-income sectors of society.1 From 1912, with the Saenz Peña law legis-
lation establishing universal, secret, and compulsory suffrage, free elections
began to be held. The first President to be elected in a transparent manner
was brought in under this law in 1916. Primarily, four parties came into being
on that occasion: the Unión Cívica Radical (‘Radical Civic Union’; UCR—
Radicals), the Conservative Party, the Progressive Democratic Party, and the
Socialist Party. The UCR was to dominate party politics until the 1930 coup,
which sparked off a period of electoral fraud.
With the 1943 coup, Peronism/Partido Justicialista (‘Justicialist Party’; PJ)
appeared on the scene. This was to become one of the major political forces
right up to the present day, and it triumphed in the 1946 elections as well, only
to be overthrown by a military coup in 1955. From then until 1973, there were
two stages of elected governments, with the exclusion of Peronism. That year
there were free elections in which the Justicialists won again. However, in
1976, another military coup installed a dictatorship until 1983. Since then,
Argentina has experienced the longest democratic period in its history, with
the holding of regular free elections along the lines established by the national
constitution.
The 1994 constitutional reform enshrined political parties as fundamen-
tal institutions of the democratic system (Zovatto 2006), establishing that
only they can present candidates for public office. The state contributes to
the financial support of their activities and the training of their leaders.
The 1994 constitutional reform also solidified a presidential political system,

Carlos Fara and José Emilio Graglia, Democracy and Political Parties in the Argentine Republic. In: Political Parties and the
Crisis of Democracy. Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Carlos Fara and
José Emilio Graglia (2024). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0017
358 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

where the head of state and government is a directly elected President who
holds significant executive powers and serves as the chief executive of the
country.
An important detail incorporated in this constitutional reform is the mech-
anism of the ballot, with an unusual system for electing the President. The
incoming President is elected in one of the following three ways: 1) if a can-
didate’s party or alliance obtains more than 45% of the votes in the first round,
it is automatically the winner without the need for a second round; 2) if the
party or alliance that obtains most votes receives between 40% and 45% of

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

total votes and with a difference of more than 10 points over the second,
it is declared the winner; if the difference is less than 10 points, a run-off
vote must be held; or 3) if no party or alliance obtains 40% of the votes,
a second round is held between the two with the most votes. These new
rules were intended to promote the formation of electoral alliances reach-
ing the minimum required and thus generate a clear result and legislative
legitimacy.
Argentina is a federal country with 23 provinces and 1 federal district. All
24 jurisdictions elect their own national deputies and senators to the National
Congress under the same rules. Seats are allocated on a proportional basis
according to the D’Hondt system. Legislative lists are fixed and closed. A gen-
der parity law has been in force since 2017, establishing that both genders
must be allocated half of the national elective positions.
Parties are currently regulated by Law 23.298. In order for a political group-
ing to be recognized, it needs to have a number of members equal to or
greater than four for every thousand voters on the total electoral roll. Dis-
trict parties recognized under the same name in five or more districts may
apply for recognition as national parties. Political parties with provincial legal
recognition can only field candidates in provincial elections (governor and
provincial legislators). On the other hand, district parties are authorized not
only to participate in provincial elections but also to compete in national
legislative elections, meaning they can present candidates for the National
Congress. Meanwhile, political parties with national legal recognition are the
only ones authorized to participate in presidential elections (candidates for
President and Vice President), in addition to all the aforementioned elective
positions.
The requirements for a political party to obtain provincial recognition
depend on each province and are determined by the respective electoral judi-
cial body in each province. To establish itself as a district party, the party’s
representative must present the necessary endorsements and affiliates before
the federal court to be recognized as such.
 Democracy and Political Parties in the Argentine Republic 359

To obtain national recognition, a political party must gather endorsements

from at least five district parties located in different provinces, all with the
same name and logo.
In 2009, the system of open, simultaneous, and compulsory primaries
(PASO) was introduced. As some parties or alliances did not have internal
competition regarding the selection of candidates, this system was expected
to reduce the number of candidates, because anyone who does not participate
in internal party primaries can no longer stand as a candidate.
The free distribution of electoral advertising was also established in an

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

equitable manner. It is drawn by lot and distributed among political par-
ties, with 50% of space being allocated equally among all political parties
and the remaining 50% in proportion to the number of votes obtained in the
previous general election. Broadcast TV stations, cable TV, national signals,
and AM and FM radio stations authorized by the National Communications
Agency ENACOM, (created in December 2015 through Decree 267, which
establishes its role as a communications regulator in order to ensure that all
users in the country have quality services), must provide 5% of 12 hours of
transmission (2,160 seconds per day) for free. This was intended to generate
greater democratization within political parties and greater openness to soci-
ety, to reduce asymmetries between political forces by regulating party and
campaign financing mechanisms, and to rationalize and modernize certain
aspects of electoral administration while also bringing greater transparency.
Moreover, a change was made to the minimum number of members a politi-
cal party must have to participate in an election and not to lose its legal status
(Cámara Nacional Electoral 2015).
The current electoral system, inspired by European models, has always
sought to ensure the representation of political minorities through the pro-
portional allocation of seats, thus avoiding concentration in the hands of
a small number of parties. As the rules for the legal registration of a party
are relatively open, parliamentary representation has gradually become frag-
mented over the last 38 years.
Distrust of political parties is high. According to the Corporación
Latinobarómetro (2016), only 14% of Argentinians trust political parties. Five
Latin American countries have a higher percentage of trust in their polit-
ical parties: Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Colombia (the
Latin American average is 13%). Only 22% of Argentinians trust electoral
institutions. Thirteen countries have greater faith in their electoral institu-
tions: Costa Rica, Colombia, Uruguay, Peru, Mexico, Dominican Republic,
Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, Panama, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Guatemala (the Latin
American average is 28%).
360 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Evolution of the Party System

During the first stage of democracy from 1983 until the mid-1990s, a classic
two-party system prevailed. Peronism and Radicalism predominated, alter-
nating in power. During the 1980s, a centre-right party appeared—the Union
of the Democratic Centre (UCeDe)—promoting the concept of a market
economy. In the 1983 presidential election, it won just 0.17% of the vote,
while in the subsequent presidential election six years later it took 7%. This
was the beginning of a progressive fragmentation of the party system due to

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

a series of factors, as explained in the following discussion.
In the mid-1990s, a coalition—Frente País Solidario (FrePaSo)—appeared
on the scene and for the first time displaced one of the two historic parties
from second place. In the 1995 presidential election, FrePaSo managed to
drive a wedge through the Peronist–Radical bipartisanship, winning 29% of
the votes, an unprecedented occurrence. FrePaSo was a coalition of dissident
Peronists from the PJ controlled by President Menem, Socialists, Christian
Democrats, and other centre-left forces. With its strong performance in 1995,
FrePaSo was able to build an alliance with Radicalism, which triumphed in
the 1997 mid-term legislative election and then in the 1999 presidential elec-
tion. It was the first time that power was held by an alliance in which the
specific weight of the actors was relatively balanced.
This experience of switching from two players to three remained short-
lived. FrePaSo allied with the UCR in 1997 and thus won the presidency in
1999. The two main forces once again won more than 80% of the vote. The
two-party trend continued, although one of the two players was a coalition.
In 2003 there was a major break as a result of the economic and politi-
cal crisis of 2001–2002. Peronism split into three and Radicalism into two
groupings. This implosion of the historic parties led to unprecedented frag-
mentation. But it was an exceptional case, and the fragmented multi-party
system model did not last long.
In 2002–2003, a new centre-right force was born, Propuesta Republicana
(PRO), led by Mauricio Macri, who later became President of the country.
In 2015 he allied with Radicalism and a couple of smaller forces, forming
a coalition—Cambiemos—which four years later would be defeated by the
union of all the Peronist forces grouped in the Frente de Todos, whose leader
was former President Cristina Kirchner.
The PRO, unlike the FrePaSo experience, was set up like a typical 21st-
century party, with special emphasis on the use of contemporary political
communication tools, a modest structure with professional management and
 Democracy and Political Parties in the Argentine Republic 361

the presentation of political personnel who could reach the mass electorate.
Unlike Peronism and Radicalism, it was not a big bureaucratic party but
was, primarily, a party based on public opinion, in line with contemporary
politics.
Apart from the historical parties and the successful experiences of the
FrePaSo and the PRO, presidential and legislative elections saw competition
among forces that were mainly associated with a specific person, with their
legitimacy always depending on the electoral success of such personality-
centred leadership and on favourable circumstances. These forces are what

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the literature calls ‘flash parties’: they have moments of success but do not
last. This was the case with the parties created by former economics ministers
Domingo Cavallo, Ricardo López Murphy, and the Rodríguez Saá brothers,
among others. The only case that has survived and is a founding partner of the
Cambiemos alliance is the Civic Coalition, which answers to former national
deputy Elisa Carrió, although it remains small in structure.
In the presidential election of 2015, a coalition was formed between Rad-
icalism and PRO—Mauricio Macri’s party—and the 1999 experience was
repeated in part, but now with divided Peronism. The two parties with the
most votes together accounted for 71% of the votes, with a third option
appearing—Sergio Massa’s Frente Renovador—with 21%. It is possible to
speak of a multi-party system that was neither fragmented as in 2003 nor
showing a tendency towards a dominant party as in 2007, but it was the only
time in history that a run-off ballot was required in a presidential election.
From then on, the system seemed to return to a two-party one, but given
that in 2019 the Frente de Todos was formed, bringing together almost the
entire arc of Peronist sectors (including the Frente Renovador), one could
speak of a two-coalition system, since the two main forces were both coali-
tions. Figure 17.1 shows the results for the two most popular alliances sup-
porting a presidential candidate for each election and mentions the candidate
who won it.
In summary, most of the time there was a two-party system of either parties
or coalitions. Out of nine presidential elections, in five more than 70% of the
vote went to two forces; in three elections there was a multi-party system
with a dominant party (1995, 2007, and 2011); and in one election there was
extreme fragmentation (2003).
This two-party system continued during the first decade of institutional
recovery until the early 1990s. In parallel, between 1983 and 1991, provincial
parties persisted (Movimiento Popular Neuquino, Partido Bloquista in San
Juan, Pacto Autonomista Liberal in Corrientes, among others), and in 3 of
the 22 districts where governors were elected, these local forces triumphed.
362 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

60 54.11
51.75 51.34
49.94 48.37 48.66
47.49 48.24
50 45.29
40.16 40.28
37.1 38.27
40
29.3
30 27.05
22.25
20 17.27 16.81

10

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

1
9

3
3

19
15
9

7
5

01
99

00
98

98

00
99

20
20
-2
-1

-2
-1

-1

-2
-1

z-
i-
ez
úa

er
ín

em

ez
m

cr

de
nd
hn
ns

R
e

nd

a
en

en

án
M
fo

la

ná
irc

ná
sM

sM

rn
Al

io
de

er
rK

er

Fe
ric
úl

aF
rlo

aF
rlo

do

to
Ra

au

rto
in
Ca

an

és
Ca

in

M
ist

be
N

ist
rn

Cr

Al
Cr
Fe

Figure 17.1 Presidential elections

Source: DINE (National Electoral Chamber); Elecciones 2011 | https://www.argentina.gob.ar/
Note: In 2003, former president Carlos Menem, facing disastrous polling results, withdrew before the
second round. Hence, Kirchner was elected president on the basis of his result in the first round.

Party Organization

Given the successive institutional interruptions that took place between 1930
and 1983, together with fraudulent practices (1930–1943) and the proscrip-
tion of Peronism (1955–1973), this chapter will focus on the description of
the party system from 1973 to the present day.
When analysing political parties in Argentina, it must be understood that
they do not correspond to European political party type that is commonly
used as a model. In Latin America, because of several variables, among them
the repeated interruption of democratic processes and the military coups that
undermine the democratic regime and its consolidation, parties have devel-
oped around various practices that were not contemplated in their founding
statutes. Hence, we must talk of parties with medium-to-low institutionaliza-
tion in that their internal life does not always follow their institutional canons,
despite them being formally organized and registered.
Historically, two parties in Argentina have been protagonists of the system:
the UCR and the PJ. The former is a middle-class party which is organized
and federal in scope. It emerged in 1891 and since then has sought to be
the opposition to the national oligarchy. It was only with the first free, secret,
compulsory, and universal elections under the Sáenz Peña Law that they won,
with Hipólito Yrigoyen as their candidate for President in 1916.
 Democracy and Political Parties in the Argentine Republic 363

The PJ emerged under its charismatic leader Juan Domingo Perón, a

military man who took part in the 1943 coup. This group, with Catholic,
nationalist, and anti-Communist ideas, had a reformist vision of society and
drew on the social doctrine of the Church (Plotkin 2007). This party has been
characterized by several stages of ideological fluctuation over its 75 years of
existence, the most important of which was the shift to the centre-right dur-
ing the government of Carlos Menem (1989–1999), with pro-market reforms
and alignment with the US in foreign policy. After the severe economic crisis
of 2001–2002, it shifted more towards its origins from 2003 with the gov-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ernments of Néstor Kirchner (2003–2007) and his wife Cristina Fernández
de Kirchner (2007–2015), thus establishing itself more as a centre-left
force.
The two main historical forces were born as political movements rather
than as parties in the strict sense of the word, although the UCR had a more
classic structure from the start. In any case, both are the sort of big bureau-
cratic parties that are typical of the 20th century and are ‘catch-all parties’,
according to the usual description in the literature.
Radicalism always had a more orderly internal institutional life, with elec-
tions for the party authorities in the districts and assigned representatives
to the national convention, which regularly elects the National Committee
every two years. After its 1983 triumph, Radicalism oscillated between a more
social-democratic wing (it actually belongs to Socialist International) and a
more centre/centre-right wing (expressed by the 1989 presidential candidate
Eduardo Angeloz, or former President Fernando De la Rúa, 1999–2001).
Peronism, for its part, was always marked by a top-down logic with a
personality-centred mandate. After the 1983 electoral defeat, a phenomenon
called the Peronist Renovation presented to society greater internal democ-
racy and certain methodological and ideological changes. This process led
in 1988 to Peronism choosing its presidential candidate for the 1989 election
for the first time in an election among its members. The winner was Carlos
Menem, who was later elected President of the nation.
The 1973 election—the first without a ban on Peronism since the military
coup of 1955—saw a PJ majority, which managed to obtain almost 50% of
the votes in an electoral front. The other forces were very fragmented, with
the main opposition party being the UCR. In 1976 a coup d’état removed
Isabel Perón from the presidency. From that moment until 1983, the Proceso
de Reorganización Nacional (National Reorganization Process), as the civil–
military regime described itself, established its power over Argentine society,
suspending all constitutional rights. This means that the party system was
also suspended with the excuse of restoring order and peace in the country.
364 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

When democracy was restored in 1983, a two-party system emerged with

Peronism and Radicalism as the two exclusive forces. In that first presiden-
tial election, the two parties together received 92% of the votes. That was
the first time that the PJ lost a presidential election in an election without
proscriptions.
Worth mentioning is the historical existence of hard-left groupings, which
always stand for election in more than one formation. These are classic ideo-
logical parties which have a minor representation—in the 2019 presidential
election they won 2.19% of the vote. One of them is the Socialist Party, with

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

approximately 125,617 members.
The Frente Renovador is also of interest—led by Sergio Massa, a dissi-
dent Peronist from Cristina Fernández’s Kirchnerism. It ran in the 2015
presidential election and obtained 21% of the vote, thus becoming the
third most-voted-for party in Argentine history. As its strength was waning
towards 2019, it decided to join the Frente de Todos, which won the pres-
idency of the nation with the current President Alberto Fernández and the
leadership of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK).
Peronism always returned to power—after electoral defeats by non-
Peronist forces—in the wake of deep economic crises that triggered pro-
nounced demands for change by the electorate. This happened in 1989
(Menem), in 2002–2003 (first Duhalde and then Kirchner), and in 2019
(Alberto Fernández and CFK). Their initial proposal in each case was dif-
ferent: in the first, it was a series of profound pro-market reforms, typical of
those of several Latin American countries in the 1990s; in 2002–2003, the
emphasis was on greater state intervention in the economy, which went from
moderate to more radical over the years; in 2019, more of the 2003 formula
was offered, although this particular government must be contextualized in
the framework of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
At the time of writing, both Cambiemos and Frente de Todos are national
in scope and, to a greater or lesser extent, present in all provinces of the
country. In turn, they have alliances with local parties and representatives at
that level. The large structures of the PJ and UCR that are behind them help
in establishing these coalitions, as they have woven a network throughout
the 20th century and updated their image in order to survive into the 21st
century.
The UCR and the PJ have a similar territorial reach. They have historically
been present in all 24 electoral districts of the country. The PRO is present
in all provinces but has no real structure in many districts, which is why it
depends on its alliance with Radicalism.
 Democracy and Political Parties in the Argentine Republic 365

The membership figures of the most important parties in the country give
an insight into their organizational reach. In 2014, according to the National
Electoral Chamber, the PJ had 3,531,445 members, and the UCR, 2,136,955.2
The PRO Party had 107,944 members.

Connection with Social Groups

The party system in Argentina has traditionally been divided between those

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

political forces that represent the middle and upper sectors of society and Per-
onism, representing the popular sector or working class, as has been the case
in several countries in the region. However, due to historic structural charac-
teristics, the system did not experience the classic division between conser-
vatives and liberals, or between Christians democrats and social democrats.
There were two waves of the expansion of democracy, first with Radicalism
and then with Peronism. Perhaps for this reason, among others, for many
decades the key divide in the political system was between Peronism and
anti-Peronism.
The two major economic crises in Argentina since the return to
democracy—in 1989 and 2001—generated realignments within the elec-
torate that had an impact on the constitution of the party system, breaking
down previous political identities. The main victim was the UCR, which
gradually lost support, falling from 52% of the vote in 1983 to 37% in 1989
and 17% in 1995; it then triumphed in alliance with FrePaSo in 1999 before
falling again to 2.34% in 2003. These crises not only eroded Radicalism
because of decreasing faith in its leaders and their ability to govern but also
due to an overarching phenomenon of social fragmentation, which began at
the top of the social pyramid and particularly affected the middle sectors, its
historical electoral base.
In addition to these crises, political phenomena also affected the divide.
In 1993, for example, former President Alfonsín reached an agreement with
the then President Menem to reform the national constitution and allow his
re-election. This generated a great deal of dissatisfaction among the Radical
voters, which led to the party’s progressive erosion. In 1994, when the mem-
bers of the constitutional convention were elected, the UCR barely managed
to gain 20% of the vote.
The other political phenomenon that broke down Radicalism was the
political project of Néstor Kirchner who, convinced that Argentina should
be divided according to a classic centre-right and centre-left model, recruited
366 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Radical leaders and called on an opposition governor—Julio Cobos—to

join his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as Vice President when she
was elected President in 2007. From this point on, ideological, leadership,
and electoral realignments took place, disrupting the historical pattern of
Peronists versus Radicals.
Specifically, the parties’ links with society are strong and almost always
informal. For example, Peronism’s ties with the trade unions are not formal-
ized, unlike those of some European social-democratic parties. They were
traditionally based on two mechanisms: that of the ‘62 organizations’, and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the system of thirds. The former is the part of the party that is embedded
in the trade unions, which nominated trade unionists for candidatures and
leadership positions. The latter guarantees one-third of the candidatures and
leadership positions for the unions. Neither is set out in the party’s statutes.
Historically, the PJ also had a strong link with women, given the promotion
of women’s suffrage and the figure of the very popular Eva Perón, wife of
Juan Perón, who died at the young age of 33 years in 1952. This took shape
through both the Fundación Eva Perón and the Unidades Básicas Femeninas
(Women’s Basic Units). Later, they formed part of the Peronist Women’s Party
and continued to involve women in politics, not only as militants but also as
civil servants (Barry 2011).
As for the UCR, its connection with society had been developing since the
end of the 19th century, and when it was elected, it managed to expand terri-
torially, which influenced its structure and forced it to reconcile new practices
with old ways of doing politics. The fundamental basis of this was the col-
lection of clubs and local bodies that later became known as committees.
Students and student movements also emerged under the radical wing as
university politics was born during radical periods and found strong roots
among the young. Today Radicalism continues to be one of the main forces
in university politics (Persello 2000).
Each of the two major parties always had its own social structure that
served as a territorial political base and a breeding ground for political cadres.
On the Peronist side, the trade unions traditionally grouped together in the
General Confederation of Labour (CGT), which was for a long time almost
the sole central organization. This is a classic feature of grassroots parties or
movements in different parts of the world. Given the progressive social frag-
mentation and the growth of the service sector, Peronist trade unionism has
been losing power to other radicalized left-wing or more progressive trade
unions, which challenge the traditional CGT.
As for Radicalism, it is based on the sectoral representation of students
in the public universities through the Franja Morada group, which has
 Democracy and Political Parties in the Argentine Republic 367

historically provided it with militant cadres, leaders, and candidates. The

strength of the university trade union movement has fluctuated over time
and, like the trade union movement, has also become fragmented.
Other key groups, such as the different business sectors, have never been
formally associated with any of the political forces, although most of them are
not Peronists. In any case, small industrial entrepreneurs linked to domestic
consumption have always been more sympathetic to the PJ, while the agricul-
tural sector has been more linked to the UCR or other centre-right political
expressions.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

A new set of actors in Argentine politics, which appeared in the late 1990s
and clearly became more prominent after the 2001 crisis, are the so-called
social or picketer movements, which represented former workers in the for-
mal sector or in informal employment who had been unable to find jobs and
received state aid. These movements are linked to Justicialism and sectors of
the hard left.
Finally, as in various parts of the world, over the last 15 years various groups
have been appearing representing new demands for rights and rejecting tra-
ditional political representation for gender issues, LGTBQ rights, ecology,
etc. As so-called progressive and anti-status quo groups, they are generally
more closely linked to left-wing parties and have found more affinity with
Kirchnerism.
Although there are representatives of all social sectors in the two main elec-
toral coalitions, there is basically a process of integration that tends to be more
informal than formal.

Impact of the Party Funding System

As already mentioned above, the state has contributed to the economic sup-
port of parties’ activities and the training of their leaders since the 1994
constitutional reform; however, state funding also existed prior to the imple-
mentation of the reform. In national elections—given that Argentina is a
federal country—advertising in electronic media (radio and television) that
depends on a state concession is paid for by the state, thus offloading a large
proportion of the expenses involved. Funding comes from a mixture of public
and private sources.

Public funding: The state contributes to the funding of electoral campaigns

for primary and general elections through the extraordinary campaign con-
tribution and the contribution for the printing of ballots.
368 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Distribution of campaign contributions: The funding intended for the

upcoming electoral campaigns, for both primary and general elections, is
distributed among the political groupings that have formalized their lists of
candidates as follows (Law 26.215):

a) Presidential elections

Among the lists presented, 50% of the amount allocated by the budget is
shared equally. For example, in the last PASO elections the public sector
gave 3,753,560.88 Argentine pesos (18,674.43 USD) to Cambiemos, to be

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

distributed between the three lists they presented. In the case of Frente de
Todos, for the one list competing they received 2,531,471.13 Argentine pesos
(1,259,438 USD).3 Fifty per cent of the amount allocated by the budget shall
be distributed among the 24 districts in proportion to the total number of vot-
ers in each district. Once calculated, it is distributed to each political group in
proportion to the number of votes it obtained in the previous general election
for the same category. Political groupings participating in the second round
receive as a campaign contribution a sum equivalent to 30% of the largest
general campaign contribution in the same category.

b) Elections of deputies and senators

The total contributions are distributed among the 24 districts in proportion

to the total number of voters in each. Once calculated, 50% of the resulting
amount for each district is distributed equally among the lists presented, and
the remaining 50% is distributed in proportion to the number of votes they
obtained in the previous general election for the same category.

General elections: Contribution to the printing of ballots: Political groups that

present official candidatures for the general elections receive contributions
from the appropriate authorities that allow for printing of the equivalent of
two and a half ballots per registered voter in each district, for each voting
category (Law 27.504, Arts 16 and 35).

Funding of the PASO elections: The contribution of the national state in

relation to the PASO is equivalent to 50% of what is set aside for electoral
campaigns for general elections. The National Electoral Directorate provides
each political group with the resources to print the equivalent of one ballot
per voter. The contributions to the campaign and the printing of ballots are
distributed equally among the lists of authorized pre-candidates (Law 26.571,
Art. 32).
 Democracy and Political Parties in the Argentine Republic 369

Private funding: Any contribution, in money or in kind, that a person or

legal entity makes to a political grouping to finance electoral expenses consti-
tutes private funding for an electoral campaign. The law provides for private
contributions to political parties but imposes restrictions on the category or
activity of the donor and the amount of such donations. The new regulation
combines provisions that aim to:

• Incentivise private contributions by allowing tax deductions of up to 5%

of annual net income

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

• Ensure transparency in funding, expressly prohibiting anonymous
donations and requiring the identification of donors
• Promote fairness in the funding of political parties by setting limits on
the number of private contributions that each party can receive annu-
ally from the same person for its ordinary financing (1% of authorized
expenditure when the donor is a legal entity, and double that when the
donor is an individual; Law 27.504). (Sitios Argentinos, s.f.)

Limits on election campaign expenses: The allowed expenses in the campaign,

both for candidates for national legislative positions and for the President
and Vice President of the nation, cannot exceed 1 peso and 50 cents ($1.50)
per eligible voter in the election. It is worth noting that Law 25.600 set the
maximum limit of allowed expenses at 1 peso ($1) per eligible voter in the
election. With the new regulations, the allowed expenses for the run-off elec-
tion also increase, from 30 cents of a peso ($0.30) to 50 cents of a peso ($0.50).
In national elections, expenditure by a political group on the electoral cam-
paign for each category may not exceed the sum resulting from multiplying
the number of eligible voters by an electoral module, which is an amount
established in the General Budget Law of the National Administration for
the year in question that defines the limits of donations of individuals to elec-
toral campaigns of political parties. No district shall be considered to have
less than 500,000 voters (Law 27.504, Art. 45). Donations from individuals
must be made by bank transfer, cheque, internet, or any other means as long
as the donor is identified. All persons who have made contributions or dona-
tions must be identified in the final campaign report (Law 27.504, Art. 44 bis).
Expenditure on campaign advertising by third parties is expressly prohibited
(Law 27.504, Art. 49).
On one hand, a study by Centro de implementación de Políticas Públicas
para la Equidad y el Crecimiento (CIPPEC) ((CIPPEC), 2016) on the gen-
eral elections of 2015 shows that the funding of Cambiemos came mainly
from the private sector (around $90 million Argentine pesos). The income
370 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

from the public sector was only $10 million. On the other hand, Frente para
la Victoria had received equal amounts coming from private and public sec-
tors. It is important to highlight that the public contribution depends on the
number of candidates and lists that the parties present.
In spite of these regulations, it is clear that the different political forces
always resort to some kind of extra funding, whether monetary or in kind,
which is outside the law. Moreover, those in executive positions always have
some resources from the executive that they can apply to campaigns, thus
unbalancing the competition. The main informal sources of funding are usu-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ally networks of sponsors or unregulated public funding, which is difficult
to trace. Despite gradual improvements in the rules, a major problem in
Argentina is the lack of transparency in the declaration of the incomes that
each party receives. An example that illustrates this problem is the general
election in 2015. The research from CIPPEC showed that the activities of
the parties could not have been financed by the income they had declared.
Financing by bank account is not mandatory, so many receive money in cash,
which clearly promotes money laundering.

Internal Situation of Parties: Conflicts and Party

Discipline

The law on open, simultaneous, and compulsory primaries ensures that

if candidates lose an internal election within a party, they can no longer
present a list in the general election. The intention was to strengthen internal
competition, open it up, make it transparent, and prevent greater party frag-
mentation. Prior to this reform, when a minority was not allowed to compete
by the party leadership, this was a great incentive to leave the party.
Internal divisions within parties tend to be very frequent and, in all cases,
can only be contained by the existence of a unifying leadership. Over the
years, the two traditional parties have gone through splits. However, never
has a separatist faction been able to draw the mainstream away; at least the
bulk of the vote has always stayed with the historical party identity. Often
these conflicts have been ideological—for example, the drift towards the
Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo (MID) or the Partido Intransigente
in the case of Radicalism, or the Frente Grande in the case of Peronism—but
on many occasions there have also been fights for the party leadership.
In the case of Peronism, the most recent split was that of the current
president of the Chamber of Deputies of the Nation, Sergio Massa, who
formed the Frente Renovador and managed to beat the official PJ in the
 Democracy and Political Parties in the Argentine Republic 371

national legislative election in the province of Buenos Aires in 2013. Then, in

2019, he rejoined the party. In the 1980s, on several occasions sectors of the
Renovación Peronista presented lists outside the official leadership because
they were not guaranteed internal representation. The greatest fragmentation
of the PJ took place in the 2003 presidential election, when three candi-
dates stood—each one for a different manifesto—because they were unable
to achieve unity of vision. On that occasion, former presidents Menem and
Rodríguez Saá competed with future President Néstor Kirchner.
In the vast majority of cases, members of a parliamentary group vote in

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

line with party discipline, although there are always some acts of rebellion
in specific cases (for example, when a law harms the interests of a district).
There are three possible forms of rebellion: absence from the session, absten-
tion, or a vote contrary to the indication of the head of the bloc. Each group
reacts to such behaviour differently, depending on the case. Sometimes there
is an agreement to dissent, sometimes freedom of action is given for reasons
of conscience (e.g., the law authorizing abortion). There are few situations in
which member of parliament is expelled for indiscipline. It should be borne
in mind that, although the law gives precedence to political parties, legally
and in practice, if legislators want to separate from their groups, there is
nothing to prevent them from becoming an independent and still retaining
their seat.

Party Communication

In Argentine political practice, those who hold executive or legislative posi-

tions have a predominant role in setting public policy or positions on issues
of public interest. Thus, apart from formalities, it is very unlikely that those
in office will be subjected to the judgement of party authorities.
This point is important because, in general, the positions adopted by lead-
ers, whether in the ruling party or in the opposition, are more important and
decisive than the positions of the party as such. Although there may be insti-
tutional communications from the parties in various circumstances, this is
a practice that has been somewhat relegated in the information dynamics of
the late 20th and early 21st century, obviously reinforced by the existence of
social media.
The party with the most professionalized institutional communication
clearly is former President Macri’s PRO, which some refer to as a ‘designer’
force. It has been conceived in line with a series of organizational concepts to
compete in the structural circumstances of politics in the 21st century, such
372 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

as the open data that was shared by its government or its communications
strategy, working intensely with social media and young people. Radicalism,
despite showing more institutional and traditional behaviour, considering
its 130-year history, has also been modernizing its communication system.
The PJ is the party with the least institutionalized behaviour, and this has an
impact on its communication policy. However, like any force with a strong
vocation for power, after its 1983 defeat it quickly incorporated the tools of
up-to-date political communication, and its leadership has been adapting
rapidly over the last 40 years.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The Party System in Perspective: Party Models
for the Future

Argentina’s two historic parties—Peronism and Radicalism—are still in oper-

ation, despite criticism that they have merely become electoral machines that
have no institutional life and are only aimed at satisfying their clientele by
distributing positions and perks from a position of power. There are other
historic parties—the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Progressive
Democratic Party, or the MID—but they have no impact at national level.
Both main parties were born out of profound transformations in the social
structure that were translated into political and ideological representation.
The UCR was created in 1891 with the emergence of the urban middle classes
and anti-status quo sectors of the elite who demanded the political partic-
ipation that the oligarchy was denying them, at a time when there was no
universal and secret ballot. Peronism was created in the post-war period,
following an important process of urbanization and an economic model
based on import substitution after the worldwide economic crisis of 1929. It
was constituted as an inclusive movement that brought together pre-existing
political sectors and represented above all the poorest sectors and industrial
workers.
The emergence of other national parties tended to be primarily the fruit of
personality-centred projects that generated a transitory grip in an electoral
segment; however, they did not manage to become consolidated over time.
As already stated, there were two exceptions. One was the emergence of the
Frente Grande, which later joined up with FrePaSo. This force was based on
an ideological difference with Menem’s Peronism and found a place among
middle class that were gradually growing disenchanted with what was pre-
viously on offer. The framework for this was the profound ideological shift
established by Menem in the post-crisis period of 1989. The other was the
 Democracy and Political Parties in the Argentine Republic 373

PRO, as described above, which was born in 2001 out of the economic and
political crisis, in the context of the demand for the renewal of the political
class (‘Let’s get rid of them all’).
In view of this description, it could be said that the two historical parties
emerged out of two processes of social and economic transformation—
typical of the 19th and 20th centuries—and that the other two forces that
have appeared in the last 30 years were born out of processes of social and
political crisis that generated realignments of the representation that existed
before. As already noted, all the other political projects were more of the ‘flash

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

party’ type.
The two historic parties also experienced ideological swings—from
Menem to the Kirchners, from Alfonsín to De la Rúa—only to be expected to
navigate through different historical circumstances over many decades. This
brought them crises and divisions, but not the threat of total disappearance.
Given that Argentina is a large country with a federal and presidential
system of government, there is a great demand for territorial structures.
Therefore, a party relying only on the opinion vote is considered to have no
chance unless it joins forces with another party with a territorial tradition.
This is what made the alliance between the UCR and the PRO productive.
Since 2019, there has been a shift towards a bi-coalition system, as the
two forces most likely to prevail in a presidential election are a combination
of different groups. This evolution of the two-party system—characteristic
of the 1980s—towards a system of two coalitions is the model that has
allowed limits on electoral fragmentation and a productive situation for
the actors that make up each alliance, competitive alternation within the
political system, and a simpler supply from the point of view of electoral
demand.
Given that Peronism has had the largest faithful following to date, the frag-
mentation of the rest of the political spectrum has worked against it for many
years. Of the three times that a non-Peronist option won the presidential elec-
tions, two were the result of coalitions (1999 and 2015), which allowed for a
complementary and productive partnership. Despite the pervasive use of the
internet and social media, territorial presence remains valuable.
If a new political force were to emerge that wishes to be more than a mere
‘flash party’, it should consider how the PRO emerged, building an option
with an organizational scheme adapted to the new technological, social, and
cultural circumstances, looking towards the long term and not just offering
a short-term option. It should develop a flexible, low-cost, professionalized
format that can survive ups and downs like a rapidly deployable military unit
rather than a large traditional structure, with an emphasis on spokespersons
374 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

who can effectively project their message in the media. The era of mass
bureaucratic parties appears to be over.4
A successful party model would combine an extensive territorial presence
in the geographically and culturally diverse territory of a federal country with
ongoing adaptation to the use of new information technologies, taking on
board as far as possible any changes in public opinion. However, it seems
unlikely that a single force would be able to combine both factors, because
Argentina faces a major challenge with a lack of political federalization.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Prospects for Democracy

Argentina has had 40 years of uninterrupted democratic life with free, regular
elections. Though the system is imperfect, there have been no complaints of
fraud in national elections, and it can be said that there is a majority commit-
ment to this situation among the different parties (Ibarreche, 2017). There
are, however, many anomalous situations that distort the functioning of the
republican system through autocratic behaviour. One of them is the lack of
autonomy of the judiciary in several areas that affect the functioning of the
state and of politics.
The various pressures faced by Argentina’s democracy are similar to those
prevalent in the rest of the region:

1. Authoritarian and populist tendencies with anti-elite discourses;

2. The phenomenon of encapsulation resulting from social media and a
lack of objectivity in the information provided by some mass media
3. The high level of poverty resulting from recurrent economic crises
4. The high level of social inequality
5. Social fragmentation
6. A state co-opted in various sectors by lobbies
7. Lack of transparency and corruption at different levels of the state,
with feudal practices
8. Mafia-like and violent practices that threaten the rule of law, such as
drug trafficking and other types of globalized crime
9. The decline in public confidence in democracy, its institutions, and
political parties
10. The absence of broad consensus among the main forces on the direc-
tion of the country and key public policies
11. Polarization between political leaders and part of society (the ‘rift’).
 Democracy and Political Parties in the Argentine Republic 375

Despite these 11 factors, there is a fairly mobilized society—at least in terms

of plurality of opinion—that has not hesitated to vote against the incumbent
government on several occasions. To take just one example, after the 2001
crisis there were 10 national elections, in half of which citizens voted against
the incumbent government, yet this did not alter the institutional system.
From this point of view, Argentina’s democracy is not under threat.
The resilience of the parties can be seen more in their ability to gain power
than in their ability to successfully deal with new challenges on the pub-
lic agenda. This has to do with aspects of the political culture that are very

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

difficult to change in the long term. Parties are more efficient in winning elec-
tions and holding on to power than in devising and implementing actions to
benefit the electorate.
To date, it cannot be said that there are anti-system political options. At
least in crisis situations like the current one, there are anti-status quo political
options, but in principle they do not challenge democratic rules. Argentina
has a system that captures a good part of the political representation of
society, which ensures a certain predictability. However, it does not have a
tradition of outsiders challenging the dominance of the historical parties or
of any possible alliances among them.
In any case, the last 10 years have witnessed a phenomenon of polariza-
tion of opinions among political leaders and in society that has come to be
known as ‘the rift’, undermining some of the common denominators that
have existed since the return to democracy. This polarization reduces the pos-
sibility that basic political agreements on long-term policies can be reached.
Overall, polarization creates a divisive and adversarial political climate that
inhibits the formation of broad-based political agreements. It perpetuates a
cycle of ideological rigidity, partisan politics, distrust, and short-term think-
ing, making it challenging for political leaders to find common ground and
work towards long-term policy solutions.
In conclusion, there are at least seven tasks to be undertaken to improve
the democratic system and the functioning of political parties. The first is
to ensure the loyalty of representatives, who should be elected by those they
represent through competitive elections and, above all, should decide and
act as agents of the country’s general welfare. Second, the Argentine politi-
cal system should work on stronger political parties and improved electoral
systems. Third, the promotion of accountability towards those represented,
so that voters can control and evaluate the decisions and actions of their
representatives, is imperative. Fourth, Argentina should develop stronger
accountability mechanisms, which should be suitable to empower citizens
and not distract them while those in power do what they want. Fifth, there
376 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

is an important need for sensitive and effective republican powers so that

rulers, legislators, and judges are receptive to guidance about the processes
of administering, legislating, and judging. Sixth, it is necessary to legitimize
the republican institutions through stabilization and consolidation. Finally,
Argentine politicians should work towards recovering public confidence so
that citizens can trust in the organization and functioning of republican
institutions out of conviction and not out of convenience.

Notes

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

1. We thank Sabrina Corbacho, Fernanda Veggetti and Franco Marconi for collaborating in
the production of this chapter.
2. Statistics on members in the second half of 2014. Registro Nacional de Agrupaciones
Políticas. Cámara Nacional Electoral. See: https://www.electoral.gov.ar/pdf/estadistica_
afiliados_2do_semestre_2014.pdf (Accessed 18 December 2023).
3. Dirección Nacional Electoral (DNE).
4. Whether President Javier Milei, who was unexpectedly elected in 2023, will be able to
usher in such a new era remains to be seen.

References

Barry, Carolina. 2011. ‘Eva Perón y la Organización Política de las Mujeres’. Serie
Documentos de Trabajo, 453. Buenos Aires: Universidad del Centro de Estudios
Macroeconómicos de Argentina.
Cámara Nacional Electoral. 2014. ‘Estadística de Afiliados del segundo semestre
2014’. Registro Nacional de Agrupaciones Políticas. https://www.electoral.gov.ar/
pdf/estadistica_afiliados_2do_semestre_2014.pdf (Accessed 18 December 2023).
Cámara Nacional Electoral. 2015. Cámara Nacional Electoral Poder Judicial
De La Nación. https://www.electoral.gob.ar/pdf/cantidad_minima_de_afiliados_
requeridos_2015.pdf (Accessed 18 December 2023).
(CIPPEC), C. d. 2016. El Financiamiento de la Política Argentina. Informe del Obser-
vatorio Electoral Argentino 2016 Buenos Aires: Centro de implementación de
Políticas Públicas para la Equidad y el Crecimiento.
Corporación Latinobarómetro. 2016. Informe 2016. Santiago de Chile:
Latinobarómetro.
Financiamiento de los partidos políticos para las elecciones nacionales. (s.f.). Obtenido
de https://www.sitiosargentina.com.ar/elecciones-2011/financiamiento-partidos-
politicos.htm#:~:text=El%20sistema%20de%20financiamiento%20de%20los
%20partidos%20pol%C3%ADticos,electoral%20y%20para%20el%20sosteni
miento%20de%20sus%20actividades (Accessed 7 December 2023).
 Democracy and Political Parties in the Argentine Republic 377

Ibarreche, X. (1 de Octubre de 2017). Ámbito. Obtenido de https://www.ambito.

com/politica/mitos-y-verdades-existe-el-fraude-electoral-la-argentina-n3998978
(Accessed 18 December 2023).
26215. (s.f.). Obtenido de http://servicios.infoleg.gob.ar/infolegInternet/anexos/
120000-124999/124231/texact.htm
Ley 27.504. (s.f.). Obtenido de https://servicios.infoleg.gob.ar/infolegInternet/
verNorma.do?id=323729
Persello, Ana V. 2000. ‘Los Gobiernos Radicales: Debate Institucional y Práctica
Política’. In Ricardo Falcón (ed.), Nueva Historia Argentina: Democracia, Conflicto

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

social y Renovación de ideas (1916–1930). Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana,
59–99.
Plotkin, Mariano B. 2007. El Día que se Inventó el Peronismo. Buenos Aires: Editorial
Sudamericana.
Payne, J. Mark, Daniel G. Zovatto, and Mercedes Mateo Díaz. 2006. La Política
Importa. Democracia y Desarrollo en América Latina. Washington: Banco Inter-
americano de Desarrollo/Planeta, 241–263.
Zovatto, Daniel G. 2006. ‘Regulación de los Partidos Políticos en América Latina’.
Diálogo Político, 23(4):11–39.
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRATIC
CHALLENGES IN ASIA-PACIFIC
III
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
18
Taiwan
Party System of a Young Consolidated Democracy

Alexander C. Tan

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Introduction

Prior to 1986, Taiwan was a one-party authoritarian state with the Kuom-
intang (KMT or Nationalist Party) having dominated the island’s politics
since 1949. Since Taiwan was technically still in a civil war with mainland
China, Taiwan’s National Assembly enacted a ‘Temporary Provisions against
the Communist Rebellion’ as a constitutional amendment that formed the
basis of the martial law which was in effect from 1949 until its repeal in
1987. Under martial law, the KMT maintained its authoritarian rule of Tai-
wan though other approved parties, such as the Chinese Youth Party and
China Democratic Socialist Party, which existed under the ‘guidance’ of the
KMT. Opposition to the KMT’s rule and the regime was not allowed to exist
(at least legally) in the form of organized political parties during this period
of martial law. However, an informal organization called the Tangwai, which
literally means ‘outside of the party’ represented the loose coalition of regime
opponents (Chao and Myers 1998; Rigger 1999).
KMT authoritarian rule affected and defined the development of Taiwan’s
eventual party system in more ways than one (Yu 2005; Tan 2021). First,
the KMT’s authoritarian regime unwittingly created the ‘mainlander versus
islander’ cleavage in Taiwan. With the defeat of the KMT in the Chinese
Civil War, the KMT established a rival government-in-exile on the island
of Taiwan, and in so doing transferred its governmental structure, party
structure, and people to Taiwan. This large, exiled group of Chinese people
(or mainlanders) made up the upper echelons of government, the mili-
tary, state-owned enterprises, and the political party apparatus, automatically
making them the political and societal elites in Taiwan. The ‘islanders’—
mostly descended from the waves of Han Chinese migration throughout
the centuries—had lived under Japanese colonization of the island and were

Alexander C. Tan, Taiwan. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy. Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm
Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Alexander C. Tan (2024). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0018
382 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

largely kept out of national politics. One serious ramification of the whole-
sale imposition of the KMT governmental and party apparatus on Taiwan is
the unwitting creation of a ‘them’ versus ‘us’ environment that pitted main-
landers, who benefited from the system and became core of Taiwan society,
against the islanders, who remained largely in the periphery (Chao and
Myers 1998; Hsieh 1999).
Secondly, as the KMT set up its government-in-exile—the Republic of
China—on Taiwan, its politics and the unfinished civil war between the
KMT and the Chinese communists on the mainland dominated the political

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

agenda of the island. The KMT government at the time was focused on fight-
ing the Chinese communists and recovering the mainland. As part of the anti-
communist campaign and reunification objective, one dominant narrative of
the KMT government is that Taiwan is a province within a larger Republic
of China and therefore will eventually have to reunify with the mainland.
The KMT is challenged by a crisis of integration on the island, as Taiwan
was only reintegrated into the Republic of China after the end of the Second
World War in 1945. In 1895, Taiwan was ceded to Japan as part of war repa-
rations resulting from the Treaty of Shimonoseki after imperial Qing China
was defeated by imperial Japan in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894. From 1895
to 1945, Taiwan was part of the Japanese empire. During this period, Japan
developed the island’s agriculture and infrastructure and established an edu-
cation system similar to that of the Japanese mainland. After imperial Japan
was defeated in the Second World War, Taiwan was returned to the Republic
of China. And with the defeat of the KMT in the Chinese Civil War and its
establishment of a government-in-exile, Taiwan was again a separate entity
(Chao and Myers 1998).
For islanders, who have experienced two generations under Japanese colo-
nial rule and then the authoritarian control of the KMT, political and national
identities are not particularly clear-cut. While the KMT regime and the main-
landers have a pan-Chinese identity, islanders tend to have a limited identity
focused mainly on Taiwan. This has led to the creation of a national iden-
tity divide or cleavage that pits those who support unification with China (or
at least the view that Taiwan is part of a larger China) and those who sup-
port Taiwanese independence (i.e. a separate state and identity for Taiwan).
This national identity cleavage has reinforced the mainlander–islander cleav-
age (Ho and Liu 2003). Though the seeds of these divisions were planted in
1949, they remain the most salient ones in Taiwan’s politics (Rigger 1999;
Wang and Chang 2005).
The Tangwai politicians were allowed to contest elections prior to Tai-
wan’s democratization, but they were not allowed to be a formal political
 Taiwan: Party System of a Young Consolidated Democracy 383

organization. As the KMT espoused a pan-Chinese identity and was domi-

nated by mainlanders, the Tangwai group politicians were primarily islanders
and those with a preference for Taiwanese independence. Sensing that Tai-
wan was undergoing political liberalization, the Tangwai politicians estab-
lished the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 1986 (Rigger 2001).
The formation of the DPP and its competition with the KMT has consol-
idated the two reinforcing cleavages—mainlander versus islander and unifi-
cation versus independence. In contemporary Taiwan, these two divisions
continue to define how Taiwanese political parties align.1 More recently,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

though, the mainlander–islander divide has become subsumed into the uni-
fication versus independence cleavage as the mainlander generation pass on
and their offspring are born in the island (Wang and Chang 2005).
Political parties that have a pan-Chinese identity and are therefore sup-
portive of unification are grouped in the so-called pan-Blue coalition, while
those that have stronger Taiwanese identity and are therefore supportive of
Taiwanese independence are grouped into the so-called pan-Green coalition.
Pan-Blue (named for the colour of the KMT’s party banner) largely comprises
of the KMT, People’s First Party (PFP), and the New Party (NP). The pan-
Green (named for the colour of the DPP’s party banner) is largely composed
of the DPP, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), New Power Party (NPP), and
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).
As already mentioned, Taiwan’s party system is defined by the unification–
independence and mainlander–islander cleavages. The left–right cleavage is
not very prominent in Taiwanese politics, and progressivism in Taiwan does
not extend to the support for robust labour rights, immigrant rights, and
extensive social welfare systems found in the social democracies of Western
Europe. As the unification–independence cleavage remains unresolved and is
the most pressing existential issue for Taiwan, political parties tend to empha-
size where they position themselves on this issue (Yu 2005; Clark 2006; Tan
2021).
Besides this sociological determinant of Taiwan’s party system, the elec-
toral system has had a clear effect on party system choices in Taiwan. Prior
to 2008, Taiwan operated under the single non-transferable vote electoral
system (SNTV ). In the SNTV system, Taiwan’s political parties jockey for
multiple seats in a given electoral district (Hsieh 1999). Since political par-
ties are allowed to field multiple candidates in each district, one effect of
the SNTV is that candidates from the same party are not only competing
against candidates of the other party but also among themselves. To gain the
maximum number of seats in a given district necessitates political parties
coordinating and mobilizing votes. As a consequence, political parties that
384 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

are well organized and well resourced are advantaged by the SNTV electoral
rules (Hsieh 1999). The KMT, with its extensive organization and assets, is
definitely a huge beneficiary of this system. While much smaller organiza-
tionally and not as well-resourced, the DPP also benefits to some extent as it
is able to capture seats in the multi-seat electoral districts.
In 2008 Taiwan changed to the mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) sys-
tem in its legislative elections and at the same time reduced the number
of legislative seats from 225 to 113 (Hsieh 2009; Batto et al. 2016). Of the
113 legislative seats, 73 are elected single-member districts elected under the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

first-past-the-post rule, 6 are reserved seats for Taiwan’s Indigenous people
elected using SNTV, and 34 are elected in a party-list proportional represen-
tation with a 5% threshold. While technically a proportional representation
electoral system, the parallel nature of the party-list allocation rewards large
parties such as the KMT and the DPP (Tan 2009). The MMM electoral sys-
tem, coupled with Taiwan’s semi-presidential system, contributed immensely
to the largely two-party system with some minor parties (Batto and Cox 2016;
Batto et al. 2016).
Arguably, Taiwan’s most significant political parties continue to be the
KMT and the DPP, as they dominate national politics. In 2008, the effec-
tive number of electoral parties (ENEP)was 2.09, and by 2020 ENEP was
2.18. In Taiwan’s parliament, the effective number of parliamentary parties
(ENPP)was 1.75 in 2008, increasing to 2.44 in 2020. From these statistics, we
can infer that Taiwan’s party system is very close to an effective two-party
system. The other political parties have a small legislative presence and do
not have a realistic chance of capturing the presidency. In the next section, I
will turn our attention to these two major political parties.

The Two Major Parties in Taiwan: The Kuomintang

and the Democratic Progressive Party
The situational setting

In 2016, the opposition DPP won the presidential election and, for the first
time in Taiwan’s political history, gained a majority in the Legislative Yuan
(Taiwan’s parliament). Despite the several turnovers of the executive control
between the KMT and the DPP since 1996, Taiwan’s first true democratic
consolidation did not occur until the 2016 election, when the DPP for the
first time controlled both the executive and legislative branches and was
able to enact its own agenda. From 2000 to 2008, Taiwan’s government had
 Taiwan: Party System of a Young Consolidated Democracy 385

been divided, with the DPP controlling the executive branch while the KMT
controlled the legislative majority.
After the DPP’s comprehensive victory in 2016, it was finally in a posi-
tion to enact drastic reforms to a political system designed by the KMT. The
first reform that the DPP government promulgated was to address political
party financing and party-owned assets. This had previously been a very con-
tentious issue as the KMT had a huge electoral advantage vis-à-vis the other
political parties because of its extensive party businesses and assets that easily
made it one of the richest political parties in the world.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The DPP government pushed for the creation of a commission of inves-
tigation into what it called ‘ill-gotten assets’ and quickly froze the assets of
the KMT that were being investigated. The DPP swiftly passed legislation to
regulate and define the status of political parties in a democratic Taiwan. On
6 December 2017, the Political Parties Act came into force. The Act requires
political parties to file a declaration to the Ministry of the Interior and regis-
ter as a legal person to a district court; to convene a representative assembly
or party congress at least once in a four-year period; to nominate candidates
in national or local elections at least once in a four-year period; and to ensure
compliance on funding sources, accounting, and financial transparency.
The Political Parties Act of 2017 aimed to provide clearer process for
the establishment of parties as well as to standardize how political parties
operate in a democratic Taiwan. The Act’s requirements are not very differ-
ent from what was required of political parties under prior legislation, and
Taiwan’s political parties had already been complying with most of these
requirements. However, one of the key requirements pertaining to compli-
ance on funding sources and financial transparency addressed two main
concerns: 1) the national security fear that external actors were financing
Taiwanese parties and therefore influencing and interfering in Taiwan’s pol-
itics, and 2) that political parties owning businesses and actors created an
uneven advantage in the electoral arena and made corrupt practices more
likely. The enactment of the legislation, especially the requirements to submit
annual financial reports to the Ministry of Interior and financial transparency
regarding funding sources, are the most significant changes to the politi-
cal party environment in Taiwan. The Political Parties Act of 2017 has the
potential of ‘levelling the playing field’ for Taiwan’s parties.

The Kuomintang (KMT)

The KMT or the Nationalist Party is one of the two major political parties
in Taiwan’s multi-party electoral democracy. Established as a revolutionary
386 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

party during the waning years of the Qing Dynasty in China, the KMT was
exiled to Taiwan and established a rival government—Republic of China
(ROC)—after it lost the Chinese Civil War in 1949 to the Chinese Commu-
nist Party that established the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Organized
as a Leninist party, the KMT imposed itself as a hegemonic and authoritarian
party that firmly established control of all aspects of political life in Taiwan
until the end of martial law in 1987 and eventual full democratization in
1996.
The KMT’s dominance of Taiwan’s politics is supported by an intensive

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

and extensive party organization that includes a large professional party
bureaucracy, state-wide party-run citizen service centres, and, more impor-
tantly, lucrative party-owned business enterprises that allowed the party to
have a financial advantage over its rivals. Together with its strong and well-
funded party organization, the party was organized as a mass party with
many affiliated organizations, such as the women’s alliance and a youth corps
(Clark and Tan 2012a; Tan 2014).
Structurally, the KMT is a hierarchical organization with a Central Com-
mittee that is equivalent to the politburo of Marxist-Leninist parties. The
Central Committee is the power centre of the party composed of the heads of
the party’s different standing committees.2 The National Congress serves as
the platform for member participation as well as election of the party chair-
man. Since 1996, the party has transformed to become a catch-all party to
remain electorally competitive (Clark and Tan 2012b). With this transforma-
tion, while the KMT claims to have over 340,000 registered party members,
the increasing professionalization of the party organization has limited the
role of party members within the party.
As the DPP managed to win the presidential and legislative elections in
2016, the government established the ‘ill-gotten party assets settlement com-
mittee’ and required political parties established prior to the lifting of martial
law in 1987 to report and present an account of their party assets. The main
target of this investigation is the KMT, who at one point was estimated to
be the richest political party in the world (‘KMT Is Again the World’s Rich-
est Party’, Taipei Times 2014). The subsequent government investigation of
ill-gotten party assets in 2016 placed the KMT on the defensive to provide
a transparent accounting of how the party acquired such extensive business
wealth. In the process of investigation, the government froze all of the KMT’s
suspect assets, which forced the party into financial difficulties and made it
unable to meet its financial obligations (‘Taiwan’s Opposition KMT’s Bank
Account Frozen’, Straits Times 2016).
 Taiwan: Party System of a Young Consolidated Democracy 387

As mentioned earlier, the most salient political cleavage is that of national

identity, which divides society (and parties) along pan-Chinese identity (and
more pro-unification) or Taiwanese identity (and more pro-independence).
In this important cleavage, the KMT sees itself as the guardian of the ROC
(different from the PRC) and espouses a pan-China and one-China (under
a ROC) position that places Taiwan as part of that one-China. The KMT has
stood for a stronger pan-Chinese identity and unification, and clearly against
Taiwan’s independence. The party’s ideology is classified as conservative,
pro-business, and centre-right.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

During the authoritarian period, the KMT was a classic mass political party
with tentacles stretching out to all corners of Taiwanese society, including
business, academia, arts, media, and the military. Functional groups were
represented in the party as a way for the KMT to co-opt these groups to
ensure societal control. Among the most prominent are women’s groups
and youth groups. The National Women’s Anti-Communist League—now
known simply as National Women’s League—was founded in 1950 by Chi-
ang Kai-shek’s wife Soong Mei-ling. The KMT’s youth wing is called the
China Anti-communist Youth Corps (now known as China Youth Corps).
Until the early 1990s, these affiliated organizations continue to be very active
and involved. The China Youth Corps is led by the KMT’s senior party politi-
cians and has in the past been used by the party to identify young cadres for
political roles. It operates activity centres throughout the island and organizes
activities for young people, not unlike scouting organizations in other coun-
tries. Since 1996, Taiwan’s democratization and societal liberalization have
changed the importance of these organizations to the general public (Clark
2002). The institutionalization of electoral politics has further affected the
way voter mobilization is conducted; as a result, these organizations have
become less prominent.
As an asset-rich political party, the KMT has not relied on state subsi-
dies to political parties for its finances. When Taiwan was returned to the
ROC in 1947, many businesses and assets owned by the Japanese colo-
nial government changed ownership, and many became assets of the KMT.
During the authoritarian years, KMT had businesses that operated in bank-
ing and finance, media, insurance, and construction, and the party had an
interest in other privately owned businesses, contributing to its considerable
wealth. Consequently, the KMT can afford to have full-time party bureau-
crats staffing ‘citizen service centres’ throughout the island. These citizen
service centres have served as parallel institutions to the government’s own
local agencies. During elections, the citizen service centres assist in voter
388 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

registration and voter mobilization, which has proved to be critical to the

KMT’s electoral domination.
As democratic elections began to take root in Taiwan and as the then oppo-
sition party—the DPP—increasingly became competitive in local elections,
the KMT’s party finances began to come under increasing pressure. The
KMT’s loss of the 2000 and 2008 presidential elections led to intense scrutiny
of its finances, leading to a gradual reduction of the extent of the party orga-
nization. Beginning in 2016, the government’s freezing of the KMT’s party
assets has forced a further reduction of its huge party bureaucracy due to the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

party experiencing some financial difficulties.
Despite the difficulties resulting from the government’s investigation of the
KMT’s party assets and the freezing of assets suspected to be ill-gotten, in
compliance with the financial reporting regulations as stipulated in the Polit-
ical Parties Act of 2017, the KMT in its 2019 financial report filed with the
Ministry of Interior reported a total income of US$40,814,997 (using a US$1
to NT$28 exchange rate) and a total expenditures of US$23,022,427.3 Of the
total reported income, the KMT received state subvention of US$6,143,558,
while political donations amount to US$4,164,700. As a percentage of the
party’s total income, state subsidy accounts for about 15.1% and political
donations contribute another 10.2%. While state subvention contributes sig-
nificantly to the KMT’s coffers, the party is not overly dependent on this
money for its operations. The bulk of KMT’s income of over US$39 million
comes from ‘other’ income, which is primarily revenue generated by its total
assets of more than US$750 million.
Prior to 1990, not much is known about factionalism within the KMT.
While the KMT has a clear mainlander–islander divide, it is clear that under
both Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo, political power rested
with the mainlanders. In the latter years of Chiang Ching-kuo’s party leader-
ship and his presidency, he began a process of ‘Taiwanization’, in which he
promoted islander politicians to significant roles in the party and in the gov-
ernment (Clark and Tan 2012a; Hsiau 2005; Jacobs 2005). However, because
of his strong control of the party apparatus, disunity within the party itself is
not obvious or mentioned.
With the passing away of Chiang Ching-kuo in 1988 and the accession
of Lee Teng-hui as the nation’s President (Taiwan’s first islander President),
cracks within the KMT began to appear. This disunity came to the fore-
front of Taiwanese politics in the battle for party chairperson as supporters
of Lee (called the mainstream faction) were pushing for the election of Lee
as party chairperson since he was also the country’s President. The non-
mainstream faction, led primarily by mainlander senior KMT politicians,
 Taiwan: Party System of a Young Consolidated Democracy 389

was pushing for a party chairperson separate from the nation’s President
(as had pertained in the past). This seemingly uncontroversial proposal was
mired in the fact that Lee Teng-hui, if elected, would have been the first
islander party chairperson and could have threatened the dominance of the
mainlanders, and that the party chairperson has control over the huge party
organization and resources, which could change the balance of power in
Taiwan.
While conflict between the mainstream and non-mainstream factions
ended with Lee Teng-hui winning the party chairmanship, the non-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

mainstream faction managed to gain concessions by ensuring control of the
cabinet. The continued empowerment of the islanders in the party, however,
and then the ensuing conflict over national identity eventually led to some
members of the non-mainstream faction splitting to establish the New Party
(NP) in 1994. The establishment of the NP has not brought greater harmony
within the KMT. The presidential candidate nomination was marred by con-
flicts among senior KMT politicians that led to a split between then Premier
Lien Chan and Taiwan’s provincial governor, James Soong.
Premier Lien became the KMT’s official presidential candidate while Gov-
ernor Soong entered the race as an independent candidate, resulting in a
split of the pan-Blue (or KMT) votes, thereby handing the presidency to the
DPP’s Chen Shui-bian with 39.3% of the vote.4 James Soong’s independent
candidacy led to another split of the KMT, where Soong and his support-
ers established the People’s First Party (PFP). In the aftermath of the 2000
presidential election defeat, Lee Teng-hui left the KMT and together with
his supporters formed the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU)—a party with a
strong pro-Taiwanese independence position.
In today’s KMT, the mainlander–islander factional divide is not as evi-
dent since KMT politicians are now primarily born on the island. However,
the party is factionalized along leadership, strategic, and ideological lines.
Leadership and strategic factionalisms are more fluid and related to electoral
cycles. The ideological factionalism within the party reflects the unification–
independence cleavage found in society. Within the KMT, this divide is about
a more explicit recognition of Taiwan as part of a larger China (not necessar-
ily PRC) and support for eventual unification with a democratic China on the
one hand, and a status quo position—that is, the ROC instead of an indepen-
dent Republic of Taiwan. The election for KMT party chairperson in 2021
remained focused on this national identity division as the two most promi-
nent chairperson candidates—Eric Chu and Chang Ya-chung—represented
contrasting positions along this dividing line. The eventual winner—Eric
Chu—espoused a position that affirms the status quo of the ROC.
390 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)

Taiwan’s governing party at the time of writing, the DPP, has come a long
way from the ragtag band of opposition activists that formed in 1986, later
to become one of Taiwan’s major parties (Rigger 2001). Within 14 years, the
DPP managed to win the presidency, and by 2004 had become the largest
single party in the Legislative Yuan, effectively ending the 50-year dominance
of the KMT in Taiwan politics.
The DPP’s party manifesto espouses a Taiwan that is distinct and inde-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

pendent from China. A glaringly clear demarcation from the KMT and the
pan-Blue alliance, the DPP and its supporters do not consider Taiwan as part
of China, nor do they subscribe to a pan-Chinese identity. For the DPP, as far
as national identity is concerned, there are two states on each side of the Tai-
wan Straits—(Lee 2005). It is a well-organized electoral party that appeals
mainly to native Taiwanese with a strong islander identity and a staunch
opposition to unification with China (Lee 2005).
Although not as well funded and well resourced as the KMT in the
early years of its establishment, the DPP was effective in relying on its sup-
porters to mobilize voters (Rigger 2001). The difficulties it faced in its early
years, including the challenge of competing in the SNTV electoral system,
made the DPP an innovative and resourceful political party. Today, it claims a
registered membership of over 300,000 members. With the continued profes-
sionalization of the party organization, the role of party members has become
more limited. However, the DPP’s strong ability to mobilize partisans and
identifiers alike makes the party an effective electoral machine.
Interestingly, despite its more ‘progressive’ image as a political party, its
organizational structure looks similar to that of the KMT.5 In the DPP, the
national party congress elects members to its Central Executive Commit-
tee and Central Review Committee. The Central Executive Committee in
turn selects the ten-member Central Standing Committee which serves as
the power centre of the party.
Organizationally, the DPP has several committees and departments that
manage policy, finance, and administrative affairs, as well as other functional
departments responsible for international affairs, China affairs, overseeing
social movements, youth, media relations, public opinion surveys, Indige-
nous affairs, and others. Since the DPP was only founded in 1986, the party’s
bureaucrats and the head of the various departments tend to be younger than
those of the KMT.
As mentioned earlier, the DPP when compared to the KMT is not as well
resourced and funded. In financial reports filed for the fiscal year 2019, the
 Taiwan: Party System of a Young Consolidated Democracy 391

DPP reported income of US$22,066,544 and expenditure of US$28,924,617,

representing a financial deficit of US$6,858,429. It reported total assets of
US$23,256,381.6 State subsidies are in the form of support funds provided to
political parties that receive 3.5% of the votes in legislative elections.7 In the
case of the DPP, in the fiscal year 2019, it reported a total state subvention
of US$10,222,743, representing about 46% of the party’s total income, while
political contributions (donations from private individuals or associations)
amounted to US$6,659,533, or about 30% of the total.8 With nearly half of
the DPP’s income coming from state subvention, it is reasonable to infer that

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the party is dependent on state support for political parties.
A comparison with the financial resources between the DPP and the KMT
shows a large gap in the wealth and financial health of the two major par-
ties. The DPP’s total income is half that of the KMT, and its total assets are
only 3% of the KMT’s. This disparity in wealth shows the DPP’s dependence
on state subvention and is a motivation for the DPP, after winning both the
presidential and legislative election in 2016, to investigate the KMT’s assets
and their origins.
With its origins in the Tangwai, the DPP has always been known for its
factionalism, as it was a coalition of people in opposition to the KMT and
its authoritarian regime. Two of the most prominent factions—the Formosa
faction and the New Tide faction—existed before the DPP was established.
After the party’s establishment in 1986, more factions were created, of which
the Welfare State alliance and the Justice alliance are the most prominent.
Rather than deep ideological division, leadership and strategic differences
are a better characterization of the DPP factions. One interesting feature of
DPP factions is that they tend to be distinguished by the generation of DPP
party politicians. The Formosa and New Tide factions are the first-generation
anti-KMT regime politicians and academics. Many of these faction members
were jailed for anti-regime activities during Taiwan’s martial law period. The
Welfare State and Justice alliance were founded in 1992 and are composed of
the second generation of DPP leaders—many of whom became well known
as academics and lawyers who defended the first-generation leaders against
sedition and treason charges brought by the KMT government.
Prior to 2006, factions were recognized by the DPP. During the second
term of President Chen Shui-bian, the party voted in 2006 to disallow factions
in a bid to increase party unity (Huang, ‘DPP Votes to Do Away with Factions’,
Taipei Times 24 July 2006). Notwithstanding this formal party decision, fac-
tionalism within the DPP continues to exist to this day. Despite the decision
to disallow them in 2006, no less than four factions can be identified, includ-
ing the Tsai faction led by President Tsai Ing-wen, NextGen led by media
392 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

mogul Lin Kun-hai of the SET media empire, and the Taiwan Normal Coun-
try Promotion Association led by Speaker of the Legislative Yuan You Si-kun.
The existence of these factions does not necessarily mean that the DPP has
a low level of party unity. On the contrary, the factions have learned to co-
exist within the party and have managed to be able to maintain party unity
by sharing power between them. Key power-sharing mechanisms include
the appointment to key governmental positions and statutory boards, agen-
cies, and state-owned enterprises. Clear power sharing is evidenced by Tsai
Ing-wen as state President, Su Tseng-chang, a leading figure of the Social Wel-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

fare faction, as Premier, and You Si-kun of the Normal Country Promotion
Association faction as speaker of the legislature.

Summary Evaluation

Taiwan’s party system has transformed and evolved since 1949. From 1949
to 1987, Taiwan was a one-party authoritarian state. With the political liber-
alization that began in 1987 and the subsequent death of Chiang Ching-kuo,
the political opening accelerated even further (Chao and Myers 1998). By the
first direct presidential election in 1996, Taiwan was a system with one large
dominant party—the KMT. The DPP was a competitive opposition party
but was unable to gain control of the Executive Yuan and Legislative Yuan
(Chao and Myers 1998; Tan et al. 2000; Clark and Tan 2012a). In 2000, the
DPP finally captured the state presidency and the Executive Yuan, as well as a
plurality in the Legislative Yuan. However, between 2000 and 2008 the KMT
managed to maintain control of the Legislative Yuan through the support of
the pan-Blue alliance parties. During that period, Taiwan’s party system saw
new additions to the party systems (e.g. NP, PFP, TSU), but these smaller
parties were not able to make significant inroads to wrest voter support away
from the DPP and the KMT.
From 2008 to 2016, Taiwan’s party system did not deviate from the two-
party system dominated by the KMT and the DPP (Tsai et al. 2007). During
this period, the KMT regained control of the state presidency and the Exec-
utive Yuan as well as continued control of the Legislative Yuan. The DPP
remained the most credible opposition party while the other minor parties
remained present but not significant. It was during this period that several
minor parties, such as the NP and the TSU, weakened substantially.
The 2008–2016 period in Taiwan’s history also marked closer relations
with the PRC as the KMT government was seeking a less confrontational
relations to jump-start Taiwan’s otherwise lacklustre economic performance
 Taiwan: Party System of a Young Consolidated Democracy 393

under the DPP government of the prior eight years. For various reasons, the
economic rapprochement and the quickened pace of economic interaction
with the PRC caused concerns in Taiwanese society and further deep-
ened political polarization along the unification–independence cleavage
(Clark and Tan 2016; Tan 2020).9 Several new parties were established
in the period leading up to the 2016 general elections, such as the NPP,
which offers a contending approach but competes primarily along the
unification–independence dimension. The NPP advocates Taiwan’s de jure
independence and is progressive in its policy positions. It espouses positions

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

on social, labour, and welfare issues that are more progressive than the
DPP.
Following this period, Taiwan’s political development witnessed its first
turnover of legislative power (Copper 2016). In 2016, the DPP gained major-
ity control of the Legislative Yuan and won the state presidency. The DPP
government did not waste time and pushed for the passing of the Politi-
cal Parties Act of 2017 and conducted investigations of the KMT’s ill-gotten
party assets. Both of these initiatives have changed the party landscape as they
have contributed to an erosion of the huge financial advantage of the KMT
(Tsai 2018). In some ways, the passing of the Political Parties Act of 2017
has improved Taiwan’s democracy as it made party and electoral financing
more transparent and accountable. The removal of the KMT’s huge financial
advantage is an attempt to ‘level the playing field’, so to speak.
Despite these efforts, apart from of the two major political parties of the
KMT and DPP, the fortunes of Taiwan’s smaller parties are less stable (Batto
et al. 2016). Since 1996, Taiwan has seen many new political parties estab-
lished, but they have struggled to attain small party status.10 Several critical
interrelated factors can be identified as having significant influence on the
character and colour of Taiwan’s party system. These factors include the
restricted issue space and the effect of the MMM electoral system.
Since 2016, several external events have had a major influence in Taiwan’s
politics. These include Donald Trump’s election and presidency, the PRC’s
aggressive behaviour towards Taiwan, the Hong Kong democracy protest
of 2019, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet these significant external events
have not expanded the issue space or created a new issue dimension for
political parties to compete in. Instead, to the detriment of other issue dimen-
sions (labour rights, immigrant rights, social welfare, environmental issues),
these events have served to further consolidate the overwhelming signifi-
cance of the national identity cleavage (i.e. unification versus independence),
as they place the state of PRC–Taiwan relations and the existential ques-
tion of Taiwan to the front and centre of Taiwanese politics and the voters’
394 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

consciousness. The saliency of the national identity cleavage is reinforced by

the unresolved international political and diplomatic status of Taiwan.
The minor parties that have been established since 1996 are primarily con-
sidered challenger parties on the national identity dimension rather than new
issue mobilizers (Rochon 1985). This is not to say that parties mobilizing
on new issues do not exist in Taiwan. On the contrary, there are mobilizer
parties that are focused on left–right issues, environmental issues, and other
new politics issues, such as the Green Party of Taiwan and the Social Demo-
cratic Party of Taiwan. However, the domination of the national identity issue

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

dimension does not allow for new issues to gain equal saliency in the elec-
toral market. As such, new issue mobilizing parties like the Social Democratic
Party of Taiwan find it very challenging to mobilize voter support as most
voters are not educated or attentive to those new issues. Consequently, such
parties find it extremely difficult to be electorally competitive and relevant
and therefore remain relatively invisible.
Challenger parties—such as the NP, PFP, NPP, TPP, and TSU—have at
various elections gained legislative seats or some modicum of success in local
elections. However, these challenger parties have struggled to differentiate
themselves substantially from the KMT and the DPP, creating a difficulty in
carving out a stable voter support base. To illustrate the conundrum of the
challenger parties, we can examine the cases of the NP and the NPP.
The NP was formed in 1994 as a split from the KMT during the period of
the mainstream versus non-mainstream factional infighting. While the NP
had some level of success in attracting mainlander and pro-unification votes
in its early years, gaining 21 seats and 13% of the votes in the legislative elec-
tions of 1995, by 2004 (a decade after its formation) the party had only gained
one seat in the Legislative Yuan and 0.13% of the votes. Since the introduc-
tion of the MMM electoral rule, NP has not gained any seat in the Legislative
Yuan and has struggled to get past the threshold of 5%. Many of the more
prominent NP politicians have returned to the KMT.
This situation is not only an issue with pan-Blue political parties, as the
case of the NPP shows for the pan-Green camp. In the 2016 election, several
young pro-independence activists decided to form the NPP to challenge the
DPP. Like the NP, the NPP had some success in its first electoral participation,
gaining five seats in the Legislative Yuan, making it the third largest party in
the 2016–2020 legislature. In the 2020 election, however, already the DPP had
started to co-opt NPP politicians and to squeeze its political space.11 In this
legislative election, the party only managed to gain three seats (all from the
party list) and 7.75% of the vote. The PFP and the TSU are similarly situated
as they continue to shrink in their legislative representation.
 Taiwan: Party System of a Young Consolidated Democracy 395

In addition to the restricted issue space and issue dimension, Taiwan’s

MMM electoral system together with its constitutional design have con-
tributed to a party system that converges to a two-party system (Batto et al.
2016). With the party-list seats added onto the constituency seats in the
MMM electoral rule, large parties get bonus seats while small parties struggle
to get over the 5% threshold. In addition, Batto and Cox (2016: 11) argue that,
‘in Taiwan, the top prize, the presidency, could be won only by winning a plu-
rality in the presidential election. Competition for the presidency thus drove
the system toward two main candidates who, in turn, had strong incentives

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

to organize legislators behind their candidacies’. Thus, the dynamics of both
the electoral rules and the executive design push the party system towards a
two-party system.
This scenario is unlikely to see any changes in the near future. How-
ever, the underlying dynamics of the national identity cleavage seem to be
showing some signs of shifting (Rigger 2011; Clark et al. 2021). Though the
problematic unification–independence issue is unlikely to be resolved, voter
alignments are increasingly moving towards the independence side of the
scale. This voter dealignment away from pan-Blue parties to pan-Green par-
ties became evident in 2016 and was further evidenced by the results of the
2020 general elections (Clark et al. 2020). The KMT is at risk of becoming a
perpetual opposition as voters’ strengthening Taiwanese identity (and con-
sequently weakening Chinese identity) has meant a consolidation of support
of pan-Green parties.
The primary threat to Taiwan’s democracy is an external one—China tak-
ing over Taiwan— but the secondary threat is internal—the huge imbalances
in the financial strength of the political parties. The reality of the country’s
existential threat was made all the clearer with the events in Hong Kong
and China’s continued military incursions over the past years. China’s exis-
tential threat towards Taiwan pushed voters to strengthen their Taiwanese
identity separate from China. With the consequent rise of Taiwanese iden-
tity favouring pan-Green parties led by the DPP, the development of Taiwan’s
democracy is likely to gather pace. Interestingly, the advancement of democ-
racy in Taiwan tends to be stimulated by wanting to differentiate a democratic
Taiwan from an autocratic China rather than by deeply rooted and well-
formed democratic political ideology. Progressivism in Taiwan, for example,
is relatively restricted, and when progressive issues are pitted against ‘mate-
rialist’ concerns such as economic growth and law and order, Taiwan’s
major parties are unlikely to defend progressive issues. However, with the
continued strengthening of Taiwanese identity leading to a dealignment of
voter support away from pan-Blue parties and a likely realignment towards
396 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

pan-Green parties, there is a high likelihood that new issue dimensions will
be introduced to invigorate Taiwan’s young democracy.
On the imbalance of party financial strength as an internal threat to democ-
racy, the Political Parties Act of 2017 was enacted to clearly address the huge
inequalities between the KMT and the other political parties in Taiwan’s elec-
toral politics. The Act’s financial transparency requirement has clarified the
huge disparity in assets and revenues between the KMT and the DPP. Inter-
estingly, it has also highlighted the wealth disparity between the two major
parties (KMT and DPP) versus the other minor parties in the legislature,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

which has consequences for Taiwanese party system development. The more
obvious consequence of the imbalance in party finance is the threat of the
role of money and corruption on party politics, on the integrity of electoral
politics, and on the quality of democracy itself. Equally (and perhaps more)
concerning is the impact of inequity in party finance on the representation
of diverse interests in a young but robust civil society in Taiwan. As parties
continue to function as a bridge between civil society and the state, the huge
disparity in party finance between the KMT and the DPP, as well as between
these two major parties versus the minor parties, can impede and constrain
the expression and representation of diverse voices in Taiwanese society. The
wealthier political parties are better able to dominate or restrict the political
narratives and rhetoric to the detriment of the other equally important voices
in Taiwan’s robust civil society. The Act’s enactment is a first step towards
addressing the issue of party finance imbalance in Taiwan, but whether it
can effectively create a ‘level playing field’ for all political parties remains to
be seen.

Notes
1. See Lipset and Rokkan (1967) on the relationship between social cleavages and political
parties and party system.
2. KMT standing committees include policy, party discipline, culture and communications,
administration, organizational development, and revolutionary practice.
3. The financial statements are available from the Ministry of Interior’s website: https://
party.moi.gov.tw/PartyFinancialChecklist.aspx?n=16101&sms=13073
4. In Taiwan’s presidential election there is no second-round voting; elections are decided
by plurality rule, i.e. a simple first-past-the-post rule.
5. In studies of complex organizations, the population ecology model argues that the
environment where organizations operate affects their organizational forms; over time
organization learning occurs as they copy successful models.
6. The financial statements are available from the Ministry of Interior’s website: https://
party.moi.gov.tw/PartyFinancialChecklist.aspx?n=16101&sms=13073
 Taiwan: Party System of a Young Consolidated Democracy 397

7. Party subvention is largely in the form of state funding when a political party receives at
least 3% of the votes in a legislative election. Political parties receive US$1.79 per vote.
Prior to the enactment of the Political Party Act in December 2017, political parties
receive state funding when they receive a minimum of 3.5% of the votes in a legislative
election.
8. The comparative figures for the KMT are 15% for state subvention and 10% for political
donations.
9. A direct result of this societal anxiety of closer relations with the PRC is the Sunflower
Movement that occurred in March–April 2014. Pro-Taiwanese independence student
activists supported by pro-Taiwanese independence politicians occupied the Legislative

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Yuan for 21 days in an attempt to block the passing of the Cross-Straits Trade and Ser-
vices Agreement. The agreement was never passed, and the resulting fiasco negatively
impacted the electoral fortunes of the KMT in the presidential and legislative elections
of 2016.
10. See Müller-Rommel and Pridham (1991) for definition and classification of small party
status.
11. Empirical studies of West European political parties have shown that established parties
are known to counter challenger parties by squeezing their issue space (see Harmel and
Svåsand 1997).

References

Batto, Nathan and Gary Cox. 2016. ‘Legislature-centric and Executive-centric The-
ories of Party Systems and Factional Systems’. In Nathan Batto, Gary Cox, Chi
Huang, and Alexander C. Tan (eds), Elections in Taiwan and Japan under Mixed
Member Electoral Systems and its Consequences. Ann Arbor, MI: University of
Michigan Press, 1–22.
Batto, Nathan, Gary Cox, Chi Huang, and Alexander C. Tan. (eds), 2016. Elections
in Taiwan and Japan under Mixed Member Electoral Systems and its Consequences.
Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Chao, Linda and Ramon H. Myers. 1998. The First Chinese Democracy: Political Life
in the Republic of China. Baltimore: John’s Hopkins University Press.
Chung, Li-Hua and Jason Pan. 2014. “KMT is again the world’s richest party.”
Taipei Times https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2014/07/24/
2003595820 (Accessed 16 March 2024).
Clark, Cal. 2002. ‘Democratization and the Evolving Nature of Parties, Issues, and
Constituencies in the ROC’. In Peter C. Y. Chow (ed.), Taiwan’s Modernization in
Global Perspective. Westport, CT: Praeger, 135–159.
Clark, Cal. 2006. ‘Taiwan Enters Troubled Waters: The Elective Presidencies of Lee
Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian’. In Murray A. Rubinstein (ed.), Taiwan: A New
History, revised edn. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 496–535.
398 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Clark, Cal and Alexander C. Tan. 2012a. Taiwan’s Political Economy: Meeting
Challenges, Pursuing Progress. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
Clark, Cal and Alexander C. Tan. 2012b. ‘Partisan Polarization in Taiwan: A Chal-
lenge to Catch-all Parties’. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 41(3):7–31.
Clark, Cal. and Alexander C. Tan. 2016. ‘Identity and Integration as Conflicting
Forces Stimulating the Sunflower Movement and the Kuomintang’s Loss in the
2014 Elections’. Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and Strategic Relations:
An International Journal, 2(1):313–349.
Clark, Cal, Alexander C. Tan, and Karl Ho. 2020. ‘Was 2016 a Realigning Election in

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Taiwan?’. Asian Survey, 60(6):1006–1028.
Clark, Cal, Alexander C. Tan, and Karl Ho. 2021. ‘Partisan Polarization and
Fragmentation in the Taiwanese Electorate: Evidence from the 2020 Elec-
tions’. In Cal Clark, Karl Ho and Alexander C. Tan (eds), Taiwan: Environ-
mental, Political and Social Issues. New York, USA: Nova Science Publishers,
121–139.
Copper, John F. 2016. Taiwan’s 2016 Presidential/Vice Presidential and Legisla-
tive Elections: Reflections on the Nature of Taiwan’s Politics and Shifts Therein.
Baltimore, MD: Maryland Series in Contemporary Asia Studies, School of Law,
University of Maryland.
Harmel, Robert and Lars Svåsand. 1997. ‘The Influence of New Parties on Old
Parties’ Platforms: The Cases of the Progress Parties and Conservative Parties of
Denmark and Norway’. Party Politics, 3(3):315–340.
Ho, Szu-yin and I-chou Liu. 2003. ‘The Taiwanese/Chinese Identity of the Taiwan
People in the 1990s’. In Weich-chin Lee and T. Y. Wang (eds), Sayonara to the Lee
Teng-hui Era: Politics in Taiwan, 1988–2000. Lanham, MD: University Press of
America, 149–183.
Hsiau, A-chin. 2005. ‘Bentuhua: An Endeavor for Normalizing a Would-be Nation-
State?’. In John Makeham and A-chin Hsiau (eds), Cultural, Ethnic, and Political
Nationalism in Contemporary Taiwan: Bentuhua. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
261–276.
Hsieh, John Fu-sheng. 1999. ‘Manipulating the Electoral System under SNTV: The
Case of the Republic of China on Taiwan’. In Bernard Grofman, Sung-Chull Lee,
Edwin Winckler, and Brian Woodall (eds), Elections in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan
under the Single Non-transferable Vote. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan
Press, 65–83.
Hsieh, John Fu-sheng. 2009. ‘The Origins and Consequences of Electoral Reform in
Taiwan’. Issues & Studies, 45(2):1–22.
Huang, Jewel. 2006. “DPP votes to do away with factions.” Taipei Times https://
www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2006/07/24/2003320124 (Accessed
16 March 2024).
 Taiwan: Party System of a Young Consolidated Democracy 399

Jacobs, Jeffrey B. 2005. ‘“Taiwanization” in Taiwan Politics’. In John Makeham and

A-chin Hsiau (eds), Cultural, Ethnic, and Political Nationalism in Contemporary
Taiwan: Bentuhua. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 17–54.
Lee, Wei-chin. 2005. ‘Taiwan’s Cultural Reconstruction Movement: Identity Politics
and Collective Action since 2000’. Issues & Studies, 41(1):1–51.
Lipset, Seymour M. and Stein Rokkan. 1967. ‘Cleavage Structures, Party Systems,
and Voter Alignments: An Introduction’. In Seymour M. Lipset and Stein Rokkan
(eds), Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York:
Free Press, 1–64.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Müller-Rommel, Ferdinand and Geoffrey Pridham. 1991. Small Parties in Western
Europe: Comparative and National Perspectives. London: Sage.
Rigger, Shelley. 1999. Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy. London: Routledge.
Rigger, Shelley. 2001. From Opposition to Power: Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive
Party. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Rigger, Shelley. 2011. ‘Strawberry Jam: National Identity, Cross-Strait Relations, and
Taiwan’s Youth’. In Cal Clark and Janet Clark (eds), The Changing Dynamics of
Relations Among China, Taiwan, and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge
Scholars Publishing, 78–95.
Rochon, Thomas R. 1985. ‘Mobilizers and Challengers: Toward a Theory of New
Party Success’. International Political Science Review, 6(4):419–439.
Taiwan opposition KMT’s bank account frozen in asset probe. 2016. The Straits
Times https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/taiwan-opposition-kmts-
bank-account-frozen-in-assets-probe (Accessed 16 March 2024).
Tan, Alexander C. 2009. ‘The 2008 Taiwan Elections: Forward to the Past?’. Electoral
Studies, 28(3): 502–506.
Tan, Alexander C. 2014. ‘The Organisational Learning of the Kuomintang in Demo-
cratic Taiwan’. In Anthony Butler (ed.), Remaking of the ANC: Party Change in
South Africa and the Global South. Auckland Park: Jacana Media, 14–28.
Tan, Alexander C. 2020. Party Polarisation in New Zealand and Taiwan: An
Exploratory Study. National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan: 2020 TIGCR
International Conference on Political Polarisation: Perspectives on Governance
and Communication, 30 October.
Tan, Alexander C. 2021. ‘An Etiology of Party System Development and Voter Align-
ments in Democratic Taiwan: Stability Before the Storm’. In Caleb M. Clark, Karl
Ho, Alexander C. Tan (eds), Taiwan: Environmental, Political and Social Issues.
New York: Nova Science Publishers, 140–150.
Tan, Alexander C., Karl Ho, Kyung-Tae Kang, and Tsung-Chi Yu. 2000. ‘What If We
Don’t Party: Political Partisanship in Taiwan and Korea’s in the 1990s’. Journal of
Asian and African Studies, 35(1):67–84.
400 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Tsai, Chia-Hung, Yung-Ming Hsu, and Hsiu-Tin Huang. 2007. ‘Bi-polarizing the
Politics: Explaining the 2004 Presidential Election in Taiwan’. Journal of Electoral
Studies, 14(1):1–31.
Tsai, Chung-Min. 2018. ‘Taiwan in 2017: The End of a Honeymoon’. Asian Survey,
58(1):73–79.
Wang, T. Y. and G. Andy Chang. 2005. ‘Ethnicity and Politics in Taiwan: An Analysis
of Mainlanders’ Identity and Policy Preferences’. Issues & Studies, 41(4):35–66.
Yu, Ching-Hsin. 2005. ‘The Evolution of Party System in Taiwan, 1995–2004’. Journal
of Asian and African Studies, 40(1/2):105–129.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

19
The Development of Party
Organizations in New Democracies
Evidence from South Korea

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Yeaji Kim

Introduction

From a comparative perspective, South Korea (hereafter referred to as Korea)

is an interesting case for studying political parties and party systems in newer
democracies. Since Korea successfully made a transition to democracy in
1987, it has gradually developed as a liberal democracy in many aspects,
including a mature civic culture, high political engagement, and free, fair,
and peaceful power succession. For instance, the impeachment of President
Park Geun-hye in 2016 exemplifies a part of the stable democratic develop-
ment in Korea. Park was involved in a massive political corruption scandal
in 2016, and civil society in Korea generated numerous peaceful candle-lit
protests calling for Park’s resignation. As a result of the huge mass protests, the
National Assembly impeached Park, and the Constitutional Court confirmed
the lawmakers’ decision in removing a sitting president from office.
Political parties in Korea, unfortunately, have not met our expectations
for the same level of democratic development. The party system has been
classified as weakly institutionalized (Wang 2012; Wong 2014; Cho and
Kruszewska 2018; Lee and Singer 2022). Compared to the US and Western
Europe, where there is a long-standing history of strong parties and stable
partisan identities, the Korean party system has suffered from fragile ties with
voters and social groups, high electoral volatility, and unstable party organi-
zations (Croissant and Völkel 2012; Hellmann 2014; Cho and Kruszewska
2018).
Several reasons have contributed to the weakly institutionalized party
system, such as personalism, regionalism, frequent merges and splits, and
weak party organizations; such factors are attributed to the development of

Yeaji Kim, The Development of Party Organizations in New Democracies. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Yeaji Kim (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0019
402 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

clientelistic relationships between parties and voters, as well as cartel-type

party organizations. Parties have built clientelistic bonds with voters by rely-
ing more on the personal charisma of political leaders and strong regionalism
than programmatic appeals to mobilize and gain support. The frequent merg-
ers and splits of Korean political parties weaken their linkages with voters,
leading to high electoral volatility. Parties have also been crippled by a lack
of strong and democratic party organizations.
By focusing on the two largest parties in the post-democratic transition,
the Democratic Party (DP) and the People Power Party (PPP), this chapter

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

examines the organizational features of Korean political parties based on
their party membership from 1988 to 2019, state subventions from 1988 to
2019, and candidate selection rules from 1988 to 2022.1 The specific infor-
mation providing details about the organizational capacities of both parties is
described according to each party’s statutes and the annual reports on parties
by the National Election Commission (NEC).
Three main findings emerged from the analyses. First, the two parties are
in the process of overcoming clientelistic party organizations as their mem-
bership has grown over the last three decades. However, the DP and PPP
have very few party members who pay membership fees. Second, parties in
Korea have become cartelized because the parties have heavily depended on
state subventions for their income; in addition, the state subventions have
exclusively been distributed to the established major parties rather than the
new or minor parties. Finally, the parties have established a more decentral-
ized and democratic candidate selection process, transitioning from closed,
to quasi-open, to open primaries by transferring voting power from the party
members to the general voters.
In the sections that follow, this chapter provides an overview of the weakly
institutionalized party system in Korea and outlines the features of the DP
and PPP across time. The chapter also includes an analysis of the evolution of
the two parties’ organizations, including how they developed party member-
ships, relied on the state for financial support, and constructed presidential
candidate selection processes. The implications of Korean parties’ organiza-
tional development and its impact on Korean democracy are discussed in the
concluding section.

Weakly Institutionalized Party System

Since the democratic transition in 1987, Korea has been characterized by

a two-party system. Table 19.1 presents data on the effective number of
 The Development of Party Organizations in New Democracies 403

Table 19.1 South Korea: Core party system indicators

ENEP ENPP Turnout

1992 2.86 2.37 71.86%

1996 3.43 2.83 63.91%
2000 2.54 2.25 57.21%
2004 3.20 2.32 59.98%
2008 4.10 2.55 46.01%
2012 2.63 2.24 54.26%
2016 3.40 2.65 58.03%

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2020 3.27 2.02 66.21%

Note: ENEP effective number of electoral parties; ENPP effective number of

parliamentary parties; Turnout as share of all registered voters; ENEP and
ENPP are calculated using the party list share and without independents
Source: IDEA (2022); Inter-Parliamentary Union (2022); Lehmann et al. (2022)

electoral parties (ENEP), effective number of parliamentary parties (ENPP),

and voter turnout in South Korea’s National Assembly elections from 1992 to
2020. While Korean voters have actively participated in elections, the ENEP
shows that the number of influential political parties in the elections has var-
ied over time. Specifically, the lowest number of strong parties was 2.54 in the
2000 election, whereas the highest was 4.10 in 2008.2 Meanwhile, the ENPP
indicates that two political parties have consistently won and shared seats in
the National Assembly, demonstrating a dominant two-party system. Thus,
the party system has exhibited a trend towards reduced fragmentation over
time.
Although the National Assembly has exhibited consistent patterns of party
numbers, the party system in Korea is weakly institutionalized due to sev-
eral factors that create clientelistic linkages between parties and voters, as
well as cartel-type party organizations. These factors include personalism,
regionalism, frequent merges and splits, and weak party organizations. In
post-transition Korea, the party system is structured by elite-driven party for-
mation and regionalism. A small number of political elites have formed the
party system in collusion, emphasizing their regional backgrounds.3 From
1987 to 2002, the party system was called the ‘three Kims’, which signified
the three most influential political leaders, all with the last name Kim, who
were born in three different regions.4 These charismatic party leaders ran the
parties based on their strong personal bonds with voters. The followers elec-
torally and financially supported the parties because of the leaders; hence,
the political figures were the reasons for the parties’ existence and survival. In
the ‘three Kims’ era, this patron–client linkage was deepened because parties
could not develop formally institutionalized party organizations, including
404 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

official party membership, democratic decision-making process in candidate

and leader selections, or transparent party financing regulations.
Regionalism has determined the structure of the Korean party system, con-
sidering the political figures used their regional background to establish a
strong electoral base. Voters tend to cast their vote on the basis of geograph-
ical regions, such as Yeongnam and Honam (Kang 2008; Wong 2014; Cho
and Kruszewska 2018).5 The ENPP data in Table 19.1 reveals this voting pat-
tern, which contributed to the formation of a two-party system. Parties tend
to rely on their leaders’ popularities and emphasize deep-rooted regional

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

sentiments to mobilize and chase voters (Wong 2014). The Korean public
regards political leaders who represent their regions as their ‘favourite sons’
(Kang 2010, cited in Wang 2012). In fact, voters used to align themselves with
political leaders and the regional orientation of the parties rather than the
parties’ programmatic or ideological directions. Consequently, regionalism
has become a powerful political cleavage that goes beyond election issues,
voters’ socio-economic backgrounds, and policy-based interests. Therefore,
Korean political parties have been ‘more personalistic, region-based, and
less differentiable by ideology or policy platform’ (Cho and Kruszewska
2018: 116).
Moreover, the Korean party system has shown the highest electoral volatil-
ity compared to other countries in Latin America and Asia that also transi-
tioned to democracy (Stockton 2001; Wong 2014). It has not been difficult to
observe new parties emerging in the Korean party system, as shown by the
ENEP data in Table 19.1. Nonetheless, the changes in the party system are not
attributed to new parties’ emergences, but to politicians’ strategic behaviour
in existing political parties. As Kwak (2021: 116) explains, ‘the pattern of
party system change appears as the splits and mergers of the politicians’.
Politicians who were not chosen in the party nomination process tend to
merge and split existing parties with members close to their own sub-groups
by changing the labels of the parties. The goal of merging and splitting is also
to achieve political success and prevent the negative image that comes with
scandals and corruption. Based on their leaders, candidates, and ideological
orientation, the public nevertheless recognizes that the new parties are not
entirely new.6
The frequent merges and splits in the party system have detrimental con-
sequences in terms of forming programmatic parties and establishing strong
party–vote links. Due to the repeated merging and splitting of Korean polit-
ical parties with popular political individuals and their factions, the ability
to produce policy outcomes has been hampered (Kwak 2021), and voters
have been unable to form solid identification with the parties over time (Cho
 The Development of Party Organizations in New Democracies 405

and Kruszewska 2018; Han 2019). Given the longevity of political elites and
candidates standing for elections, the changes in the Korean party system
arrangement are not significant (Hellmann 2014).
Lastly, the weakly institutionalized party system in Korea is exacerbated
by a lack of robust organizational structure among Korean political parties.
The parties’ increasing organizational capacities are impeded by elite-driven
party formation and management, as well as two institutional reforms. Dur-
ing the ‘three Kims’ era, politicians directed and controlled parties by treating
them as personal property. The leaders were ‘feudal lords’ who consolidated

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

power in their hands (Im 2004: 189, cited in Hellmann 2014: 66). This means
that politicians had complete control over the rules governing leadership and
candidate selection, as well as the hiring of party workers and the distribution
of party finances (Heo and Stockton 2005; Wang 2012; Han 2020). Further-
more, public support for the parties was heavily dependent on the leaders’
personal networks. The efforts of the parties to systematically acquire and
maintain formal party memberships were limited. In a similar vein, party
staff were traditionally drawn from kinship relationships (Hellmann 2011;
Han 2020).
The Political Funds Act of 1989 and the Political Parties Act of 2004
were intended to strengthen political organizations in Korea. However, these
institutional reforms have had the unexpected consequence of weakening
party organizations and reinforcing cartelistic and clientelistic organiza-
tional features. First, since the Political Funds Act was updated in 1989
to formalize state subsidies for the first time, the party–state linkage has
become stronger (Kim and Kim 2003; Kwak 2003). The modification was
intended to create a more balanced development among political parties
by allocating political funding equitably and efficiently. Instead, the state
subsidy system has created a political environment in which established
major parties have had little difficulty staying in power, and it has hindered
parties’ efforts to build strong grassroots organizations that require fund-
ing from a variety of sources, including membership dues and grassroot
donations.
In Korea, the state subsidy system inhibits electoral competition between
parties by giving established political parties preferential access to state sub-
sidies. The ability of parties to form a negotiating group in the National
Assembly is a major component in their eligibility to receive state subsidies
according to Article 27 of the Political Funds Act. This situation tends to stifle
the growth of niche and new parties, acting as a barrier to their establish-
ment. Parties must have at least 20 seats in the assembly belonging to the
same political party to form a negotiating group.7 By creating negotiating
406 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

groups of legislators who are members of political parties, those parties can
obtain 50% of the total state subsidies. Moreover, parties with more than five
seats are entitled to 5% of the total subsidies, while those with no seat or
fewer than five seats receive only 2% of the total subsidies. It is not surpris-
ing, then, that these parties receive virtually no state funding, despite having
been elected with public support. The current system of distributing state
subsidies is unfair to small and new parties and can contribute to the for-
mation of cartels between parties and the state (Kwak 2003). The collusion
among major political parties to maintain power becomes easier with this

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

political funding structure.
Additionally, the revision of the Political Parties Act in 2004 outlawed local
party branches, the most basic party organization at the National Assem-
bly electoral district level, to ‘improve the high cost and low efficiency of
the party system’ (the reasons for the amendment to the Political Parties
Act).8 Local branches of both major parties were abolished, with the DP
eliminating 224 and the Grand National Party eliminating 227. Since then,
political parties have established a central party office in addition to City/Do
party offices9 , causing Korean parties to have a low level of organizational
complexity (Wang 2012: 168). Two major difficulties affecting party organi-
zations have emerged as a result of the amendment. One challenge is that the
absence of grassroots party organizations exacerbates the unstable relation-
ships between parties and voters. Because local party branches, as the initial
party structure, can play a significant role in mediating between voters and
parties or politicians, removing them obstructs democratic decision mak-
ing inside political parties. Another concern is the persistence of politicians’
clientelistic networks. Some scholars argue that the new City/Do parties have
taken over the functions of the local branches in terms of maintaining elec-
toral support and financial resources in their districts through informal and
personal organizations (Chung 2005; Jeon 2009).

The Democratic Party and the People Power Party

Although the Korean party system consists of three political party families—
progressive, liberal, and conservative—it has traditionally been dominated
by a two-party system in which the liberal and conservative parties play a
central role. However, since the 2004 electoral system change, new progres-
sive parties have emerged, albeit with a minor political impact in terms of
strongholds and the size of their representation in congress when compared
to the other two parties.10
 The Development of Party Organizations in New Democracies 407

Two dominant political parties stand out within this system: the DP, which
falls under the liberal party family, and the PPP, which belongs to the conser-
vative party family. The parties are long-standing rivals. Figure 19.1 depicts
how the labels of the DP and the PPP have evolved. The PPP has changed
labels five times since 1988, demonstrating a more consistent evolution over
time than the DP’s history of label changes (Han, 2020). From 1997 to 2011,
the DP changed its name numerous times due to various merges and splits,
while the PPP ultimately kept the same name, the Grand National Party. In
2000, the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) was split into two parties:

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the MDP and the Uri Party (UP). In 2005 and 2007, the MDP and the UP
changed their names to the DP and the Grand United Democratic New Party

Year Liberal Party Family Conservative Party Family

1988 Party for Peace and Democracy Democratic Liberal Party

1991 Democratic Party

1995 National Congress for New Politics

1996 New Korea Party

1997 Grand National Party

2000 Millennium Democratic Party

2003 Millennium Democratic Party Uri Party

2005 Democratic Party

2007 Grand United Democratic New Party

2008 Democratic Party

2011 Democratic United Party

2012 New Frontier Party

2013 Democratic Party

2014 New Politics Alliance for Democracy

2015 Democratic Party

2017 Liberty Korea Party

2020 People Power Party

Figure 19.1 The history of the two main political parties in Korea
Note: This figure was created based on the National Election Commission's (NEC) annual reports of
parties from 1988 to 2019 and the People Power Partyʼs (PPP) party statutes since 2020.
408 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

(GUDNP), respectively. In 2008, the DP and the GUDNP combined to form

the DP. The DP underwent several name changes from the DP to the Demo-
cratic United Party (DUP) in 2011, then back to the DP in 2013, followed by
a change to the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) in 2014. The
party reclaimed the DP name in 2015 and has kept its name since then.
The DP originated from the Party for Peace and Democracy, which
was created by Kim Dae-jung, one of the ‘three Kims’. The party enjoys
widespread public support in Honam, coupled with support from former
pro-democracy activists during the authoritarian regimes. By contrast, the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

PPP descended from the Democratic Liberal Party and its leader, Kim
Young-sam, who came from the Yeongnam region.
The ideological positions of the two parties on economic matters and the
inter-Korean relationship have largely diverged. The DP has supported poli-
cies to extend social welfare programmes, alleviate income disparities, and
maintain good diplomatic relations with North Korea. The PPP, on the other
hand, has a history of supporting policies that are pro-market, anti-trade
union, and anti-communist. In particular, the PPP has developed policies
to provide North Korea with conditional assistance and to deploy stronger
tactics to deter its nuclear programme (Wang 2012: 163). In policies regard-
ing the relationship with North Korea, the parties’ programmatic differences
have been evident across time (Kang 2017). However, because Korean vot-
ers embrace pro-welfare sentiments, the PPP has stressed developmental
state policies, such as free childcare, lowering pay inequities, and protect-
ing temporary workers, which has blurred the parties’ differences across
socio-economic issues (Wang 2012; Lee 2018).

Increases in Party Membership

Since there is a constant trend of declining party membership across the

world (Scarrow and Gezgor 2010; Whiteley, 2011; van Biezen and Pogun-
tke 2014; Scarrow 2017), some might expect to observe a similar tendency
in Korea. Although Korean parties have historically struggled to establish a
solid foundation of party members (Hellmann 2014), they have managed to
attract more individuals to join their rank and file in recent years. During the
‘three Kims’ era, political parties in Korea relied heavily on the personal net-
works of political figures to build their membership organizations. For this
reason, the rank and file of Korean political parties acted as ‘personal orga-
nizations’ that provided election campaign support and financial backing for
certain political leaders (Nemoto 2009: 78). However, as Wang (2012) has
 The Development of Party Organizations in New Democracies 409

pointed out, the retirement of the ‘three Kims’ from politics has led to a reduc-
tion in clientelistic traits within Korean party institutions. The membership
data shows that the main political parties in Korea have been more success-
ful in recent years in enrolling citizens as members, contrary to common
expectations.
Figure 19.2 presents the DP’s and the PPP’s party memberships as percent-
ages of the national electorate (M/E) in Korea from 1988 to 2019. The data
overall reveal a U-shape curve. From 1988 to 2004, the number of members
in the PPP was significantly higher than the number of members in the DP;

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

however, this extraordinary number showed a marked decline until 2004.
The PPP had the highest share of party members in 1992, with 16.86% of the
total electorate as members, and its lowest proportion of members was 2.99%,

15
Party Membership as Percentage of Electorate (%)

10
Party
DP
PPP

1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020
Year

Figure 19.2 Percentage of eligible voters who affiliate with a party

Note: This figure was created based on the National Election Commission's (NEC) annual reports of
parties from 1988 to 2019. DP – Democratic Party; PPP – People Power Party
410 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

in 2006. In contrast, the DP has continuously gained more party members

over time. The DP had the lowest proportion of eligible voters as its party
members in 1995, with 0.65%, and its highest share of members was 9.38%,
in 2019. From 2016 to 2017, the DP’s membership increased from 6.39% to
8.36% of the national electorate. This increase may have been a direct result
of President Park’s impeachment and her affiliation with the PPP.11 The total
percentage of both parties’ members among eligible voters was approximately
17.4% in 2019, a higher share than the total party membership in Austria and
Cyprus, which have the highest percentage of national electorates as their

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

members among European democracies (van Biezen et al. 2012).
Although the two parties in Korea have clearly demonstrated the capacity
to engage citizens by recruiting them as members in the past two decades, it is
important to analyse how many party members have actually paid the mem-
bership fees to properly assess the membership organizations’ characteristics.
More specifically, this allows researchers to explore two important questions:
(a) how many active members each party has and (b) whether parties have
expanded their membership organizations through the formal process rather
than via informal processes derived from personal bonds.
Unlike parties in many European countries that distinguish formal mem-
bership based on subscription (Biezen et al. 2012; Han 2019), the two Korean
parties recognize party membership on two levels. While the PPP generally
defines party members as those who pay dues, there are specific condi-
tions to qualify for important rights, such as running for an election, being
recommended as nominees for offices, and being executives of the party
members’ council. The PPP indicates that members fulfil the conditions if
they have paid the dues more than three months in a year and have par-
ticipated in the education programmes or events held by the party at least
once a year.12 The DP also defines party members by separating two levels of
formal affiliation: (a) members who pay dues with full rights, including run-
ning for an election, and (b) members who do not pay dues and have reduced
rights.13
Given Korean parties’ different definitions of party membership, paying a
membership fee would show how actively the party members aim to engage
in their party organizations. Both parties identify clear distinctions between
party members who pay dues and those who do not pay dues in their statutes.
The definitions clarify the right of members who pay dues to be able to decide
on party candidates and leaders and to be potential candidates for elections.
Paying membership fees can be a great proxy for tracking active members
since it signifies the degree that members play a role in party affairs. Han
(2019) also found that when party members in Korea have a stronger party
 The Development of Party Organizations in New Democracies 411

identification with the parties, they are more likely to pay the dues. Therefore,
it would be meaningful to delve into the percentage of party members who
pay membership dues to assess the extent to which they are engaged in their
parties.
Furthermore, Korean parties have been notorious for having ‘paper
members’, referring to ‘those who register for party membership but do
not often pay their membership fees’ (Han 2020: 14). In the early 2000s,
individuals or factions in parties tried to increase the number of party
members by voluntarily buying party memberships for other individuals or

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

groups who were unwilling to pay their own membership fees. Their efforts
aimed to win the intra-party competitions, hence extending their power in
elections. Even though the party statutes declared that individuals need to
pay the dues for a certain (minimum) period time as a requirement, parties
eased the precondition by shortening the minimum period to gain more
members. Consequently, paper members potentially distort the number of
true party members.
Figure 19.3 shows the number of members who paid membership fees
from 1997 to 2019 in each party.14 From 1997 to 2003, both parties had less
than 2% of party members who paid the party membership fees. Since 2004,
the number of members who have paid the fees has gradually increased.
In 2004 and 2005, the DP had substantial rises in the number of members
who paid their dues. The increase in numbers was likely due to the PPP’s
decreasing approval rate following the party’s attempts to impeach President
Roh Moo Hyun and their involvement in a series of corruption scandals. In
2013, the number of DP members who paid membership dues more than
doubled compared to the PPP. The gap between the two parties has widened
since 2017, possibly due to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye.
The results regarding party membership status show the broad gap
between the total number of party memberships on record and the propor-
tion of all members who actively pay the fees. In particular, the data reveal
that both parties had extraordinary numbers of members, although the num-
ber of party members who paid membership dues was less than 2% from
1988 to 2004. This significant discrepancy between the reported number of
party members and the number of those who pay fees could be explained
in three ways. First, parties may have inflated their membership numbers in
order to boost their influence during the early stages of democratic develop-
ment when they lacked strong party organizations.15 Second, this could be
evidence of how both parties mobilized their members before 2004. Since
it was before the ‘three Kims’ retired from politics, the party members were
mobilized by the leaders’ personal networks and could be paper members
 412 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

100
Party Membership Who Pay Membership Fees (%)

75

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Party
50 DP
PPP

25

1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019
Year

Figure 19.3 Percentage of party members who pay the membership fee
Notes: This figure was created based on the National Election Commission's (NEC) annual reports of
parties from 1997 to 2019; DP—Democratic Party; PPP—People Power Party

who were registered by others. The parties may have reported the number of
party members by including the paper members or those members who had
once enrolled but were no longer active. Lastly, when the local branches were
abolished by the revision of the Political Parties Act in 2004, Korean parties
likely lost enormous numbers of party members who did not pay the dues
but were managed by the local branches.

Distribution of State Subsidies

In Korea, the state subsidies for political parties are categorized by two types:
(a) ordinary subsidies and (b) election subsidies. The NEC distributes the
 The Development of Party Organizations in New Democracies 413

ordinary subsidies to political parties in each quarter of every year. For the
ordinary subsidies, the state provides ‘an amount obtained by multiplying the
unit price for appropriation of subsidies by the total number of eligible voters
in an election for National Assembly members recently held at the expiration
of their term of office’ (the Political Funds Act, Article 25, Clauses 1 and 3).
The election subsidies are paid to political parties in a year of presidential,
National Assembly, and local elections. The election subsidies are added to
the amount of the ordinary subsidies, considering ‘the unit price for appro-
priation of subsidies per eligible voter for each election’ (the Political Funds

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Act, Article 25, Clauses 2–3).
Given the state funding structure, the party system in Korea has been
cartelized since the democratic transition in 1987 for two reasons. One is
that political parties have heavily depended on the state subventions for their
income. Another reason is that the state subsidies provide greater advantages
to the established parties to remain in power compared to new or minor
parties (Katz and Mair 1995, 2009).
First, the state subventions in Korea have dramatically increased over
time. Figure 19.4 shows how the state subsidies for political parties have
been granted from 1988 to 2019. Because political parties in Korea receive
higher amounts of funding during election years, the graph shows the
size of state subsidies by separating election years from non-election
years.16 When converted, one million South Korean won is approxi-
mately equivalent to US$1,000. While both election years and non-election
years have presented an increase in state subsidies for political parties,
the subsidies during election years have remained consistently high over
time. When the election subsidies are included, the total amount of
state subsidies was 1,000 million won in 1988 and 43,234 million won
in 2019. This means that state funding has experienced nearly an 43-
fold increase from 1988 to 2019. The amount of state funding, exclud-
ing election subsidies, has increased approximately 2.51-fold from 1992 to
2018.
The increasing state subsidies over time have undermined the volun-
tary attempts of political parties to enhance their supplementary sources of
income, such as membership subscriptions. Figure 19.5 presents the income
of the DP and the PPP from party membership dues and state subsidies.
According to Figure 19.5, the two political parties have shown a relatively
stable pattern of relying only on state subsidies since 1990, with their income
from party membership fees fluctuating over time. The DP and the PPP have
received 31 and 27% of state subsidies, respectively. For the PPP, the party
membership dues have not been a main income source compared to the DP.
414 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Elections No Elections

90000
State Subsidy (One Million KRW)

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

60000

30000

1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020
Year

Figure 19.4 The total amount of state subventions for political parties
Notes: This figure was created based on the National Election Commission's (NEC) annual reports of
parties from 1988 to 2019; Elections were held in 1988, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002,
2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2018.

The PPP’s share of income derived from membership dues has averaged 15%
over time. From 1988 to 1995, the DP gained the largest share of income
from party membership dues, but from 1996 to 2001, the party member-
ship dues were a minor income source. Since 2002, the DP has gained an
average of 37% of its revenue through membership fees. In general, the
percentage of the parties’ income that comes from state subsidies has been
significant.
Second, the current financial system for political parties creates a hostile
environment for new or minor parties’ survival. This results from the con-
ditions that they need to qualify to get paid state subsidies by creating a
negotiating group in the National Assembly. Figure 19.6 presents how much
 Membership Fee Membership Fee

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

100 100

75 75
Party Income (%)

Party
50 50
DP
PPP

25 25

0 0

1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020
Year

Figure 19.5 Source of party income

Notes: This figure was created based on the National Election Commission's (NEC) annual reports of parties from 1988 to 2019.
 416 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

100

75
Two Parties’ Portion of State Subsidy (%)

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

50

25

1988 1900 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020
Year

Figure 19.6 The two established political partiesʼ portion of state subventions
Notes: This figure shows the Democratic Party and the People Power Partyʼs portion of the total state
subventions for political parties in Korea. The figure was created based on the National Election
Commission's (NEC) annual reports of parties from 1988 to 2019.

the DP and the PPP have prevailed in the total amount of state subsidies
over time. The two parties combined have received an average of 78% of the
state subsidies from 1988 to 2019, except for 1995, when the DP and the PPP
received less than 50% of the total state subsidies.

Rules on Candidate Selection: Open Primaries

Even though Korea democratized in 1987, its political parties were not
internally democratic until recently. Specifically, the parties excluded party
members from selecting their candidates until the early 2000s, and only a few
 The Development of Party Organizations in New Democracies 417

political figures controlled the nomination processes. Since 2002, political

parties in Korea have voluntarily expanded the eligibility for the candidate
selection process to include both party members and non-party members.
Unlike countries such as the United States or Germany, where candidate
selection rules are defined and regulated by law, Korea has never regulated
the details of candidate selection (Lee 2008). Instead, parties have voluntarily
democratized their candidate selection processes without government inter-
vention, allowing each party to have different schedules and selection rules.
Tables 19.2 and 19.3 demonstrate changes to the two main parties’ pres-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

idential candidate selection rules over time.17 Until 2002, the nominating
procedure of Korean political parties for a presidential candidate was domi-
nated by party leaders and elites, meaning that the rank and file had no say in
the process during the ‘three Kims’ era. With Kim Dae-jung’s retirement from
politics in 2002, the presidential candidate selection rules that empowered
elites were replaced by more democratic ones, characterized as a combined
system between closed and open primaries (Hellmann 2011; Wang 2012).
Since then, political parties have tended to maintain more decentralized and
inclusive selection processes, despite some variations regarding the level of
participation in these processes.
The rules for selecting presidential candidates have changed in three ways:
(a) the transition from closed primaries to quasi-open or open primary elec-
tions; (b) the way non-party members are included in the selection process;
and (c) the manner in which primaries are conducted. First, designating the
selectorate has been the most significant alteration in the rules for selecting
presidential candidates in Korea.18 The two major political parties, the DP
and the PPP, have revised the procedures for selecting presidential candi-
dates to create a more democratic process by including non-party members,
thereby granting them greater power. The political parties transformed their
closed primaries into quasi-open primaries by adjusting the proportions
of each selectorate type: party delegates, party members, and non-party
members. Moreover, the DP changed their presidential candidate selection
rules from the quasi-open to open primaries by eliminating specific ratios of
selectorate. Instead, the DP implemented survey methods to incorporate gen-
eral voters’ opinions into the process, in addition to the selectorate’s voting
results for the final nomination. With these new rules, non-party members
have come to play a significant role in decision-making processes within the
parties.
In 2002, the DP, called the MDP in 2001, switched from closed to quasi-
open primary selection rules for the first time (Jhee and Shin 2018: 2).
The DP’s quasi-open primary consisted of three levels of selectorates who
Table 19.2 Changes in presidential candidate selection rules of the Democratic Party, 1987–2022

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Election year 1987 1992 1997 2002 2007 2012 2017 2022

Party name PDP DP NCNP MDP GUDNP DUP DP DP

Type of Closed Closed Closed Quasi-open Open Open Open Open
primaries
Methods of Selectorate Selectorate Selectorate Selectorate Selectorate voting Selectorate Selectorate Selectorate
primaries voting voting voting voting (90%) + Public voting voting voting
survey results
(10%)
Ratio of Party Party Party Party delegates Party delegates + Party delegates Party delegates Party delegates
selectorates delegates delegates delegates (20%) + Party Party members + + Party + Party + Party
(100%) (100%) (100%) members (30%) Non-party Members + members + members +
+ members Non-party Non-party Non-party
Non-party (no specific ratio; members members members
members (50%) 90% as a total) (no specific (no specific (no specific
ratio; 100% as a ratio; 100% as a ratio; 100% as a
total) total) total)
Ratio of - - - - Non-party - - -
public survey members (10%)
Number of 3,200 2,426 4,368 70,769 498,801 614,517 1,642,640 2,165,475
selectorate
Number of - - - - 5,000 - - -
survey
respondents

Note: PDP = Party for Peace and Democracy; DP = Democratic Party; NCNP = National Congress for New Politics; MDP = Millennium Democratic Party; GUDNP = Grand
United Democratic New Party; DUP = Democratic United Party
Sources: Park (2016); Jhee and Shin (2018); Chung and Kim (2022)
 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
Table 19.3 Changes in presidential candidate selection rules of the People Power Party, 1987–2022

Election year 1987 1992 1997 2002 2007 2012 2017 2022

Party name DLP DLP GNP GNP GNP NFP LKP PPP
Type of Closed Closed Closed Quasi-open Quasi-open Quasi-open Quasi-open Quasi-open
primaries
Methods of Selectorate Selectorate Selectorate Selectorates Selectorate voting Selectorate Selectorate Selectorate
primaries voting voting voting voting (80%) + Public voting (80%) + voting (50%) + voting (50%) +
survey results Public survey Public survey Public survey
(20%) results (20%) results (50%) results (50%)
Ratio of Party Party Party Party delegates Party delegates Party delegates Party delegates Party delegates
selectorates delegates delegates delegates (30%) + Party (20%) + Party (20%) + Party and party and party
(100%) (100%) (100%) members (20%) members (30%)+ members members (50%) members (50%)
+ Non-party (30%)+
Non-party members (30%) Non-party
members (50%) members (30%)
Ratio of - - - - Non-party Non-party Non-party Non-party
public survey members (20%) members (20%) members (50%) members (50%)
Number of 7,309 6,882 12,430 48,391 163,617 103,118 39,856 569,059
selectorate
Number of - - - - 6,000 6,000 Not available Not Available
survey
respondents

Note: DLP—Democratic Liberal Party; GNP—Grand National Party; NFP—New Frontier Party; LKP—Liberty Korea Party; PPP—People Power Party
Sources: The data for the period between 1987 and 2017 were obtained from Park (2016) and Jhee and Shin (2018); the author generated the 2022 data; the sample sizes and
methods of survey sampling used for selecting presidential candidates in 2017 and 2022 are not publicly available; the PPP staff has indicated that this information is
confidential
420 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

participated in the voting process: party delegates (20%), party members

(30%), and non-party members (50%). To become part of the selectorate, citi-
zens had to register and were then chosen at random by the DP based on their
age, gender, and region to represent the population (Jhee and Shin 2018).
Ultimately, this gives selected citizens voting power if those individuals
joined the DP.
In 2007, the DP transitioned to a truly open primary system, abolishing
the quota system for the proportion of selectorates and introducing the pub-
lic survey method to choose a presidential candidate. The DP’s open primary

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

election allocated 90% of voting power to the selectorate. Here, the selectorate
consisted of party delegates, party members, and general voters without a
specific quota system. The remaining 10% of voting power was allocated to
respondents from a national survey of 5,000 individuals (Lee 2008). Since
2012, the DP has permitted Korean nationals living in other countries to par-
ticipate in the selectorate, and the DP’s survey methods have changed as well.
The PPP, formerly known as the Grand National Party, adopted the quasi-
open primary system for the 2002 presidential election by giving voting
powers to party delegates (30%), party members (20%), and non-party mem-
bers (50%). Unlike the DP, the PPP has maintained the quasi-open primary
system with some changes to the proportion between party delegates, party
members, and non-party members since 2002. The PPP began utilizing
polling results to choose its presidential candidate in 2007 and has continued
to do so to the present day. In the 2007 and 2012 presidential elections, the
PPP chose a presidential candidate based on selectorates (80%)—comprised
of party delegates (20%), party members (30%), and non-party members
(30%)—plus general voters’ opinions based on polling (20%).19 Since 2017,
the PPP has boosted the weighting of public opinion from 20% to 50%.
Furthermore, the two political parties have modified how non-party mem-
bers are chosen for their selectorate. The standards for selecting non-party
members were simplified once the DP implemented the open primary rules
in 2007, allowing non-party members to become part of the selectorate if they
registered. In that sense, the DP’s total number of selectors has increased from
70,769 in 2002 to 2,165,475 in 2022. The DP has not clarified if its selectorate
under the open primary system represents the population. The PPP in 2002
used an identical method of selecting non-party members, wherein non-
party members had to register and the party chose them at random based
on their age, gender, and region to increase the representation of the popula-
tion. The PPP has not required non-members to register since 2007, but the
party still chooses the selectorate at random based on their age, gender, and
region. The PPP’s total number of selectors has grown from 48,391 in 2002
to 569,059 in 2022.
 The Development of Party Organizations in New Democracies 421

Finally, the parties have adopted different methods to conduct the pri-
maries. The DP has operated a series of regional conventions to choose a
presidential candidate from 2002 to the present. The PPP held a series of
regional conventions in 2002 and has also implemented simultaneous pri-
mary elections held nationwide since then. Moreover, the DP introduced
an electronic voting system at regional conventions in 2002, online voting
in 2002, mobile phone voting in 2007, online voting for Korean nationals
living abroad in 2012, and automatic response system (ARS) voting meth-
ods in 2017. The PPP kept their voting system to ballot voting from 2002 to

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2017 and then changed to include mobile phone and ARS voting methods
in 2021.
In summary, the political parties in Korea have strengthened their orga-
nizational capacity by expanding formal membership structures and the
selectorates for the candidate selection processes, thereby moving Korean
parties beyond charismatic political leaders’ influence. This indicates that the
two parties have enabled party members to play a larger role in decision-
making processes, overcoming the concentration of power in the hands
of a few elites. The parties have also garnered greater attention for their
candidates and elections by including non-party members. Since the demo-
cratic transition, the more decentralized and inclusive selection processes
have developed into plebiscitary selections. Nonetheless, the parties have
still struggled with the limited proportion of party members who actually
contribute membership dues. Furthermore, the state subvention system has
hampered the parties’ voluntary efforts to be more autonomous from state
interventions and has privileged the major parties to preserve power.

Conclusion

Democratic development in Korea has been in the slow lane due to the
weakly institutionalized party system. Political parties, characterized instead
by clientelistic and cartelistic organizational elements, were powerless with-
out strong party organizational capacities. From 1988 to present, the DP and
the PPP have departed from the clientelistic party organizational charac-
teristics by recruiting individuals as party members and democratizing the
candidate selection rules. However, the party system is still marked by its
cartelistic organizational capacity stemming from its heavy dependence on
state subsidies that favour the major parties.
The organizational development of Korean political parties raises impor-
tant questions regarding the development of democracy in Korea. First, not
all party members are active or have strong party affiliations. The parties
422 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

may lose essential components of political success, such as party members’

roles in organizations related to labour and financial contributions, due to
the lack of active members in the party organizations. Without active party
members, Korean parties may continue the clientelistic approach of appeal-
ing to voters by using informal organizations such as personal networks.
Since the elimination of local branches in 2004, political parties may real-
ize the value of active party members in mediating between voters and
representatives.
Moreover, the current state subvention system may exacerbate cartelistic

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

party organizational features in Korea. The parties may not be motivated to
seek out alternative sources of income since they heavily rely on state sub-
sidies. The two-party system in Korea could become consolidated since the
state subsidy system penalizes the survival of new or minor parties in politics.
For the foreseeable future, the structure of state subsidies will be a barrier for
new or minor parties to have electoral success.
Finally, the open primary system for selecting presidential candidates may
enhance the representation of regular voters and provide advantages for
candidates who have less clientelistic connections (Wang 2012: 177). Nev-
ertheless, it is not certain whether the more decentralized and inclusive
candidate selection rules are a beneficial approach for the party members
to be heard and rewarded by the parties. Once the DP and the PPP imple-
ment bottom-up candidate selections, the party members should agree that
their opinion is important for decision-making processes within the parties.
However, as the parties expand their selection rules to non-party members
and utilize the polling system to gather votes from the general public, party
members may regard their roles and voices as having less influence within
the party.

Notes
1. The three organizational features follow the suggestions in Scarrow et al. (2017) in
focusing on parties’ organizational capacities, including structure, resources, and rep-
resentative strategies.
2. The highest effective number of electoral parties in 2008 was derived from the change in
the electoral system from a single-member district system to a mixed system in 2004.
3. The regional background includes the areas where political figures were born and where
they resided (Moon 2005; Kang 2008; Kang and Bae 2018; Han 2020).
4. The ‘three Kims’ are Kim Young-sam, who was born in Yeongnam in the east region of
Korea; Kim Dae-jung, who was born in Honam in the southwestern region; and Kim
Jong-pil, who was born in Chungcheong in the southwestern region. Kim Young-sam
and Kim Dae-jung were elected as presidents in 1992 and 1997, respectively.
5. Chungcheong became the ‘swing-vote’ province in the party competition (Wang 2012).
 The Development of Party Organizations in New Democracies 423

6. The third-party alternatives (i.e. new parties) entered the party system after a change in
the electoral system from a single-member district system to a mixed system in 2004.
Under the single-member district electoral system, voters had the principle of ‘one man
one vote’, and seats in the assembly were distributed to parties based on the share of votes
that candidates received in local districts. However, the Constitutional Court found this
system to be unconstitutional. In 2004, the electoral system was changed to the inde-
pendent mixed system, which includes both single-member districts and a proportional
system. Under the mixed system, people have two votes: one for a candidate in their local
districts and another for a party on the national list. The majority of seats in the assembly
are allocated to the candidates who win in each electoral district, while the remaining

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

seats are distributed proportionally based on the percentage of votes received by each
party.
7. The Assembly is composed of 300 members as of May 2022.
8. Local branches of political parties in Korea were called ‘Jigudang’. To prevent potential
corruption related to these branches, a revision was made to the system. Operating local
branches was costly due to the expenses required to maintain local offices and man-
power. The chairpersons of each local branch were responsible for fundraising to cover
their activities, which made them vulnerable to corruption if there were no state subsi-
dies or other income resources available. As the chairpersons collected and distributed
funds, they gained tremendous influence in candidate selection and decision-making
processes at the local branch level. At the central party office level, maintaining local
branches also led to corruption since the central party office needed to send significant
amounts of money to the local branches during elections. Therefore, local branches of
political parties in Korea had been criticized for being costly and for being managed
personally.
9. A province is ‘Do’ in Korean.
10. Frequent merges and splits have occurred within the same set of party groups, leading
the party system’s ideological positions to be consistent.
11. The PPP was founded based on the merges of the Liberty Korea Party (LKP), the New
Conservative Party (NCP), and Onward for Future 4.0 (OF). The LKP was the ruling
party in 2017, but lost its ruling status when Park was impeached. They also lost the 2017
presidential election and the 2018 local elections. President Park was expelled by the LKP
in 2017.
12. This information is based on the PPP party statute, which was revised on 1 September
2020.
13. This is from the DP party statute, Clause 5, which was revised on 3 November 2021.
14. The data on how many party members had paid membership dues is not available in the
NEC annual reports from 1988 to 1996.
15. Although the NEC prohibits false self-reports on the information of parties, many schol-
ars pointed out that parties’ self-identified party membership numbers are not entirely
accurate (Mair and van Biezen 2001; Scarrow and Gezgor 2010; Ponce and Scarrow
2016).
16. The elections include municipal (local), National Assembly, and presidential elections.
Municipal elections are held every four years. The National Assembly members and the
president are elected to a four- and five-year term, respectively.
17. This chapter focuses on analysing both parties’ presidential candidate selection rules
for the final round of primaries. Depending on elections and parties, there are some
variations in the number of primary rounds.
424 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

18. In this chapter, selectorates are used to refer to the groups of people who are eligible to
participate in the presidential candidate selection process in each party.
19. The survey, which included 6,000 eligible voters, was conducted in accordance with the
rules and dates decided by the NEC.

References

Biezen, Ingrid van and Thomas Poguntke. 2014. ‘The Decline of Membership-based
Politics’. Party Politics, 20(2):205–216.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Cho, Joan E. and Dominika Kruszewska. 2018. ‘Escaping Collective Responsibil-
ity in Fluid Party Systems: Evidence from South Korea’. Electoral Studies, 56:
114–123.
Chung, Jin-Min. 2005. ‘지구당 폐지 이후의 새로운 정당구조와 당원중심
정당운영의 범위’. Korean Journal of Legislative Studies, 11(1): 5–26.
Chung, Tae-Il and Hak-Sil Kim. 2022. ‘제20대 대통령선거를 위한 더불어민주당의
대통령후보경선 분석’. Korea and World Review, 4(2): 5–36.
Croissant, Aurel and Philip Völkel. 2012. ‘Party System Types and Party System Insti-
tutionalization: Comparing New Democracies in East and Southeast Asia’. Party
Politics, 18(2):235–265.
Han, Jeong Hun. 2019. ‘정당의 명칭변경에 대한 한국 유권자의 인식과
정당일체감’. Korea and World Politics, 35(2):1–35.
Han, Jeong Hun. 2020. ‘How Does Party Organisation Develop beyond Clientelism
in New Democracies? Evidence from South Korea, 1992—2016’. Contemporary
Politics, 27(2):225–245.
Hellmann, Olli. 2011. ‘A Historical Institutionalist Approach to Political Party Orga-
nization: The Case of South Korea’. Government and Opposition, 46(4): 464–484.
Hellmann, Olli. 2014. ‘Party System Institutionalization without Parties: Evidence
from Korea’. Journal of East Asian Studies, 14(1):53–84.
Heo, Uk and Hans Stockton. 2005. ‘The Impact of Democratic Transition on
Elections and Parties in South Korea’. Party Politics, 11(6):674–688.
IDEA. 2022. Voter Turnout Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-
turnout (Accessed 19 December 2023).
Im, Hyug Baeg. 2004. ‘Faltering Democratic Consolidation in South Korea: Democ-
racy at the End of the ‘three Kims’ era’. Democratization, 11(5):179–198.
Inter-Parliamentary Union. 2022. http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2259_
arc.htm. (Accessed 19 December 2023).
Jeon, Jinyoung. 2009. ’지구당 폐지의 문제점과 부활을 둘러싼 쟁점 검토’. Journal
of Contemporary Politics, 2(2):173–196.
Jhee, Byong-Kuen and Geiguen Shin. 2018. ‘Getting Tickets for the Presidential
Election in Korea’. Korea Observer, 49(2):269–291.
 The Development of Party Organizations in New Democracies 425

Kang, Won-Taek. 2008. ‘How Ideology Divides Generations: The 2002 and
2004 South Korean Elections’. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 41(2):
461–480.
Kang, Woo Jin. 2017. ‘Income and Voting Behavior in Korean Politics: Why Do the
Poor Support Conservative Political Parties?’. Journal of International and Area
Studies, 24(2):15–33.
Kang, WooJin and Jin Seok Bae. 2018. ‘Regionalism and Party System Change at
the Sub-national Level: The 2016 Korean National Assembly Election’. Journal of
International and Area Studies, 25(1):93–112.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Kang, Woojin. 2010. A Comprehensive Analysis of the Electoral Choices in
New Democracies: The Case of Korea. (PhD Dissertation). The Florida State
University.
Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 1995. ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and
Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’. Party Politics, 1(1):5–28.
Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 2009. ‘The Cartel Party Thesis: A Restatement’.
Perspectives on Politics, 7(04):753–766.
Kim, Young Rae and Euysung Kim. 2003. ‘Reforming Korea’s Political Finance
System: What Does the Official Data Tell (not Tell) Us?’. Pacific Focus, 18(2):
133–157.
Kwak, Jin Young. 2003. ‘The Party—State Liaison in Korea: Searching for Evidence
of the Cartelized System’. Asian Perspective, 27(1):109–135.
Kwak, Jin-young. 2021. ‘Why Do Parties Split and Merge in South Korea?’. In Chae-
Han Kim (ed.), The New Dynamics of Democracy in South Korea. London/New
York: Routledge.
Lee, Hoeun and Matthew M. Singer. 2022. ‘The Partisan Origins of Economic Per-
ceptions in a Weak Party System: Evidence from South Korea’. Political Behavior,
44:341–364.
Lee, Myung-Haeng. 2008. 국민참여형 경선제도에 관한 연구: 제17대
대통령후보자 선출을 중심으로. (Master’s Thesis). Konkuk University.
Lee, Soohyun C. 2018. ‘Democratization, Political Parties and Korean Welfare Poli-
tics: Korean Family Policy Reforms in Comparative Perspective’. Government and
Opposition, 53(3):518–541.
Lehmann, Paola, Simon Franzmann, Tobias Burst et al. 2022. The Manifesto Data
Collection. https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu/datasets. (Accessed 19 December
2023).
Mair, Peter and Ingrid van Biezen. 2001. ‘Party Membership in Twenty European
Democracies, 1980–2000’. Party Politics, 7(1):5–21.
Moon, Woojin. 2005. ‘Decomposition of Regional Voting in South Korea: Ideological
Conflicts and Regional Interests’. Party Politics, 11(5):579–599.
426 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Nemoto, Kuniaki. 2009. ‘Committing to the Party: The Costs of Governance in East
Asian Democracies. (PhD Dissertation). San Diego: University of California, San
Diego.
Park, Chan Pyo. 2016. ‘국민참여경선제의 제도 차이의 발생 배경에 대한 연구 :
16~18대 대선후보 경선제도 비교’. Journal of Future Politics, 6(1): 65–87.
Ponce, Aldo F. and Susan E. Scarrow. 2016. ‘Which Members? Using Cross-national
Surveys to Study Party Membership’. Party Politics, 22(6):679–690.
Scarrow, Susan E. 2017. The Changing Nature of Political Party Membership
in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. https://oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-226 (Accessed 19
December 2023).
Scarrow, Susan E. and Burcu Gezgor. 2010. ‘Declining Memberships, Changing
Members? European Political Party Members in a New Era’. Party Politics, 16(6):
823–843.
Scarrow, Susan E., Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke. (eds) 2017. Organiz-
ing Political Parties: Representation, Participation, and Power. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Stockton, Hans. 2001. ‘Political Parties, Party Systems, and Democracy in East Asia:
Lessons from Latin America’. Comparative Political Studies, 34(1):94–119.
van Biezen, Ingrid, Peter Mair, and Thomas Poguntke. 2012. ‘“Going, Going, …
Gone? The Decline of Party Membership in Contemporary Europe’. European
Journal of Political Research, 51(1):24–56.
Wang, Yi-ting. 2012. ‘A Case Study of Parties’ Programmatic and Clientelis-
tic Electoral Appeals in South Korea’. In Herbert Kitschelt and Yi-ting Wang
(eds), Research and Dialogue on Programmatic Parties and Party Systems: Case
Study Reports, 158–191. https://sites.duke.edu/democracylinkage/files/2014/12/
3.2.case_.pdf#page=158 (Accessed 19 December 2023).
Whiteley, Paul F. 2011. ‘Is the Party Over? The Decline of Party Activism and
Membership across the Democratic World’. Party Politics, 17(1): 21–44.
Wong, Joseph. 2014. ‘South Korea’s Weakly Institutionalized Party System’. In Allen
Hicken and Erik Martinez Kuhonta (eds), Party System Institutionalization in
Asia: Democracies, Autocracies, and the Shadows of the Past. ORT: Cambridge
University Press, 260–279.
20
Japan
Struggle for Party System Change

Takayoshi Uekami and Junpei Yamaguchi

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Introduction

Since Japan is notorious for its unwillingness to accept refugees,1 it has been
spared from political turmoil comparable to the European migrant crisis:
xenophobic political parties could hardly expand their support and occupy
positions in the existing party system.2
However, the country faces other problems. As the Japanese economy
entered troubled waters after the burst of the asset price bubble in the early
1990s and its population aged at the fastest pace in the world, the fiscal deficit
ballooned. The end of the Cold War and tensions with neighbouring coun-
tries such as China and North Korea also urged Japan to reconsider its role on
the world stage. To deal with these issues, Japan decided to make its political
system more accountable and to strengthen the positions of political leaders.
In 1994, Japan abolished its familiar electoral formula, the single non-
transferable vote (SNTV ), for the lower house and then adopted the
mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system, which elected 300 seats from
single-seat constituencies and 200 seats from 11 proportional representation
(PR) constituencies according to the d’Hondt method. At the same time, pub-
lic funding for political parties was introduced. The initial focus of this reform
was to drive out the money-ridden politics that prevailed under the long-
ruling conservatives, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The new electoral
system was expected to switch the party system from one of single-party dom-
inance to a more competitive system by consolidating opposition forces and
then ousting the LDP-led government. Furthermore, by taking power away
from the factions inside the LDP and concentrating it in the hands of the
party leadership, it was thought that Japanese politics would become more
effective.

Takayoshi Uekami and Junpei Yamaguchi, Japan. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy. Edited by: Thomas
Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Takayoshi Uekami and Junpei Yamaguchi (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0020
428 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

The LDP have successfully adapted themselves to the new electoral system.
They converted themselves to a more programmatic, conservative-oriented,
and less corrupt party by centralizing intra-party relations and increasing
cohesiveness (Uekami and Tsutsumi 2019). On the other hand, the oppo-
sition parties remain fragmented as they are composed of old left-wingers,
centrists, and conservative reformists. Since their extra-parliamentary orga-
nizations are shallowly rooted in society and divided along the lines of their
predecessor parties, they have repeatedly failed to promote a single candidate
running for the single-member districts (SMDs). Furthermore, they have

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

been out of power most of the time. This means that they have not been
able to utilize resources such as ministerial posts and policy influence, which
the Liberal Democrats have enjoyed almost entirely without interruption, to
appease internal conflicts.
Despite the electoral reforms, party politics in Japan seemingly lacks an
effective means for bringing about government change. Taking advantage
of the features of SMDs, the LDP successfully gained a seat bonus, but it
never attained more than half of the eligible voters’ support. It looks stable on
the surface but loses steam because the Liberal Democrats and their junior
partner almost always play dominant roles. As far as the LDP-led coalition
government meets the demand of citizens, we do not expect to see a populist
uprising akin to those in Europe and elsewhere. But all of these factors do
not mean that Japan has been exempted from the struggle for party system
change.
Our plan for this chapter is as follows. The next section will present a
rough overview of post-war Japanese party politics. Then, we will explore
how the LDP acclimated itself to the new electoral environment and the
reasons that the opposition parties have failed to unite. Quantitative and
qualitative accounts of this process will be presented. Finally, we will discuss
the situation briefly and present conclusions.

Japanese Party Politics after the Second World War

Defeated and occupied by the Allied powers in 1945, Japan went through
a sweeping demilitarization and democratization. The parliamentary sys-
tem was retained, but the ultimate authority of selecting a prime minister
was transferred from the Emperor to the lower house of the Diet. Universal
suffrage was guaranteed by the newly established Japanese constitution.
Since then, many political parties have appeared and tried to fill the politi-
cal vacuum. As the left-wing parties except for the Communists converged to
 Japan 429

form the Japan Socialist Party (JSP), the conservatives merged to establish the
LDP in 1955. Post-war Japanese party politics was built upon the competition
between the conservatives and the progressives, but the LDP won more than
half the seats in national elections most of the time until 1993. Since it suc-
cessfully controlled the government, the party system of that period could be
categorized as one-party dominant (Pempel 1990). Figure 20.1 shows the seat
shares of major political parties since the 1958 general election. In addition
to voter turnout rates, Figure 20.2 displays the effective numbers of electoral
and parliamentary parties (ENEP and ENPP, respectively).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

500

400

300

200

100

0
76
79
80
83
86
90
93
96
00
03
05
09
12
14
17
21
58
60
63
67
69
72
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
19
19
19
19
19
19

LDP JSP(SDP) JCP DSP KOMEITO NFP DPJ JRP(JIP) POH CDP DPFP others

Figure 20.1 Seat share of major parties since 1955 (number of seats)
Source: Election results reports, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

100 7
90
6
80
70 5
60 4
60
40 3
30 2
20
1
10
0 0
58
60
63
67
69
72
76
79
80
83
86
90
93
96
00
03
05
09
12
14

21
17
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
20
20
20
20
20
20

20
20

Turnout (%) ENEP ENPP

Figure 20.2 Core party system indicators: Voter turnout rates (left-side scale, %),
effective numbers of electoral party and of parliamentary party (right-side scale)
Source: Election results reports, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
430 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Although the LDP manifested itself as a conservative guardian, it tended to

be more pragmatic and clientelistic; it put more emphasis on winning votes
and seats rather than sticking to its programmatic agenda, such as a con-
stitutional amendment that would allow the country to rearm. It advocated
economic development and guaranteed material well-being for many strata
of Japanese society: big businesses, small businesses, farmers, professionals,
private-sector employees, etc. The party could be categorized as a catch-all
party (Satō and Matsuzaki 1986).
Meanwhile, the opposition parties became fragmented. The leading oppo-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

sition party, the JSP, strenuously held up its version of Marxist socialism,
which was closely tied to the pacifist ideal and the militancy of its support
base, the public sector unions. The 1960s saw the birth and development of
the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) and Komeito. The former was com-
posed of non-mainstream right-wingers who had left the JSP and was backed
by private-sector unions, and the latter was founded by a Buddhist sect.
Together with the Japan Communist Party (JCP), it gained dozens of seats,
especially in urban electoral districts where the population was growing
rapidly.
From its establishment in 1955, Japan’s post-war party politics did not
confront a fundamental challenge until the 1990s.

The End of Cold War and the 1994 Reform

Post-war Japanese party politics was shaken badly after the collapse of the
Soviet Union as it was predicated on a domestic version of the Cold War. The
pro-capitalist LDP was pitted against the pro-socialist JSP, both of which took
sides with their ideological friends within and outside the country. This was
also reflected in their international views and foreign policies. However, the
end of the Cold War stripped away the programmatic appeal not only from
the JSP but also the LDP in that the latter’s role as the sole defender of the
market economy was discredited. To put it simply, the cost of overlooking
the misconduct associated with the long-ruling LDP began to outweigh the
benefit of supporting the party.
At that time, several political scandals hit the incumbent LDP hard. From
the late 1980s to the early 1990s, a series of corruption cases came to light
wherein private companies had bribed top LDP politicians. These scandals
outraged the Japanese public and impressed upon them the need to change
 Japan 431

the conventional way of conducting politics. In the ensuing 1993 lower house
election, the LDP could not secure a majority of seats. Except for the LDP
and the JCP, eight political parties formed a coalition government headed by
the leader of the Japan New Party (JNP). As the LDP had monopolized the
government ever since 1955, it was a historic moment. In 1994, the new non-
LDP coalition government successfully changed the electoral system for the
lower house from the SNTV to the MMM system, which was composed of
300 SMD seats and 200 PR seats. Public funding for political parties was also
introduced.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The Struggle for Party System Change

The opposition parties confronted a coordination problem immediately after

the passage of the Electoral Reform Bill. To win SMDs demanded that the
fragmented opposition forces merge themselves into a new party, or at least
avoid duplicate candidates. This apparent necessity for electoral adaptation
led the parties that comprised the non-LDP coalition government to form
the New Frontier Party (NFP). As the JSP and a small conservative party
called New Party Sakigake were not comfortable with the NFP’s vision, the
LDP negotiated with them and came back to power by establishing a new
coalition government in 1994.
Quite ambitiously, the NFP declared its goal of winning power at the com-
ing lower house election. Though the 1996 lower house election was the first
election held under the new MMM system, the result did not live up to their
expectations: the number of seats the LDP won was just under the majority,
but it surpassed that of the NFP by large margin. Led by the newly chosen
party leader, the LDP appealed to voters with its reform agenda. Unfortu-
nately, the NFP had to compete with the other party established just before
the 1996 election: as a sizeable number of the members of the JSP (SDP)3 and
Sakigake also realized that their fate was doomed under the new system, they
left their parties to form the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), and the DPJ
attained more than 50 seats. Disillusioned and disappointed, the NFP was
disbanded. Many former NFP legislators, except those who were originally
from Komeito, chose to join the DPJ.
After losing the 1998 upper house election, the LDP and Komeito decided
to form a new coalition government with the Liberal Party as a mediator.
The Liberal Party was headed by the former NFP leader to rally like-minded
432 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

members. When the party broke from its coalition partners, the Liberals fell
into internal conflict. In the end, they merged with the DPJ just before the
2003 lower house election. It was not until this merger that the opposition
parties provided voters with a viable alternative to the LDP-led coalition
(Uekami and Tsutsumi 2011).
Although the LDP and Komeito succeeded in remaining in office, they
were finally defeated by the DPJ-led coalition in the 2009 lower house elec-
tion. This does not mean that the LDP just sat idle as the DPJ rose. On the
contrary, the LDP sought to realize a ‘structural reform’ policy based on

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

neoliberal ideas (Uchiyama 2010). To win first place in the SMD contest in
the lower house election, political parties and politicians compete by selling
people collective rather than divisible goods (cf. Catalinac 2016). The LDP
won the 2005 lower house election by a landslide. However, struck by rising
income inequality and a global recession after the financial crisis, Japanese
people became sceptical about the LDP-led coalition. Instead of neoliber-
alism, the new LDP leadership advocated a conservative ideology (Nakakita
2014). Finally, people turned to the DPJ, which was running on an egalitarian
and universalistic platform.
Although the DPJ won the 2009 lower house election, it lost a majority of
seats in the 2010 upper house election. The party tried to posit an alternative
idea, but budget constraints prohibited it from pursuing policies based on
universalism. As the DPJ came to be divided on the issue of fiscal soundness,
people’s support for the DPJ-led government dwindled. In the end, the LDP
and Komeito reclaimed power in the 2012 lower house election (Kushida
and Lipscy 2013; Maeda and Tsutsumi 2015). After this major defeat in the
2012 election, DPJ members made several attempts to compensate for the
diminution of the party. The DPJ merged with the Japan Innovation Party
(JIP) to form the Democratic Party (DP) in 2016. The JIP was a new party
mainly consisting of conservative but reform-minded politicians. During the
long-running LDP administration, the DP laboured in vain to consolidate
opposition forces4 .
In sum, LDP dominance after the introduction of MMM did not fulfil the
promise made by the 1994 political reforms. As shown in Figure 20.2, the
gap between ENEP and ENPP widened considerably under the new system.
This suggests that the electoral system gives a huge advantage to winning par-
ties, the LDP in most cases. Taking the declining turnout rates into account,
however, the party garnered a quarter of support from the entire electorate
at best.5 Without the prospect of government change, Japanese party politics
was seemingly losing ground.
 Japan 433

Party Adaptation to the New Electoral Environment

Why did the LDP succeed in adapting to the new electoral environment?
Why did the opposition parties fail to do so? We answer these questions by
focusing on party organization under a particular set of electoral systems.
With the introduction of the SMD system in lower house elections,
candidates were required to garner a majority of votes to be elected. They
have come to emphasize policy appeal because it is impossible to buy off
many voters with selective goods. In this context, party organizations play

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

decisive roles in coordinating the preferences of candidates and letting them
embrace party platforms. In purely theoretical terms, electoral mobilization
based on programmatic appeal can be realized only if the problems of col-
lective choice and collective action are resolved (cf. Aldrich 1995; Kitschelt
2000).
According to Aldrich, political parties were invented as a solution to the
collective choice problem in legislative assemblies. To avoid a cyclical major-
ity, a binding coalition of legislators was needed. By organizing legislators, a
political party enables them to stay together and makes them follow the party
line. To this end, a party provides aspiring candidates with side-payments
such as party nominations, electioneering, or financing, but delivering these
benefits always requires a concerted effort, to a greater or lesser extent. In
this respect, party organizations help like-minded politicians, activists, and
supporters solve their collective action problem. Kitschelt points out that
the programmatic linkage requires a party to solve not only the collective
choice problem, as stated above, but also the collective action problem, i.e.
a party’s investment in its administrative and organizational infrastructure
to circumvent situations where activists and supporters do not contribute to
campaigning efforts.
Before the 1994 reforms, the LDP had been plagued by factionalism and
decentralized decision making. By replacing the SNTV system, which culti-
vates a personal vote (Carey and Shugart 1995), with the SMDs, the party
was gradually transformed into one with more centralized intra-party rela-
tionships (Krauss and Pekkanen 2011).6 This trend was further amplified by
the plebiscitary mode of leadership selection which aimed to install a popular
leader in the new electoral environment. The administrative reforms in and
after the 1990s also dramatically strengthened the power and authority of the
top executives (Takenaka 2021). According to Krauss and Nyblade (2005),
Japanese prime ministers became ‘presidentialized’ in that they received
increasing media attention during the elections7 . As we will see later in
434 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

the chapter, the organization of the LDP remains huge but became more
consolidated.
On the other hand, the difficulties faced by Japanese opposition parties can
be traced backed to the fact that they only have thin and divided organiza-
tions across a wide political spectrum (Uekami and Tsutsumi 2011). In sum,
they face problems of collective choice and collective action even if they share
common goals such as winning elections. The party organizations often hes-
itate to unite their campaigning efforts for a single candidate. However, this
does not mean that mergers of opposition parties always fail. It all depends

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

on how appealing the new party is. The candidates will defect instantly and
switch their attention to building their own reputation if the future of the
party seems doomed.

Party Organizations of the LDP and the DPJ

In this section, we examine the responses of the LDP and the DPJ to the
electoral environment by measuring the degree to which they maintain and
consolidate their respective organizations.

Party members and party finance

First, let us compare the size of party organizations for the two major parties.
Since the government’s report on political funds provides the only avail-
able data that allow us to examine the magnitude of membership and party
finance systematically, we have no choice but to describe the situation based
on these data. However, the membership figures reported are the sum of for-
mal members and party friends. As with the multi-speed model (Scarrow
2015), the LDP, the DPJ, and its successor parties have reduced forms of party
membership.
According to Figure 20.3, LDP membership accounts for a much larger
share of the Japanese electorate than that of the DPJ. Even after the DPJ
defeated the LDP by a landslide in the 2009 lower house election, the LDP
managed to keep its member numbers well above those of the DPJ, though
the margin narrowed. After the 2012 election, the LDP kept 800,000 members
whereas the DPJ stayed around 200,000, or only a quarter the membership
of the LDP.
Turning to party finance, the percentage of state subsidies of the total
income of the DPJ headquarters has surpassed that of the LDP (Figure 20.4).
 Japan 435

1.4

1.2

1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

0.0
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

LDP DDJ/DP

Figure 20.3 Party membership/electorate ratio (%): The LDP and the DPJ (DP since
2016)
Source: Political funds reports, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

LDP DPJ/DP

Figure 20.4 Share of state funding in party headquartersʼ income (%): The LDP and the
DPJ (DP since 2016)
Source: Political funds reports, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

According to the Political Party Subsidies Act that stipulates the amount
of money a political party receives from public coffers each year, subsidy
amounts vary depending on the number of a party’s affiliated members of
parliament (MPs) and the vote share in elections.
The two major Japanese parties relied heavily on public funding to cover
their expenses. Subsidies from the national treasury accounted for almost
436 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

90% of the DPJ’s HQ revenue in its later years. The higher percentage on the
part of the DPJ suggests that they had a hard time receiving monetary sup-
port from party members and auxiliary organizations such as labour unions.
Although the LDP was less dependent on taxpayers, the proportion has grad-
ually risen to nearly 70% in recent years. When comparing the LDP and the
DPJ with this in mind, it can be said that the latter is less rooted in society
(cf. Katz and Mair 1995).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Party leadership selection and membership vote

The LDP and the DPJ also performed differently in terms of plebiscitary
intra-party democracy (Poguntke et al. 2016)8 . According to LDP statutes,
each party member and party friend has a right to vote in the party leader-
ship election together with the MPs. But, in the case of an emergency where
the party leader resigns before their term ends, MPs and the delegates from
prefectural organizations have the exclusive right to select the next party
leader. Even in this case, the prefectural organizations are not prohibited
from holding primaries to nominate their preferred candidate(s) for whom
the delegates can cast their votes.
Since the introduction of membership voting in 1977, the LDP has not
always allowed its members to participate in the leadership selection. How-
ever, after the 2001 leadership election, the LDP has almost always let party
members and friends vote (Uekami 2008). Among the 16 leadership elec-
tions since 1997, 4 cases were uncompetitive. Out of the 12 remaining races,
the LDP allowed party members and friends to participate in 11.
The DPJ also adopted membership voting in its leadership election, but
the details of collecting and counting votes were a bit different from those
of the LDP. The eligible voters were stipulated as the following: MPs, candi-
dates for the next national elections, local assembly members, ordinary party
members, and registered supporters. The most striking difference, however,
is how often they held membership votes. From its establishment in 1996 to
its breakup in 2017, the party allowed its members and supporters to vote in
only 6 out of 15 races (The total number of elections during this time was 24,
nine of which were without contenders). Although it had the same emergency
clause as the LDP, the DPJ limited eligibility to MPs; it repeatedly decided to
skip the normal procedure.
In sum, besides being comparatively small, the DPJ organization per-
formed poorly in mobilizing financial resources and encouraging members
to participate.
 Japan 437

Sources of electoral support and groupings of MPs

In terms of ‘the party in the electorate’, the two major parties display clear
contrasts in the composition of voters. We utilized Japanese election survey
data and sorted the LDP and DPJ voters according to their previous voting
on recall (Table 20.1). As we paid special attention to the voting behaviour of
Japanese electorate precipitated by party change, we picked those elections
held just after the DPJ’s formation and its mergers with other parties.
Just before the 1996 lower house election, the DPJ was established at the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

initiative of politicians formerly affiliated with the JSP and Sakigake, a splinter
party of the LDP. As for the DPJ voters, almost half the respondents revealed
that they cast their votes in the 1993 lower house election for the JSP and the
LDP (27.3% and 20.8%, respectively). In contrast to the LDP, which success-
fully retained a long-time clientele (57.9%), it can be said that DPJ voters were
divided along the old conservative–progressive cleavage from its beginning.
After the dissolution of the NFP in 1997, the DPJ absorbed many of the
former NFP MPs, save for the Liberals and Komeito members. In reference
to the 1998 upper house election survey, 17.6% of the respondents who voted
for DPJ candidates expressed their support for the NFP in the 1995 election.

Table 20.1 Voter support in national elections for the LDP and the DPJ (DP since
2016) (%)

Party voted for in the 1996 1998 2003 2016

last election (below) LDP DPJ LDP DPJ LDP DPJ LDP DPJ

LDP 57.9 20.8 79.7 30.7 63.6 24.6 72.9 10.9

JSP (SDP) 9.3 27.3 3.2 14.0 0.3 3.3 1.3
Komeito 0.6 1.9 3.2 0.8 1.6 1.0
DSP 0.4 0.9
JCP 0.4 2.8 1.5 0.1 2.5 0.5 1.7
Sakigake 0.8 5.6 0.4 2.1
NFP 3.4 17.6
LP 0.4 2.5
JIP 1.0 2.6
DPJ 3.1 26.1 5.8 66.9
Others 2.4 13.4 0.4 0.3 0.2 1.8 0.7 1.3
NA 28.3 27.3 12.9 33.7 29.1 38.3 17.5 14.2
Total 795 216 558 329 918 605 573 302

Source: JES II data for the 1996 lower house election and the 1998 upper house election, JES III data for
the 2003 lower house election, and the post-election survey for the 2016 upper house election conducted
by the Association for Promoting Fair Elections; the data for the secondary analyses of the 2003 and the
2016 elections were provided by the Social Science Japan Data Archive, Center for Social Research and
Data Archives, Institute of Social Science, The University of Tokyo
438 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Despite the merger of the DPJ with the Liberal Party in 2003 and with the
JIP in 2016, the results of the election surveys suggest that the DPJ (DP) was
no longer able to expand its support. The alchemy had ended at last.
In sum, the DPJ in the electorate became fragmented on its way to becom-
ing a major party. Next, we turn to the backgrounds of MPs to examine the
organizational divisions that the LDP and the DPJ have faced. As shown in
Table 20.2a and 20.2b, both the LDP and the DPJ are internally divided by
factions and groups.
To put it bluntly, there have been three major factions—Seiwa, Heisei, and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Kochi—plus other rather minor factions since the early days of the LDP
(Table 20.2a). The factions are groups of MPs based primarily on personal
and clientelistic networks, but they also have some ideological tendencies.
For example, Seiwa is said to be the most conservative (Uekami and Tsut-
sumi 2019). Under the old SNTV system where multiple candidates from the
LDP could run in the same district, the party was exposed to pressures that
could disrupt it. In the process of adapting to the SNTV, however, the factions
chose to field their candidates according to district magnitude (Kohno 1997).
As the party was consolidated under the new SMD system after the 1994 elec-
toral reform, factions no longer play vital roles inside the LDP. The power
shift inside the party is expressed by the increasing number of non-affiliated
members.
Turning to the DPJ, it can be said that the party is divided along the lines
of its predecessor parties (Uekami and Tsutsumi 2011). Table 20.2b indicates
the number of MPs according to their party affiliations when they were first
nominated as candidates. As time passed, the old politicians faded away and
were replaced by new ones who never knew political parties other than the
DPJ. But, even in the 2017 election, it should be noted that more than a third
(36) of the MPs were from predecessor parties. As with the DPJ supporters,
their MPs have diverse backgrounds.

Table 20.2a Number of LDP incumbents by faction just before

lower house elections

2003 2005 2009 2012 2014 2017

Seiwa 26 45 54 14 56 54
Heisei 43 27 37 10 27 33
Kochi 37 38 45 12 27 27
Others 64 58 81 23 71 102
Non-affiliated 19 20 41 46 87 46
Total 189 188 258 105 268 262

Source: Kokkai Binran (Handbook on the National Diet)

 Japan 439

Table 20.2b Number of DPJ incumbents by intra-party group

just before lower house elections (DP since 2016)

2003 2005 2009 2012 2014 2017

Ex-JSP (SDP) 15 15 11 12 5 5
ex-DSP 11 11 4 5 2 2
ex-LDP 12 12 9 7 2 1
ex-JNP 14 14 5 9 5 4
ex-JIP 2 16
DPJ 50 103 72 159 39 58

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Others 20 19 11 17 6 8
Total 122 174 112 209 61 94

Source: Kokkai Binran (Handbook on the National Diet)

Policy Coherence and Its Determinants

As we have seen, there are several differences between the LDP and the DPJ in
terms of the scale and cohesiveness of party organization. This leads us to the
following questions: Do the organizational features affect the other dimen-
sions of party politics, say policy preference? How much policy variance is
there in the first place? It is important to remember that a majoritarian elec-
toral system gives a winning party extra seats to ensure that it can declare a
mandate from voters. To make its mandate clearer, it is a prerequisite that a
political party must attain policy coherence to some extent.
To answer the questions presented above, we analysed survey data on the
policy positions taken by the candidates for the national elections9 .

Policy coherence

By applying a factor analysis to the data for all candidates since 2003, we
found two dimensions: national security and social issues,10 and economic
issues. The policy items used are those which appear in all waves from 2003
to 2017. Then we calculated the factor scores for the MPs who belong to
the LDP and the DPJ (DP) (Figure 20.5a, 20.5b). Although the DP was dis-
solved just before the 2017 election, we treat successor parties as the DP for
the convenience of the reader. A higher score indicates a more hawkish and
conservative posture for the first dimension and a more fiscal interventionist
stance for the second.
The box plots in Figure 20.5a show that LDP MPs lean more toward a
hawkish and conservative position, while DPJ MPs position themselves just
440 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

(a)
3 3
National security and social issues

2 2

1 1

0 0

–1 –1

–2 –2

–3 –3
03 LDP 05 LDP 09 LDP 12 LDP 14 LDP 17 LDP 03 DPJ 05 DPJ 09 DPJ 12 DPJ 14 DPJ 17 DP

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

LDP incumbent DPJ/DP Incumbent

Figure 20.5a Distribution of policy positions on national security and social issues:
LDP and DPJ (DP since 2016)
Source: UTokyo-Asahi Survey

(b)
3 3

2 2
Economic issues

1 1

0 0

–1 –1

–2 –2

–3 –3
03 LDP 05 LDP 09 LDP 12 LDP 14 LDP 17 LDP 03 DPJ 05 DPJ 09 DPJ 12 DPJ 14 DPJ 17 DP

LDP incumbent DPJ/DP Incumbent

Figure 20.5b Distribution of policy positions on economic issues: LDP and DPJ (DP
since 2016)
Source: UTokyo-Asahi Survey

around the middle. When we look inside of each party, however, the policy
positions of the Democrats are more widely dispersed than those of the
Liberal Democrats.
Figure 20.5b displays the box plots generated for the second dimension.
The left-hand side shows the overall positions and inner variances of the
LDP. It reflects the tendency towards the neoliberal, market-oriented eco-
nomic policy advocated by the party leader in 2003 and 2005, as well as the
more expansionist turn after the financial crisis in 2009. It is interesting to
see that the DPJ follows almost the same pattern as the LDP, but the boxes
are posted in the lower half of the area. As in the case of national security and
social issues, the DPJ was incohesive. The blurred policy positions certainly
 Japan 441

discredited its electoral manifestos, making them something the voters could
not count on. To put it simply, the DPJ has not been well positioned in the
electoral contests since the 1994 political reforms.

Determinants of policy positions

Now we turn to the following questions about the determinants of policy

positions for each dimension. How much are the intra-party groups responsi-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ble for the policy dispersions? Is there a difference between the LDP factions
and the DPJ groups? To answer these questions, we specified multivariate
models and conducted statistical analyses.
Since the key variables here are the intra-party groups, we created fac-
tion dummies for the LDP and group dummies for the DPJ, respectively. We
coded the value as 1 for each faction member of Heisei, Kochi, the other fac-
tions, and independents, along with Seiwa as a reference group. In the same
manner, we allotted the numeric value 1 to the DPJ MPs who were first nom-
inated as candidates of the JSP, the DSP, the LDP, the JNP, the JIP and its
predecessor parties, and the other parties in order, defining the DPJ as a ref-
erence group. In addition, we input the gender and age of MPs, the number
of times elected, vote share, and district population density into the models
as control variables. We estimated the results by applying the ordinary least
squares method.
Taking a brief look at Figure 20.6, the coefficient confidence intervals (CI)
at 95% suggest that the effects of intra-party groups differ between the LDP
and the DPJ. In sum, the effects seem much larger in the case of the DPJ.
According to the left-hand side of Figure 20.6, all the LDP faction dum-
mies are statistically significant in 2003. This can be interpreted to mean
that the MPs who belong to Seiwa (the reference group) take more aggres-
sive postures than others, as is frequently alleged. However, it seems that the
difference between factions has waned over time. This simply reflects the cen-
tralization of power in the hands of LDP leadership. In the case of the DPJ,
the group dummies continue to exert more visible effects. Compared to the
MPs originally from the DPJ, the former JSPs are apparently dovish, while
those from other parties tend to be more hawkish.
So far as economic issues are concerned (the right-hand side of
Figure 20.6), it turns out that the estimated results of LDP MPs resem-
ble the case of national security and social issues: Heisei, Kochi, and the
other factions display statistically significant effects in 2003, and the factional
differences disappeared thereafter. In terms of policy orientation, they seem
442 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

LDP Heisei LDP Heisei

LDP Kochi LDP Kochi
LDP Others LDP Others
LDP Non-affiliated LDP Non-affiliated
2003

DPJ ex-JSP(SDP) DPJ ex-JSP(SDP)

DPJ ex-DSP DPJ ex-DSP
DPJ ex-LDP DPJ ex-LDP
DPJ ex-JNP DPJ ex-JNP

–4 –2 0 2 –4 –2 0 2

LDP Heisei LDP Heisei

LDP Kochi LDP Kochi
LDP Others LDP Others
LDP Non-affiliated LDP Non-affiliated
2005

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

DPJ ex-JSP(SDP) DPJ ex-JSP(SDP)
DPJ ex-DSP DPJ ex-DSP
DPJ ex-LDP DPJ ex-LDP
DPJ ex-JNP DPJ ex-JNP

–4 –2 0 2 –4 –2 0 2

LDP Heisei LDP Heisei

LDP Kochi LDP Kochi
LDP Others LDP Others
LDP Non-affiliated LDP Non-affiliated
2009

DPJ ex-JSP(SDP) DPJ ex-JSP(SDP)

DPJ ex-DSP DPJ ex-DSP
DPJ ex-LDP DPJ ex-LDP
DPJ ex-JNP DPJ ex-JNP
–4 –2 0 2 –4 –2 0 2

LDP Heisei
LDP Heisei LDP Kochi
LDP Kochi LDP Others
LDP Others LDP Non-affiliated
LDP Non-affiliated
2012

DPJ ex-JSP(SDP) DPJ ex-JSP(SDP)

DPJ ex-DSP DPJ ex-DSP
DPJ ex-LDP DPJ ex-LDP
DPJ ex-JNP DPJ ex-JNP
–4 –2 0 2 –4 –2 0 2

LDP Heisei LDP Heisei

LDP Kochi LDP Kochi
LDP Others LDP Others
LDP Non-affiliated LDP Non-affiliated
2014

DPJ ex-JSP(SDP) DPJ ex-JSP(SDP)

DPJ ex-DSP DPJ ex-DSP
DPJ ex-LDP DPJ ex-LDP
DPJ ex-JNP DPJ ex-JNP
DPJ ex-JIP DPJ ex-JIP

–4 –2 0 2 –4 –2 0 2

LDP Heisei LDP Heisei

LDP Kochi LDP Kochi
LDP Others LDP Others
LDP Non-affiliated LDP Non-affiliated
2017

DP ex-JSP(SDP) DP ex-JSP(SDP)
DP ex-LDP DP ex-LDP
DP ex-JNP DP ex-JNP
DP ex-JIP DP ex-JIP
–4 –2 0 2 –4 –2 0 2

Figure 20.6 Estimated effects of intra-party groups (confidence interval (CI) at 95%)
Source: UTokyo-Asahi Survey
 Japan 443

to be more expansionist. In the case of DPJ MPs, we still observe differences

between groups, but the effects seem much weaker: JSP origins no longer
distinguish those MPs from the MPs in the other groups in the realm of
economic policy. However, those who came from the LDP seemingly lean
toward limited government.

Conclusion

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Japanese democracy has yet to see a populist uprising, but the country is
not exempt from suffering the political crises, a silent crisis in this case,
that plague other countries around the world: the malfunctioning of party
politics.
Even though the 1994 political reforms were expected to change the LDP-
dominant system by merging opposition forces, it has failed again and again.
In this vein, the LDP-led coalition managed to hold on to power most of
the time without winning support from a majority of eligible voters. Despite
its success, Japanese party politics has suffered a loss of dynamism, which is
exemplified by decreasing voter turnout.11
In this chapter, we diagnosed the long-lasting rule of the LDP as being
enabled by its own success to adapt itself to the new electoral system as well
as the failure of the opposition camp to consolidate, as shown with the case
of the DPJ. In contrast to the LDP, the DPJ’s organization has been so small,
shallow, and divided that it has not been able to function as a safe haven for
aspiring politicians. The divergent paths that Japanese political parties have
followed underwrite the primary importance of party organization in party
politics.

Notes
1. Out of 7,586 asylum seekers, only 125 were given protection by Japanese authorities in
2015, in the midst of the migrant crisis in Europe. By contrast, the number of foreign
residents in Japan is 2.8 million as of 2020.
2. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 17H02481 and 18H00813.
3. The JSP changed its name to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1996.
4. Just before the 2017 lower house election, they decided to form the Party of Hope (POH).
The dissidents split and established the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP).
5. The LDP garnered support from only a quarter of all voters in the 2017 general elec-
tion (turnout rate (53.68%) multiplied by the party’s share of valid votes (47.82%)). Its
narrower, rather conservative support base chose to elect MPs whose composition was
444 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

heavily distorted by gender inequality: only one out of 10 LDP MPs was female as of
2021.
6. Krauss and Pekkanen (2011) insists that the changes in the LDP organization should be
understood as multi-faceted. The leadership was strengthened the most, the factions and
the decentralised decision-making were weakened somewhat, and the personal campaign
organization was affected modestly.
7. See also Poguntke and Webb (2005).
8. Apart from membership vote, there are almost no other measures usually categorised as
intra-party democracy.
9. The UTokyo-Asahi Survey is available courtesy of Professor Masaki Taniguchi and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The Asahi Shimbun Corporation. http://www.masaki.j.u-tokyo.ac.jp/utas/utasindex.
html (Accessed 19 December 2023).
10. It is not surprising to see that national security and social issues constitute a single dimen-
sion as Japanese conservatives have put less emphasis on post-war pacifism. The result of
a factor analysis will be provided on request.
11. Furthermore, the LDP-led coalition became less and less accountable to the public.
According to the World Press Freedom Index, for example, Japan fell in the ranks almost
continuously during 2000s. In 2021, the country was ranked 67th out of 180. The spon-
soring organization of the index, Reporters Without Borders (2022), heavily criticized
former PM Yoshihide Suga on the grounds that he ‘has done nothing to improve the
climate for press freedom’. This poses a real threat to Japanese liberal democracy.

References

Aldrich, John H. 1995. Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political
Parties in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Carey, John M. and Matthew S. Shugart. 1995. ‘Incentives to Cultivate a Personal
Vote: A Rank Ordering of Electoral Formulas’. Electoral Studies, 14(4):417–439.
Catalinac, Amy. 2016. Electoral Reform and National Security in Japan: From Pork
to Foreign Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 1995. ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and
Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’. Party Politics, 1(1):5–28.
Kitschelt, Herbert. 2000. ‘Linkages between Citizens and Politicians in Democratic
Polities’. Comparative Political Studies, 33(6/7):845–879.
Kohno, Masaru. 1997. Japan’s Postwar Party Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Krauss, Ellis S. and Benjamin Nyblade. 2005. ‘“Presidentialization” in Japan? The
Prime Minister, Media and Elections in Japan’. British Journal of Political Science,
35(2):357–368.
Krauss, Ellis S. and Robert J. Pekkanen. 2011. The Rise and Fall of Japan’s LDP: Polit-
ical Party Organizations as Historical Institutions. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press.
 Japan 445

Kushida, Kenji E. and Phillip Y. Lipscy (eds). 2013. Japan under the DPJ: The Politics
of Transformation and Governance. Stanford, CA: The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-
Pacific Research Center.
Maeda, Yukio and Hidenori Tsutsumi (eds). 2015. Tōchi no jyōken: Minshutō ni miru
seiken unnei to tōnai tōchi. Tokyo: Chikura Shobō
(Maeda, Yukio and Hidenori Tsutsumi (eds). 2015. Party Government and Party
Governance: The Case of the Democratic Party of Japan. Tokyo: Chikura Shobō).
Nakakita, Kōji. 2014. Jimintō seiji no henyō. Tokyo: NHK Shuppan
(Nakakita, Kōji. 2014. The Transformation of LDP politics. Tokyo: NHK Publishing,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Inc.).
Pempel, T. John. (ed.) 1990. Uncommon Democracies: The One-party Dominant
Regimes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Poguntke, Thomas and Paul D. Webb (eds). 2005. The Presidentialization of Pol-
itics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Poguntke, Thomas, Susan E. Scarrow, and Paul D. Webb. 2016. ‘Party Rules, Party
Resources and the Politics of Parliamentary Democracies: How Parties Organize
in the 21st Century’. Party Politics, 22(6):661–678.
Reporters Without Borders. 2022. Japan. Available at: https://rsf.org/en/country/
japan (Accessed 29 April 2022).
Satō, Seizaburō and Tetsuhias Matsuzaki. 1986. Jimintō seiken. Tokyo:
Chuō Kōronsha
(Satō, Seizaburō and Tetsuhias Matsuzaki. 1986. The LDP Government. Tokyo: Chuō
Kōronsha).
Scarrow, Susan E. 2015. Beyond Party Members: Changing Approaches to Partisan
Mobilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Takenaka, Harukata. 2021. ‘Expansion of the Japanese Prime Minister’s Power and
Transformation of Japanese Politics’. In Takeo Hoshi and Phillip Y. Lipscy (eds),
The Political Economy of the Abe Government and Abenomics Reforms. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 43–67.
Uchiyama, Yū. 2010. Koizumi and Japanese Politics: Reform Strategies and Leader-
ship Style. London: Routledge.
Uekami, Takayoshi. 2008. ‘Tōshu senshutukatei no minsyuka: jimintō to minshutō
no hikakukentō’. Nenpō Seijigaku, 59(1):220–240
(Uekami, Takayoshi. 2008. ‘The Democratisation of Party Leadership Selec-
tion in Japan’. The Annuals of Japanese Political Science Association, 59(1):
220–240).
Uekami, Takayoshi and Hidenori Tsutsumi. (eds). 2011. Minshutō no soshiki to
seisaku: Ketto kara seiken koutai made. Tokyo: Tōyō Keizai Shinpōsha
446 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

(Uekami, Takayoshi and Hidenori Tsutsumi (eds). 2011. Organization and Policies
of Democratic Party of Japan: From its Formation to Acquisition of Power. Tokyo:
Tōyō Keizai Shinpōsha).
Uekami, Takayoshi and Hidenori Tsutsumi. 2019. ‘Inverse Relationship between
Party Institutionalisation and Party System Competitiveness: The Transformation
of Postwar Japanese Party Politics’. In Robert Harmel and Lars G. Svåsand (eds),
Institutionalisation of Political Parties: Comparative Cases. London: Rowman &
Littlefield International, in partnership with ECPR Press, 111–131.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

21
The Challenges to Democracy in India
The Role of Political Parties

Eswaran Sridharan

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The Downgrading of Indiaʼs Democracy: The Freedom
House, Economist Intelligence Unit, and V-Dem Reports

India has been widely considered an example of the success of democracy

in the developing world. Since independence from Britain in 1947 and the
adoption of a liberal-democratic constitution in 1950 after three years of
debate in its Constituent Assembly, it has maintained itself as a democracy
with free and fair elections at regular intervals and the prevalence of the usual
democratic freedoms for its people. The only break in this regime of democ-
racy was the Emergency of 1975–1977, which itself was imposed under an
article of the constitution. Sustained democracy for over seven decades in a
country lacking what are frequently considered the correlates if not precon-
ditions of stable democracy (high income, mass literacy and education, and
urbanization following from industrial and economic development), as well
its large size combined with religious, linguistic, ethnic, cultural, and regional
diversity is generally considered an achievement.
However, there has been a perceived (both domestically, by opposition
parties and critics, and internationally) weakening of the quality of democ-
racy and of civil liberties in India since 2014, when the right-wing Hindu-
nationalist BharatiyaJanata Party (Indian People’s Party or BJP) came to
power with a majority of seats in the popularly elected Lok Sabha (Lower
House) of parliament, with a further decline since 2019 when the BJP was
re-elected with a larger majority. In 2021, three major international organiza-
tions that monitor the condition of democracy worldwide—Freedom House
(USA), the Economist Intelligence Unit (UK) and V-Dem (Sweden)—issued
reports that downgraded India’s ranking as a democracy and its rankings
on rights and liberties. The response of the BJP government to the reports

Eswaran Sridharan, The Challenges to Democracy in India. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Eswaran Sridharan (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0021
448 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

downgrading India’s democracy was dismissive or accused them of bias. This

chapter will discuss the challenges that liberal democracy in India faces in the
light of these reports and the role of political parties, principally that of the
ruling BJP but also that of opposition parties, several of which are in power
in many of India’s 28 states.
What do these reports say about the decline in the quality of democracy
in India? Let me lay this out before my analysis of what has been happening
and why, centred on the role of political parties. Freedom House, in its report
Freedom in the World 2021: Democracy Under Siege, downgraded India from

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

‘Free’ status to ‘Partly Free’ in 2020, its overall score slipping from 71/100 to
67/100. While its score on (formal) political rights remained relatively high
at 34/40, its score on civil liberties slipped to only 33/60. The key reasons
for downgrading are the treatment, in practice, of the Muslims and of dis-
senting groups and opinions. The key developments cited are the northeast
Delhi riots in February 2020 in which over 50 people, mostly Muslims, were
killed; the criminal charges filed against critics of the government includ-
ing journalists, students, and others under sedition laws as well as under the
Information Technology Act 2000 for expressions of protest against the new
citizenship laws that were felt to be discriminatory; and the acquittal by a
special court of BJP leaders who were ‘credibly accused’ of the demolition of
a historic mosque in 1992.
The report also noted that in 2019 the Election Commission of India’s
‘impartiality and competence were called into question’ as regards the ‘tim-
ing and phasing of national elections’ and ‘selective enforcement of the
Model Code of Conduct’ which ‘suggested bias toward the ruling BJP’ (Free-
dom House 2021: section A-3 for these quotes). It also noted the ‘opaque
financing of political parties—notably through electoral bonds that allow
donors to obscure their identities’ (Freedom House 2021: section B-1). Sig-
nificantly, it also noted attempts to dilute the independence of the Central
Information Commission. This body administers the Right to Information
Act 2005, which enables a large degree of government transparency for
citizens.
The report also noted attacks on the freedom of the media and how the
authorities have used ‘security, defamation, sedition and hate speech laws, as
well as contempt-of-court charges, to question critical voices in the media’, all
of which have ‘exacerbated self-censorship’ (Freedom House 2021: section D-
1). It also noted widespread instances of attacks against Muslims, including
lynching and criminalization, in many states, of conversions ‘that take place
as a result of “force” or “allurement”, which can be broadly interpreted to
prosecute proselytizers’. (Freedom House 2021: section D-2).
 The Challenges to Democracy in India 449

Freedom House also gave India a poor and declined rating in 2020 on inter-
net freedom (from 51/100 to 49/100) as well as communication privacy, and
noted the following:

• ‘The Indian government continued to impose frequent internet shut-

downs’.
• During the farmers’ protests, and during the second wave of the
COVID-19 pandemic, the government ordered social media platforms
to take down online content shared by journalists, opposition figures,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

and ordinary users that criticized the authorities (see section B-2).
• In February 2021, the government released the contentious Information
Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code)
Rules, regulating a broad swathe of social media companies, content
hosts, and digital media outlets. The rules include new content-removal
obligations, in-country representative and reporting requirements, mes-
sage traceability mandates, and new data-retention rules. Several legal
challenges against the measures were filed by the end of the coverage
period (see sections B3, B6, C4, and C6).
• New reports from civil society groups and a consortium of news outlets
found more evidence that the government has access to and deploys
sophisticated spyware technology like the NSO Group’s Pegasus and
NetWire, including against activists, journalists, lawyers, and opposition
figures.

The report also noted that civil society organizations, particularly those
involved in the investigation of human rights abuses, continue to face threats,
legal harassment, excessive police force, and occasionally lethal violence’
(Freedom House 2021: section E-2) and how the Foreign Contribution
Regulation Act (FCRA) has been amended to target non-governmental orga-
nizations (NGOs) perceived to be political opponents, including the shutting
down of the operations of Amnesty International. The report also noted that
while the judiciary is formally independent, the courts have shown increas-
ing signs of politicization in favour of the ruling BJP, including due process
rights that have not been consistently upheld.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), in its report Democracy Index 2020
(EIU 2021), also downgrades India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
from 2014 to 2020, from a historic high score of 7.92 in 2014 to 6.61 in 2020,
which should be seen as part of a general downward slide in the quality of
democracy worldwide since 2006. India is downgraded to a ‘Flawed Democ-
racy’ in 2020 from a ‘Full Democracy’ earlier, its global ranking falling from
450 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

27th in 2014 to 53rd in 2020. The report noted ‘the increasing influence of
religion under the Modi premiership, whose policies have fomented anti-
Muslim feeling and religious strife, has damaged the political fabric of the
country’, also noting the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 ‘undermining
the secular basis of the Indian state’ and the Delhi riots in February 2020, as
well as a general erosion of civil liberties, including the way the corona virus
pandemic was handled (EIU 2021: 31). According to the EIU report, India’s
slide in rank and type to ‘Flawed Democracy’ was primarily due to its sharp
decline in political culture and civil liberties while maintaining a high rank

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

in electoral process and pluralism (free and fair multi-party elections).
The V-Dem report for 2020 downgrades India sharply from an electoral
democracy to an electoral autocracy (V-Dem Institute 2021). India is among
the top 10 decliners in democratic status. It has fallen to the status of an elec-
toral autocracy, down from electoral democracy, liberal democracy being the
highest category. India, according to V-Dem, has followed the ‘typical pattern
for countries in the “Third Wave” over the past ten years, a gradual deteriora-
tion where freedom of the media, academia, and civil society were curtailed
first and to the greatest extent’ (Pillai and Lindberg 2021: 20). India’s score
on liberal democracy fell from 0.57 (on a 0 to 1 scale) in 2013, just before
the BJP government, to 0.34 by the end of 2020, a 23% drop on the Liberal
Democracy Index scale, ‘making it one of the most dramatic shifts among
all countries in the world over the past 10 years’ (Pillai and Lindberg 2021:
20). Apart from the deterioration of freedom for the media, academia and
civil society, in effect for dissent, which have gone ‘the farthest’, the report
also notes the decline in autonomy of the election management body (Pillai
and Lindberg 2021: 20). It notes that the laws on sedition, defamation, and
counter-terrorism have been used to silence critics, that more than 7,000 peo-
ple have been charged with sedition sincethe BJP assumed power, and that
most of the accused are critics of the ruling party. It also notes the use of the
Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) to silence critics and the discrim-
inatory amendments to the citizenship laws in 2019, as well as pressure on
civil society organizations by way of the amended FCRA in 2020.

The Laws and Agencies Whose Perceived Misuse Led

to Democratic Decline

I largely agree with the three reports on the decline in the quality of India’s
democracy, although I would not go as far as V-Dem in classifying it as
an electoral autocracy. The BJP has lost state elections in major states in
 The Challenges to Democracy in India 451

India’s federal system despite campaigns led by Modi and the BJP top brass.
However, while it is still a democracy, I would agree with considering it
an electoral democracy or an illiberal democracy rather than still a liberal
democracy. In the next few paragraphs I will outline the laws which have
been used to weaken civil liberties and give the government intrusive powers
that threaten traditional constitutional freedoms. After that, I will give a brief
recapitulation of the evolution of the Indian political and party system and
the types of political parties to set the context for a discussion of the decline
of the quality of democracy since 2014, the ideology and strategy of the BJP

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

and its possible clash with India’s liberal-democratic constitution, and the
prospects for the future.
The key laws that have been used by the BJP to try to control dissent and
protests are the following: the colonial-era ‘sedition law’ or Section 124A of
the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as well as Sections 153A, 295A, and 505 of
the IPC, which are provisions of the IPC meant to check hate speech and
other activities that can lead to violence; the preventive detention and anti-
terror law, the UAPA (1967, amended 2019); the counter-terrorist National
Investigation Agency (Amendment) Act (2008, amended 2019), which per-
mits investigation and arrest of people involved in (broadly defined) activities
that affect the sovereignty, security, and integrity of India; and most recently
the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media
Ethics Code) Rules 2021 of 25February2021, which regulate not only inter-
national social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp but also online
news portals despite the difference in their nature, the latter being the online
equivalent of the printed newspapers.
Taken in combination with the opaque electoral bonds system of con-
tributions to political parties in effect since 2018, which greatly advan-
tages the ruling party, and the state’s regulation of foreign donations to
NGOs, including human rights organizations, by way of the FCRA law,
amended again in 2020, the ruling party—if it wants to—can exercise con-
siderable pressure on the media, as well as by the major role that govern-
ment advertising plays. Furthermore, it can also exert pressure through the
arrest of dissidents, protestors, and minorities. The agencies used to con-
duct raids, investigations, and arrests are the police (controlled in India by
the states, not the central government), and central government agencies
like the Income Tax Department, the (tax-investigative) Enforcement Direc-
torate, the (counter-terrorism) National Investigation Agency (NIA), and the
(criminal-investigative) Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
A brief account of the electoral bonds system of party finance is appropri-
ate here. Electoral bonds are time-limited bearer bonds that corporations can
452 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

purchase from the government-owned State Bank of India and subsequently

transfer to a political party’s registered bank account. The fund flow proceeds
entirely through the formal banking system, allowing for a step-by-step paper
trail. However, the identity of the corporation purchasing the bond are not
publicly revealed (although, since the transaction is taking place via the bank-
ing system, the government and ruling party presumably would have access
to this information). When the corporation deposits these bonds into a spe-
cially designated bank account of a registered party, the party would know
who the donor is, but neither the party nor the corporation is required to dis-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

close this information. The upside to the new scheme is that corporations will
now have a legitimate channel through which they can contribute funds to
parties while protecting their anonymity, as opposed to indulging in under-
the-table transactions. But the upside is also the downside: transparency, as
far as the public is concerned, is arguably the biggest victim of this system; this
is ironic considering the government explicitly framed the proposal under the
heading of improving ‘transparency in political funding’. Taking into account
the elimination of the cap on corporate donations that existed before elec-
toral bonds, the dropping of the requirement that firms disclose political
donations on their financial statements, and the introduction of electoral
bonds, corporations can give and parties can receive unlimited sums with-
out the disclosure of identities and amounts. Corporations have good reason
for wanting to donate anonymously: given the discretionary authorities that
are vested with the state, any firm that publicly donates funds to one politi-
cal party fears retribution if a competing party comes to power. Statistics on
aggregate electoral bond donations, without donor identities and amounts,
reveal that the overwhelming share, over 55%, of electoral bonds went to
the ruling BJP. In a highly regulated political economy, there is no incen-
tive to donate transparently to parties simply to support democracy without
a quid pro quo. In a poor country with a regulated economy, the problem
of donor self-interest militates against the achievement of full transparency
unless some system of adequate public funding is put in place. However, this
system requires internal democracy and accountability in parties, something
that most parties are loath to consider. In fact, it is widely believed, though it
cannot be proven, that the electoral bonds scheme is a political masterstroke
that allows the ruling party to receive vast sums anonymously and legally,
including what would otherwise have been considered corrupt payments
for government contracts and regulatory favours, while at the same time
claiming that the corruption associated with earlier governments is being
eliminated.
 The Challenges to Democracy in India 453

These laws and agencies allow a ruling party, whichever it might be, to
threaten dissenters and critics and infringe on civil liberties if it wants to. To
be fair to the BJP, it should be noted that it was not under BJP majority rule
that these laws or agencies were created. Some of them date back to the colo-
nial era, and the others were enacted in the years of the relatively liberal and
secular regime of the Congress party. Their misuse is enabled by their sweep-
ing wording, but it is not inevitable. For example, between 2011 and 2014,
when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was
voted out, the bulk of the press and most TV channels turned vocally against

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the ruling party, which was put on the defensive without it using any of these
provisions to intimidate or attempt to control the media. What came after
the Modi government assumed power in 2014 were the 2019 amendments
to the UAPA and NIA Acts; the new Information Technology Rules of 2021
that regulate digital media; the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) of 2019,
which fast-tracks only non-Muslim illegal migrants from Bangladesh, Pak-
istan, and Afghanistan; the abolition of the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir
state, India’s only Muslim-majority state, by abolishing Art. 370 of the con-
stitution which gave it such autonomy; and the accompanying suspension of
normal politics and media, telephone, and internet communications freedom
since August 2019. The CAA is discriminatory in that it links citizenship to
religion, fast-tracking only non-Muslim immigrants from the three countries
for citizenship on the grounds that non-Muslims are persecuted minorities in
these three Muslim-majority and formally Islamic states. However, the gov-
ernment does not address the question of the arbitrary selection of countries,
ignoring other neighbours such as Sri Lanka or Myanmar, which persecute
ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities, including Muslims. Furthermore,
what has happened in terms of the stepped-up use of the sedition and other
preventive arrest laws since 2014 has opened the eyes of many to the pos-
sibility of their misuse. It needs to be noted that the three hate speech and
incitement prevention laws (Sections 153A, 295A, and 505 of the IPC) have
been used selectively; hate speech including incitement to violence against
minorities, including by politicians, has not been seriously acted against. The
Supreme Court has not yet pronounced on the constitutionality of the CAA
despite a raft of petitions against it.
This brings us to the role of political parties—more specifically, to the role
of the BJP, its ideology and strategy, and the leadership style of Modi. Is a
decline in the quality of democracy inevitable under the rule of such a party
or leader if they command a majority? Or is a moderate form of BJP rule pos-
sible if its political strategy and ideology are modified? Before coming to the
454 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

BJP, and to the role of the long-hegemonic Congress party under whose gov-
ernments many of the above laws and agencies were created, a brief account
of the nature and evolution of the Indian political system and the types and
nature of political parties is necessary as background.

The Indian Political System in its Basics

On gaining its independence in 1947, India adopted a liberal-democratic,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

parliamentary, and federal framework of government in the form of the
Indian constitution, which was adopted on 23 January 1950.1 India’s constitu-
tion defines it as a union of states—that is, an implicitly federal arrangement
without using the word ‘federalism’. It is a parliamentary system with a cer-
emonial president and vice-president, with real power in the hands of the
prime minister and cabinet, drawn from either house of parliament. The Lok
Sabha, or popularly elected lower house, is the more powerful chamber, com-
pared to the Rajya Sabha, or upper house, which consists of members elected
by proportional representation from the state legislatures. However, unlike
the US Senate but like the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha’s membershipis more
or less proportional to the population. Legislation needs to pass both houses
by a simple majority, with the Rajya Sabha only able to delay but not block
money bills if passed again by the Lok Sabha. Constitutional amendments
require a two-thirds majority of those present, and voting in both houses is
subject to a simple majority of the total membership of each house. Some
articles affecting centre–state relations require a simple majority in half the
state assemblies. And the final guardian of the constitution is the judiciary,
a pyramidal structure with the Supreme Court at its apex, which is indepen-
dent of the other two branches and has the power of judicial review—that is,
it can strike down legislation that it views to be unconstitutional.
At the level of India’s now 28 states (not to speak of the eight Union territo-
ries directly governed by the centre), the parliamentary system is reproduced.
There is a governor appointed by the president, and the government is
headed by the chief minister and cabinet, drawn from the majority party or
coalition in the state assembly. Most states have unicameral legislatures, with
some having an upper house.
The executive consists, apart from a council of ministers drawn from par-
liament, of a permanent civil service or bureaucracy recruited by competitive
examinations. The All India Services comprise the Indian Administrative
Service, a follow-on of the colonial Indian Civil Service; the Indian Police Ser-
vice;and the Indian Forest Service. Staff in these services are recruited by the
 The Challenges to Democracy in India 455

central government but are allotted to state governments, under whom they
serve for a large part of their careers, alternating between state and central
governments. There are also the Indian Foreign Service and various cen-
tral services like the tax collection services, the audit and accounts service,
the postal services, the railway services, and others, whose officers can be
transferred around the country.
India’s constitution was revolutionary given that despite the country’s
deeply unequal and hierarchical society—largely rural, agrarian, illiterate,
and poor—India adopted a universal adult franchise, something that had

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

come into being only in stages and over centuries in most Western democra-
cies. It assured citizens of a set of fundamental rights, including the usual
democratic freedoms of speech, expression, conscience, religion, and so
forth, and the right to equality and non-discrimination before the law. Cit-
izenship, and by extension rights, was based on birth in India or to Indian
parents and not on blood, race, ethnicity, religion, language, or culture.

Political Parties

We now turn to a brief overview of the main players in the Indian politi-
cal landscape (for more detailed accounts, see Sridharan and Varshney 2001;
Sridharan 2002, 2010, 2014a, 2014b; Gowda and Sridharan 2007, all of
which this and the following sections draw on). Historically, Congress dom-
inated the party landscape, building on its legacy as the all-encompassing
movement that led India’s struggle for independence from the British. Post-
independence, Congress won seven of the first eight general elections from
1952 to 1984, except 1977, and has governed India for 54 of 74 years. It had an
unbroken domination for the first 30 years of free India and won pluralities
of the vote of 40% and above against a fragmented and regionalized opposi-
tion. Even since 1989 it has remained the single largest party by vote share,
though not seats, in each of the seven elections from 1989 to 2014, losing
that status in 2014 and 2019. Congress is a secular party that believes in a lin-
guistically and culturally diverse notion of Indian nationhood and remains
broadly acceptable to all segments of the population.
There are four other major categories of parties (though these groups of
parties do not necessarily constitute a coalition, by any means). These are,
first, the Hindu-nationalist parties (the BJP and the Shiv Sena); second, the
communist parties, also termed the Left Front (including the Communist
Party of India Marxist [CPI(M)] and the Communist Party of India [CPI]),
and the various Communist Party of India [Marxist-Leninist] splinters);
456 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

third, the agrarian/middle and lower-caste populist parties (the Janata Party,
the Janata Dal, and its offshoots like the Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata
Dal, Rashtriya Lok Dal, Biju Janata Dal, Janata Dal [Secular], and Janata
Dal [United]); and fourth, the ethno-regional or ethnic parties based on
particular regional linguistic groups or lower-caste blocs or tribes (in the
north-eastern states in particular). Let me now outline the four phases of
evolution of the party system up to the present before discussing the role
of political parties in the current state of India’s democracy.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The evolution of the party system in four phases

Congress hegemony, 1952–1967

The period of uncontested Congress hegemony from 1952–1967, coinciding
largely with the prime ministership of Jawaharlal Nehru (1947–1964), was
characterized by a single party winning a two-thirds majority of seats in the
Lok Sabha (the Lower House) in 1952, 1957, and 1962. In each of these elec-
tions, Congress prevailed with a plurality of votes (45–48%) against a divided
opposition, with opposition parties having mainly state-specific bases in a few
states each. Along with these parliamentary elections, state assembly elections
were mostly held concurrently in these three election years. Thus, Congress
formed majority governments in almost all states during 1952–1967 against a
divided opposition that varied state by state, with a few exceptions. This was
so particularly after the reorganization of states on linguistic lines in 1956,
with Congress winning not just a plurality, but a majority of votes in some
state assemblies.

Eroding Congress hegemony, 1967–1989

The pattern of hegemony began to change with the 1967 election. Through-
out this period, Congress faced growing challenges in more and more states
as well as at the parliamentary level until the 1989 election, which marked
the inauguration of the next phase. In 1967, Congress plummeted to a his-
toric low of 41% of the votes and a bare majority of seats in the Lok Sabha,
in the process losing 8 of the then 16 major states. At the parliamentary level,
Congress continued to win majorities of seats based on pluralities of the vote
as they had during the previous period, right up to and including 1984. Grad-
ually, however, several trends began to erode Congress dominance. Most
importantly, from 1967 onwards a Duvergerian dynamic gained momentum
in state after state, creating a principal opposition party to Congress in more
and more states as against a fragmented field, for both state assembly and
 The Challenges to Democracy in India 457

Lok Sabha elections. This has been called the bi-polarization of state party
systems for both assembly and parliamentary elections, but it is a system
of multiple bi-polarities, not the same two parties in each state. That is, the
bipolar consolidations state-wise were between Congress and several vary-
ing opposition parties, for example, Congress vs Left, Congress vs. Bharatiya
Jana Sangh (BJS, formed in 1951, the precursor of the BJP, which was formed
in 1980), and Congress vs a regional party, each in some states. With these
trends the Index of Opposition Unity, or the fraction constituted by the lead-
ing opposition party of the opposition vote as a whole, rose in state after state

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

during this period. The oppositions began to coalesce.
By 1989, Congress retained its dominance only in the seven major states
of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and
Odisha. In these states, no single opposition party was strong enough to form
a bipolar party system.
As Table 21.1 shows, the effective number of electoral parties rose from
a low of 3.98 (1957) to a high of 7.11 (1996), indicating Congress decline
and opposition rise before falling to a still fairly high 5.42 (2019). The effec-
tive number of parliamentary parties rose from a Congress-hegemonic 1.80

Table 21.1 India: Core party system indicators

ENEP ENPP Turnout (%)

1952 4.53 1.80 45.40

1957 3.98 1.83 45.97
1962 4.40 1.85 55.76
1967 5.19 3.16 61.33
1971 4.63 2.12 55.27
1977 3.40 2.63 60.53
1980 4.25 2.17 57.00
1984 3.98 1.69 64.11
1989 4.80 4.12 61.95
1991 5.15 3.62 55.88
1996 7.11 5.83 57.94
1998 6.91 5.28 61.97
1999 6.74 5.87 59.99
2004 7.56 6.53 58.07
2009 7.74 5.01 58.21
2014 6.97 3.45 66.44
2019 5.42 3.04 67.40

Note: ENEP—effective number of electoral

parties;ENPP—effective number of parliamentary parties;
Turnout as share of all registered voters
Source: CSDS (2022); Turnout: IDEA (2022)
458 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

(1952) to 5.83 (1996) to 6.53 (2004), the latter two elections marking high
points in the era of coalition and/or minority governments (1989–2014),
before declining to 3.04 (2019) when the BJP returned with an enhanced
majority. Voter participation increased fairly steadily, from 45.4% (1952) to
62% (1998), before slightly dipping and then rising again to an all-time high
of 67.4% (2019).

The coalition and/or minority government phase, 1989–2014: Three

megatrends

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

In these 25 years, the Indian party system transitioned from a one-party
(Congress)-dominant system to a multi-party system characterized by coali-
tion and/or minority governments. Three megatrends characterized this
phase. First, the Congress vote share steadily declined from 39.6% (1989) to
25.8% (1998) before recovering marginally to 28.6% in 2009 and then plung-
ing to 19.6% (2014) and 19.7% (2019). However, from 1989 to 2009 Congress
remained the single largest party by vote share, although it lost that position
in seats to the BJP in 1996, 1998, and 1999 before losing it decisively in 2014
and 2019 when the BJP won a majority on its own. Over this 25-year period,
the loss of 20 percentage points in Congress vote share was filled by other
parties, primarily the BJP but also some regional parties.
Second, the BJP’s share of the national vote rose from 11% in 1989 (the
first time it had ever crossed the 10% mark, aided by pre-electoral alliances
with the Janata Dal throughout northern, central, and western India) to 31%
in 2014, gaining exactly the 20% that Congress lost. It came within a whisker
of the Congress vote share in 1998 (25.2% compared to 25.8%) but remained
the second-largest party in vote share until 2014 and 2019 (37.4%). However,
due to the relative geographical concentration of its votes in northern, central,
and western India during these decades compared to Congress, the BJP was
able to convert votes into seats more effectively, winning the largest numbers
of seats in 1996, 1998, 1999, 2014, and 2019.
Third, the broad non-Congress and non-BJP share of votes remained in
the range of 44% to 52% over 1989 to 2014, with the Left parties stagnant or
declining while regional parties on the whole increased slightly, particularly
the regional parties of northern, eastern, and western India. Regional parties
are almost all, apart from the Left, in effect single-state parties, i.e. not parties
that have a base in two or more states in a region. A number of regional parties
grew and consolidated themselves in a number of states, some with specific
sub-state geographical bases, during these 25 years, which adversely affected
Congress more than the BJP. Some were breakaway factions of Congress, and
some were parties that were offshoots of the original Janata Dal formed by
 The Challenges to Democracy in India 459

Prime Minister V. P. Singh after the fall of his government in 1990. Some were
the older regional parties that rose to prominence during1967–1989, such as
those of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Assam. Most of them had formed
governments in their states at least onceduring1989–2014.

The emergence of the fourth party system: Reconsolidation under BJP

dominance, 2014 to the present
The key to the BJP emerging as the dominant pole in the party system in
2014 was the huge swing of 12 percentage points in its favour (from 19%

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

in 2009 to 31% in 2014), which coincided with a 9 percentage points swing
against Congress (from 28% to 19%), combined with fact that the BJP vote
share was disproportionately concentrated in the states of northern, central,
and western India. This concentration gave the BJP a high conversion ratio
of votes into seats, which at 1.65 was the highest in Indian parliamentary-
electoral history. The BJP received 52% of the seats for just 31% of the vote.
By contrast, the Congress vote share dropped below 20% for the first time
in its history, and the party plunged to its lowest-ever seat total (44 seats or
8% seat share). The BJP won 88% (166 out of 189) of direct BJP-Congress
face-offs. In 2019 the BJP repeated this performance and pattern of victory,
increasing its vote share to 37% and its number of seats from 282 to 303 (or
52% to 56% seat share). Congress retained its 19% vote share, increasing its
seats marginally from 44 to 52 but still falling below the 10% seat share mark.
Arguably, a combination of contingent and structural factors explains these
results. The contingent factors were the economic slowdown since about
2011 (despite India riding out the global downturn of 2008) and rising
inflation before the 2014 election, further combined with credible allega-
tions of massive corruption against the Congress-led UPA government from
2011(to which Congress was unable to mount a credible defence). The anti-
corruption movement led to the formation of a new party, the Aam Aadmi
Party (Common Man’s Party), but the BJP partly rode on this movement
and was able to leverage it. Additionally, the BJP was able to project Modi, its
prime ministerial candidate, as an effective leader who had delivered growth
and development in Gujarat, where he was then a third-term chief minister.
However, the underlying structural factor was the BJP’s consolidation of
power as the leading or second party in a large number of states during 1989
to 2014; this was the key factor that catapulted the BJP to power in 2014.
It had multi-term governments in several of these states even though it had
only been able to form state governments on its own for the first time as late
as 1990. Survey data indicate that the electorate often rewards incumbent
parties at the state level for growth and development, often finding it difficult
460 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

to identify and credit the level of government, central or state, for economic
outcomes.

The BJP

Among these non-Congress parties, the BJP, in power since 2014 with a
majority, merits some discussion. The BJP is among the most ideological
parties of India. It was founded in 1980, but its precursor the BJS, sharing

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the same ideology and personnel, was founded in 1951. Its ideology, known
as Hindutva (‘Hindu-ness’ is the closest translation, Hindu nationalism the
closest description), is controversial in India. The roots of Hindu nation-
alism go back to the 1920s. The term Hindu is further specified by Hindu
nationalists. V. D.Savarkar, the ideological father of Hindu nationalism, gave
a definition in Hindutva, the classic text of Hindu nationalism: ‘A Hindu
means a person who regards this land from the Indus to the Seas as his father-
land (pitribhumi) as well as his Holyland (punyabhumi)’ (Savarkar 1989: title
page, elaborated further in 110–113). The definition is not just territorial but
genealogical (‘fatherland’) and religious (‘holyland’). Hindus, Sikhs, Jains,
and Buddhists can be part of this definition for they meet both criteria. All
of these religions were born in India. Christians, Jews, Parsis, and Muslims
can meet only one, for India is not their holy land. The Hindu national-
ists, therefore, have identified Muslims and Christians, now 14% and 2% of
the population, respectively, as their adversaries. Historically, their anger has
been principally directed at Muslims—partly because of their numbers, and
partly because a Muslim homeland in the form of Pakistan partitioned India
in 1947, though the anti-Muslim animus dates back at least to the 1920s.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, or National Volunteers Orga-
nization) is the organizational core of the BJP. Founded in 1925, the RSS
says it is a social and cultural organization that aims to transform India in a
Hindu direction. It recruits at a young age, mostly in urban areas, and holds
daily meetings of branches to train its recruits in ideology, culture, and self-
defence. Highly disciplined, the cadres tend typically to develop a lifelong
commitment to the ideology. Most, though not all, of BJP’s leaders have come
from an RSS background; in recent years many have come from other parties.
The RSS has spawned dozens of offshoots that remain linked to it, operating
in various spheres, including the Bajrang Dal, a private army of stormtroop-
ers that has engaged in violence against Muslims on many occasions; why
such a private force is necessary and what it says about respect for the law
and faith in the police force of elected governments is unclear.
 The Challenges to Democracy in India 461

The BJP positions itself as a nationalist party. However, this is a particular

type of nationalism that is distinct from the Indian nationalism represented
by Congress and the independence movement and that is implicit in the
constitution. The latter nationalism was inclusive in that it conceptualized
India as a country of all born there (citizenship based on birth, not descent
or religion), with equal rights as well as certain protections forminorities.
The BJP’s nationalism, explicitly or implicitly, is Hindu majoritarian. Unlike
conservative parties in the Western world, the BJP does not primarily posi-
tion itself as a free-enterprise and free-market-oriented party opposed to

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

state ownership and regulation of the economy; it has been in favour of
domestic deregulation but not clearly of trade liberalization and globaliza-
tion. In fact, from 2013 to 2018, India’s average tariffs crept up from 13
to 18%, a much higher level of protection than that of most of the devel-
oped and developing world. However, the BJP has carried out domestic
deregulatory and market-oriented reforms, including easing the exit of loss-
making companies through the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code instead of
bailouts through the largely state-owned banking system; liberalization of
labour laws; and, in late 2020, deregulation of agricultural markets. In early
2021 it announced large-scale privatization as a strategic policy initiative.
And it has liberalized inward foreign investment as well as private-sector
entry into hitherto state-dominated areas like defence manufacturing and
insurance.
The BJP’s social base, which was limited until the 1980s to the urban areas,
upper castes, and middle classes in north India, has expanded greatly over
the past three decades in parallel with the decline of the umbrella party that
Congress was. The gradual decline of Congress—as large parts of its once-
encompassing social base shifted in slow motion after 1967, accelerated in the
1990s, to regional or lower-caste-based parties in various states—benefited
both the BJP and regional parties. In response partly to the rise of Hindu-
nationalist ideology and partly as a backlash to public-sector job quotas for
lower castes introduced in 1990, the upper-caste base of Congress shifted
significantly to the BJP; lower castes, especially in north India, moved to
lower-caste-based parties due to ethnic (caste) outbidding, as did Muslims,
who saw these parties as better shields against the rise of the BJP (for a more
detailed account of Congress decline see Farooqui and Sridharan 2016).
Later, segments of the lower castes also gravitated to the BJP in response
to the Hindu-nationalist ideology as well as perceived regional party fail-
ures, local caste coalitions, and, since 2014, the Modi leadership factor. The
BJP, for these and other reasons too complex to discuss here, also expanded
geographically to several states of eastern and southern India, becoming a
462 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

broad-based umbrella party of Hindus across caste divides but generally

excluding Muslims.
This trend was accompanied by the emergence of a new, aspirational mid-
dle class, particularly a disproportionately young lower middle class, from
the 140 million who were lifted out of extreme poverty during 2004–2014
by a combination of high growth and welfare policies. In 2014, the middle
classes voted disproportionately for the BJP, which had successfully painted
Congress as inherently corrupt based on the exposure of some scandals (Srid-
haran 2014b). Whether in future a growth-driven reduction of poverty and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

expansion of the middle classes will form a structural support base for the BJP
remains to be seen, but this factor was at play in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
How well does the BJP fit the model of right-wing populism that is used
to describe a range of such parties around the world, many of which are in
power? Mudde has argued that right-wing populism is characterized by three
features (Mudde 2007): first, an anti-elitism that is in particular opposed
to established elites associated with liberal position; second, a tendency
towards authoritarianism or the semi-authoritarianism of purely electoral,
illiberal democracies; and third, a majoritarian hostility towards minorities
and immigrants. Mudde argues that it is the reference to the will of the people
prevailing which results in semi-authoritarian tendencies. The BJP appears
to fit all three. It is openly hostile to the ‘old’ Congress elite associated with
Nehruvian secularism and liberalism and portrays their position as pan-
dering to minorities. It has semi-authoritarian tendencies as noted above,
in that it has systematically sought to capture the institutions of horizontal
accountability or undermine their autonomy, and it has used government
agencies such as the Central Bureau of Investigation, the National Investi-
gation Agency, and the Enforcement Directorate as well as the Income Tax
Department to hound opposition politicians and dissenters in general. It has
tried to dilute the Right to Information Act 2005 by reducing the auton-
omy of the Central Information Commission that administers that law. It has
amended the FCRA to put pressure on foreign-funded NGOs, particularly
those that are critical of the government, such as human rights organizations
(e.g. Amnesty International). And it is viscerally hostile to Muslims, with a
history of on-the-record, anti-Muslim statements by leaders of the BJP and
RSS from top to bottom, too numerous to list. However, unlike the right-wing
populism around the world of the past decade, the BJP’s ideological position-
ing is not a fallout of the 2008 global financial crisis and the anti-globalization
that it led to but goes back to the 1920s, well before India’s independence and
the partition into two states of India and Pakistan. The BJP’s ideology was a
fairly minor ideological current until recently, but its roots go very deep and
 The Challenges to Democracy in India 463

are complexly associated with a resentment against Muslims that is to a signif-

icant extent derived from the fact of Muslim political and cultural dominance
in large swathes of India for several centuries before the British rule.

The Ideologies and Electoral Strategies of the Modi-led

BJP, and the Quality of Democracy

The BJP, after winning with a majority in 2014 and again in 2019, has become

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

more ideological in its policies as regards Hindu nationalism and minorities,
particularly Muslims. It has kept on its agenda three policy positions that it
had shelved during the long period of coalition and minority governments
from 1996 to 2014, particularly after it formed minority coalition govern-
ments in 1998–1999 and in 1999–2004. These were the building of a temple
to the Hindu god Rama at the site of the Babri Mosque, demolished by a BJP-
mobilized mob in 1992; the abolition of Art. 370 of the constitution that gave
special autonomy to India’s only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kash-
mir; and the promulgation of a Uniform Civil Code which would abolish
Muslim personal law, among other things. After the BJP came to power again
in 2019, the Supreme Court in a controversial judgement allowed the con-
struction of the temple subject to some observations and conditions. The BJP
government abolished Art. 370 in August 2019, and normal politics and elec-
toral processes have been in suspension in Jammu and Kashmir since then,
accompanied by harsh repressive measures including arrest of top political
leaders, internet shutdowns, and the like.
Speaking more broadly, the hardened Hindu-nationalist ideology isolates
and targets Muslims, against whom there have been numerous incidents of
violence since 2014 but no major riots except the Delhi riots of 2020. As
a deliberate electoral strategy, the BJP has sought to create an anti-Muslim
groundswell such that voters will vote for it as the party that will save and
strengthen the country against a nefarious Islamic or Islamist threat, includ-
ing from neighbouring Pakistan, as against secular parties that are portrayed
as pandering to Muslim voters.
Along with this ideological hardening, the BJP has since at least 2017 con-
sciously sought to split other parties and attract defectors from them towards
itself, including office bearers, significant leaders, and sitting legislators in
both state assemblies and parliament. This strategy has had considerable suc-
cess, particularly at the state level. The BJP in 2017 managed to form the state
governments in Goa and Manipur despite not having a majority (indeed,
Congress was the largest party in Manipur) with the help of crossovers from
464 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

other parties. The same was achieved in the major state of Karnataka, ruled by
a Congress coalition in 2019, and in another major state, Madhya Pradesh,
ruled by Congress in 2020. Attempts at engineering crossovers from other
parties were successful in West Bengal in 2021 although the BJP lost the elec-
tion. Expansion of its footprint by engineering defections from other parties
has become a mainstream strategy in the BJP.
The modus operandi for this appears to be the systematic use of tax-
enforcement agencies, particularly the Enforcement Directorate, to raid
opposition politicians and then strike secret deals for defection to the BJP.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

None of this can be concretely proven given the secret nature of the opera-
tions and negotiations, but this is widely thought to be the case.
The above two phenomena—hardened anti-minority ideology and
attempts to split other parties—in combination since 2014 and especially
since 2017 would appear to explain a great deal of the misuse of sedition and
other sweepingly worded repressive laws, as well as that of certain federal
agencies. This has led to the attendant decline in the quality of democracy,
the liberal part of liberal democracy being eroded.

Conclusion

Is all this inevitable in a majority BJP government, or is it Modi-specific?

This is a difficult, because speculative, question to answer. While it is possi-
ble to imagine a softer form of a Hindu-nationalist government such as the
one that ruled, albeit as a minority government, from 1999 to 2004 (although
that period also saw the major Gujarat riots under the chief ministership of
Modi in 2002), there appears to be a strong affinity between hard-line Hindu-
nationalist ideology, an electoral strategy of isolating Muslims, and splitting
other parties on the one hand, and on the other hand generalized use of
the aforementioned repressive laws, not only aimed at minorities but also
attempting to control dissent and protest in general.
A restoration of liberal democracy is unlikely as long as the opposition
parties are divided and the BJP, which enjoys a 37% vote share (2019),
is able to revive the economy post-pandemic, and is seen to bedelivering
the goods without a credible national electoral challenger. However, India’s
federal system will continue to constitute a safeguard against further dete-
rioration to an electoral autocracy as 12 states, including many large ones,
are ruled by opposition parties. Even if the opposition wins at some future
point, liberal democracy can be entrenched only if the sweepingly worded
 The Challenges to Democracy in India 465

laws enabling arrest, including preventive detention on wide grounds, are

amended. This means that the opposition too will have to be willing to give
up instruments of possible arbitrary power which were, as noted earlier,
created before the coming to power of the BJP as a majority government.
A cross-party liberal consensus will be needed, perhaps something on the
lines of the Model Code of Conduct, a decades-old inter-party accord that
all parties have agreed to for the conduct of candidates during election
campaigns.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Note
1. This section draws heavily on Sridharan 2021.

References

CSDS. 2022. Programme for Comparative Democracy. https://www.lokniti.org/lok-

sabha-election (Accessed 20 December 2023).
Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). 2021. Democracy Index 2020: In Sickness and
in Health? https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2020/ (Accessed
20 December 2023).
Farooqui, Adnan and Eswaran Sridharan. 2016. ‘Can Umbrella Parties Survive?
The Decline of the Indian National Congress’. Commonwealth and Comparative
Politics, 54(3):331–361.
Freedom House. 2021. Freedom in the World 2021: Democracy under Siege.
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2021/democracy-under-siege
(Accessed 20 December 2023).
Gowda, M. V. Rajeev and Eswaran Sridharan. 2007. ‘The Consolidation of India’s
Democracy: The Role of Parties and the Party System, 1947–2006’. In Sumit Gan-
guly, Larry Diamond, and Marc F. Plattner (eds), The State of India’s Democracy.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 3–25.
IDEA. 2022. Voter Turnout Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-
turnout (Accessed 20 December 2023).
Mudde, Cas. 2007. Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Pillai, Shreeya and Staffan I. Lindberg. 2021. ‘Democracy Broken Down: India’. In
V-.Dem Institute. Autocratization Turns Viral. Democracy Report 2021. University
of Gothenburg: V-Dem Institute.
Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar. 1989. Hindutva. Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan.
466 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Sridharan, Eswaran. 2002. ‘The Fragmentation of the Indian Party System 1952–
1999: Seven Competing Explanations’. In Zoya Hasan (ed.), Parties and Party
Politics in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 475–503.
Sridharan, Eswaran. 2010. ‘The Party System’. In Niraja Gopal Jayal and Pratap
Bhanu Mehta (eds), Oxford Companion to Indian Politics. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 117-135.
Sridharan, Eswaran. 2014a. ‘India’s Watershed Vote: Behind Modi’s Victory’. Journal
of Democracy, 25(4):20–33.
Sridharan, Eswaran. 2014b. ‘Class Voting in the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections: The

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Growing Size and Importance of the Middle Classes’. Economic and Political
Weekly, 49(39):72–76.
Sridharan, Eswaran. 2021. ‘The Indian Political System’. In Neil DeVotta and Sumit-
Ganguly (eds), Understanding Contemporary India, 3rd edn. Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 91-115.
Sridharan, Eswaran and Ashutosh Varshney. 2001. ‘Towards Moderate Pluralism:
Political Parties and Party Politics in India’. In Larry Diamond and Richard-
Gunther (eds), Political Parties and Democracy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 206–237.
V-Dem Institute. 2021. Autocratization Turns Viral. Democracy Report 2021. Univer-
sity of Gothenburg: V-Dem Institute.
22
An Anarchy of Parties
The Pitfalls of the Presidential-based Party System
in the Philippines

Julio C. Teehankee

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Introduction

Despite a long and rich history of democratic practices, party politics, and
elections, the Philippines has institutionalized a clientelistic and patronage-
based democracy within an underdeveloped economy.1 Since the first party,
the Partido Federalista, was founded in 1900 during the American colo-
nial regime, political parties have existed in some form or another. Soon
afterward, from 1907 to 1941, the Nacionalista Party (NP) became the
ruling party. Between 1946 and 1972, a formal two-party system devel-
oped, with the NP and its breakaway faction, the Liberal Party (LP),
alternating in power. Under his Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL; New
Society Movement), Ferdinand Marcos destroyed this party system and
replaced it with a one-party dictatorship from 1972 to 1986. In 1986, a fluid
multi-party system emerged following the restoration of formal democracy
(Teehankee, 2020a).
While the country reverted to the pre-authoritarian presidential form of
government, a multi-party system emerged during the democratic transi-
tion. The shift to a multi-party system with a plurality-based electoral system
runs counter to the classic tenet of Duverger’s Law that argues that plurality-
based elections tend to produce two-party systems (Choi, 2001). However,
the post-authoritarian period saw the rise of ‘an anarchy of parties’ in
which inter-party competition became more fluid and fragmented, especially
under Rodrigo Duterte’s populist presidency. This chapter will delineate
the pitfalls of the post-authoritarian presidential-based party system in the
Philippines.

Julio C. Teehankee, An Anarchy of Parties. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy. Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and
Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Julio C. Teehankee (2024). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0022
468 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Institutional Framework for Party Politics and Elections

The post-authoritarian party system is mandated by Section 6, Article IX of

the 1987 Philippine Constitution, which states: ‘A free and open party system
shall be allowed to evolve according to the free choice of the people, subject
to the provisions of this Article’. The Omnibus Election Code of the Philip-
pines defines a political party as ‘an [organized] group of persons pursuing
the same ideology, political ideas or platforms of government and includes its
branches and divisions’. The Constitution also mandates that national elec-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

tions be synchronized with local elections. The President and Vice President
are elected separately by a direct vote through simple plurality nationwide.
Both serve a term of six years. However, a one-term limit disqualifies the
President from re-election, while the Vice President can serve two consec-
utive terms. The Philippine Congress consists of the Senate and the House
of Representatives. Half of the 24 Senators are nationally elected at large
every six years through a multi-member plurality system (see Table 22.1).
After serving two consecutive terms, at least one term out is imposed on
Senators. On the other hand, the House of Representatives is elected from
single-member districts every three years (see Table 22.2). House members
must serve one term out after three consecutive terms.
Moreover, the Constitution introduced a novel pathway for marginal-
ized sectors to be represented in the corridors of power, as one-fifth of the
members of the House of Representatives came to be elected via a party-
list system elected from one nationwide district. The Philippines adopted
a mixed electoral system incorporating a strand of proportional represen-
tation (PR), patterned after the German model: a modified version of the

Table 22.1 Party composition of the Senate, 2016, 2019, and 2022

2016 2019 2022

Party Seats % Seats % Seats %

Lakas CMD 0 0 1 4 1 4
Liberal Party 4 17 3 13 0 0
Nacionalista Party 4 17 4 17 4 17
Nationalist People’s Coalition 4 17 3 13 5 21
National Unity Party 0 0 0 0 0 0
PDP-Laban 2 8 4 17 5 21
Independents 5 21 4 17 5 21
Others 5 21 5 21 4 17
Total 24 100 24 100 24 100

Source: Commission on Elections (various years)

 An Anarchy of Parties 469

Table 22.2 Party composition of the House of Representatives, 2016, 2019,

and 2022

2016 2019 2022

Party Seats % Seats % Seats %

Lakas CMD 5 2 9 4 26 10
Liberal Party 117 50 18 7 10 4
Nacionalista Party 22 9 41 17 36 14
Nationalist People’s Coalition 41 18 35 15 35 14
National Unity Party 23 10 24 10 33 13

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

PDP-Laban 2 1 86 36 66 26
Independents 3 1 2 1 6 2
Others 21 9 26 11 41 16
Total 234 100 241 100 253 100

Source: Commission on Elections (various years)

List PR-Niemeyer electoral formula in which ‘the number of seats a party (or
organization) is entitled to is calculated based on the proportion by divid-
ing the votes obtained by a party or organization over the total number of all
votes cast for all qualified parties and organizations’ (Agra 1997: 3).
However, unlike the German model, the Philippine party-list elections
are non-compensatory. Only political parties registered for the list system
can field candidates for the PR seats, while the major parties competing for
single-member districts are prohibited from fielding list candidates. Hence,
the majority of the seats in the House are elected through a plurality-based
electoral system. The party-list election in the Philippines is peculiar, given its
low threshold of 2% and a three-seat cap for winning parties that goes against
the principles of PR. As shown in Table 22.3, between 1998 and 2022, an aver-
age of 115 party-list organizations participated in the party-list elections, and
the average number of winning parties exceeded 28. This underperformance
can be directly traced to basic deficiencies in the system brought about by
the three-seat limit and the unclear minimum electoral threshold (Teehankee
2019). The proliferation of small and fragmented party-list organizations has
largely contributed to the country’s ‘anarchy of parties’.

Presidential-based Party System

The Philippines is a prototypical example of a presidential or executive-

centric party system where ‘decisions to form larger parties or split into
smaller ones . . . reflect their calculations about how such manoeuvres will
affect their payoff in both seats and offices, weighted by their concern for
470 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Table 22.3 Philippine party-list election, 1998–2022

Party-list Total Number of Actual number of Number of Number of

election updated seats seats allocated winning participating
parties parties

1998 52 14 13 122
2001 52 20 12 46
2004 53 24 16 66
2007 55 23 17 92
2010 57 41 31 150

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2013 59 59 43 136
2016 59 59 46 116
2019 61 61 51 134
2022 63 63 55 177
Averages 28 115

Source: Updated from Teehankee (2019)

each’ (Batto and Cox 2016: 3). For a long time, the Philippines was cited along
with the United States as the ‘purest two-party system’ (Shugart and Carey
1992: 222). However, several scholars have noted the role of the presidency
and the introduction of new electoral rules in relation to the fragmentation
of the party system in the post-authoritarian period.
Kasuya (2009) observes that parties are formed around the incumbent or
viable presidential candidates during and after elections. Politicians usually
switch to the incumbents or viable presidential candidates to pursue pork
barrel and other patronage supporters—a form of ‘presidential bandwago-
ning’. On the other hand, Choi (2001) argues that the party fragmentation
in the post-authoritarian period resulted from the adoption of a single-term
limit for presidents in the 1987 Constitution. Including such a restriction
nullifies or mitigates the Duvergerian effect of the plurality rule, resulting
in a multi-party system. Hicken (2016) agrees with the observation that the
term limit was responsible for multi-partyism. The ban lowered the entry
hurdles for presidential candidates and undercut the incumbent president’s
incentives to invest in party formation.
Throughout the years, the Philippines’ post-authoritarian election pro-
cesses have revealed distinct political pathologies. These include the con-
tinued dominance of political families and clans (commonly referred to
as ‘political dynasties’); the existence of weak parties, as evidenced by the
constant and regular practice of party switching among elected officials
(colourfully dubbed ‘political turncoatism’ by the mass media); and the use of
patronage, such as pork barrel, for political mobilization under the country’s
presidential system (Kasuya, 2009; Teehankee, 2013, 2018).
 An Anarchy of Parties 471

In 2022, Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, Jr, the sole son and namesake of
the late dictator, won the presidency by a large margin 36 years after his fam-
ily was forced out of the palace by a military-backed people-power uprising.
Former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo brokered an alliance between
Marcos and Davao Mayor Sara Duterte, the equally feisty daughter of the
populist president Rodrigo Duterte.

An Anarchy of Parties

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

According to Kasuya and Teehankee (2020), the Duterte presidency has
resulted in an ‘anarchy of parties’—a condition in which inter-party com-
petition is fluid and fractured due to the president’s party ceasing to operate
as a coordination instrument for establishing the party system. An anarchy
of parties is characterized by party factionalism, party switching, frequent
party formation, reduced administration endorsements, and party system
fragmentation.

Party factionalism

The Philippine political party system evolved from elite factions. On the
other hand, intra-elite competition was historically primarily driven by local
land-based political clans that served as the bedrock of Philippine party
politics. Later, changes in the country’s political economy influenced the
nature of factional leadership within the major parties. Under Ferdinand
Marcos’ dictatorship, the authoritarian period disrupted the factional com-
petitions within parties, allowing non-landed politicians to mobilize their
political machines both within and outside the dictator’s dominant party.
Since then, many parties have been formed due to the splits and mergers of
elite-based political factions that shaped the post-authoritarian multi-party
system (Teehankee 2020a).
Every governing party in the post-authoritarian period was driven by
intense factionalism. During the presidency of Duterte, the ruling polit-
ical party—the PDP-Laban—was split into a faction supporting Senator
Aquilino ‘Koko’ Pimentel III and Senator Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Pacquiao and
one loyal to the populist strongman. Meanwhile, the second Marcos pres-
idency is already facing intense factional rivalries between the supporters
of Marcos, Jr. and those loyal to Vice President Sara Duterte (daughter
of former president Duterte). Lakas Christian-Muslim Democrats (Lakas
CMD; the de facto ruling party)—headed by Marcos, Jr’s cousin, House
472 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez—is fending off a factional challenge

from party stalwart and former president and speaker Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo. The rift has resulted in Vice President Duterte resigning from the
party (Galvez 2023). Meanwhile, some members of PDP-Laban who are
supportive of the second Marcos presidency have switched to Lakas CMD.
(Panti 2023).

Party switching

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Another constant element in clientelistic practices in Philippine politics is
party switching. Widely practised in the Philippines, party switching often
occurs twice in an election cycle: 1) pre-election party switching—when
candidates file their nomination papers and raise campaign funds; and
2) post-election party switching—when elected officials affiliate themselves
with the winning party to gain access to patronage (Teehankee 2020b). From
the 8th to the 17th Congress between 1987 and 2019, an average of 32% of
district representatives elected to the House shifted parties (see Table 22.4).
The 1987 Constitution’s introduction of a single-term limit on the pres-
idency destabilized the legislative party system, as legislative candidates
tended to align themselves with the most viable presidential contenders by
switching parties. The lack of an incumbent seeking re-election and low party

Table 22.4 Party switching at the House of Representatives, 1987–2022

Total district Total party %

representa- switchers
tives

8th Congress (1987–1992) 200 154 77

9th Congress (1992–1995) 200 89 45
10th Congress (1995–1998) 203 19 9
11tth Congress (1998–2001) 208 84 40
12th Congress (2001–2004) 209 15 7
13th Congress (2004–2007) 212 62 29
14th Congress (2007–2010) 219 149 68
15th Congress (2010–2013) 229 60 26
16th Congress (2013–2016) 234 15 6
17th Congress (2016–2019) 235 60 26
18th Congress (2019–2022) 238 22 9
19th Congress (2022–2025) 253 54 21

Source: Compiled by the author from various sources

 An Anarchy of Parties 473

loyalty incentivize possible presidential candidates to establish new parties

and lure legislative candidates into switching parties in exchange for access
to patronage.

Frequent party formation

According to Quimpo (2008: 128), ‘[f ]ar from being stable, programmatic
entities, [Philippine political parties] have in practice proven to be not much

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

more than convenient vehicles of patronage that can be set up, merged with
others, split, resurrected, regurgitated, reconstituted, renamed, repackaged,
recycled, or flushed down the toilet anytime’. The major post-Marcos par-
ties were products of major factional splinters. The Laban ng Demokratikong
Pilipino (LDP, founded in 1988) was the dominant party under the admin-
istration of President Corazon Aquino. On the other hand, Lakas CMD was
formed in 1991 by allies of President Aquino, who opted to support Defence
Secretary Fidel Ramos and not the LDP presidential candidate.
Since 1992, several minor (often short-lived) parties have been orga-
nized around personalities who were then perceived to be viable presiden-
tial candidates. These ‘parties of one’ include the following: the People’s
Reform Party (PRP) of Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago; the Pwersa
ng Masang Pilipino (PMP; Force of the Filipino Masses) of former pres-
ident Joseph Estrada; Aksyon Demokratiko (Aksyon; Democratic Action)
of the late former senator Raul Roco; Progressive Movement for Devo-
lution of Initiative (PROMDI) of former governor Emilio ‘Lito’ Osmeña;
Partido para sa Demokratikong Reporma (Reporma; Party for Democratic
Reforms); and Bangon Pilipinas (Rise Philippines) of televangelist brother
Eddie Villanueva.
These parties have become dormant after their failed bid for the presidency
but are often revived occasionally to serve as a vehicle for another competi-
tive presidential candidate. In the 2022 presidential elections, PROMDI was
revived to accommodate the candidacy of former world boxing champion
and senator Manny Pacquiao, Reporma was the vehicle for the second failed
presidential run of the former national police chief and senator Panfilo Lac-
son, and Aksyon was revived to support former movie actor and Manila
mayor Isko Moreno. Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, Jr, son of the late dicta-
tor, ran and won the presidency under the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP).
Reestablished in 2018, the party claims to have been inspired by the Par-
tido Federalista, the country’s first political party, founded in 1900 by Pedro
Paterno and Trinidad Pardo de Tavera.
474 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Reduced administration endorsement

From 2010 to 2016, being endorsed by the president’s party was a popular
choice for politicians seeking a House seat: up to 70% of districts had a can-
didate affiliated with the president’s party. In the 2019 midterm elections, just
53% of House districts had at least one candidate from the dominant presi-
dential party (see Figure 22.1). The election of populist strongman Rodrigo
Duterte in 2016 exacerbated the country’s already fractured party system.
He eschewed patronage-based political party building in favour of pop-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ulist mobilization—a ‘sustained, large-scale political project that mobilizes
ordinarily marginalized social sectors into publicly visible and contentious
political action while articulating anti-elite, nationalist rhetoric that valorizes
ordinary people’ (Jansen 2011: 82).
Unlike previous Philippine presidents, Duterte did not rely solely on
patronage to consolidate his political support. Instead, he actively and per-
sonally endorsed candidates, defending his allies and attacking the opposi-
tion relentlessly. Ultimately, Duterte emerged as the big winner of the 2019
midterm elections. Most of the national and local candidates he endorsed
won their contests for national and local positions. The election also resulted

% of Districts w/ President’s Party Candidate

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
2010 2013 2016 2019 2022
Congress Governor Mayor

Figure 22.1 Percentage of districts that included a nominee from the presidentʼs
party
Source: Updated from Kasuya and Teehankee (2020)
 An Anarchy of Parties 475

in a victory for the administration’s 9 senatorial candidates (out of 12 seats)

and most of its governors, mayors, and local legislators. Despite Duterte’s
high popularity at the end of his term, the percentage of politicians running
under the president’s party continued to decline.

Party system fragmentation

From 1946 to 1969, the effective number of national parties in the Philip-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

pines was 2.3. This number increased to 4.3 from 1987 to 2010 in the
post-authoritarian period (Hicken 2016). As of 2021, there are 174 polit-
ical parties registered with the Commission on Elections (COMELEC).
These parties are classified as national (49), regional (23), and provincial,
city/municipal (102). Combined with the 177 party-list organizations listed
in 2022, there is a total of 351 political parties in the Philippines.
As shown in Table 22.5, the Philippine multi-party system has been frac-
tured heavily through the years. From an effective number of electoral parties
of 3.34 in 1992 to 8.22 in 2022. Moreover, the effective number of parlia-
mentary parties has increased from 2.32 in 1992 to 7.21 in 2022. Both trends
reflect the continuing fragmentation of the party system.

Table 22.5 Philippines: Core party system indicators

ENEP ENPP Turnout (%)

1992 3.34 3.83 70.56

1995 3.17 3.64 70.68
1998 2.18 2.65 78.75
2001 4.77 3.43 81.08
2004 4.47 4.26 76.97
2007 6.32 4.81 63.68
2010 3.35 3.61 74.98
2013 4.23 3.69 77.31
2016 3.16 3.49 81.95
2019 4.35 5.59 74.31
2022 8.22 7.21 84.10

Note: ENEP—effective number of electoral parties; ENPP—Effective number

of parliamentary parties; Turnout as share of all registered voters; ENEP and
ENPP have been calculated for the House of Representatives
Sources: Voter Turnout Database (IDEA 2022); Lindberg et al. 2022; Varieties
of Party Identity and Organization (V-Party) Dataset v2; Commission on
Elections (COMELEC), various years
476 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Major Parties in the Philippines

Based on the 2016, 2019, and 2022 election results, only six political parties
are considered competitive at the national and local levels of government.
These major parties are (1) Nacionalista Party (NP), (2) Liberal Party
(LP), (3) Partido Demokratikong Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban),
(4) Lakas Christian-Muslim Democrats (Lakas CMD), (5) Nationalist Peo-
ple’s Coalition (NPC), and (6) National Unity Party (NUP).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Nacionalista Party (NP)

The NP is the country’s oldest party. It was founded in 1907 as a merger of Fil-
ipino nationalist parties advocating immediate independence from American
colonial rule. The NP dominated electoral politics throughout the colonial
period. It continued its dominance from the inauguration of the Common-
wealth government in 1935 until the establishment of the Third Philippine
Republic in 1946. However, the party’s structure followed the elitist electoral
process and was therefore elitist.
In 1946, a major faction split from the NP to form the LP. The rivalry
between the two parties dominated Philippine politics from 1946 until 1972.
Both took turns capturing the presidency, controlling both chambers of
Congress, and winning local government seats. Ferdinand Marcos, who had
formerly been affiliated with the LP, was elected president as a member of
the NP. Marcos’ new party absorbed the bulk of the membership of both
parties—the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL; New Society Movement) after
he placed the country under martial law. A faction of the NP stayed with the
political opposition.
The party was revived after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship. Under the
leadership of billionaire politician Manuel Villar, the party has grown in
size and influence and is currently the second-largest party in the country.
Aside from serving as House Speaker and Senate President, Villar is presently
the wealthiest man in the Philippines. In the 2019 midterm elections, the
party won 3 national positions (senators) and 2,682 local positions (district
representatives, governors, vice governors, mayors, vice mayors, and local
legislators).

Liberal Party (LP)

Founded in 1946, the LP is the second-oldest political party in the Philip-

pines. For most of its existence, the party has formed half of the traditional
 An Anarchy of Parties 477

two-party system that dominated the post-war period. Locked out of power
upon the declaration of martial law, the remaining leaders of the party who
were not co-opted by the Marcos dictatorship became staunch defenders of
democracy. The party embraced mass-movement politics and played a sig-
nificant role in unifying the political opposition around the candidacy of
Corazon C. Aquino in 1986. After the EDSA revolution (named after the loca-
tion of the largest demonstrations) that ousted the dictator, the LP played an
active role in the democratic transition and consolidation in the country.
After entering into coalition with successive post-Marcos administrations,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the LP captured the presidency and many congressional seats in the tightly
contested national elections of 2010. The LP rode a crest of strong anti-
corruption voters’ sentiment and the popularity of Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino
III (the son of the late democratic icon Corazon Aquino) to achieve victory.
No sooner than the proclamation of Noynoy as the 15th president had been
announced, defectors from the losing parties started jumping onto the LP
bandwagon. Like previous dominant parties, the LP managed to attract party
defectors through the promise of pork and privilege.
While the LP-led administration was able to pass several progressive socio-
economic policies and legislations, it failed to fully implement its reform
agenda, particularly with regard to political and electoral reforms (i.e. the
political dynasty ban, freedom of information law, and political party devel-
opment law, among others). The party succumbed to the necessity of money
and patronage politics to ensure its stay in power. As a result, it lost its core
voters and supporters, who shifted their support to illiberal populist Rodrigo
R. Duterte. Soon afterwards, the LP (the ruling party from 2010 to 2016) was
decimated by defection to the new ruling coalition supportive of the Duterte
administration and, later, the resurgent Marcos administration.

Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban)

The PDP-Laban was forged in the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship.
Its earlier incarnation was a promising progressive political party rooted in
social democratic ideology and organized by a cadre of seasoned activists. It
was the first electoral party to require ideological training before accepting
members. It was the de facto political party of Corazon Aquino during the
1986 snap presidential election and was the majority party in the early part
of the Cory administration (1986–1992). It suffered its first major setback in
1991 when a major faction split to form a new party—the LDP.
The party was weakened for decades and became a minor player in Philip-
pine politics until it successfully fielded Rodrigo Duterte to the presidency
in the 2016 election. As in previous administrations, droves of national and
478 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

local politicians switched parties to join the PDP-Laban. It won a dismal

three seats in the House, but its number of House seats swelled to more than
200 to form a ‘supermajority’ after Duterte was elected president. In the 2019
midterm elections, the party won 4 national positions (senators) and 5,760
local positions (district representatives, governors, vice governors, mayors,
vice mayors, and local legislators).
However, just like its predecessors, the dominant presidential party experi-
enced a major factional split between the followers of President Duterte and
those of Senator Aquilino ‘Koko’ Pimentel III (son of the party founder) and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

world boxing legend and senator Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao ran for presi-
dent in 2022. Currently, a big chunk of its remaining members switched to
other political parties in pursuit of patronage.

Lakas Christian-Muslim Democrats (Lakas CMD)

The Lakas Christian-Muslim Democrats (Lakas CMD) was the country’s

dominant party from 1992 to 2010. The party was founded in 1991 as a
merger between the Lakas ng EDSA (Power of EDSA) and the National
Union of Christian Democrats (NUCD). Later it also absorbed the Union
of Muslim Democrats of the Philippines (UMDP) to form the Lakas NUCD-
UMDP (Teehankee 2020a).
For the 2010 presidential elections, Arroyo engineered the merger of Lakas
with her original party Kampi to form the Lakas Kampi CMD (LKC). The
party was decimated and weakened by party switching due to its devastat-
ing defeat in the 2010 presidential elections. In the 2019 midterm elections,
the party won 1 national position (senator) and 680 local positions (district
representatives, governors, vice governors, mayors, vice mayors, and local
legislators). The party used to be one of the ideological parties in the country
advocating Christian-Muslim democracy. It has lost its ideological integrity
through the years and has deteriorated into a patronage-based machine party.
Leyte representative Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, a nephew of former
First Lady Imelda Marcos, assumed the presidency of Lakas CMD in 2013.
Romualdez has been a high-profile party member since the administration
of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Under Romualdez’s leader-
ship, the party that was inspired by the spirit of the 1986 EDSA people-power
revolution supported the vice-presidential candidacy of Bongbong Marcos
in 2016. Lakas CMD has become a close ally of the Duterte administra-
tion and a principal endorser of the alliance between Bongbong Marcos and
Sara Duterte in the 2022 election. Romualdez was eventually elected House
 An Anarchy of Parties 479

Speaker under the second Marcos presidency. Since 2022, Lakas CMD bene-
fitted the most from massive party switching to regain its position as the most
dominant party in the country.

Nationalist Peopleʼs Coalition (NPC)

There were several attempts to revive the moribund NP in the early post-
Marcos period. The post-Marcos NP was divided into four factions. Attempts

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

were made to unify all factions of the NP in 1991. These attempts failed
because of the ambitions of the faction leaders to be the NP presidential
nominee in the 1992 presidential election. One of the factions, led by bil-
lionaire politician and Marcos crony Eduardo Cojuangco, formed the NPC
(Teehankee 2020a).
The NPC has maintained its strength and number of elected national
and local officials and has consistently served as a junior partner to most
presidential administrations. Ideologically, it can be considered as a right-
wing conservative party. The party is now identified with Cojuangco’s
protégé, Filipino-Chinese billionaire Ramon Ang. Currently, it is the third-
largest party in the country. In the 2019 midterm elections, the party
won 1 national position (senator) and 1,908 local positions (district rep-
resentatives, governors, vice governors, mayors, vice mayors, and local
legislators).

National Unity Party (NUP)

The NUP was formed in 2010 by members of the Kabalikat ng Malayang

Pilipino (Partner of the Free Filipino abbreviated to Kampi, Tagalog for
‘ally’). Kampi was founded by former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
and was merged with the Lakas CMD to form the Lakas Kampi CMD in
2010. Soon after it failed to win the 2010 presidential elections, the merged
party split into three factions (Teehankee 2020a).
Members of the original Kampi then formed the NUP and allied with the
winning coalition. Like the NPC, it has become a reliable junior partner of
incumbent administrations. The party is said to be supported by billionaire
Spanish-Filipino Enrique Razon, Jr—the second richest man in the Philip-
pines. In the 2019 midterm elections, the party won 1,376 local positions
(district representatives, governors, vice governors, mayors, vice mayors, and
local legislators).
480 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Citizen–Party Linkage

Citizen participation is a fundamental cornerstone of democracy. Political

parties serve as vehicles for citizens to engage with and reconnect with demo-
cratic institutions and processes. Regrettably, Philippine politics is charac-
terized by a lack of citizen–party linkage. Due to the country’s lack of party
cohesion, political parties regularly break and combine into ad hoc alliances,
displacing ‘democratic accountability’ in favour of ‘clientelistic accountabil-
ity’. Clientelistic accountability ‘represents a transaction, the direct exchange

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

of citizen’s vote in return for direct payments or continuing access to employ-
ment, goods, and services’ (Kitschelt and Wilkinson 2007: 2).
Political parties in the Philippines are personality-based organizations pri-
marily organized around dominant local political clans and warlords; they
are anchored in clientelistic, parochial, and personal inducements rather
than in issues, ideologies, and party platforms (Teehankee 2015). In the
Philippines, party membership is transient, fleeting, and momentary, as the
majority of political parties are active only during election season. There is
no way to collect reliable data on party membership because political parties
and the COMELEC do not keep accurate records.
All relevant parties have a national territorial scope. Political parties at the
national level are organized at the regional or provincial level. Local political
parties have branches at the city or municipal level. Ordinary party members
have little influence over party decisions, typically made by higher-level party
organs such as a national executive committee or national directorate com-
prising a select group of party leaders and personalities (Teehankee 2012).
Party members elected to both chambers of Congress or local govern-
ment positions, or appointed to cabinet or sub-cabinet positions, are typically
appointed to higher party organs. On paper, all relevant party constitutions
designate the party congress, national assembly, or a variation thereof as
their respective parties’ highest decision-making body. However, in practice,
major decisions are made by a smaller group of party leaders and party bodies
called the national executive committee or national directorate. The party’s
daily operations are typically overseen by the secretary-general or executive
director (Teehankee 2012).

Party Financing

Parties, and particularly their electoral campaigns, are primarily funded

by private donors, usually from the business sector. The state does not
finance or subsidize political parties. Since 2003, the House has debated a
 An Anarchy of Parties 481

proposed ‘Political Development Party Act’, which aims to promote polit-

ical party institutionalization in the Philippines by addressing four criti-
cal reform issues: campaign finance reform, state subsidy to political par-
ties, a prohibition on party switching, and strengthening citizen–party ties
(Teehankee 2015).
Existing election laws regulate only campaign expenditures and contribu-
tions and do not require political parties to file financial reports outside of the
campaign period. Most, if not all, political parties do not collect dues from
their rank-and-file members. Frequently, elected party members with access

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

to state funds bear the burden of financing the party’s day-to-day operations
(i.e. pork barrel). Additionally, it is not uncommon for individual politicians
who are viable presidential candidates to finance a political party’s entire
operation (Teehankee 2012).
Almost all major political parties are financed through campaign donations
and membership dues collected from elected members. The mainstream par-
ties have made arrangements with their elected members to deduct part of
their salaries automatically. Usually, the non-elected rank-and-file members
are not required to pay party dues and are subsidized by their party leaders.
The three top political parties are identified with the three Forbes-listed bil-
lionaires in the country: Manny Villar with NP, Ramon Ang with NPC, and
NUP with Enrique Razon, Jr.

Multimedia Communication Strategies

Given the physical, financial, and logistical impossibility of encountering

the electorate personally during a national campaign in the Philippines,
the media have emerged as the most efficient and cost-effective means for
political party candidates to communicate with the public. The broadcast
media (radio and television) have surpassed newspapers and magazines as
the primary source of news and information for the general public. Broadcast
media, which reach millions of people, have largely displaced print media,
circulating in the hundreds of thousands. While broadcast media have the
broadest reach, they also tend to lack substance as everything is reduced to
two- or three-sentence sound bites. On the other hand, print media allow for
extensive explanations (Teehankee 2010).
Within broadcast media, television has supplanted radio as the primary
source of mass information. The rise of digital and social media is another
emerging trend. Due to the exorbitant cost of political radio and television
advertising for most candidates, the internet in general and social media in
particular have become more cost-effective alternatives (Teehankee 2010).
482 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Rodrigo Duterte was the first to successfully utilize social media in a presi-
dential campaign in the Philippines. Given the initial weakness of his political
party, the PDP-Laban, his campaign depended on social media to boost his
candidacy. Among the presidential candidates who used social media cam-
paigning, Duterte’s online presence was the most aggressive and intense, even
using trolls and fake accounts. Moreover, Duterte’s supporters were not only
committed to their candidate online but also offline. They were consistently
part of the huge crowds who attended his political campaigns and rallies.
(Sinpeng et al. 2020).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Summary Evaluation

Philippine political parties ‘remain to be candidate-driven alliances of

provincial bosses, political machines, and local clans, based on clientelistic,
parochial, and personal inducements rather than on causes, ideologies, and
party programs’ (Teehankee 2012). The factionalized nature of Philippine
party politics is both a cause and effect of the political parties’ lack of institu-
tionalization. Since the founding of the first Filipino political party in 1900,
many political parties have come and gone. Nonetheless, the institutionaliza-
tion of political parties in the country remains weak and underdeveloped.
Philippine elections continue to be patronage-driven rather than policy- or
ideology-driven, in the sense that the provision of material benefits is the pri-
mary resource of politicians for courting votes. Patronage provisions include
various activities, such as pork barrelling, casework, and vote-buying (Kasuya
2009). Political parties in the Philippines have essentially been an amalgama-
tion of vote-generating machines oriented towards putting their leaders in
government, gaining access to patronage, and generally securing the benefits
of public office. The weakness of political parties has promoted the mobiliza-
tion of pork barrel and other state patronage by presidential administrations
to push for their legislative agenda in Congress.
The passage of the long-delayed Political Party Development Act might
help mitigate some of the weaknesses of the party system, such as money
politics, constant party switching, and weak citizen–party linkages. The leg-
islation of the constitutional provision banning political dynasties will also
facilitate a level playing field. Unfortunately, these important pieces of legis-
lation have not yet been passed by Congress. In the long term, a constitutional
review should seriously study the institutional effects of the presidential form
of government on the party system and consider the feasibility of switching
to a more party-oriented parliamentary system.
 An Anarchy of Parties 483

Halfway into the second Marcos presidency, the various political parties
in the Philippines began their ritual of splitting and merging in anticipa-
tion of the 2025 midterm elections. Already, the de facto ruling party Lakas
CMD has been shaken by a leadership struggle between House Speaker
Romualdez and former president Arroyo. The feud resulted in the sudden
resignation of the party chair, Vice President Sara Duterte, who is a known
close Arroyo ally. On the other hand, the president’s original party in the
2022 election—the PFP—has actively been recruiting party switchers into its
ranks. Unfortunately, these political realignments reinforce the continuing

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

‘anarchy of parties’ in the country.

Note
1. The author acknowledges the research assistance of Ivan Harris Tanyag and Davijay
Leighton Engay for this chapter.

References

Agra, Alberto C. 1997. The Philippine Party-list System: A List Proportional Represen-
tation Scheme of Electing One-fifth of the Members of the House of Representatives.
Manila: Rex Book Store.
Batto, Nathan F. and Gary W. Cox. 2016. ‘Introduction: Legislature-centric and
Executive-centric Theories of Party Systems and Faction Systems’. In Nathan F.
Batto, Chi Huang, Alexander C. Tan, and Gary W. Cox (eds), Mixed-member Elec-
toral Systems in Constitutional Contexts: Taiwan, Japan and Beyond. Ann Arbor,
MI: University of Michigan Press, 1–24.
Choi, Jungug. 2001. ‘Philippine Democracies Old and New: Elections, Term Limits,
and Party System’. Asian Survey, 41(3):488–501.
Galvez, Daphne. 2023. ‘Sara Duterte Resigns from Lakas-CMD’. Inquirer.net, 19 May.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1771350/fwd-sara-duterte-resigns-from-lakas-
cmd#:~:text=MANILA%2C%20Philippines%20%E2%80%94%20Vice%20
President%20and,her%20leaving%20the%20political%20party (Accessed 20
December 2023).
Hicken, Allen. 2016. ‘Thailand and the Philippines under MMM’. In Nathan F. Batto,
Chi Huang, Alexander C. Tan, and Gary W. Cox (eds), Mixed-member Electoral
Systems in Constitutional Contexts: Taiwan, Japan and Beyond. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press, 229–246.
IDEA. 2022. Voter Turnout Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-
turnout (Accessed 20 December 2023).
484 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Jansen, Robert S. 2011. ‘Populist Mobilization: A New Theoretical Approach to

Populism’, Sociological Theory, 29(2):75–96.
Kasuya, Yuko. 2009. Presidential Bandwagon: Parties and Party Systems in the
Philippines. Manila: Anvil.
Kasuya, Yuko and Julio C. Teehankee. 2020. ‘Duterte Presidency and the 2019
Midterm Election: An Anarchy of Parties?’. Philippine Political Science Journal,
41(1–2):106–126.
Kitschelt, Herbert and Steven I. Wilkinson. 2007. ‘Citizen–Politician Linkages: An
Introduction’. In Herbert Kitschelt and Steven I. Wilkinson (eds), Patron, Clients,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–49.
Staffan I. Lindberg, Nils Düpont, Masaaki Higashijima, Yaman Berker Kavasoglu,
Kyle L. Marquardt, Michael Bernhard, Holger Döring, Allen Hicken, Melis
Laebens, Juraj Medzihorsky, Anja Neundorf, Ora John Reuter, Saskia Ruth–Lovell,
Keith R. Weghorst, Nina Wiesehomeier, Joseph Wright, Nazifa Alizada, Paul Bed-
erke, Lisa Gastaldi, Sandra Grahn, Garry Hindle, Nina Ilchenko, Johannes von
Römer, Steven Wilson, Daniel Pemstein, and Brigitte Seim. 2022. ‘Codebook Vari-
eties of Party Identity and Organization (V–Party) V2’. Varieties of Democracy
(V–Dem) Project. https://doi.org/10.23696/vpartydsv2
Panti, Llanesca T. 2023. ‘7 Lawmakers from Duterte-chaired PDP-Laban Defect to
Romualdez-led Lakas CMD’. GMA News Online, 14 November 2023. https://
www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/888304/7-lawmakers-from-
duterte-chaired-pfp-laban-defect-to-romualdez-led-lakas-cmd/story/ (Accessed
25 January 2024).
Quimpo, Nathan Gilbert. 2008. Contested Democracy and the Left in the Philippines
after Marcos. Manilka: Ateneo de Manila University Press.
Shugart, Matthew S. and John M. Carey. 1992. Presidents and Assemblies. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sinpeng, Aim, Dimitar Gueorguiev, and Aries A. Arugay. 2020. ‘Strong Fans, Weak
Campaigns: Social Media and Duterte in the 2016 Philippine Election’. Journal of
East Asian Studies, 20(3):353–374.
Teehankee, Julio C. 2010. ‘Image, Issues and Machinery: Presidential Campaigns in
Post-1986 Philippines’. In Yuko Kasuya and Nathan G. Quimpo (eds), The Politics
of Change in the Philippines. Manila: Anvil, 114–161.
Teehankee, Julio C. 2012. ‘The Philippines’. In Jean Blondel, Takashi Inoguchi,
and Ian Marsh (eds), Political Parties and Democracy: Western Europe, East and
Southeast Asia 1990–2010. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 187–205.
Teehankee, Julio C. 2013. ‘Clientelism and Party Politics in the Philippines’. In
Dirk Tomsa and Andreas Ufen (eds), Party Politics in Southeast Asia: Clientelism
 An Anarchy of Parties 485

and Electoral Competition in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. London:

Routledge, 186–214.
Teehankee, Julio C. 2015. ‘Institutionalizing Political Party Reforms in the Philip-
pines’. In Ronald U. Mendoza, Edsel L. Beja, Jr, Julio C. Teehankee, Antonio G. M.
La Viña, and Maria Fe Villamejor-Mendoza (eds), Building Inclusive Democracies
in ASEAN. Quezon City: Anvil, 308–318.
Teehankee, Julio C. 2018. ‘House of Clans: Political Dynasties in the Legislature’.
In Mark R. Thompson and Eric V. C. Batalla (eds), Routledge Handbook of the
Contemporary Philippines. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 85–96.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Teehankee, Julio C. 2019. ‘Untangling the Party List System’. In Paul D. Hutchcroft
(ed.), Strong Patronage, Weak Parties: The Case for Electoral Reform in the Philip-
pines. Mandaluyong City: Anvil Publishing Inc., 145–161.
Teehankee, Julio C. 2020a. ‘Factional Dynamics in Philippine Party Politics, 1900–
2019’. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs 39(1):98–123.
Teehankee, Julio C. 2020b. ‘The 2019 Midterm Elections in the Philippines: Party
System Pathologies and Duterte’s Populist Mobilization’. Asian Journal of Com-
parative Politics 5(1):69–81.
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRATIC
CHALLENGES IN AFRICA
IV
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
23
Political Parties and Democracy
in South Africa
Robert Mattes, Matthias Krönke, and Sarah Lockwood

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Introduction

While a sustained wave of mass opposition eventually washed away the for-
mal edifice of South Africa’s apartheid regime, ordinary South Africans have
yet to develop high levels of positive commitment to the institutions of liberal
democracy (Mattes 2019). Instead, the survival of liberal democracy in South
Africa has been based, thus far, on the actions of individual elite ‘gatekeepers’
(Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018) located largely in the country’s courts, parlia-
ment, and civil society organizations, and, sometimes, in political parties.
While some individuals have worked to defend democratic practices within
their parties, and some opposition parties have taken formal steps to counter
specific acts of democratic erosion through legal action, we argue that South
Africa’s parties have, collectively, weakened the country’s democratic experi-
ment by failing to commit fully to all aspects of liberal democracy, engaging
with voters, or offering voters a competitive electoral arena that provides
them with effective choices. South Africa thus has a supply-side problem in
its democracy, a problem exemplified by four important characteristics of the
country’s political party system, which in turn have their roots in a series of
structural and contingent factors.

Four Key Features of South Africaʼs Party System

Two and a half decades after its transition to democracy, South Africa’s politi-
cal party system is characterized by four striking features, none of which bode
well for the sustainability of high levels of representative democracy. The first
and most prominent characteristic is its 25-year dominance by the African
National Congress (ANC), which led resistance to the previous apartheid
regime, culminating in the country’s first democratic, non-racial election in

Robert Mattes, Matthias Krönke, and Sarah Lockwood, Political Parties and Democracy in South Africa. In: Political
Parties and the Crisis of Democracy. Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press.
© Robert Mattes, Matthias Krönke, and Sarah Lockwood (2024). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0023
490 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

1994. The ANC won that election with a resounding 62% of the vote and saw
its support rise even further in subsequent years, peaking at 69% in 2004
(Table 23.1). While its electoral support has receded somewhat in recent
years, the ANC still dominates the political arena, gaining 58% of the vote
in the most recent 2019 national election. This dominance raises concerns
about the accountability of the South African government, as well as reducing
the competitiveness of the electoral arena in problematic ways.
The second key feature of the country’s party system is that it is dominated
by organizations rooted in the pre-democratic, apartheid era, many of whom

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

still embody worldviews from this period which undermine genuine liberal
democracy. Although the ANC successfully ended apartheid, for example,
it was by no means committed to bringing about liberal democracy when
it did, and it continues to have a lukewarm commitment to many aspects
of liberal democracy (Dubow 2012; Southall 2014, 2016). Moreover, a ten-
dency to identify itself as the embodiment of the nation, common among
national liberation movements like the ANC, means that the party often
condemns those who oppose it as ‘aliens or traitors’, delegitimizing opposi-
tion in the political system, and limiting the competitiveness of the electoral
arena.
The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), similarly, traces
its history back to the apartheid era, and specifically to liberal opposition

Table 23.1 National election results and effective number of parties,

1994–2019

Party 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014 2019

ANC 62.7% 66.4% 69.7% 65.9% 62.2% 57.5%

DP/DA 1.7% 9.6% 12.4% 16.7% 22.2% 20.8%
IFP 10.5% 8.6 6.7% 4.6% 2.4% 3.4%
EFF — — — — 6.4% 10.8%
NP 20.4% 6.9% 1.7% — — —
Other 4.7% 8.5% 9.5% 12.8% 6.8% 7.5%
VAP turnout 85.8% 63.9% 56.8% 56.6% 53.8% 47.3%
ENEP 2.33 2.16 1.94 2.09 2.23 2.49
ENPP 2.21 2.15 1.97 2.12 2.26 2.57

Note: ENEP—effective number of electoral parties; ENPP—effective number of

parliamentary parties; VAP—voting age population turnout as share of all eligible
voters
Source: IEC Election results (IEC South Africa 2022), Voter Turnout Database
(International IDEA 2022)
 Political Parties and Democracy in South Africa 491

parties in the old white parliament (the Democratic Party, and before that the
Progressive Federal Party). From this time, it maintains a worldview based
in the experience of the middle-class, white electorate, which often prevents
it from seeing the world through the eyes of the majority of South Africa’s
citizens today. This reduces its ability to engage with voters and limits the
role the DA can play as a truly competitive opposition party. Similarly, a sec-
ond significant opposition party, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), which
governed the KwaZulu Bantustan during the apartheid era, continues to pri-
oritize issues related to the preservation of Zulu culture and interests and has

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

struggled to jettison the militant Zulu nationalism it became known for in
the 1980s and early 1990s (Piper 2005).
Indeed, of all the parties with 10 or more seats in the current 400-seat legis-
lature, only the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) was formed since the end
of apartheid in 1994. While however, certainly a new organization, the EFF is
still strongly influenced by the apartheid era—it was formed largely by defec-
tors from the ruling ANC—and it is also limited in its commitment to liberal
democracy. Explicitly placing itself to the left of the ANC, with its main issue
position focused on the rapid transfer of land to black people, it presents a
militant image, with an informal costume of red berets and red shirts, and
rhetoric that easily qualifies as ‘populist’ (Fölscher et al. 2021). Thus, the
country’s major parties all have at least some rooting in the apartheid era
and limited commitments to liberal democracy in current times, weakening
the democratic system in the new South Africa.
Third, the low effective number of elecotoral and parliamentary parties
(ENEP/ENPP) reflected in the statistics in Table 23.1 shows the party system
is also characterized by a proliferation of very small parties in the National
Assembly, with 13 parties currently represented in parliament. With the
exception of the Congress of the People (COPE) (2009), and the EFF (2014
and 2019), none of the parties formed in the post-apartheid period have ever
won more than 5% of the popular vote, and they give every indication that
they are satisfied with their limited vote shares so long as it guarantees party
leaders a parliamentary seat and salary.
The fourth important characteristic of the system is a steadily declining
rate of voter participation. Conservatively estimated at 86% in 1994, images
of long snake-like lines of voters patiently waiting to cast their first ballots
flashed around the world. But turnout has declined consistently in every
election since then, falling under 50% of the voting-age population for the
first time in 2019. This is not a problem unique to South Africa, of course,
but it does have significant implications for the robustness of the young
democracy.
492 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

In the remainder of this chapter, we will argue that these four characteris-
tics (a still-dominant but declining governing party; the lingering shadow of
apartheid; a plethora of smaller, weak opposition parties; and declining lev-
els of voter turnout) have their roots in a series of structural and contingent
factors, resulting in a supply-side issue for democracy—in which South
African voters lack a truly competitive electoral arena, populated by engaged
parties offering genuine alternatives. We turn first to the structural factors.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Structural Factors

Apartheid and its legacy

In their classic volume, Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan (1967)
demonstrated that a country’s current electoral cleavages reflect various
political, economic, or social ‘revolutions’. Such cleavages often ‘freeze’ and
continue as the dominant electoral dividing line years after the underly-
ing conflict has ceased to be important in and of itself. In South Africa,
the apartheid regime created a stark and enduring division between the
interests and values of the black, African majority and white, European
minority (who constituted the subordinate and superordinate groups in
South Africa’s ‘ranked’ society) (Horowitz 1985). Given the relative size of
those populations, moreover, it also created a vastly numerically imbalanced
cleavage, with roughly two-thirds of eligible voters on one side versus approx-
imately one-fifth on the other (with the balance comprising what Donald
Horowitz (1985) called ‘middle groups’ consisting of ‘coloured’ and ‘Indian’
voters).
Because the proportion of voters previously oppressed under the apartheid
system (plus their descendants) is so large, any political party linked to the
apartheid government (or symbolically connected to it in some way) faces a
huge challenge in gaining any sort of legitimacy among the wider electorate.
On the other side of the coin, the ANC has profited from a massive reserve
of credit from its successful opposition to apartheid but has worked hard to
maintain its position as the champion of the previously oppressed and to
position all opposition parties on the other side of the apartheid divide (see
Ferree 2010).
The result is a stark racial cleavage in party support bases; a dominant
ANC and a fractured, weak opposition struggling to capture the wider elec-
torate; and the continued importance of apartheid-era legacies to modern
party success. While actual votes cannot be broken down by race, and survey
 Political Parties and Democracy in South Africa 493

results vary somewhat, the general trend is clear. Black voters have given
and continue to give the lion’s share of their votes to the ANC and to a few
other parties whose leaders came out of the ANC (the United Democratic
Movement, COPE, and EFF). In contrast, only a few black South Africans
vote for any political party that has historical connections to the old white
political system, and completely new parties have often struggled to gain
legitimacy without liberation-era credentials. Conversely, white voters have
largely voted for parties that worked within the apartheid system (albeit often
in opposition), with the bulk of votes going initially to the National Party

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

(NP), and, following its demise, to the DA, the current main opposition
party.1 Very few support any political party that has its roots in the liberation
struggle.2
Given this demographic balance, and the cleavages that are a legacy of
apartheid, South Africa has developed a party system that provides one of
the largest known exceptions to ‘Duverger’s Law’, with a closed party list for-
mula of proportional representation (PR) producing one-party dominance
and a very low number of effective political parties that could exercise any
real sort of checks and balances on the ruling ANC.

Electoral system

As constitutional negotiations began in 1990, virtually all participants agreed

on the necessity of replacing the existing ‘first-past-the-post’ single-member
legislative districts with some form of PR, if only to bring as many political
organizations as possible into the new dispensation and reduce the possibil-
ity of civil war. As a result of three decades of apartheid settlement policies,
however, voters overwhelmingly lived in a complex pattern of homogenous
racial and ethnic enclaves, thus complicating the demarcation of reason-
ably small multi-member districts that did not simply replicate apartheid
divisions. Given the urgency of reaching an inclusive agreement and bring-
ing closure to the protracted and violent transition, moreover, negotiators
opted for the simplest form of PR possible, with half of the 400-seat National
Assembly selected from national party lists and the other half from nine geo-
graphically large party lists corresponding to the country’s new system of
provinces. Because these lists are closed, South Africans vote for a political
party, not a candidate, and that single vote is then used to calculate seats
on both the national and provincial lists.3 Moreover, the constitution speci-
fies that elected representatives lose their seats (and hence their salaries and
privileges) if they ‘cease to be a member’ of the party they were originally
494 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

elected to represent.4 Thus, political parties ‘own’ the seats occupied by

elected legislators at national, provincial, and local levels. And, again, due
to the need to include as many political movements as possible in the tumul-
tuous transition period, the new system has no de jure threshold for winning
seats. In practice, as long as a party wins at least 0.25% of the national vote
(or around 30,000 votes), it is guaranteed at least one of the 400 seats.
The consequences of these decisions have been threefold. First, elected leg-
islators are accountable not to voters but to party bosses (who are themselves
not always elected to parliament). During elections, candidates stand on long

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

lists in very large electoral districts with virtually no ‘personal vote’(Carey
and Shugart 1995), and between elections, legislators lose their seat if they are
expelled from the party for any cause, including challenging the party line.
While one might expect at least some degree of indirect accountability if the
ruling party had to worry about pleasing voters to retain its grip on power
at the next election, the ANC has thus far had little reason to fear its elec-
toral support dropping under 50%.5 As a result, elected representatives have
few structural incentives to seek out and listen to citizen preferences, perhaps
explaining why South Africa has one of the lowest rates of popular awareness
of the identity of their elected representatives, or contact with them, in Africa
(Mattes 2002), as well as one of the highest rates of protest (Lockwood and
Krönke 2021). At the same time, South Africans seem to be increasingly aware
that they need to find some way to hold their members of parliament (MPs)
accountable, whether through protesting, contacting them, or voting. When
asked by Afrobarometer interviewers in 2006 ‘who should be responsible for
making sure that, once elected, MPs do their jobs’, just 10% of respondents
said this was the citizens’ responsibility. By 2021, this proportion had almost
tripled (28%).6
Second, although South Africa’s chief executive is elected indirectly by the
National Assembly, parties focus their campaigns almost exclusively around
their ‘presidential’ candidate, who heads the party list. This forces voters to
make package decisions about an entire government and focuses attention on
national rather than regional dynamics where opposition parties might enjoy
a relative advantage, reinforcing the dominance of the ANC and making it
hard for opposition parties to build their based of supporters.
Finally, while low thresholds facilitate relatively easy entry for a wide range
of small parties, often based around a single personality or issue, they also
provide those parties with little incentive to expand their voter base so long
as the key party leaders are able to guarantee their own high spot on the party
list and, thus, re-election. This helps to explain the proliferation of very small
parties and the weakness of the opposition as a whole.
 Political Parties and Democracy in South Africa 495

Public party financing

Public financial support for South Africa’s political parties takes two distinct
forms. First, public funds have been available direct to parties since 1997.
But while public funding is ideally intended to level the playing field and
provide all significant parties with the means to put their case before the
voters, South Africa’s system does the opposite. Until very recently, the vast
share of available funds (90%) was allotted to parties based on their national
and provincial legislative representation. Only 10% was given out equally,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

divided proportionally among provincial legislatures—based on population
size—with equal amounts given to any party represented in that assembly.
While there have been attempts in recent years to improve this approach,
more than two decades of this skewed disbursement pattern have reinforced,
rather than reduced, the financial disadvantage of smaller and new parties
vis-à-vis the older and larger ANC and DA.7
Second, since 2009 all television broadcasting licence holders have been
required to make a specified number of two-minute slots available for party
advertisements on each day of the designated election campaign period.8 In
contrast to the distribution of public funding, free time is distributed based
on the number of candidates a party fields rather than its number of currently
elected legislative representatives (Independent Communications Authority
of South Africa 2008)
At least four points are salient. First, the already dominant ANC receives
the vast majority of available public funds, reinforcing its dominance. In
2019, for example, the ANC received 59% of a total of R149 million (approxi-
mately US$10.3 million at the time), while the DA received 22%, and the EFF
8% (IEC South Africa 2019).
Second, public funds cover only a small share of all campaign expenses.
While the data are spotty, we know that in 1999, for example, all parties
combined spent an estimated total of R300 million to R500 million (approx-
imately US$48.8 to US$81.3 million at the time) during the campaign, with
only R53 million (approximately US$8.6 million at the time) coming from
the public purse (Schreiner and Mattes 2012). This means that parties still
depend heavily on their ability to raise funds for campaign and daily oper-
ating expenses from private donors. Given the ANC’s control over public
policy and state contracts, as well as the operation of its own in-house invest-
ment firm, and the DA’s historical links with the business community, it is
not surprising that these two parties receive far more in private donations
than any other political party (Butler 2010). Although South African leg-
islation now imposes more restrictions than many other African countries
496 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

(International IDEA 2021), for more than two decades the ANC and DA
were able to take advantage of undisclosed private donations, an advan-
tage that will take many years to erase. Certainly, only the ANC and DA
are able to employ substantial professional, permanent staff for activities like
fundraising, market research, policy development, and publicity.
Third, the ANC’s campaign spending has increased rapidly over the past
few elections, making it more and more difficult for smaller parties to level
the playing field. The ANC spent an estimated R300 million (approximately
US$44.7 million at the time) on its campaign activities in 2004, rising to

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

between R400 and R500 million (approximately US$38.8 to US$48.4 mil-
lion at the time) in 2009 and 2014, and an estimated R1 billion (approxi-
mately US$69.2 million at the time) on the 2019 general election campaign
(Thuynsma 2017; Sokutu 2019; Plessis 2021).
Fourth, while free television airtime is nominally distributed among all
parties on a much more equitable basis than public funding, the allocation
of these spots is only finalized fairly late in the campaign (once parties’ lists
of candidates are vetted and verified), thus limiting its impact. Additionally,
because parties are responsible for organizing the resources and expertise to
produce the television advertisements, most parties (beyond the ANC and
DA) have been unable to take advantage of the free time slots, often leaving
them unutilized (Schreiner and Mattes 2012; Duncan 2014).
There are some important changes afoot, however. In April 2021, the 2018
Political Party Funding Act (Republic of South Africa 2021) was finally signed
into law. This changed the apportionment of funds, with one-third to be
allocated equitably and two-thirds proportionally; established a Multiparty
Democracy Fund to raise and distribute donated funds from the private sec-
tor to represented political parties (using the same formula); and established,
for the first time, rules for mandatory disclosure of private donations to polit-
ical parties (Ndamase 2020; Republic of South Africa 2021). Taken together,
these changes have the potential to reduce the historical inequalities between
parties and increase the transparency and accountability of party funding
over time.
Looking ahead, social media might also offer political parties a more
affordable way to connect with voters. However, smartphone penetration
and social media use is still not as widespread in South Africa as one might
expect. The most recent Afrobarometer survey found that only two-thirds
of all people (64%) say they get news from social media on a frequent basis
(compared to 87% for television, and 79% for radio) (Afrobarometer 2021;
see also Krönke 2020). It is also unclear to what extent opposition party cam-
 Political Parties and Democracy in South Africa 497

paign strategists will have the necessary organizational capacity and skill to
develop coherent campaigns across new and old media channels that would
in any realistic way close the gap with the dominant and better-resourced
ANC.

Contingent Factors

Beyond these structural factors, South Africa’s political parties are character-
ized by a range of organizational, performance, and strategic shortcomings

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

that contribute to the striking characteristics of the party system and tend to
limit rather than advance democratic practice.

Party organization

The ANC
By any standard, the ANC is a highly structured organization with a long
pedigree. First organized by a small group of prominent Africans in 1912 (as
the South African Native National Congress), the ANC as a mass organiza-
tion dates back at least to the late 1940s (Butler 2012). Since its unbanning
as an organization in 1990, the ANC has had four party presidents (Nelson
Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma, and Cyril Ramaphosa), with none serv-
ing more than two five-year terms, each (re)elected at quinquennial party
conferences, at which several thousand delegates also elect the rest of the
party office bearers and National Executive Committee. The fact that the
party conference of the governing party takes place about 16 months ahead of
the national election, however, introduces the possibility of prolonged peri-
ods where the party leader differs from the state president. Indeed, this has
occurred on three separate occasions, with two of these instances creating
considerable political tension and organizational paralysis within the party.9
The party has a relatively high degree of internal complexity, with func-
tional subdivisions at the national level, nine provincial subdivisions, and
thousands of local branches (African National Congress 2017). However,
while South Africa is a federal system, the party’s provincial structures are
seen as co-equal in status to other functional subdivisions (e.g. Women’s,
Youth, and Veterans’ Leagues) and have no special role in party decision-
making. Rather party policies and key decisions are made by the National
Executive Committee (which consists of 80 members elected at large and
498 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

six key office holders), and on a daily basis by a smaller National Working
Committee. The ANC also has a set of policy bodies that shadow gov-
ernment ministries. Concerning the level of internal democracy, the ANC
scores well in measures of intra-party democracy developed by the Political
Party Database Project (see Figure 23.1), reflecting the involvement of local
branches in both candidate selection and manifesto development.10
Yet despite being an organizationally complex, geographically widespread,
and internally democratic organization, the ANC has not avoided episodes
of excessive personal control of the party, and it has failed to rein in the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

autocratic tendencies of at least two of its leaders (Figure 23.2). In his first
term as state president (1994–2004), Thabo Mbeki began to exercise increas-
ing control over party policy—particularly with regard to the appointment
of party personnel to government positions—and HIV/AIDS policy. Such
was the extent of his obsessive control that senior cabinet members such
as Kader Asmal refused to answer simple questions from reporters about
the link between HIV and AIDS for fear of countering Mbeki’s eccentric
views on the subject. Following Mbeki’s removal, the party underwent a very
brief period of renewed openness during Kgalema Motlanthe’s seven-month
interim presidency (Kondlo and Maserumule 2011). However, his successor
Jacob Zuma resumed and increased this authoritarian trend through frequent
cabinet reshuffles and contentious appointments of senior civil servants, who
rewarded Zuma’s cronies with major state contracts and access to govern-
ment policy-making processes (or what became known in South Africa as
‘state capture’), sending the country into its deepest democratic crisis to date.

1.0

0.8 0.7
0.7
0.6 0.5
0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
BOT_BCP
UGA_FDC
MLW_UTM
KEN_Jubilee
SAF_ANC
BOT_BDP
NAM_SWAPO
NIG_PDP

MLW_MCP
KEN_ODM
MLW_UDF
NIG_APC
ZAM_UPND
SAF_EFE
BFO_MPP
GHA_NPP

AVERAGE
GHA_NDC
MLW_DPP
NAM_PDM/DTM
MAU_MMM
BFO_UPC
ZIM_Zanu-PF
ZIM_MDC
ZAM_PF

TAN_CCM
BOT_UDC
MLI_URD
NGR_PNDS-Tarayya
NGR_MNSD-Nassara
CAM_SDF
UGA_NRM
CAM_RDPC
SAF_DA

TAN_CHADEMA

SEN_APR

Figure 23.1 Intra-party democracy: South African parties in comparative perspective

The IPD index (0–1) incorporates three components: personnel, structure and manifesto;
additional information can be found in footnote 10, and in Brause and Poguntke (2021)
Note: SAF_ANC = African National Congress; SAF_DA = Democratic Alliance; SAF_EFF = Economic
Freedom Fighters; Horizontal dashed line = sample average.
Source: PPDB data (Poguntke et al. 2021)
 Political Parties and Democracy in South Africa 499

2.5
2

1.5

1
0.5
0
1994 1999 2004 2009 2014 2019

ANC DP/DA IFP EFF

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Figure 23.2 Party personalization, 1994–2019
Note: The scale runs from 0 (The party is not focused on the personal will and priorities of one
individual leader) to 4 (The party is solely focused on the personal will and priorities of one
individual party leader). Data for the IFP were not available for 2009–2019
Source: V-Party (Lührmann et al. 2020)

Despite grumblings from many in the ANC as this took place, old habits
developed during its years in exile (including secrecy, strict discipline, and
the privileging of loyalty above all else) meant that ANC caucus members
were unwilling to support successive votes of no confidence in Zuma until
the casting of a secret ballot became an option.
In addition to its failure to rein in autocratic tendencies, the geographi-
cally widespread organizational structure of the ANC has not prevented it
from isolating itself from interactions with civil society and their associated
accountability demands. In terms of its linkages with civil society, the ANC
has strong and long-standing relationships with the trade union and local
civic association movements. Yet it also has a strong degree of autonomy from
civil society. Indeed, many question whether allied civil society organizations
have retained sufficient autonomy from the ANC and, thus, space to criti-
cize and hold it accountable. Reflecting its historic drive to present a broad
united front against apartheid, the ANC has been the leading force in a tripar-
tite alliance with the South African Communist Party (SACP) and Congress
of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and, more informally, with the
South African Civics Movement (SANCO)—linkages that provide the ANC
with tremendous advantages during election campaign periods. In return for
their work holding campaign rallies and canvassing and mobilizing voters,
and their pledge not to run their own slate of candidates, the ANC has placed
SACP and COSATU officials on the ANC list, who then take up their seats
as ANC MPs. The number of such seats is probably much larger than either
organization could win if they ran on their own, creating a disincentive for
500 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

these members to criticize ANC policy. For many years, for example, trade
unions and grassroots civic organizations were strongly opposed to ANC eco-
nomic policy, yet their MPs remained loyal to the party. In general, when
COSATU and its allied organizations have publicly criticized ANC policy,
the party has simply responded by condemning them as ‘ultra left’ rather
than engaging with the critique and justifying its own economic policy.
At the citizen level, moreover, while the ANC has a large number of local
branches, evidence suggests that those branches have a relatively limited
presence in their communities. In the 2019 election, for example, the ANC

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

attracted only 22% of South Africans to a party campaign meeting or rally,11
far outpacing any other party in the country but well below averages else-
where on the continent (Krönke et al. 2022). It also contacted 30% of South
Africans as part of their canvassing or ‘get out the vote’ campaign. However,
the ANC ‘ground game’ was reduced in 2019, with personal contact dropping
from 21% to 15%, likely reflecting the losses of several key trade union allies
(e.g. the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA)) due to
the policy tensions discussed above. The number of voters contacted by the
ANC by telephone or SMS did increase, from 7% to 15%. Indeed, based on
our party presence index (Krönke et al. 2022), in which we use survey data
from Afrobarometer to measure the frequency with which voters at national
or sub-national levels engage with parties during or between elections, South
African parties (taken as a whole) have one of the lowest rates of local organi-
zational presence in Africa [Figure 23.3]. This is most likely a consequence of
South Africa’s particular form of PR, which provides little incentive for local
candidates to build or maintain local party organizations, combined with
the historic dominance of the ANC and the role that the legacy of apartheid
continues to play in voting patterns.

Opposition Parties
Of South Africa’s three main opposition parties, only the DA has an
organization that is both relatively internally complex and geographically
widespread. Born from a 1989 merger of the liberal, anti-apartheid Pro-
gressive Federal Party with two factions that had broken from the ruling
NP, it then became the DA in 2003 when it joined forces with the remnants
of the NP and the small Federal Alliance. Currently, the DA controls the
government of the Western Cape province and the majority of local councils
in that province, as well as participating in executive coalitions in three
large metropolitan municipal councils outside the province (Tshwane,
Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg).
In contrast to the ANC, the DA is organized federally into nine provin-
cial structures (as well as a youth and women’s league) and led by a federal
 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
Figure 23.3 Party Presence Index, 35 countries, 2014–2015
Note: Scale represents the proportion of citizens who engaged with a political party in any one of four ways: attend rally, attend meeting,
worked for party during last campaign, contacted party official
Source: Krönke et al. (2022)
502 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

council. Since 1994, the party has experienced regular turnover of leadership,
with five party presidents (Zach De Beer, Tony Leon, Helen Zille, Mmusi
Maimane, and John Steenhuisen) elected at quinquennial federal party con-
gresses. As Figure 23.1 shows, moreover, the party has relatively high levels
of internal party democracy (though lower than the ANC).
While the party is organizationally strong on paper, however, like the ANC
it has relatively weak linkages with citizens. Compared to the ANC, the DA
engages a far smaller share of the electorate in person during the campaign
season. Nevertheless, the party has learned to contact voters virtually, which

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

can be accomplished without a local organizational footprint. By 2019, for
instance, the DA had caught up with and even passed the ANC, contacting
30% of all voters. While it made personal, face-to-face contact with only 8%
of voters (compared to the ANC’s 15%), it contacted 23% through, largely,
telephone calls and SMS/text messages.12
Historically the DA has been seen as allied with the business commu-
nity, and its roots in the old white political system and inability to develop
any real connections to other mass-based organizations such as trade unions
have also significantly hampered its ability to mobilize large numbers of vot-
ers, limiting its effectiveness as an opposition party. Over the past 25 years,
moreover, while the party has had some success at transforming itself into
an organization with growing numbers of coloured and black party officials
in leadership positions, several promising black leaders have also left the
party (e.g. William Mnisi, Lindiwe Mzibuko, Mmusi Maimane, and Herman
Mashaba), in some cases amid claims that former DA leader Helen Zille con-
tinues to dominate party policy in troubling ways. While the DA scores rel-
atively low on the V-Party Personalization Index (Figure 23.2), like the ANC
it has struggled in practice to rein in the influence of dominant personalities.
The other two main opposition parties—the IFP and the EFF—are both
far less complex and far more personalistic organizations. The IFP came into
existence in 1975, initially formed as a Zulu cultural organization known as
the Inkatha National Cultural Liberation Movement. The party was led for
45 years by its founder Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who, even when he handed
over the leadership to Velenkosini Hlabisa in 2019, remained the leader
of the party’s parliamentary caucus in the National Assembly. Other aspir-
ing senior leaders, such as Oscar Dhlomo, Frank Mdlalose, and Zanele
kaMagwaza-Msibi, all saw their path to the leadership closed off by Buthelezi
and eventually left the party for other pastures. A former member of the
ANC youth league, and a member of the Zulu royal family, Buthelezi was
Chief Minister of the Zulu Bantustan during apartheid and remains the Tra-
ditional Prime Minister of the Zulu Kingdom today. Perhaps unsurprisingly,
 Political Parties and Democracy in South Africa 503

given this, the party’s main societal linkage is with the traditional Zulu royal
household. Despite trying to appeal to a broader constituency, the party’s
social and economic conservatism, combined with a continued focus on
traditional leadership and close relations with the Zulu royal family, has
continued to appeal primarily to Zulu-speaking South Africans, limiting its
appeal as an opposition party. Organizationally, the party has relatively little
presence outside of KwaZulu-Natal and the city of Johannesburg; however,
within KwaZulu-Natal the IFP is relatively successful, controlling 9 out of 44
councils and representing the plurality of councillors in a further 16 councils.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Finally, the EFF, created in 2013 by the former leader of the ANC Youth
League, Julius Malema, situates itself to the ideological left of the ANC,
with its main issue position focused on the rapid transfer of land to black
South Africans. It describes itself as part of a ‘broad Marxist-Leninist’
tradition and also draws influence from Fanonian schools of thought. The
party presents a militant image, describing its party leader as ‘President
and Commander-in-Chief ’ and its organizational structures as national
or provincial ‘command teams’. Though it is the youngest of the major
opposition parties, it has had some success at building local organizational
structures in several provinces and on several of the country’s university
student councils, reflecting the party’s appeal among many young South
Africans (Lepule 2021). That said, during the 2019 campaign season the
party only contacted 12% of the electorate overall (7% in person, and 5%
by telephone or digital means), showing contact levels overall are still low.
While it has captured sufficient support to be included in the executive
councils of a number of local governments, its leader, Malema, has by far the
highest profile among the party’s leadership, and his charismatic personality
dominates virtually all party activity, with relatively little done within the
party to rein him in or hold him accountable in any way.
Taken together, therefore, this brief overview of the organizational struc-
tures of South Africa’s main parties shows that all four parties struggle in
some way to engage widely with voters, and they have failed to rein in dom-
inant party members. This contributes to an environment in which voters
are offered at best a limited competitive electoral arena while internal party
dynamics raise the possibility that liberal democracy is far from the only
game in town.

Party performance and strategy

Finally, we turn to consider the performance of the ruling party and the asso-
ciated strategies of the major opposition parties. Over the past quarter of a
504 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

century, successive ANC governments have struggled to create jobs, reduce

poverty, or narrow inequality in any appreciable way, issues consistently
identified as the ‘most important problem’ by large proportions of citizens
(Afrobarometer Network 2016). It has also presided over a spectacular pol-
icy failure in relation to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and a scandal of historic
proportions in relation to the ‘state capture’ corruption scandal. In 2019, only
26% of people said that the ANC had done a good or very good job running
the country over the previous five years.
Ordinarily, reviews like this should spell doom for any governing party,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

but the ANC remains hegemonic, and the opposition parties have repeat-
edly failed to capitalize on its declining popularity. Why? A number of factors
already discussed almost certainly play an important role here. For example,
the legacy of apartheid means that the ANC continues to command lin-
gering support among those who credit it with liberation, even though its
performance in office has been poor. Similarly, the electoral system and party
financing system have both historically favoured the ANC to the detriment
of other parties, while the lower levels of presence among opposition par-
ties limits their contact with many voters. Additionally, the DA’s white image
and the IFP’s Zulu image have undoubtedly turned off many South Africans,
reducing their appeal among broad swathes of the population. But the strate-
gies and associated images of the country’s main opposition parties are also
critical. Turning to the South African National Election Study (SANES) data,
just 23% of those surveyed in 2019 felt that any opposition party could do
a better job dealing with their most important problems than the ANC;
only 29% rated an opposition leader higher than they rate President Cyril
Ramaphosa; and just 31% give any opposition party a higher trust score
than the ANC (SANES 2019).13 While the ANC many not be doing a great
job, therefore, the evidence suggests that the opposition parties are failing to
provide a compelling alternative.
This is, in many ways, a damning indictment of opposition strategists’
failure to use the resources available to them to implant a clearer image in
the minds of voters about who they are, what they stand for, and their ability
to govern. Indeed, none of the opposition parties give strong evidence of
any sort of well-thought-out strategy to court voters on a continuous basis
by using their parliamentary platform or other events as opportunities to
generate free media publicity between elections. Most wait and mount their
campaign in the six to eight weeks leading up to the election, at which point
it is far too late to shape or reshape their public image in any significant way
(Africa 2019).
 Political Parties and Democracy in South Africa 505

Additionally, South Africa’s opposition parties have repeatedly shown

themselves to be out of touch with broad swathes of the electorate, focus-
ing instead in their campaigns on issues of interest to, at best, a small core
of party voters. Let us consider the most recent national election of 2019.
With Zuma’s recent resignation and rapidly declining levels of voter satis-
faction with government performance, the ANC was at its most vulnerable,
particularly to a negative campaign focused on the tangible consequences
of the massive corruption of the Zuma years, such as mounting deficits,
shrinking development budgets, and neglect and damage to crucial develop-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ment infrastructure (e.g. coal boilers for electricity generation, train rolling
stock). Voters, as of the Afrobarometer 2018 survey, ranked unemploy-
ment, crime and security, and housing as the priority issues for government
attention. Yet the DA responded by running a relatively anodyne, posi-
tive campaign focused on inclusiveness and national unity, in which the
impact of corruption played a marginal role (Democratic Alliance 2018) The
EFF, similarly, ignored the concerns of the majority of voters and chose to
focus instead primarily on land redistribution and the nationalization of key
industries—issues that few, if any, South African voters prioritized (South
African History Online 2019).14

Summing Up: A Supply-side Issue for Democracy

For many years, the ANC played its role about as well might be expected. It
entered the post-apartheid dispensation with a deep reservoir of goodwill.
And given the numerically imbalanced cleavages stemming from the social
and economic divisions created by the apartheid regime, and other struc-
tural advantages created by the electoral system and the party funding and
campaign broadcasting rules, the ANC was rewarded handsomely at the bal-
lot box. As Lord Acton might have predicted, however, the size of the ANC’s
electoral victories and legislative majorities generated arrogance at the high-
est levels of party leadership, leading to hesitance and a fear of questioning
eccentric and misguided policies at all levels, and subsequently, malevolence
and corruption spanning the entire breadth of the party. Predictably, public
opinion surveys tracked consistent declines in citizen satisfaction with the
performance of the ANC government and identification with the ANC as
a party. But while the ANC has lost substantial voter support over the last
several elections, it remains the predominant party.
506 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

As for the country’s opposition parties, they have failed to play their role
effectively. The evidence reviewed in this chapter shows that the growing
ranks of dissatisfied South Africans feel they have nowhere to turn for a better
alternative. While the chief opposition party (the DA) has improved its image
in some respects, it—along with the rest of the opposition—has failed to con-
vince a sufficiently sizeable share of the electorate that they are competent
to govern, are inclusive, focused on the issues that matter, and trustworthy.
Most dissatisfied voters thus face the choice of holding their noses and taking
another chance with the governing party or staying home on election day—a

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

choice that was made by a majority of South Africans in both the 2019 general
election and the 2021 local council elections. While the dominant view of the
problem of electoral democracy in ethnically or racially divided societies is
therefore seen as a problem of demand—that is, voters who will not change
their minds (e.g. Horowitz 1985, 1991; Johnson and Schlemmer 1996)—our
conclusion is that the problems of South Africa’s democracy are actually on
the supply side. Providing voters with greater choice and accountability will
require reforms in three different areas. First, South Africans must consider
appropriate adjustments to the electoral system to reduce the size of elec-
toral districts and provide legislators with greater autonomy and incentive
to respond to local constituencies rather than national party bosses. Second,
while recent changes have moved in the right direction, further reforms are
necessary to the party funding model to provide the opposition with the
means to take their message to the electorate, and to campaign broadcasting
rules to allow parties to produce those messages in a more timely fashion.
Finally, opposition parties need to increase their grassroots presence and
improve their understanding of the electorate so as to produce more effec-
tive messages in terms of who they are, how they differ from the governing
party, and the alternative they offer.

Notes
1. Ethnicity also plays an important role within racial groups in some areas. For instance,
the support that the Inkatha Freedom Party receives comes overwhelmingly from Zulu-
speaking black South Africans, and the votes for the Freedom Front Plus come over-
whelmingly from Afrikaans-speaking whites. Even allowing for this, however, the general
trend still applies.
2. Coloured and Indian voters have been more likely to cross these historical dividing
lines—splitting their votes over time, as a group, between the ANC, NP, and DA. They
form a relatively small part of the South African electorate, however (9% and 3%,
respectively), leaving the dominant trends as above (Statistics South Africa 2016).
 Political Parties and Democracy in South Africa 507

3. Voters are also able to cast a second ballot for representatives to their provincial assem-
blies.
4. The ANC briefly changed the constitution in 2002 to allow members to switch parties
during specific periods and according to a complex set of rules. However, the mea-
sure proved to be highly unpopular and was abolished by a subsequent constitutional
amendment in 2009.
5. While the ANC’s vote share fell under 50% in the 2021 local council elections, it has so
far maintained a dominant majority at the national level.
6. This figure falls well below the 34-country average (38%) for Round 8 (2019/2021) of the
Afrobarometer survey.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

7. Parties with representation in the national legislature also received an annual subsidy
from Parliament for constituency work and outreach, which can obviously overlap with
general party activities. In 2014, the overall total was R243 million (US $22.4 million),
again distributed proportionally (the ANC received R160 million, DA R41 million, COPE
R20 million, and the IFP R10 million) (Thuynsma 2017).
8. For the 1994, 1999, and 2004 elections, television advertising was not allowed in South
Africa (with the exception of very short ‘public election broadcasts’ in 2004, allocated
on the basis of existing legislative representation and the current number of candidates)
(Davis 2005).
9. From 2007 to 2009, Zuma was party president and Mbeki state president. From 2017 to
2019, Cyril Ramaphosa was party president (having narrowly defeated Zuma’s former
wife Nkosozana Dlamini-Zuma) while Zuma was still state president. The third occa-
sion (1997 to 1999) saw Nelson Mandela as state president and Thabo Mbeki as party
president, but this did not create any significant tensions.
10. The Political Party Database Project (PPDB) provides a comparative measure of intra-
party democracy based on formal party rules. Specifically, it identifies how inclusive three
types of intra-party processes are: (1) the extent to which grassroots party members are
able to influence the selection of parliamentary candidates and the party leader; (2) the
development of the national party manifesto; and (3) the prerogatives of party leaders to
make decisions on policy and personnel without widespread consultation. See Berge and
Poguntke (2017) for more detail on the conceptualisation of the index and Brause and
Poguntke (2021) for full details of variable construction, including all question phrasing,
11. The data for the 2019 election were collected by the South African National Election
Study (2019) (conducted as part of the Comparative National Election Project https://
u.osu.edu/cnep/). Data for South Africa are also available via the Data First repository
(https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/).
12. Here, personal contact only refers to canvassing. According to SANES (2019) data, the
difference is even more stark when comparing rally attendance (ANC = 22% vs. DA =
3% of the electorate).
13. It should be noted, however, that these numbers do not necessarily mean that the balance
of the electorate see opposition parties as exclusive: rather, almost one-third (29%) say
they simply do not know enough about the DA to say one way or the other. Even larger
proportions said the same thing about the rest of the opposition (35% in case of the EFF,
and 56% for the IFP).
14. According to Afrobarometer data, land redistribution was only seen as a key issue by 7%
of South Africans in 2018 (Nkomo 2018).
508 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

References

Africa, Cherrel. 2019. ‘Do Election Campaigns Matter in South Africa? An Exam-
ination of Fluctuations in Support for the ANC, DA, IFP and NNP 1994–2019’.
Politikon, 46(4):371–389.
African National Congress. 2017. ANC 54th National Conference Report and Res-
olutions. 54th National Conference of the African National Congress, Johannes-
burg. https://cisp.cachefly.net/assets/articles/attachments/73640_54th_national_
conference_report.pdf (Accessed 20 December 2023).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Afrobarometer. 2016. Afrobarometer. http://www.afrobarometer.org/ (Accessed 20
December 2023).
Afrobarometer. 2021. Afrobarometer Data, South Africa, Round 8. https://www.
afrobarometer.org/data/ (Accessed 20 December 2023).
Berge, Benjamin von dem and Thomas Poguntke. 2017. ‘Varieties of Intra-party
Democracy: Conceptualization and Index Construction’. In Susan E. Scarrow,
Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke (eds), Organizing Political Parties: Repre-
sentation, Participation and Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 136–157.
Brause, Simon and Thomas Poguntke. 2021. Consistency Checks IPD Index Round
2 (V2). https://www.pruf.de/datenbanken-parteischiedsgerichte-und-ppdb/ppdb-
database/ (Accessed 20 December 2023).
Butler, Anthony. 2010. ‘Introduction: Money and Politics’. In Anthony Butler (ed.),
Paying for Politics: Party Funding and Political Change in South Africa and the
Global South. Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 1–20.
Butler, Anthony. 2012. The Idea of the ANC. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.
Carey, John M. and Matthew S. Shugart. 1995. ‘Incentives to Cultivate a Personal
Vote: A Rank Ordering of Electoral Formulas’. Electoral Studies, 14(4):417–439.
Davis, Gavin. 2005. ‘Media Coverage in Election 2004: Were Some Parties More
Equal Than Others?’. In Jessica Piombo and Lia Nijzink (eds), Electoral Poli-
tics in South Africa: Assessing the First Democratic Decade. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 231–249.
Democratic Alliance. 2018. Today the DA Launches The 2019 Election Manifesto
for Change. https://www.da.org.za/campaigns/manifesto (Accessed 20 December
2023).
Dubow, Saul. 2012. A Brief History of Rights in South Africa. Johannesburg: Jacana
Media.
Duncan, Jane. 2014. The Media and the 2014 Elections: Competition without Diver-
sity. In Collette Schulz-Herzenberg and Roger Southall (eds), Election 2014, South
Africa: The Campaigns, Results and Future Prospects. Johannesburg: Jacana Press,
133–154.
 Political Parties and Democracy in South Africa 509

Ferree, Karen E. 2010. Framing the Race in South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Fölscher, Marine, Nicola de Jager, and Robert Nyenhuis. 2021. ‘Populist Parties Shift-
ing the Political Discourse? A Case Study of the Economic Freedom Fighters in
South Africa’. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 59(4):535–558.
Horowitz, Donald L. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press.
Horowitz, Donald L. 1991. A Democratic South Africa? Constitutional Engineering in
a Divided Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

IEC South Africa. 2019. Represented Political Parties’ Fund 2019 (Annual Report).
Electoral Commission of South Africa.
IEC South Africa. 2022. National and Provincial Results. Electoral Commission of
South Africa.
Independent Communications Authority of South Africa. 2008. Regulations on Party
Election Broadcasts, Political Advertisements, the Equitable Treatment of Political
Parties by Broadcasting Licensees and Related Matters. Government Gazette.
International IDEA. 2022. Political Finance Database. International Institute
for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/
political-finance-database (Accessed 20 December 2023).
Johnson, R. W. and Lawrence Schlemmer. (eds). 1996. Launching Democracy in
South Africa: The First Open Election, April 1994. Newhaven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Kondlo, Kwandiwe and Mashupye H. Maserumule. 2011. ‘The Reluctant President—
The Presidency of Kgalema Motlanthe’. African Renaissance, 8(1):65–96.
Krönke, Matthias. 2020. ‘Africa’s Digital Divide and the Promise of E-learning’.
Afrobarometer Policy Paper, 66.
Krönke, Matthias, Sarah J. Lockwood, and Robert Mattes. 2022. ‘Party Footprints
in Africa: Measuring Local Party Presence across the Continent’. Party Politics,
28(2):208–222.
Lepule, Tshego. 2021. EFF’s Student Command Dominates SRC Elections. IOL,
24 October. https://www.iol.co.za/weekend-argus/news/effs-student-command-
dominates-src-elections-83bbc9bd-4900-48c0-9b37-75080cef434a (Accessed 20
December 2023).
Levitsky, Steven and Daniel Ziblatt. 2018. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown
Publishing Group.
Lipset, Seymour. M. and Stein Rokkan. 1967. Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and
Voter Alignments: An Introduction. New York: Free Press.
Lockwood, Sarah J. and Matthias Krönke. 2021. ‘Do Electoral Systems Affect How
Citizens Hold Their Government Accountable? Evidence from Africa’. Democra-
tization, 28(3):583–603.
510 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Lührmann, Anna, Nils Düpont, Masaaki Higashijima et al. 2020. Codebook Vari-
eties of Party Identity and Organization (V-Party) V1. Varieties of Democracy
(V-Dem) Project. https://doi.org/10.23696/vpartydsv1 (Accessed 20 December
2023).
Mattes, Robert. 2019. ‘Democracy in Africa: Demand, Supply, and the “Dissatisfied
Democrat”’. Afrobarometer Policy Paper 54.
Mattes, Robert. 2002. ‘South Africa: Democracy without the People?’. Journal of
Democracy, 13(1):22–36.
Ndamase, Siphesihle. 2020. Policy Brief on Party and Campaign Finance in South

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Africa’s 2019 Election. Johannesburg: Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democ-
racy in Africa.
Nkomo, Sibusiso. 2018. ‘Land Redistribution: South Africans Prioritize Land Taken
in Forced Removals, Support “Willing Seller” Approach’. Afrobarometer Dispatch
254.
Piper, Laurence. 2005. ‘The Inkatha Freedom Party: Between the Impossible and
the Ineffective’. In Jessica Piombo and Lia Nijzink (eds), Electoral Politics in South
Africa. Assessing the First Democratic Decade. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
148–165.
Plessis, Carien du. 2021. ‘Cyril Ramaphosa to Zondo Commission: My CR17
Campaign Did Not Cost a Billion Rand’. News24, 29 April. https://www.news24.
com/news24/southafrica/news/cyril-ramaphosa-to-zondo-commission-my-
cr17-campaign-did-not-cost-a-billion-rand-20210429 (Accessed 20 December
2023).
Poguntke, Thomas, Susan E. Scarrow, and Paul D. Webb. 2021. Political Party
Database Round 2. Political Party Database. https://www.pruf.de/datenbanken-
parteischiedsgerichte-und-ppdb/ppdb-database (Accessed 20 December 2023).
Republic of South Africa. 2018. Political Party Funding Act, No.6 of 2018. Pretoria:
Government Printers.
SANES. 2019. South African National Election Study/Comparative National Elec-
tions Project: 2019 Election. https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.
php/catalog/DARU-SANES/?page=1&sort_by=title&sort_order=asc&ps=15&
repo=DARU-SANES
Schreiner, Wadim and Robert Mattes. 2012. ‘The Possibilities of Election Cam-
paigns as Sites for Political Advocacy: South Africa in Comparative Perspective’.
In Heather A. Thuynsma (ed.), Public Opinion and Interest Group Politics: South
Africa’s Missing Links?. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa, 154–172.
Sokutu, Brian. 2019. The ANC Spent More Than an Estimated R1bn to Retain
Power. The Citizen, 13 May. https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/
elections/2129749/the-anc-spent-more-than-an-estimated-r1bn-to-retain-
power/ (Accessed 20 December 2023).
 Political Parties and Democracy in South Africa 511

South African History Online. 2019. EFF 2019 Election Manifesto. https://www.
sahistory.org.za/archive/eff-2019-election-manifesto (Accessed 20 May 2022).
Southall, Roger. 2014. ‘Democracy at Risk? Politics and Governance under the ANC’.
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 652(1):48–69.
Southall, Roger. 2016. Liberation Movements in Power: Party and State in Southern
Africa. London: James Currey.
Statistics South Africa. 2016. Community Survey 2016, Statistical Release P0301.
Statistics South Africa.
Thuynsma, Heather. 2017. ‘Securing their Future: Using Election Campaigns to Safe-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

guard the Party System’. In Heather A. Thuynsma (ed.), Political Parties of South
Africa: Do They Undermine or Underpin Democracy?. Pretoria: Africa Institute of
South Africa, 114–134.
24
Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth
Republic, 1999–2019
Jake D. Dan-Azumi

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Introduction

The health and resilience of a country’s democracy are often gauged by the
strength of its democratic institutions, including its political parties (IDEA
2017). In addition to their traditional functions, namely, ‘electoral struc-
turation’, ‘symbolic integration’, and aggregation of the interests of citizens,
political parties also contribute to ensuring political accountability, demo-
cratic stability, and national unity (Mainwaring and Scully 1995). To be
effective, however, political parties are expected to be inclusive and trans-
parent in their operations and maintain democratic principles, especially as
they pertain to their internal processes (Morton 2017).
Political party systems can be one-party, two-party, or multi-party. The
greater the number, the greater the likelihood that the electorate will be
presented with alternative platforms. Over the last six decades, Nigeria has
experimented with various systems. The one-party system has been touted in
pluralistic societies, such as Nigeria, to promote national unity and manage
religious and ethnic diversity (Hamalai et al. 2017). Regardless of its antici-
pated merits, it has been contested that the one-party system is more likely
to result in authoritarianism and political exclusion. Alternatively, the two-
party system, in which parties have distinct ideological postures, such as in
the USA and the UK, is said to have the advantage of engendering polit-
ical information to the electorate in a simplified and understandable way,
political stability and balance, and fewer voting choices. On the reverse side,
however, others have pointed out the challenges associated with the two-
party system, such as the exclusion of minority views, limited choice (and
hence voter apathy), and in some instances negative partisanship, or what has
been described as affective polarization (Iyengar et al. 2012; Hetherington

Jake D. Dan-Azumi, Political Parties in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, 1999–2019. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Jake D. Dan-Azumi (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0024
 Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth Republic, 1999–2019 513

and Rudolph 2015). This system has a long history in Nigeria and was tested
between 1992 and 1993 (the so-called aborted Third Republic) (Oyediran
and Agbaje 1991; Lewis 1996; Adejumobi 1997). As with the one-party sys-
tem, this also failed because the two parties were not ideologically different
(Yaqub 2002).
Since 1999, Nigeria has had a multi-party system with several polit-
ical parties contesting general elections. It is considered more suited to
pluralistic societies and contexts and is more likely to offer a political
platform for varied and diverse interests, including political, religious, cul-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

tural, and economic ones (Hague and Harrop 2004; Tsuwa 2014). Addi-
tionally, multi-partyism allows for opposition, the integration of minority
views, greater voter participation, and linkages among electoral stakehold-
ers. Despite its merits, the system faces several challenges, including dif-
ficulties in forming governments, high costs, fragmentation, rivalry, and
weak or unstable governments (Mainwaring and Scully 1995; Kuenzi and
Lambright 2005).
This chapter reviews the development of the party system in Nigeria’s
Fourth Republic (1999 to date), showing how dominant political parties
emerged, progressed, and performed in the last four general elections. The
analysis is conducted within the context of the legal and statutory frame-
works regulating party politics in Nigeria, the party system, and the structure
of political parties and their organizations. Data on the performance of the
dominant political parties in presidential, parliamentary, and gubernato-
rial elections are presented and discussed, focusing on how political party
structures and organizations impact the outcomes of elections.

An Overview of the Dominant Political Parties in Nigeria

A brief history of Nigeria and an overview of the evolution

and pattern of political party formation in the First and
Second Republics

Modern Nigeria emerged in 1914 with the amalgamation of the Northern

and Southern Protectorates, hitherto administered separately by British colo-
nialists. The societal differences and cultural heterogeneity characterizing
the various nationalities that form Nigeria are essential in understanding
many of the challenges facing the country today, particularly as they relate
to achieving national unity and cohesiveness and building inclusive demo-
cratic institutions, including political parties. Nigeria’s ethnic and religious
514 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

pluralism is also reflected in its constituent populations. While Christian-

ity is dominant in the south and the middle belt, the north is dominated
mainly by Islam. The Igbo, Yoruba, and Hausa/Fulani are the dominant eth-
nic groups, and more than 150 ‘minority’ ethnic groups are distributed across
the country’s six geopolitical zones.
Nigeria gained independence from the British on 1 October 1960 and
became a republic three years later. The country practised the parliamentary
system at independence but abandoned it for the presidential system in 1979,
following the end of the country’s civil war (6 July 1967 to 15 January 1970)

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

and subsequent military rule. These moments in Nigeria’s political history
represent the struggles of the country and its ruling elite to manage diver-
sity, entrench good governance, and build functional democratic institutions.
These challenges are still prevalent today. The 63-year history of Nigeria
has been punctuated by several military coups and four distinct democratic
dispensations called ‘republics’: the First Republic (1960–1966); Second
Republic (1979–1983); Third Republic, which was prematurely terminated
by the military (1992–1993); and Fourth Republic (1999–present).
Given the pluralism, vast geography, and significant differences in the
historical and cultural origins of people in different parts of the coun-
try, the multi-party system with two dominant parties has been the most
favoured approach since 1960. The parliamentary elections held in 1959
were contested by several political parties but were dominated by the North-
ern People’s Congress (NPC), five other parties, and two independents with
which it had entered into a coalition. The NPC controlled 148 seats in the
House of Representatives, whereas Action Group (AG) won 89. The 1964
election yielded similar results (Table 24.1).

Table 24.1 Composition of Federal House of

Representatives by political parties, 1959–1964a

NPC/NNA NCNC/AG ZCP AG

1959 148 89 - 75
1964 189 109 5 -
a
NPC—Northern People’s Congress; NNA—Nigerian
National Alliance, a coalition of parties that contested the
1964 federal elections; NCNC—National Council of
Nigeria and Cameroons; AG—Action Group; and
ZCP—Zamfara Commoner’s Party.
Source: Hamalai (2014: 47) and Independent National
Electoral Commission
 Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth Republic, 1999–2019 515

Five major parties competed for power in the Second Republic

(1979–1983), namely; the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), considered the
natural successor to the First Republic’s NPC; the United Party of Nigeria
(UPN), modelled on the AG; the Nigerian People’s Party (NPP), succeeded
the nationalist political party, the National Council of Nigeria and the
Cameroons (NCNC), which was active in the period before and imme-
diately after Nigeria’s independence (1944-1966). Others were the People’s
Redemption Party (PRP) and the Great Nigerian People’s Party (GNPP). The
outcome was dominated by the NPN with 36 seats, while the UPN won 28

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

seats and the NPP secured 16 seats. In comparison, the Great Nigerian Peo-
ple’s Party (GNPP) received eight seats, while the People’s Redemption Party
(PRP) won seven (Table 24.2).
In Nigeria’s First and Second Republics, the political parties were ethnic in
their outlook. The NPC was dominated by Hausa/Fulani people and led by
Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Premier of the Northern Region and Sardauna1
of Sokoto. At the same time, the deputy leader was Sir Alhaji Abubakar
Tafawa Balewa, the then Prime Minister of Nigeria. Its successor, the NPN,
developed by the Northern Movement, was a political pressure group in the
north. Its founding members included prominent individuals from north-
ern elites, such as Shehu Shagari, Aminu Kano, Maitama Sule, Inua Wada,
and Sule Gaya. It also had others from the middle belt and other parts of the
country, such as Joseph Tarka, A. M. A. Akinloye, Anthony Enahoro, K. O.
Mbadiwe, and Joseph Wayas. However, the AG/UPN (under Chief Obafemi
Awolowo) was predominantly popular among the Yoruba in the south-west.
Accordingly, the NPP/UPN was led by Nnamdi Azikiwe, and most of its fol-
lowers were Igbo. The GNPP was dominated by members of northern elites
and led by the Waziri Ibrahim of Borno.

Table 24.2 Composition of Senate by political

parties, 1979–1983a

NPN UPN NPP GNPP PRP

1979 36 28 16 8 7
1983 60 6 12 1 5
a
NPN—National Party of Nigeria; UPN—Unity Party
of Nigeria; NPP—Nierian People Party; GNPP—Great
Nigeria Peoples Party; PRP—People’s Redemption
Party.
Source: Hamalai (2014: 47) and Independent National
Electoral Commission
516 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

The military truncated the First and Second Republics following

widespread public disenchantment with the political class and the loss of
legitimacy (Diamond 1988). Other related reasons include prolonged peri-
ods of economic decline, ethnic and religious polarization (partly made
worse by ethnically based political parties), massive and entrenched corrup-
tion typified by the looting of public funds, politicians’ flamboyant lifestyles,
and general bad governance. In addition, public disillusionment sometimes
led to political unrest and widespread disorder in some regions. However, it
has been argued that the collapse of the First Republic was deeply rooted in

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the failure of colonial enterprises (Diamond 1966).

1999 to 2019

Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999 after 16 years of military rule and

maintained the presidential system that was first introduced in 1979. Since
1954, the state has promoted the integration of diverse and distinct ethnic
nationalities. It comprises 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. The
president is popularly elected in a first-past-the-post system. The legislature
at the national level is bicameral, consisting of a Senate of 109 members
(3 per state) and a House of Representatives with 360 members, each repre-
senting a federal constituency. General elections are held every four years for
legislative and executive positions, and vacancies between general elections
are filled via by-elections. The legislative frameworks regulating the conduct
of elections in Nigeria between 1999 and 2019 included the 1999 Constitu-
tion and the Electoral Act (2001, 2002, 2006 and 2010). Section 40 of the
1999 Constitution guarantees the rights of all Nigerians to assemble freely
and form or belong to any political party, while Section 153 (f ) of the Consti-
tution establishes the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Part I of the Third Schedule states the INEC’s functions, including organizing
and supervising elections, and registering and monitoring political parties.
Political parties are required to have statutes at the point of registration
with the INEC. Other requirements include open membership to all Nige-
rians, provision of the names and addresses of national officers, national
spread, non-affiliation with any ethnic group or religion, and headquarters
in Abuja (S.222 of the 1999 Constitution). Parties operate at ward, local
government, state, and national levels under elected chairpersons and other
officials. In addition, the parties created several organs for administrative and
operational purposes. These include the Board of Trustees, a National Exec-
utive Committee responsible for formulating policies, and National Working
 Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth Republic, 1999–2019 517

Committee, which operates as a sub-committee and runs the party. These

committees are replicated at the state level, and their powers and functions
are spelt out in party statutes. In addition, there is a National Secretariat
with a General Secretary entrusted to the party’s administrative management.
Party membership is open to any Nigerian aged 18 years and older who has
paid the prescribed fee and is formally accepted by the Ward Executive Com-
mittee. Members are issued membership cards, and their registers are usually
kept by the party secretariat in various wards. While the literature on the
extent of political party activism through party membership in Nigeria is

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

limited, there has been an increase in direct political engagement through
information and communications technology tools.
In the period of transition from military rule to democracy in 1999, the
multi-party system was adopted, and three political parties, namely, the Peo-
ple’s Democratic Party (PDP), the All People’s Party (APP) and the Alliance
for Democracy (AD) were registered by INEC. These parties participated in
the 1999 general elections, in which the PDP emerged as the dominant polit-
ical party in Nigeria. By 2003, the number of political parties had risen to
33. The APP and AD had formed a coalition to contest the February 1999
presidential elections after the PDP’s sweeping victory in the January guber-
natorial elections. As a result of this alliance, the APP gained ground in the
National Assembly elections, winning 88 seats (20 of 109 in the Senate and
68 of 360 in the House of Representatives). Nevertheless, the party was sub-
sequently beleaguered by internal crises, which led to its metamorphosis into
the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) during the 2003 elections. The Fourth
Republic has also seen a proliferation of political parties, primarily due to
weak guidelines regulating party registration. However, in 2010, following
the reforms in the Electoral Act 2010 on the viability of political parties, the
INEC deregistered 38 parties in line with Section 78(7) of the Act.
However, the proliferation of political parties continued in 2017 when the
INEC registered an additional 21 to take the total number of parties to 67. The
new parties were said to have satisfied the requirements of Sections 221 and
222 of the 1999 Constitution, as highlighted above. However, many political
parties have been able to work around legal and statutory requirements and
establish a superficial presence in all states of the Federation. Suffice it to say
that the requirement that political parties must have nationwide appeal and
presence has sometimes been criticized for failing to promote national unity,
which is its original intent.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) was founded in 2015, following the
merger of three major political parties, namely the Action Congress of Nige-
ria (ACN), which was established in 2006 following the merger of multiple
518 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

parties, including the AD, Justice Party, Advance Congress of Democrats,

Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), and the ANPP. These parties had
spheres of influence across geopolitical zones, with the ACN having signifi-
cant dominance in the south-west and the CPC dominating the north-west
and north-east. This coalition of hitherto fragmented opposition parties was
further bolstered by the defection of prominent PDP stalwarts, including
five governors, in protest against alleged injustices and ill-treatment. More
importantly, in the build-up to the 2015 campaign, the newly formed APC
emphasized the challenges facing Nigeria since its return to democracy in

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

1999, including rising insecurity across the country, particularly militancy
and insurgency, electoral fraud, corruption, and economic decline.

Emergence and organization of the Peopleʼs Democratic

Party (PDP)

In the first 16 years of the Fourth Republic (1999–present), the PDP was
among three parties successfully registered out of the initial nine that applied,
and it was granted provisional registration on 5 December 1998. The six other
parties failed to meet the requirement that parties score at least 5% of the total
votes cast in a minimum of 24 states across Nigeria as a precondition for final
registration (Momoh and Thovoethin 2001).
The emergence of the PDP has been characterized as top-down rather
than bottom-up. A national coalition of 34 ex-military officers, politicians,
and other elites formed G34. This group, led by Nigeria’s former vice pres-
ident in the Second Republic (1979–1983), Alex Ekwueme, was a pressure
group opposed to attempts by General Sani Abacha to transform from a
military head of state to a civilian president. In the aftermath of Abacha’s
death on 8 June 1998, General Abdulsalam Abubakar took over and imme-
diately announced a timetable for returning the country to civilian rule by
May 1999. Elections for governors were scheduled for December 1998, while
those for the president were slated for February 1999, with an official han-
dover date of 29 May 1999. In addition, Abubakar released political prisoners,
embarked on substantial political, economic, and social reforms, and estab-
lished an independent election-monitoring body, the INEC, under Decree 17
of 1998 (Dagne 2006). Against the background of these developments, G34
was transformed into the PDP in August 1998.
Owing to its origins as a pressure group comprising various actors across
the broad spectrum of Nigerian society, the PDP was ab initio elitist driven.
This became evident in the processes leading to the emergence of the
party’s flagbearer for the presidential election. The founding chairman, Alex
 Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth Republic, 1999–2019 519

Ekwueme, was pushed aside, and the ticket was given to the former mili-
tary head of state, Olusegun Obasanjo. This was done with the backing of
powerful and wealthy members of the party, who considered him a more
predictable and reliable option.
From the onset, the PDP lacked an ideological core to distinguish it from
others and determine its policy goals. Founders of the PDP portrayed the
party as a natural successor to the National Republic Convention, which was
established in 1993 by the military-led government of Ibrahim Babangida
and the NPN. However, this is highly debatable and difficult to establish given

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the party’s origins as a constellation of diverse and often opposing interests.
This is also reflected in the party’s manifesto, which was carefully crafted to
ensure the inclusion and management of diversity, particularly among the
various interest groups that make up the party. Some of the founding and ini-
tial members of the party collaborated with the military and even supported
the annulment of the 12 June 1993 presidential elections by the military
regime of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. It was claimed to be one
of the freest elections in Nigeria’s history. Others served as members of the
Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) under the dictatorship of the late General
Sani Abacha. The PRC is the highest decision-making organ in the military
and has 33 members, including civilian ministers.
The absence of a clearly defined ideology in the PDP is also reflected
in internal party conflicts, including the choice of party head (it had 12
party chairmen in 16 years) (Hamalai et al. 2017), a weak statute and party
structure, a lack of cohesion, and a disconnect with members at the grass-
roots level. These factors played a significant role in the party’s decline in
2015, particularly given its failure to support popular candidates in the party
primaries.

Performance of political parties in elections in Nigeria,

1999–2019

As stated above, the PDP became the dominant political party in Nigeria in
1999, with considerable government control at both the national and state
levels. For 16 years, the party won all presidential elections and maintained
a majority in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Presidential
The results of the first four general elections (1999, 2003, 2007, and 2011)
clearly show the PDP’s dominance (Figure 24.1). The percentage of votes
secured by PDP candidates in 1999 and 2003 was 62%. This increased to
69.60% in 2007 but dropped to 58.87% in 2011.
520 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

80
69.6
70 62.7
53.95
60 58.87
61.94 57.42
50
40 37.29 32.19 42.57
44.96
30 31.96
18.91
20
3.28 7.45 5.44
10
2.39 0.1

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

0
1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019
PDP AD/APP/ANPP APGA
ACN/ AC CPC APC Others

Figure 24.1 Presidential election result by political party (%)

Note: The APC was founded in 2015 following a coalition of three major opposition parties, ACN, CPC,
and ANPP, and hence only started participating in national elections as a unified entity in 2025.
Source: INECʼs Report of 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019 General Elections

While the party’s victory remained impressive over the period, voter sup-
port declined steadily. Nevertheless, given its dominance in all six geopoliti-
cal zones of Nigeria, the PDP can be described as Nigeria’s first pan-national
political party that was largely successful in transcending ethnic and religious
identities. This is evidenced by the party’s performance in the 2011 presi-
dential and National Assembly elections across all six zones, averaging 64%
(EUEOM 2015).
However, 2015 was a watershed moment in Nigerian political history.
For the first time, an opposition party won the presidential elections. It
swept away the ruling party and established solid control at the national
level and across the Federation. This peaceful transition of power consoli-
dated Nigeria’s position as a growing democracy. The candidate of the APC,
Muhammadu Buhari, won the presidential elections with 15,424,921 votes
(53.95%), while the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP, received
12,853,162 votes (44.96%). In the 2019 elections, the APC maintained its con-
trol at the centre with a victory in the presidential and National Assembly
polls. President Buhari was re-elected with 15,191,847 votes (57.42%), beat-
ing the PDP’s closest opponent, Atiku Abubakar (who received 11,262,978
votes), by over three million votes. Simultaneously, three other political par-
ties (PCP, ADC, and APGA) received 309,481 votes. Buhari won in 19 of the
36 states, whereas Abubakar won in 17 states.
 Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth Republic, 1999–2019 521

National Assembly
The dominance of the PDP between 1999 and 2011 in both chambers of the
National Assembly (the Senate and House of Representatives) was extensive,
as shown in Figure 24.2. In the 20 February 1999 election, the PDP won 62
out of 109 seats (56.88%) in the Senate and 214 out of 360 seats (59.44%) in
the House. The APP secured 24 seats (22.02%) in the Senate and 77 (21.39%)
in the House. On the other hand, AD won 23 (21.1%) seats in the Senate and
68 (18.89%) in the House.
In 2003, the PDP increased its majority in the Senate, with 76 out of the 109

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

seats (69.72%), thus consolidating its hold in the upper chamber. Similarly,
in the House of Representatives, the party increased its seats from 214 in
1999 to 222 in 2003 and 263 in 2007. However, in 2011, the PDP’s majority
in the National Assembly suffered a waning of its control, winning 72 seats
(66.1%) compared to 86 in the previous election. Similarly, in the House of
Representatives, the PDP saw a decline in the number of seats, from 263 in
2007 to 203 in 2011.
As with the presidential elections, the dominance of the PDP in the
National Assembly was challenged in 2015, with the APC winning 60 seats
(55.05%) in the Senate as against 49 (44.95%) by the PDP. In 2019, the
APC maintained its lead with 64 seats (58.72%), whereas the PDP won
44 seats (40.37%). Similarly, in the House of Representatives (Figure 24.3),
the APC won 225 seats (63%), while the PDP won 125 seats (35%) in the
2015 elections. Even though the APC lost a few seats, it still controlled the
House with 212 seats (58.89%), while the PDP increased its seats marginally
to 127 (35.28%).

90
80 78.9
70 69.72 66.1 55.05
60 56.88 58.72
50
40 40.37
22.02 24.77 13.76 44.95
30
16.5
20 5.5
21.1 5.5 5.5
10 6.4
0 1.84
1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019
PDP APP/ANPP AD/AC/CAN LP
CPC APGA APC Others

Figure 24.2 Composition of Senate by political parties (%)

Source: INECʼs Report of 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019 General Elections
522 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

80
73.06
70 59.44 61.67 63
60 58.89
56.4
50
40 35
35.28
30 21.39 26.94
20 19.2
17.22
18.89 9.44
10 7.5
8.89
0

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019
PDP APP/ANPP AD/AC/CAN LP
CPC APGA APC Others

Figure 24.3 Composition of House of Representatives by political parties (%)

Source: INECʼs Report of 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019 General Elections

Thus, between 1999 and 2011, the PDP held a majority position in the
House. Although it never won the two-thirds majority (72 in the Senate and
240 in the House) needed for major legislative actions (such as constitutional
amendments and the impeachment of the executive or presiding officers), it
nonetheless had a comfortable majority for most legislative decision mak-
ing. However, in general, there was a gradual weakening of the position of
the PDP in the National Assembly and a steady, even if minimal, rise in the
number of seats won by other parties in the opposition. This trend has been
explained by improvements in the conduct of elections and overall election
management (Akhaine 2011; Gberie 2011; Omotola 2011), growing disillu-
sionment with the ruling party, growing recognition of opposition parties,
and internal conflicts within the ruling party, among others.
Suffice it to say that the erosion of the dominance of the PDP began in
2011 when its hold in the Senate was reduced from 86 seats in 2007 to 72.
By 2015, the party had lost 24 seats. A similar development occurred in the
House of Representatives, where the PDP lost 140 seats between 2007 and
2011—a trend that continued until 2015.

State: Governorship and State Houses of Assembly

At the sub-national level, the PDP maintained an equal lead in both the
governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections from 1999 to 2011, as
Figures 24.4 and 24.5 show. There was a progressive increase in the number
 Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth Republic, 1999–2019 523

90.0
77.8 75.7
80.0 77.8
70.0 61.1
58.3 63.9
60.0 51.5
50.0
40.0 48.5
36.1
30.0 25.0
19.4
16.7
20.0 16.7 13.5 8.3
8.3 8.3 5.6
10.0 2.8
2.8 2.7

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2.7 2.8
0.0
1999 2003 2007 2010 2011 2015 2019
PDP APP/ANPP AD/ACN PPA APGA LP CPC APC

Figure 24.4 Composition of governorship seats by political parties (%)

Source: INECʼs Report of 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019 General Elections

80 70.9 68.98
70 63.53
55.15 56.36
60 54.34

50
40
27.07 3.13 39.49
30 21.91 36.86
16.76 16.66
20 2.42
17.37 1.01
5.25 1.81 7.57 1.61 2.72
10 10 3.13 2.62 4.14
3.23
0 0.4 0.2
1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019

PDP APP/ANPP AD/ACN APGA

LP CPC APC OTHERS

Figure 24.5 Seats won in State Houses of Assembly by political parties (%)
Source: INECʼs Report of 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019 General Elections

of governorship seats held by the party across Nigeria, from 21 in 1999 to 28

in the next three consecutive elections (2003, 2007, and 2010); the number
dropped to 23 in 2011. At the same time, the number of governorship seats
held by the APP/ANPP steadily decreased from nine in 1999 to three in 2011
as the PDP established its dominance at all levels. Similarly, the AD/ACN,
which won six seats in 1999, only managed between one and three seats
between 2003 and 2010 and six in 2011.
524 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

However, in the 2019 general elections, the APC saw a decline in control,
winning 17 states, while the PDP won 16. The APC subsequently won over
more states through court decisions and defections.
At the sub-national level (Figure 24.5), the PDP maintained firm con-
trol between 1999 and 2011. In the 1999 elections, the PDP won 546 seats
(55.15%) out of 990 in the various State Houses of Assembly in the country,
compared to AP’s 268 seats (27.07%) and AD’s 172 seats (17.37%). The PDP’s
share of seats in the State Houses of Assembly rose to its highest in 2003, when
the party won 702 seats (70.90%), while AP and AD won 217 (21.91%) and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

52 (5.25%), respectively. Results of the 2011 elections showed that the PDP
won 629 seats (63.53%). As with other elections, the PDP had established
dominance across all six geopolitical zones of the country, securing major-
ity seats in the State Houses of Assembly despite widespread support for the
leading opposition candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, in northern Nigeria.
In the 2015 and 2019 elections, however, the APC successfully established
firm control of the State Houses of Assembly, having won 558 (56.36%)
and 538 (54.34%), while the PDP received 365 (36.86%) and 391 (39.49%).
Despite the APC’s ascendancy during this period, its share of seats in the
State Houses of Assembly never reached that of the PDP at its peak. The
dominance of a party at the state level is significant in advancing the party’s
legislative agenda. The legislative process for constitutional alterations in
Nigeria requires two-thirds of a majority in at least 24 states.

Factors that explain the dominance of the PDP

Several arguments have been advanced to explain the PDP’s dominance over
the 16 years since it won four successive elections (1999, 2003, 2007, and
2011). This is even more surprising considering the party’s deficient per-
formance in ensuring security, economic growth, and development. Figures
from the National Bureau of Statistics show a steady rise in poverty levels
in Nigeria between 1980 and 2010. For instance, its report shows that in
2010, 60.9% of Nigerians lived in absolute poverty, as against 54.7% in 2004
(NBS 2010).
Some reasons for the prolonged dominance of the PDP include its plural-
istic outlook and success in forming coalitions among divergent stakeholders
and positions. This is exemplified by the composition of its founding mem-
bers, who include politicians and retired military officers. The latter has
been described as a reason for the success and dominance of the PDP. The
military ruled Nigeria for decades and established control and extensive
 Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth Republic, 1999–2019 525

networks nationwide by creating and distributing patronage in various forms

(Adekanye 1999). Similarly, the military initiated the political transition pro-
cess and had an immense influence on deciding who the political actors
were. It has been argued that the military was willing to hand over power
only to persons with links to it or sympathetic and protective of its inter-
ests. This explains the dominance of former military leaders as candidates
for the presidential and National Assembly elections in the PDP between
1999 and 2011. This trend was carried over by the APC when its candi-
date Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler, was elected president in

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

2015. In most instances, former military officers and their associates had the
resources required to contest elections by virtue of their positions during
military regimes and their access to state funds.
The PDP developed several mechanisms to manage diversity and meet the
interests of its members, including the rotation of positions (including pres-
ident, leadership positions in the National Assembly, and party leadership
positions) among the country’s six geopolitical zones (Kendhammer 2010).
As such, the PDP appeared more pluralistic than the other regional parties
(AD and ACN in the south-west, APP/ANPP/CPC in the north-west, and
APGA in the south-east). Through these arrangements, the party reached
out to ethnic minorities nationwide who had perpetually protested about
political marginalization. As a result, the PDP circumvented some challenges
faced by political parties in the Second Republic, which were characterized as
regional and ethnic in outlook (Diamond 1988; Diamond and Suberu 2002).
In addition to reaching out to minority groups, the PDP successfully built
alliances with regional pressure groups and bodies such as the Afenifere in
Yorubaland, Ohanaeze in the south-east, and the Arewa Consultative Forum
in the north (Hamalai et al. 2017). Relatedly, under the party the rights
and freedoms of Nigerians, particularly freedom of speech, were respected
and protected. As a result, there was no systematic crackdown on media
houses, and stakeholders—including journalists, opposition members, and
the public—were free to assemble and express their views and criticisms of
the government.
Other reasons for the success of the PDP include a weak legal and institu-
tional framework (the Electoral Act 2006) and an equally weakened electoral
management body (INEC) that lacked sufficient internal capacity, resources,
and independence to conduct free and fair elections. The composition,
manner of appointment, and lack of security of tenure for the position of
the Chairman of the Commission made the INEC beholden to the execu-
tive (Omotola 2010). The preponderance of money politics and the INEC’s
inability to track party campaign finances made it possible for political parties
526 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

to engage in illegal conduct and raise considerable funds to support their

activities. High levels of corruption related to party financing have been a
recurring problem in Nigeria, as evidenced by investigations into individu-
als and business interests referred to as ‘contractors’ in 1956 and 1962. The
Second Republic provided both private and public funding. The absence
of a spending cap in the 1979 Constitution resulted in widespread corrup-
tion (INEC 2005). There has not been any significant change in the Fourth
Republic, with widespread allegations of corruption in 1999 and 2003 against
political parties by civic groups (Adetula 2008). Collectively, these factors

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

make it easy for political actors to circumvent and undermine electoral
processes.
The ‘power of incumbency’ also made it possible for the PDP, particu-
larly at the level of the executive (president and governors), to perpetuate
itself in power by relying on its influence, the resources of government
and its control of government-owned media and the coercive instruments
of the state, including security and law-enforcement agencies, to suppress
opposition. This took various forms, such as denying the opposition the
use of government facilities for campaigns, unequal access to government
media, harassment and intimidation of opposition leaders, militarization
of elections, and voter suppression. Additionally, the use of inducements
and patronage in the context of high levels of poverty and material depri-
vation has made it easier to manipulate electorates (Hamalai et al. 2017).
Over the years, there has been a significant increase in selling and buy-
ing votes, particularly following innovations that promote transparency in
the electoral process. Some have argued that the PDP used government
resources and instruments to manipulate elections and compromise the elec-
toral management body, which became an extension of the executive, even in
its composition (Hamalai 2014). The INEC’s poor funding also limited the
effectiveness of its operations, often resulting in poorly conducted elections
that were subsequently confronted with litigation.
Furthermore, the absence of strong opposition parties that could present
credible alternatives enabled the ruling party (PDP) to maintain its power.
Over the years, opposition parties have remained largely underdeveloped,
playing a minimal role in constituting effective opposition to the ruling party.
In contrast, the ruling party often found ways to compromise with oppo-
sition parties and entice their members to join their ranks. The history of
political developments since 1999 has been characterized by defections and
counter-defections, largely because the most significant consideration is per-
sonal interest, as opposed to political ideology. The Constitution does not
prohibit political defections but regulates them. Section 68 (1) states that a
 Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth Republic, 1999–2019 527

member of the Senate or the House of Representatives shall vacate his seat
if he ‘becomes a member of another political party’. However, the Constitu-
tion further lays out the conditions for defection, that is, it can only be done
‘provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of
a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or of
a merger of two or more political parties or factions by one of which he was
previously sponsored’ (Section 68(g)). This latter provision has been used to
justify defection, particularly because it is obscure and does not define what
‘division’ means. As such, any internal disagreement within a party has been

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

described as a ‘division’ by members who intend to leave.
In general, political parties, including those in opposition, do not receive
government funding. However, state governors who control substantial
resources are known to provide bulk financing to the ruling party. On the
other hand, opposition parties lack access to state resources, further weak-
ening their positions. At the parliamentary level, however, those that occupy
leadership positions (minority leaders, minority whips, and their deputies)
have special budgets. To challenge the dominance of the PDP, opposition
parties have formed coalitions since 1999 to bolster their positions, pool
resources, and advance votes for the joint candidates of the parties.

The Emergence of the All Progressives Congress (APC)

and the Struggle to Consolidate Hold on Power

As noted above, 2015 was a watershed moment in Nigeria’s political his-

tory when the opposition party (APC), for the first time, defeated the ruling
party (PDP) in a general election to win a presidential election and establish
a majority in the National Assembly. As noted above, the APC emerged in
2013 after the merger of multiple parties, including a breakaway faction of the
PDP. The election results (Figures 24.4 and 24.5) show that the party won the
presidential election and established dominance in much of the north. Simul-
taneously, the PDP retained its traditional popular support in the south-east
and south.
Several factors explain the success of the APC in the 2015 polls, including
the growing disenchantment with the PDP over the past 16 years. After a long
period of military rule, Nigerians had high expectations at the beginning of
the Fourth Republic. However, the inability of the PDP to tackle poverty and
address rising levels of unemployment has left millions disillusioned. This
situation was worsened by the perception of endemic corruption and the
self-enrichment of politicians and their associates. However, rising insecurity
528 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

in most parts of the country and the seeming incapacity of the government to
stem the tide probably pushed the people to revolt against the PDP. The most
prominent challenge was the rise of Islamic militancy in north-east Nigeria.
A terrorist sect called Boko Haram, founded in 2002 but rising in promi-
nence in 2009, grew and expanded rapidly, seizing control of several local
governments in the country’s north-east. Its activities disrupted the social
and economic livelihoods of people in the region and caused the deaths of
thousands.
Changes in electoral management by the INEC and innovations that

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

include biometrics-based permanent voter cards (PVCs) were important
factors. The use of smart card readers, introduced by INEC in 2015, has
undoubtedly changed the nature of elections in Nigeria. The INEC Guide-
lines require that once at a polling unit, a voter first presents their PVC to
one of the polling officials for verification and authentication using a smart
card reader (SCR). Only after being verified and authenticated does a voter
go through the rest of the voting process (Dan-Azumi and Asan 2021). This
is arguably the most important innovation in Nigeria’s electoral process since
its independence. It removed power from politicians and placed it in the
hands of the people, strengthening the democratic process and restoring pub-
lic confidence in it. These innovations shaped the outcomes of the 2015 and,
to some extent, the 2019 elections.
Although using PVC and SCR contributed to the electoral process, it
also affected election outcomes. When it was first introduced in 2015, there
were widespread reports of technical glitches in devices, ranging from bat-
tery failures, failure to decode fingerprints, and outright failures in some
instances. Some of these challenges were attributed to insufficient under-
standing among the INEC staff about how to use the devices. As a result,
many Nigerians became disenfranchised. Despite these hiccups, however,
the use of card readers improved transparency and reduced the likelihood of
manipulation and rigging, which have characterized most previous elections.
Similar to previous elections in Nigeria, the 2015 elections were heavily
shaped by ethnicity and religion. The APC and its candidate, Muham-
madu Buhari, were portrayed as contriving and advancing a ‘northern’ and
‘Muslim’ agenda. On the other hand, the PDP, which was popular in the
Christian-dominated south and among ‘minority’ ethnic groups in the north
and the middle belt, was presented as the opposite of the APC. The outcomes
of the elections confirmed this bias as both parties won bloc votes in their
respective states of influence: the PDP in the south and the APC in the north.
Internal party struggles, especially concerning the conduct of political
party primary elections by both the PDP and APC, affected the general
 Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth Republic, 1999–2019 529

elections. Some issues that confronted the parties included the imposition of
candidates by political godfathers, opaque and non-competitive primaries,
violations of party guidelines on the conduct of primaries, and the moneti-
zation of the whole process. The Electoral Act 2010 requires political parties
to hold direct or indirect primaries for aspirants in all elective positions. The
bigger parties (the PDP and APC) have often relied more on indirect pri-
maries to nominate candidates. As a result, the party primaries process is
usually controlled by powerful politicians holding public offices, especially
governors of the respective states, in the case of the ruling party, or wealthy

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

people who typically provide funding to these parties and, hence, have effec-
tively hijacked the entire system. As such, delegates at all levels are usually not
transparently elected but carefully selected by these influential and wealthy
individuals through the ‘consensus method’, recognized in Section 87(6) of
the Electoral Act, 2010.
The lack of intra-party democracy has resulted in numerous instances
of litigation and party-switching. The indirect primary system using dele-
gates has also made it easier for ‘money bags’ to hijack political parties and
impose candidates. Internal party squabbles were more pronounced in the
PDP, leading to further discontent among members and subsequent defec-
tions. In some states (e.g. Anambra, Ebonyi, Delta, and Rivers), the party
held multiple parallel primary elections (Ukeh 2015; Terzungwe 2018). Elec-
tion petition tribunals and other courts have subsequently overturned several
elections.
In some cases, new elections were conducted (in Rivers, Anambra, Imo,
Taraba, Akwa Ibom, Enugu, and Benue). However, as noted by the Euro-
pean Union Election Observation Mission, the lack of an effective monitoring
mechanism for internal party democratic processes for candidate nomina-
tions and the ‘INEC’s inability to reject nominated aspirants (who emerged in
dubious circumstances)’ undermined the credibility of the process (EUEOM
2015). The lack of internal party democracy has affected almost every polit-
ical party and has been a general problem since the First and Second
Republics.

The Implication of the Rise of the APC

The APC’s victory further consolidated two-party dominance within Nige-

ria’s political system. Indeed, despite the increase in the number of political
parties, data on the turnout and the effective number of parties show that
Nigeria has operated a two-party system since 1999 (see Table 24.3).
530 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Table 24.3 Nigeria: Core party system

indicators (House of Representatives)

ENEP ENPP Turnout (%)

1999 2.32 2.22 40.69

2003 2.18 2.16 49.32
2007 - 1.80 -
2011 - 2.76 28.66
2015 - 2.01 43.65
2019 - 2.15 32.14

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Note: ENEP—effective number of electoral parties;
ENPP—effective number of parliamentary parties;
ENEP and ENPP have been calculated for the House
of Representatives; Turnout as a share of all
registered voters, ‘-’—missing data.
Source: Varieties of Party Identity and Organisation
(V-Party) Dataset V2 (Lindberg et al. 2022); Voter
Turnout Database (IDEA 2022)

To be sure, several political parties won seats in the National Assembly

between 2003 and 2007. However, by 2015, all seats in the Senate were won
by the PDP and APC. In the House of Representatives, the two parties dom-
inated, whereas the other three parties shared a small number of seats. One
consequence of this was the deregistration of 28 parties by the INEC, partic-
ularly because of the requirement that political parties win at least one seat
in either the National Assembly or the State Houses of Assembly.
The APC’s rise threatened the PDP’s hegemony. Its position was partly
boosted by the defection of prominent PDP members to the APC, especially
in the National Assembly, where PDP legislators, including former gover-
nors and presiding officers, cross-carpeted en masse. In the build-up to the
2015 elections, these defections strengthened the position of the APC as an
opposition party and significantly improved its success in subsequent polls.
The emergence of the APC as the dominant party in the Senate and House
of Representatives did not significantly reverse the high rate of legislative
turnover. For instance, in the Sixth Assembly (2007–2011), only 23 senators
(14%) were re-elected, while 86 (79%) were new legislators. A similar trend
of high turnover obtained in the Seventh (2011–2015), Eighth (2015–2019)
and Ninth (2019–2023) Assemblies.
The high attrition rate of the National Assembly can be attributed to sev-
eral factors. Sometimes positions are rotated based on considerations such
as ethnic groups or electoral constituencies in the state. Often contrived as a
way to manage diversity, this practice nonetheless buttresses the point that
 Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth Republic, 1999–2019 531

political positions are often considered a means to share political favour. In

other instances, political ‘godfathers’, who have money and influence, exer-
cise tremendous control over the party structure and determine who gets
nominated for political positions. This is usually based on the candidates’
willingness to provide financial and other compensation to the sponsor or to
be at their behest.
Additionally, many constituents expect legislators to perform ‘executive’
functions by implementing community projects and taking care of con-
stituents’ social needs. This is often compounded by unattainable election

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

promises made by political aspirants during campaigns. Ultimately, they
fail to meet most of these expectations, resulting in disenchantment and
sometimes outright discontent among the constituents.

Women in Nigerian Politics

Regardless of the political party in power, the number of women at all lev-
els of government has not changed significantly since 1999. From 1999 to
2019, women’s representation in the Nigerian legislature (109 Senate seats,
360 House of Representatives seats, and 997 State Houses of Assembly seats)
has never reached 10%. In the Senate, the highest was 8.3% (9 seats) between
2007 and 2011; in the House, it peaked at 7.2% (26 seats) between 2011
and 2015. It is worse at the sub-national level, where women’s representa-
tion peaked at 6.9% (68) between 2011 and 2015. This is despite the policy
documents of successive governments subscribing to more seats for women
in elective and appointive positions.
Many reasons have been advanced for the low level of women’s participa-
tion in elective politics, including an unfavourable political system that makes
it difficult for women to participate fully. Additionally, women face cultural
and socio-economic barriers, lower levels of employment and education,
corrupt and patronage-based political systems, and electoral violence (Dan-
Azumi and Asan 2021). Historically, there have been fewer female candidates
in the north than in the south, mainly because of a fusion of religious and
cultural factors that disapprove of women’s political involvement. Despite
this, there was no significant difference in the number of women elected
from the two parts of the country into political positions. Women’s ability
to seek and win political office is further limited by their relatively weaker
economic status in Nigeria. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the
World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund have consistently shown
that women constitute the bulk of Nigeria’s poorest population (World Bank
532 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

2016; International Monetary Fund 2017). Given the growing monetiza-

tion of politics, including the high cost of nomination forms and campaigns,
women struggle to compete with men.
Women’s political participation is also not supported by the 1999 Consti-
tution or the various statutes of political parties and their manifestos, which
fail to provide for women’s quotas. The overarching policy document is the
National Gender Policy (2006), which recommends that 35% of all elective
and appointive positions should be reserved for women. However, without
the necessary political will and legal support, this recommendation failed to

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

make any difference to the actual position of women.

Conclusion

Since Nigeria gained its independence in 1960, political parties in the coun-
try have struggled to establish themselves as genuine national and unifying
platforms. The political parties in the first two Republics were predominantly
ethnically based. This reflects the pluralistic and heterogeneous nature of the
country with multiple ethnic groups and religions. Reform attempts have
sought to establish parties that transcend these limitations, with minimal
success. Since the return to democratic rule in 1999, dominant parties have
made significant strides towards building national appeal. Legal and statu-
tory frameworks now require political parties to have a nationwide presence.
This has resulted in the building of consensus and coalitions as strategies for
winning elections. Consequently, two political parties dominated the Fourth
Republic: the PDP, which dominated between 1999 and 2011, and the APC,
which gained supremacy in 2015 and became the first opposition party in
Nigeria’s history to unseat a ruling party.
As mentioned above, the characteristics of the major political parties in
Nigeria are not easily discernible. They are essentially a loose amalgam
of powerful interest groups desirous of obtaining and holding power. The
multi-party system adopted in 1999 gave rise to numerous political parties
lacking ideological bases. Subsequent reforms have attempted to rationalize
the number of parties. Ninety-one registered political parties contested the
2019 general elections.
Overall, political parties in Nigeria have faced similar challenges, including
the lack of internal party democracy, which has resulted in litigation, defec-
tion, fragmentation, and conflict on numerous occasions. Whichever party
is in power sustains itself mainly through reliance on state resources and
 Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth Republic, 1999–2019 533

patronage distribution. Leadership tussles within major political parties have

also been a significant source of conflict and have significantly determined
and shaped party membership.
Sections 225, 226, and 227 of the 1999 Constitution regulate the opera-
tions of political parties, including financing. Under the current dispensation,
political parties do not receive government subsidies and are responsible
for funding. In the aborted Third Republic (1992–1993), a two-party sys-
tem in which government finances were adopted gave a nationalistic outlook
and avoided the regional nature of political parties in the First and Second

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Republics. A lack of funding for political parties often means that the party
in power relies on state resources. By contrast, opposition parties receive
funding from wealthy individuals and businesses, making them tools of these
powerful interests.
The PDP, more than any other party since 1999, has maintained contact
with social and pressure groups, particularly in its formative stages, when it
actively sought the support of diverse stakeholders across the country. How-
ever, whereas all political parties grant formal status to youth and women’s
groups and often have special mechanisms (such as youth and women’s
wings), these are seldom assigned any real significance beyond the election
campaign period.
The elected members of the National Assembly are expected to represent
their parties, particularly in terms of voting and other legislative activities.
However, there is little evidence to suggest that this occurs in the Nigerian
parliament. In recent years, the election of leaders in both the Senate and
House of Representatives has not strictly followed party lines. For instance,
in the Eighth Assembly (2015–2019), opposition members were elected as
deputy presiding officers. Although there are party clauses in both chambers,
there is homogeneity in decision making, and party affiliations do not always
take the pre-eminent position.
In conclusion, Nigeria’s last four election cycles have been dominated by
the PDP and APC, which have no clearly defined ideologies in their respec-
tive manifestos but rather a programme of activities. The PDP was the first
and most successful political party to establish a national presence and to
dominate all geopolitical zones. It dominated the political space for 16 years
until its dominance was challenged and eroded in 2015. The APC has won
two presidential elections (2015 and 2019) and dominated the National and
State House of the Assembly. However, it has struggled to establish itself,
especially in the southern part of the country, where it was perceived as a
northern party with the support of the south-west.
534 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

There is little doubt that Nigeria’s democracy has grown significantly since
1999, and political parties have played a significant role in this regard. Multi-
party systems remain the dominant model. However, this requires significant
modification, particularly given the proliferation of political parties, many of
which are not viable. Thus, the political landscape will likely be dominated
by two parties despite the constitutional recognition of multiple parties. The
major parties can be expected to continue to dominate, but membership in
both will remain fluid as members transfer allegiance in pursuit of political
power. This is enabled by a weak regulatory framework that fails to hinder

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

defection. Therefore, political parties in Nigeria can be expected to continue
to be mere platforms for seeking political positions and not necessarily tools
for democratic consolidation.

Note
1. An honorific title that is the equivalent of the commander-in-chief of the royal army of
the Sultan and leader of Muslims in northern Nigeria.

References

Adejumobi, Said. 1997. ‘The Two Political Parties and the Electoral Process in Nige-
ria, 1989–1993’. In George Nzongola Ntalaja and M. C. Lee (eds), The State and
Democracy in Africa. Harare: AAPS Books, 126–140.
Adekanye, J. Bayo. 1999. The Retired Military as Emergent Power Factor in Nigeria.
Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books Nigeria plc.
Adetula, Victor A. O. (ed.). 2008. Money and Politics in Nigeria. Abuja: Petra Digital
Press.
Akhaine, Sylvester Odion. 2011. ‘Nigeria’s 2011 Elections: The “Crippled Giant”
Learns to Walk?’ African Affairs, 110(441):649–655.
Dagne, Ted. 2006. Nigeria in Political Transition, report, 1 June https://digital.library.
unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs10499 (Accessed 27 September 2021).
Dan-Azumi, Jake Dabang and Caroline Asan. 2021. ‘Women and Legislative Repre-
sentation in Nigeria’s National Assembly: A Detailed Appraisal of the 8th Assembly
(2015–2019)’. Journal of Public Administration and Governance, 11(2):86–109.
Diamond, Larry and Rotimi T. Suberu. 2002. ‘Institutional Design, Ethnic Conflict
Management, and Democracy in Nigeria’. In Andrew Reynolds (ed.), The Architec-
ture of Democracy: Constitutional Design, Conflict Management, and Democracy.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 400–428.
Diamond, Larry. 1988. Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria: The Failure of the
First Republic. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
 Political Parties in Nigeriaʼs Fourth Republic, 1999–2019 535

Diamond, Stanley. 1966. Nigeria: Model of a Colonial Failure. Occasional paper,

American Committee on Africa, 6. American Committee on Africa.
EUEOM. 2015. Final Report Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2015. European Union
Election Observation Mission. https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/1307387/
1226_1454409164_eu-eom-nigeria-2015-final-report-en.pdf (Accessed 16 March
2024).
Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development. 2006. National Gender
Policy, Federal Republic of Nigeria. https://www.stakeholderdemocracy.org/
wp-content/uploads/2019/02/National-Gender-PolicySituation-Analysis.pdf

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

(Accessed 9 August 2022).
Gberie, Lansana. 2011. The 2011 Elections in Nigeria: A New Dawn? Institute of
Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/SitRep2011_
13MayNigeria.pdf.
Hague, Rod and Martin Harrop. 2004. Comparative Government and Politics: An
Introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hamalai, Ladi. 2014. ‘Continuity and Change in Nigeria’s Elections: A Collection of
Essays’. In Ladi Hamalai (ed.), Women Leadership as a Change Factor: Fostering
Gender Balance in Politics and Governance in Nigeria. Abuja: National Institute of
Legislative Studies, 66–82.
Hamalai, Ladi, Samuel Egwu, and J. Shola Omotola. 2017. Nigeria’s 2015 Gen-
eral Elections Continuity and Change in Electoral Democracy. London: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Hetherington, Marc J. and Thomas J. Rudolph. 2015. Why Washington Won’t Work:
Polarization, Political Trust, and the Governing Crisis. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
IDEA. 2017. The Global State of Democracy, Exploring Democracy’s Resilience,
2017. Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral
Assistance.
IDEA. 2022. Voter Turnout Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-
turnout (Accessed 18 November 2022).
INEC. 2005. Political Party Finance Handbook. Abuja: Independent National Elec-
toral Commission (INEC).
International Monetary Fund. 2017. ‘World Economic Outlook, October 2017:
Seeking Sustainable Growth: Short-term Recovery, Long-term Challenges’. World
Economic Outlook (International Monetary Fund), 313.
Iyengar, Shanto, Garuav Sood, and Yphtach Lelkes. 2012. ‘Affect, Not Ideology:
A Social Identity Perspective on Polarization’. Public Opinion Quarterly, 76(3):
405–431.
Kendhammer, Brandon. 2010. ‘Talking Ethnic but Hearing Multi-ethnic: The Peo-
ples’ Democratic Party (PDP) in Nigeria and Durable Multi-ethnic Parties in the
Midst of Violence’. Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 48(1):48–71.
536 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Kuenzi, Michelle and Gina Lambright. 2005. ‘Party Systems and Democratic Con-
solidation in Africa’s Electoral Regimes’. Party Politics, 11(2):423–446.
Lewis, Peter. 1996. ‘From Prebendalism to Predation: Political Economy of Decline
in Nigeria’. Journal of Modern African Studies, 34(1):79–103.
Lindberg, Staffan I., Nils Düpont, Masaaki Higashijima, et al. 2022. Varieties of
Party Identity and Organization (V{Party) Dataset; https://v-dem.net/data/v-
party-dataset/country-party-date-v2/ (Accessed 2 February 2024).
Mainwaring, Scott and Timothy Scully. 1995. Building Democratic Institutions: Party
Systems in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Momoh, Abubakar and Paul-Sewa Thovoethin. 2001. ‘An Overview of the 1998–
1999 Democratisation Process in Nigeria’. Development Policy Management Net-
work Bulletin, 13(3):4–9.
Morton, Chester. 2017. ‘The Factors That Determine the Electoral Success of a Polit-
ical Party’. Virtual Kollage. https://www.virtualkollage.com/2017/03/the-factors-
that-determine-electoral-success-of-a-political-party.html (Accessed 17 August
2021).
NBS. 2010. Nigeria Poverty Profile 2010. Abuja: National Bureau of Statistics.
Omotola, J. Shola. 2010. ‘Elections and Democratic Transition in Nigeria under the
Fourth Republic’. African Affairs, 109(437):535–553.
Omotola, J. Shola. 2011. ‘Electoral Reform and the Prospects of Democratic Consol-
idation in Nigeria’. Journal of African Elections, 10(1):187–207.
Oyediran, Oyeleye and Adigun Agbaje. 1991. ‘Two Partyism and Democratic Tran-
sition in Nigeria’. Journal of Modern African Studies, 29(2):213–237.
Terzungwe, Saawua. 2018. ‘President Buhari Hiding Unemployment Data Because
of 2019 Elections—Atiku’. Daily Trust, 15 November.
Tsuwa, J. T. 2014. ‘Political Party Process and Electoral System’. In M. Biereenu-
Nnabugwu and C. J. Nwanegbo (eds), Political Parties, Pressure Groups and Public
Opinion in Democratic Politics. Enugu: Rhyce Kerex Publishers, 60–68.
Ukeh, O. 2015. ‘PDP and Vexed Primary Elections’. The Sun, 19 December 2014.
World Bank. 2016. Poverty Reduction in Nigeria in the Last Decade. Washington,
DC: World Bank Group.
Yaqub, N. 2002. ‘Political Parties and the Transition Process’. In B. Onuoha and M.
M. Fadakinte (eds), Transition Politics in Nigeria, 1970–1999. Lagos: Malthouse
Publishers, 118–134.
25
The State of Political Party Development
in Ghana
Isaac Owusu-Mensah, Emmanuel Debrah, and Enock
Mathapoly-Codjoe

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Introduction

Ghana—the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence from

British colonial rule, on 6 March 1957—remains the trailblazer of democratic
governance in the continent. Except during periods of military interregnums
that truncated the development of democracy, even if temporarily, multi-
party politics has dominated much of Ghana’s political history. Vibrant party
politics had taken root as early as 1947 with the creation of the United Gold
Coast Convention (UGCC) by Dr J. B. Danquah, from which the Con-
vention People’s Party (CPP) was formed in 1949 by Kwame Nkrumah.
Although subsequent political competition before and during the immediate
post-independence epoch recorded the appearance of dozens of parties with
different interests that put stress on the political process, only the UGCC and
CPP traditions have prevailed. Even when party politics was resurrected with
the third wave of democratization that surfaced in the early 1990s, the par-
ties that emerged have all had at least one leg in either the UGCC, CPP, or
both. Therefore, the vibrant political party engagements that characterized
post-democratization politics in Ghana owed much to the two parties’ tra-
ditions. While the parties affiliated to Nkrumah’s CPP have splintered1 and
only the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is historically UGCC, its arch-rival, the
National Democratic Congress (NDC) is a conglomeration of the two tradi-
tions (see Figure 25.1). Its life leader, Jerry John Rawlings, until his demise in
2020, sought to propagate Nkrumahism as his political agenda in the 1980s;
while doing so, he also attracted support from those among the Danquahist
family. Indeed, the elite that ushered the country into multi-party politics in
1992 carried the political tags of these two traditions. Hence, the Constitution

Isaac Owusu-Mensah et al., The State of Political Party Development in Ghana. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Isaac Owusu-Mensah et al. (2024).
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0025
538 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Presidential Election Results 2000 to 2020

60.00%

52.45% 53.72% 51.30%

49.13% 50.70%
50.00% 48.17%
47.92% 47.36%
44.64% 47.74%
44.54% 44.53%
40.00%

30.00%

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

20.00%

10.00%
7.29%
2.95% 1.75%
2.92% 1... 1.32%
0.00%
2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020

NPP NDC Others

Figure 25.1 The performance of political parties in presidential elections, 2000–2022:

The two main contending parties
NPP—New Patriotic Party; NDC—National Democratic Congress
Source: The Electoral Commission of Ghana

promulgated in 1992, although liberal, also embodies the social principles of

equality and elements of a just society.
Political parties are prominent among the institutions that have influ-
enced progress towards democratic consolidation in Ghana since the return
of multi-party governance in 1992. Although regarded as organized vol-
untary and informal groups, political parties in Ghana have exerted great
influence over various facets of the democratic process. Besides shaping the
decision-making process for the management and distribution of the nation’s
wealth, they are instrumental in orienting the people’s behaviour and atti-
tudes regarding democratic norms and values that are necessary for political
stability and development. They also provide the structure to incubate the
political ambitions of the elite and harness their potential for national politi-
cal offices. Through their political education programmes, the parties have
mobilized the electorate to respond to their civic duties of participation
in national decision making. The relatively high voter turnout at the polls
every four years exemplifies their effective voter education programmes (see
Table 25.1). Thus, through their progressive participatory activities, the par-
ties have ensured that elections have become the only acceptable mechanism
to legitimize the assignment of national leaders to political offices. Indeed,
 The State of Political Party Development in Ghana 539

Table 25.1 Ghanaʼs Core Political Party System Indicators

Year of elections ENEP ENPP Voter turnout (%)

2000 2.35 2.19 61.19

2004 2.21 2.10 85.12
2008 2,19 2.12 69.52
2012 2.13 2.04 80.01
2016 1.98 1.89 67.55
2020 2.00 2.01 77.83

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ENEP—effective number of electoral parties; ENPP—effective number of
parliamentary parties; Turnout—percentage of the share of all registered
voters
Source: IDEA (2022); International Foundation for Elections Systems
(2022); compiled by authors

today, the parties’ platforms are the only legitimate arenas to confer political
power on national leaders as well as ensure their removal. Leaning on their
particularistic ideologies, the parties have intermediated and created oppor-
tunities to aid upward social and political mobility through elite consensus,
which, albeit limited, can help to sustain the new democratic order.

The Legal Regime for Party Development

In democratic jurisdictions, party systems are shaped by the legal system.

Thus, the nature of the party system in a country depends largely on the
prevailing legal regime. In Ghana, political parties’ existence and authority
are rooted in the national Constitution. The 1992 Constitution remains the
supreme legal framework that defines the character and functions of polit-
ical parties. Important provisions in the Constitution have established the
institutional architecture for the effective functioning and growth of political
parties. Most importantly, they provide the freedom to form political parties
and ensure the unrestricted rights of all citizens to make their own decisions
regarding which party to associate with. The Political Parties Act, 2000 (Act
574), has guaranteed the parties’ role in national development. While indi-
viduals are free to associate to form a political party, they must formalize it
through the legislative process. An organization qualifies to be registered by
the Electoral Commission as a political party when it has promulgated a con-
stitution and established the names and addresses of all national officers, who
must be registered Ghanaian voters (at least one from each constituency).
The party must present evidence of the party’s presence in all regions and
540 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

not less than two-thirds of the districts/constituencies. Moreover, the party

must provide its name, emblem, colour, motto, and symbol, which must bear
no ethnic, regional, religious, or sectional connotations or identities in accor-
dance with the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana. Upon satisfying
these legislative requirements, a certificate of registration is issued by the
Electoral Commission (see Article 55 (7) of the 1992 Constitution). These
laws (the 1992 Constitution and Act 574) as well as other legislative instru-
ments provide a sound enabling environment for parties to conduct their
lawful activities.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Party Organizational Life

Political parties in Ghana are organizationally structured. At least three lev-

els of the party structure may be discerned, namely, the national, regional,
and constituency levels with sub-constituency structures only existing as
offshoots of the constituency. The formal structures of both the NDC and
NPP provide for five to six clusters of organizations at the branch, ward,
constituency, district, regional, and national levels. However, the parties’
organizational structures have been developed with emphasis on the local
organization, where constituencies are the hub of party activities because
they are the focus of parliamentary election contests. Consequently, the
parties have had to design their structures to coincide with the centres of elec-
toral action. At election time, the parties’ constituency machinery works out
modalities by performing several tasks, including arranging the communi-
ties’ meetings with presidential and parliamentary candidates to cement the
supporters’ loyalty to the parties and candidates; campaigning by expanding
the parties’ operations to the electorate; disseminating the parties’ campaign
information to supporters; and proselytizing new members. The interme-
diary party structure is at the regional level, where the prime function is
coordination and supervision of the branches in the jurisdiction. The parties’
constituencies function under close monitoring of their regional party exec-
utives, yet the parties’ structures are pyramidal, with their respective national
organizations at the pinnacle even though the parties’ constitutions envision
grassroots party development.
The parties’ structures have created formal institutions. The constituency
executive committee (CEC), a partly elected and partly appointed body
of local party hacks, is composed of sub-constituency representatives, usu-
ally presided over by a chairperson and associates; a secretary; treasurer;
and women’s and youth organizers. These local institutions are replicated at
 The State of Political Party Development in Ghana 541

the regional and national levels. The parties’ organizations at the national,
regional, and constituency levels are run by the office of their respective sec-
retaries, or general secretaries in the case of the national party, who assist
their chairpersons in the day-to-day running of the parties and traditionally
act as the parties’ spokespersons.
Salient among their structures are the youth and women’s wings. In recog-
nition of the special role women and the youth play in the party organization,
Ghanaian parties have assigned a special place to these groups. The women’s
wings are noted for their caucus activities, including advocating for quotas

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

in the distribution of internal vacant positions and filling legions of political
offices when their parties win national elections, even though none of the par-
ties’ constitutions have entrenched female quotas. The youths are active on
the campuses of tertiary institutions across the country. They devote much
time to serving as volunteers to campaign for their parties during elections.
The most influential campaigners are often rewarded for their service to their
parties’ activities with national and local posts.

Party Membership

It is widely acknowledged that the vitality of political parties is based on

their membership. Hence, a salient element of the parties’ organizational
efficacy is the membership. Membership of the parties is heterogeneous in
complexion. One group is labelled the ‘founding members’—persons who
have shared attitudes regarding the vision and philosophy of their party,
who connect well with its history and traditions, and who are regarded as
‘elders of the party’. Usually, people who have high pedigree in community
life and belong to the top echelon of the social-economic ladder in society
remain key financiers of the parties and hold the centre together. While they
are not involved in the day-to-day running of the parties, they remain the
unseen decision-makers of the party. Ordinary members are also known as
activists (foot soldiers)—the most politically driven members, the equivalent
of militants in the Communist Party—and they are found throughout the
branches. They execute many of the parties’ grassroots decisions and activ-
ities, including undertaking house-to-house campaigns (Gyimah-Boadi and
Debrah 2008).
To be a member of a party, the person must be registered. The parties’
formal machinery for enrolment reveals procedures that involve filling in
a form—name, address, date of birth, ward residence, other details, and a
signature—ending with the issuance of a photo ID card. (Since 2016, the
542 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

NDC and NPP have incorporated biometric registration into their registra-
tion systems.) The parties’ constitutions have many rules related to loyalty
and procedures for punishment for disloyalty. When the applicant’s mem-
bership registration is accepted, the member is strictly obliged to conform to
the party’s discipline and rules of conduct. The most undisciplined members
who brought the name of the parties into disrepute have been expelled. Since
2000, some members of both the NDC and NPP have faced expulsion orders
on grounds of indiscipline and ‘flirting’ with opponents (Debrah 2014).
However, parties in Ghana have not been able to provide an ‘organizational

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

encapsulation’ of the structure and social environment in which their mem-
bers and voters lead their lives. Hence, in each election year, the parties have
to start building membership support anew to prevent the erosion of their
support base. Moreover, whereas the parties’ leadership at the national level
is heavily skewed towards the upper class and the regions have a high concen-
tration of the middle class, the constituency levels are dominated by peasants,
farmers, unemployed people, and people with lower educational attainment;
this mirrors the elite’s dominance over national-level party politics in Ghana.
It is a fact that the growth of parties in Ghana has revolved around their core
membership, most of whom are the parties’ founders or elders. It is also evi-
dent that the spirited membership drive that characterized party activities in
the early formation years has waned. Thus, there are now fewer dues-paying
and card-bearing members, and the parties have survived by relying on those
regarded as supporters (sympathizers who vote for the parties in elections)
from multitudes of backgrounds, such as small business owners, peasants,
students, members of civil society/voluntary/non-governmental organiza-
tions, public servants, employees of private organizations, and self-employed
citizens.
The behaviour of Ghanaian political parties’ leadership depicts them as
entrepreneurs who have joined the parties to advance their particularistic
rather than organizational interests. To this end, it is visible from the parties’
organizational establishment and the way they have been shaped that the
elite are the suppliers of public policies in response to the demand of the
electorates. Thus, the parties are managed as businesses in which individuals
who have entered as members pursue their particularistic interests rather
than being altruistic (Strøm 1990). Thus, at all levels of the party organiza-
tion, the members—both leaders and ordinary members (particularly the
youth, as reflected by the wings in tertiary institutions)—have essentially
been attracted to the parties for the perceived benefits they can derive
from them.
 The State of Political Party Development in Ghana 543

Moreover, Ghanaian political parties may be classified into vote-seeking,

office-seeking, and policy-seeking parties. The first category includes parties
with narrow objectives to maximize votes. These parties, such as the Peo-
ple’s National Convention, Progressive People’s Party, and CPP, among the
smaller parties, have largely organized their activities towards mobilizing vot-
ers to vote for them during elections. Consequently, they lack organizational
coherence in terms of campaign messages and manifestos and are structurally
feeble and less competitive. Second, office-seeking parties, such as the NDC
and NPP, have been structured towards vote maximization to capture polit-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ical power and control the public offices (Strøm 1990). These parties regard
the acquisition of power and control of political offices as paramount and
have treated electoral or policy goals as means to an end. Despite their belief
that politics is akin to the acquisition of private goods—that is, conferment
of political appointments on their members—the NDC and NPP have not
underplayed the relevance of policies and programmes to their survival and
organizational efficacy. Thus, while seeking to mobilize voters as well as cap-
ture power and consolidate it, they have utilized the instrumentality of their
particularistic manifestos (Debrah 2014).

Party Financing

Given the centrality of funds for an efficient party organization, Ghanaian

parties have prioritized funding in their activities. In particular, the parties
need money to run their offices, employ personnel, conduct election cam-
paigns, and communicate with their membership and the electorate at large.
This is because, to a large extent, the parties’ survival hinges on money.
Money is now regarded as ‘the mother’s milk of politics’ because there is
fear that if it is not regulated, it could influence democratic distortions by
corrupting the process. The situation is more volatile for emerging African
democracies such as Ghana, where party financing is largely a private activity.
The overwhelming funding for parties comes in the form of contributions or
donations from their members, who must be Ghanaian citizens; the law disal-
lows donations by non-citizens (Republic of Ghana 1992). Although parties
require their memberships to make contributions to maintain their opera-
tional costs, the burden has fallen on a few wealthy individuals, most of whom
are local entrepreneurs or part of the diaspora. It is common knowledge about
party financing in Ghana that membership dues constitute an insignificant
fraction of the monies that parties generate for their operational activities.
544 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

The dwindling of membership dues means that a few wealthy individuals

who provide funding to the parties also control the decision-making pro-
cesses (Debrah 2014). The law makes provisions for state support, but this
is largely in the form of allotting to all parties time and space on state-
owned media, enabling them to present their campaign programmes to their
supporters (Republic of Ghana 1992, 2000). Lack of well-structured state
financial support to the parties is part of the reason that smaller parties have
failed to make an electoral impact on the democratic process. The laws on
party financing promote transparency in the financial administration of the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

parties’ organizations. Parties are required to declare their assets, liabilities,
and expenditure at least 21 days before the general election and six months
after (Republic of Ghana 2000). In addition, they are expected to file their
financial accounts with the Electoral Commission by 31 December, the end
of the financial year. They must also publish the declared audited accounts
for public scrutiny. However, important provisions of the laws that promote
transparency and financial accountability seem to be in abeyance because
they lack authoritative enforcement. The Electoral Commission has demon-
strated it is incapable of holding the parties accountable for non-disclosure of
their financial accounts. Apart from lack of personnel to carry out the assign-
ment, there is also an unwillingness to enforce the law. This failure to enforce
party financing laws has not only denied the public the right to know or ques-
tion the financial impropriety of parties but also anecdotally resulted in abuse
of public resources by incumbent governments to ensure their re-election.

Party Ideology and Programmes

Ideologies have shaped party formation. Traditionally, politics in Ghana has

been marked by a high degree of ideological rhetoric. Moreover, parties in
Ghana historically identify with liberal capitalism and socialism. Drawing
its lineage from the UGCC, which was founded on liberalism, the NPP is
incurably centre-right, while the NDC and smaller parties that also trace
their ancestry to Nkrumah’s CPP are socialists and gravitate towards the
centre-left. However, changes in domestic politics occasioned by the radical
transformation of international politics, as well as financial donors’ redef-
inition of the goals of nation-states including Ghana, means that, as the
two parties (NDC and NPP) rose to political power, differences between
them have shrunk gradually. Thus, in ideological terms, both the NDC and
NPP are close to each other (Gyimah-Boadi and Debrah 2008). Today, all
parties display a kind of pragmatism that allows them to organize their
 The State of Political Party Development in Ghana 545

programmes and appeal to the electorate. The parties are more concerned
about the practical ways of improving the lot of the people—protecting the
vulnerable, providing basic amenities, providing employment, and expand-
ing the market base for socio-economic development—rather than about
the left–right ideological continuum, even though on paper they maintain
their ideological leanings. For instance, the NDC and NPP are aligned with
the global coalitions of ideological parties with their corresponding regional
and sub-regional parliamentary groups (the NDC and NPP belong to the
Conservative and Socialist Parliamentary international groups, respectively).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Political Ecumenism

Intra-party democracy is a core feature of a party’s organizational life. Both

the Constitution and Act 574 mandate parties to adhere to democracy in their
internal affairs. First, rules on internal party competition prohibit discrimi-
nation on the grounds of gender, ethnicity, religion, or social and economic
status. Only the legal stipulations regarding suffrage—voting age of 18 years
and above—and a minimum age of 40 years for candidates to contest for the
office of the president are enforceable within the parties’ selection processes.
Moreover, the democratic principles laid out in the pages of the parties’ con-
stitutions require that leadership at all levels of the parties’ organization be
elective, frequently renewed, collective in character, and weak in authority.
Members are allowed to choose their local executives, and an electoral col-
lege elects the constituency, regional, and national executive members. This
procedure cascades to the regional and national levels. For instance, the nine
branch executive members of the NDC are elected by all branch members.
Two delegates from each branch, along with the other members, consti-
tute the electoral college to choose the CEC. Five delegates chosen from the
CEC, together with other political appointees within the regions, in turn elect
the regional executive committee (REC). Elected members from the con-
stituencies, various affiliates, and representatives of regional parliamentary
groups, among others, attend and vote for the national executive commit-
tee (NEC) and presidential candidate of the NDC once every two years.
Similar elective structures exist in the NPP, where representatives of polling
station executives elect CEC members, and two delegates chosen at the
party’s annual delegates’ conference in each constituency form the electoral
college to elect the REC members. Two delegates from each constituency,
members of the national council, representatives of patrons, and founding
members, inter alia, have the mandate to elect the NEC. A larger electoral
546 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

college comprising 10 delegates from each constituency and a representa-

tive of patrons, founding members in each region, and overseas branches
comprise the electoral college to elect its presidential candidate.
In theory, decision making and accountability enforcement are formal-
ized, with annual congresses and conferences at the apex of the parties’
organizational structure. For instance, the NDC congress determines the pol-
icy direction of the party by subjecting its annual report, budget, audited
accounts, and any reform proposal to scrutiny and approval. The NPP
regards its national annual delegates’ conference as the supreme governing

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

body with deliberative and sanctioning powers in matters of finance and dis-
cipline, among others. Further, dissent is permissible within the privacy of
the parties’ ‘family’ so long as the dispute can be presented as disagreement
over means rather than ends. Hence, channels of dissent and redress as well
as open competition for leadership are dogma for the parties (NDC 1992;
NPP 1992) A significant amount of intra-party competition exists, and vacant
positions are widely advertised through the parties’ internal structures for
aspirants to file their nominations to contest any of the posts. Selection of
the presidential and parliamentary candidates follows acceptable democratic
practice: at all levels, election of the parties’ officers is supervised by the Elec-
toral Commission, the authoritative body established by the Constitution
to conduct all elections in the country. To the extent that the constituency,
regional, and national executives report to delegates at the parties’ congresses
or conferences regarding their stewardship, accountability occurs at all levels
of the parties’ organizations.
The parties are anxious to maintain the appearance of democracy and
accountability: On paper, election is the rule. The executives and officers
are always elected and given a fairly short period of office in accordance
with democratic rules. Processes allow delegates to the parties’ congresses
and conferences to scrutinize their activities. However, oligarchic tendencies
have developed within the parties’ organizations without any constitutional
warrant. The parties’ organizations have manifested embourgeoisement ten-
dencies in their inner corridors through manipulation, corruption, and
membership alienation to sidestep the accountability processes. First, the
manifestation of rivalries as conflict and corruption (‘moneycracy’) has
become widespread within leadership contests (presidential and parliamen-
tary primaries). In the absence of laws regulating campaign spending in
primary elections, contestants have resorted to clandestine methods, thereby
turning the political game into a zero-sum struggle for power. This has
taken the form of personalized clientelism, in which candidates contesting
party primaries or leadership positions extract resources from their personal
 The State of Political Party Development in Ghana 547

savings, loans, and other sources to influence or bribe delegates to party

conferences and congresses to enhance or secure their election or re-election.
Competition in the parties’ primaries has become an occasion for contes-
tants to distribute largesse—clothes, cars, agricultural implements, lanterns,
etc.—to guarantee their victories by buying political clients—constituency,
regional, and national party executives, and members of the Electoral Col-
lege. Consequently, personalized clientelism has turned the election pri-
maries into ‘harvesting seasons’ for party delegates and influential executive
members who could even utilize a greater room to manoeuvre for voting

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

blackmail. Optimism about winning means that a contestant renders multi-
ple social services to delegates and party officials, including attending clients’
birthdays and wedding ceremonies, giving out ‘chop-money’, etc. as part of
the game plan. Then, in Ghana, the more patronage candidates can distribute
during in-party executive elections or primaries, the higher their chances
of winning. Thus, incumbent members of parliament (MPs) or executives
whose meagre resources hamper or slow their patronage distribution to their
clientele may lose their chance of re-election. Such patronage has not only
undermined intra-party competition because other contestants with little
financial resources are disadvantaged in the primaries, but it has also made
the enforcement of leadership accountability palpably difficult. Indeed, in
several cases, party leaders who were expected to demand accountability
from the contestants were the main culprits of corruption in the primaries.
Moreover, the procedures for selecting the parties’ leadership and other
officers at all levels are far from being democratic. Co-optation and the
widespread use of indirect representation or delegation via conferences and
congresses deprive the entire membership of the opportunity to choose
their leaders. In many cases, the parties’ executives or some invisible offi-
cials often enunciate consensus on who should be elected. The so-called
delegates’ congresses and conferences themselves present a pyramidal struc-
ture with top executive members, MPs, founding members, patrons, etc.
nominating themselves to supervise their own elections or promoting their
favourites to leadership positions without the active participation of the
general membership.

Form of Party Communication

Intra-party communication also reflects the parties’ hierarchical structure

and orientation. Information flows in a top-down continuum, even though
the parties’ formal procedures permit bottom-up processes of control and
548 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

influence. Besides being nebulous and with cumbersome utility, the pro-
cesses of channelling members’ grievances and resolutions from the bottom
up remain exercises in futility. Moreover, the amount of information emanat-
ing from the national executives to sub-national executives rarely gets to the
ordinary members. The latter’s reliance on information about their parties
through a few activists and rumour mills demonstrates the extent to which the
rank and file are alienated from their parties. It is commonplace for Ghana-
ian politicians to go to their parties and supporters every four years when
they need them to renew their mandates to national offices. After manipu-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

lating delegates to secure their re-election, the relationship and any form of
communication end.

Inter-party Conflicts

Ghanaian parties are characterized by excessive partisanship. The result is

inter-party acrimonies, which are most pronounced between the NDC and
NPP. Their intense acrimonies have manifested in the national decision-
making process. Since 1992, there have been fierce and uncompromising
stances between the NDC and NPP on the passage of several bills in Par-
liament. Yet these differences are more about promoting partisan interest
than auditing the ruling party to achieve quality legislation. Moreover, the
stalemate on some of the legislation has proven to be counter-productive to
the national development effort. Indeed, in many cases, the escalated inter-
party conflicts and ambitions of the parties’ leadership have been reflected in
intense out-manoeuvring in the vetting of presidential nominees for several
national and international posts. These inter-party conflicts have emerged
from behind the walls of Parliament into society, where it is now evident that
the population is sharply divided between the NDC and NPP on all mat-
ters of national importance. The excessive NDC–NPP conflicts have been
obstructive to consensus on national issues. Inter-party partisanships are now
recorded in the state security services, public service recruitment, and tertiary
students’ elections. The NDC–NPP cleavages are noticeable in the media
and civil society arenas too. Demonstrable behaviours (unprofessional con-
duct of some media anchors) and partisanship colouration of civil society
activism exemplify the depth of the inter-party conflicts. Compounding the
cleavages is the growing intra-party manoeuvring over several activities of
the parties. The intra-party rivalries become worse during the selection of
presidential and parliamentary candidates. The development of factionalism
within the parties, with each grouping having a specific agenda to stress, has
 The State of Political Party Development in Ghana 549

been particularly marked since 1992. Many factions within the parties have
developed strategies consisting of efforts to undermine other nominees to
ensure the rival faction gains a slate of sensitive positions with a view to turn-
ing the recruitment fortune in favour of their own candidate(s) and to carry
out political engineering where powerful groups sponsor the disqualification
of the candidacy of arch-rivals who pose a severe threat to their electoral
victory.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The Challenge to Democratic Consolidation

Certain dimensions of multi-party politics pose a grave danger to the survival

of democracy. Ethnicity remains an unresolved phenomenon in the political
game. Although, in theory, the complexion of the parties’ organizations is eth-
nically diverse, their campaigns project ethnic mobilization. While the Ewes
in the Volta region are electorally aligned to the NDC, the NPP derives its
strength from the Akan groups in the Ashanti and Eastern regions. It would
not be an overstatement to say that without the Ewes and Akans voting for the
NDC and NPP, respectively, their organizational efficacy and electoral suc-
cess would be in limbo. Moreover, patron–client relationships have hindered
the parties’ move to institutionalization. The membership’s mobilization is
largely driven by neopatrimonialism and clientelism. Registering to become
a member of a political party is regarded as a vehicle to access state resources.
The elite embedded in the parties’ apparatus have developed informal rela-
tionships with the so-called foot soldiers whom they would use to accomplish
their political goals and, in turn, supply public goods to their clients. Mem-
bership of these parties remains the surest way to acquire employment within
state institutions. Therefore, unemployed youths are motivated to join parties
as insurance to get employment when their preferred party secures political
power. Yet, this patron–client relationship that has emerged within the par-
ties’ organizations now serves as the veritable vehicle, channel, or breeding
ground for political corruption. The intensity of membership mobilization
for personal benefit has been conditioned by the situation of growing poverty
in the country. For personal economic interest, voters are willing to accept
money to vote for any party or candidate. Hence, monetization has been
an entrenched behaviour in the membership and vote mobilization within
the parties (Hoffman and Long 2013; Kosiara-Pedersen et al. 2017; Poletti
et al. 2019; Achury et al. 2020), even though the parties are sustained by the
activists (foot soldiers) on whom the elite depend at any time to access local
political fortunes—that is, votes.
550 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Furthermore, salient among the issues submerged within competitive

multi-party politics is the phenomenon of party vigilantism. The existence
of vigilante groups, which normally comprise young individuals, is not bad
in itself, but these groups’ modus operandi involves engaging in political
fanaticism. Political vigilantes who are ordinarily regarded as the most ardent
supporters of their groups have now been turned into the likes of anarchists
with an agenda of terrorizing their opponents, thereby reducing electoral
competition into a zero-sum game.
Although the emergence of political vigilantes pre-dates independence in

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

1957, recent developments indicate that they have become a political nui-
sance group whose activities have the capacity to turn back the clock of
democratic progress. These groups of young party activists are often used as
para-security forces for the parties’ elite. Their deployment with the assign-
ment to watch the polls and protect the ballot has been the source of electoral
conflict.
Moreover, the monetization of politics is a lingering issue in the coun-
try’s multi-party politics. Excessive use of money in Ghanaian elections is
not a new occurrence; however, this practice is fast deteriorating into a
common feature, thus making democracy more expensive than usual (Saffu
2003). Irregular engagements between MPs and their constituents have been
attributed to the monetization syndrome—MPs regard it strategic to keep
away from their constituents because regular visits would imply the dis-
tribution of largesse to them. As constituents often regard politicians as
suppliers of public goods—because the politicians have unlimited access to
state resources by virtue of their political office—the visits become occasions
for them to receive their share of the patronage pie. Although high expendi-
ture is required for regular visits to constituents, politicians who have avoided
the electorate have suffered the constituents’ wrath in their re-election bid.

Summary and Conclusion

While the prevailing multi-party politics in Ghana is largely responsible

for democratic development (peace and stability), there are still growing
inequalities between the elite and ordinary voters, which can be blamed on
the parties’ activities. The adoption of manifestos has adorned the parties’
election campaign programmes; yet, after winning power to form a gov-
ernment, there has been a disparity between the documents and reality.
The parties’ inability to translate their manifestos into implementable pro-
grammes and policies has undermined public trust in party politics. The
 The State of Political Party Development in Ghana 551

parties have served as instruments of collective action by the elite to prop-

agate their parochial interests to control state resources and personnel for
their own benefit. The evolved two-party model appears to have been insti-
tutionalized. Since the resurgence of party politics in 1992, only the NDC
and NPP have proven to be prominent in the electoral arena. Attempts by
smaller parties to engineer methods to become relevant have proved futile
due to deepening divisions within these parties. Personal acrimonies among
the leaders, with each claiming to be capable of winning national elections
to offer better leadership, have undermined unity among them. Yet if they

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

had united, a third force would have emerged. Given the current electoral
dynamics, there is no way of witnessing any ideological shift among the
parties. The NDC and NPP have been strategic by promoting programmes
that reflect both capitalism and social interventions (welfarism), even though
they use ideological rhetoric by identifying with liberal and social ideologies,
respectively.

Prospects for Democratic Development

Ghana has enjoyed a stable democracy for the past three decades, earning the
admiration of both domestic elites and the international community. Political
parties have remained a principal pivot around which the current democ-
racy revolves. Without their involvement, the democratic system would have
suffered irreversible setbacks. Thus, the parties can be described as the soul
that has kept democracy in Ghana flourishing. Their platforms continue to
serve as grounds for political participation by the citizens. The active involve-
ment of women and youths in the political process is the direct result of their
mobilization by the parties: these groups have been at the centre of political
recruitment. After every election, the parties have provided human resources
capable of filling the legions of vacant political office positions. Similarly,
they have contributed to policymaking through manifesto drafting, which
has served as a framework to develop post-election public policy instruments
that direct national development. While partisanship has produced tenden-
cies that have engendered inter-party conflicts and acrimonies, the activism
of the parties’ foot soldiers has kept democracy alive not only by stimulating
high voter attendance but also by encouraging opposition oversight of the
ruling government’s activities.
Given the synergy between active participation and democratic institu-
tionalization, the vibrant party politics that political parties’ engagements
have engendered among the populace points towards an optimistic outlook
552 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

for democratic progress. Thus, it would not be an understatement to say

that democratic consolidation is imminent because the political parties
have offered the needed platform for the mobilization of talent and cross-
fertilization of ideas that can be harnessed for the socio-economic develop-
ment of the country.

Note
1. They have splintered into the National Independent Party, Peoples’ Heritage Party,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Democratic People’s Party, New Generation Party, Ghana Democratic Republican Party,
Every Ghanaian Living Everywhere, National Convention Party, People’s National Con-
vention, People’s Party for Democracy and Development, National Justice Party, and
National Salvation Party.

References

Achury, Susan, Susan E. Scarrow, Karina Kosiara-Pedersen, and Emilie van Haute.
2020. ‘The Consequences of Membership Incentives: Do Greater Political Benefits
Attract Different Kinds of Members?’ Party Politics, 26(1):56–68.
Debrah, Emmanuel. 2014. ‘Intra-party Democracy in Ghana’s Fourth Republic: The
Case of the New Patriotic Party and National Democratic Congress’. Journal of
Power, Politics & Governance, 2(3):57–75.
Gyimah-Boadi, Emmanuel and Emmanuel Debrah. 2008. ‘Political Parties and
Party Politics’. In Baffour Agyeman-Dua (ed.), Ghana: Governance in the Fourth
Republic. Tema: Digibooks Ghana Ltd, 126–154.
Hoffman, Barak D., and James D. Long. 2013. ‘Ethnicity and Voting in African
Elections’. Comparative Politics, 45(2):127–146.
IDEA. 2022. Voter Turnout Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-
turnout (Accessed 21 December 2023).
International Foundation for Electoral Systems. 2022. https://www.electionguide.
org/countries/id/158/ (Accessed 21 December 2023).
Kosiara-Pedersen, Karina, Susan E. Scarrow, and Emilie van Haute, 2017. ‘Rules
of Engagement? Party Membership Costs, New Forms of Party Affiliation, and
Partisan Participation’. In Susan E. Scarrow, Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Pogun-
tke (eds), Organizing Political Parties: Representation, Participation, and Power.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 234–258.
NDC (National Democratic Congress). 1992. Elections Party Manifestos—
Continuity and Stability.
NPP (New Patriotic Party). 1992. Development in Freedom, 1992 Presidential and
Parliamentary Elections Manifestos.
 The State of Political Party Development in Ghana 553

Poletti, Monica, Paul D. Webb, and Tim Bale. 2019. ‘Why Do Only Some People
Who Support Parties Actually Join Them? Evidence from Britain’. West European
Politics, 42(1):156–172. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2018.1479921
Republic of Ghana. 1992. 1992 Constitution. Accra: Assembly Press.
Republic of Ghana. 2000. Political Parties Act, Act 574. Accra: Assembly Press.
Saffu, Yaw. 2003. ‘The Funding of Political Parties and Election Campaigns in Africa’.
In Reginald Austin and Maja Tjernstrom (eds), Funding of Political Parties and
Election Campaigns: Handbook Series. Stockholm: IDEA, 21–29.
Strøm, Kaare. 1990. ‘A Behavioral Theory of Competitive Political Parties’. American

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Journal of Political Science, 34(2):565–598. https://doi.org/10.2307/2111461
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY AND
POLITICAL PARTIES
V
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
26
Can the Parties be Helped?
Political Party Assistance in International Cooperation

Wilhelm Hofmeister

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

The Concept of International Party Assistance

As the chapters in this volume have underscored, many political parties face
serious difficulties effectively fulfilling the functions commonly ascribed to
them.1 So, the question is whether and how the parties can be helped to per-
form better and whether international party assistance can contribute to this
aim? In this chapter, I try to provide an answer in relation to this question.
My remarks are very much shaped by my own experiences of international
cooperation with political parties as an employee of the Konrad Adenauer
Foundation (KAF). After a few brief comments about the basic problems of
party assistance, some of these practical experiences will be presented, which
are not paradigmatic but nonetheless may illustrate the possibilities and lim-
its of party assistance. In a subsequent section, an overview of the sponsors
and instruments of international party assistance will be provided, which is
followed by a discussion of criticisms regarding the ineffectiveness of party
sponsorship. Finally, a few recommendations will be formulated on how to
make international party assistance more coherent and efficient.
Party assistance can be defined as ‘the organizational effort to support
democratic political parties, to promote a peaceful interaction between par-
ties, and to strengthen the democratic political and legal environment for
political parties’ (Burnell and Gerrits 2012: 4). Its purpose is to strengthen
one or more parties, thereby indirectly promoting democracy. Party assis-
tance is thus a specific part of promoting democracy and is therefore
characterized by the same possibilities and limitations.
Even more than other approaches to promoting democracy, such as
strengthening civil society organizations or the free press, party assistance
affects a central area of politics: the struggle for political power, because that
is a main objective of political parties. It is for this reason that party assistance

Wilhelm Hofmeister, Can the Parties be Helped?. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy. Edited by: Thomas Poguntke
and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Wilhelm Hofmeister (2024). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0026
558 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

faces criticisms of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, which

is ultimately also the case for other types of intervention in the context of
international cooperation. Indeed, due to its political dimension, party assis-
tance operates within a particularly sensitive area since it seeks to influence
the behaviour of key democratic institutions and political leaders. In terms
of democratic theory, this kind of intervention is not entirely without prob-
lems considering a country’s sovereignty and the right to self-determination
of its citizens. Sometimes, forcefully drafted proposals and expectations for
cooperating with political parties fail to recognize that foreign actors in this

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

field must behave very sensitively and with a feeling for a country’s political
circumstances. Moreover, foreign actors find it hard to grasp the strategic
and personal considerations of parties and their leaders (which are often
closely linked!)—and they find it even harder to influence them and induce
behavioural changes. Even when the consequences of actions or omissions
seem inevitable, there is no guarantee that parties and politicians will change
course once a strategy is adopted. Foreign sponsors rarely have any lever-
age in these cases. Linking aid to certain changes of behaviour, a condition
sometimes imposed in other areas of international cooperation, is ineffective
when it comes to party assistance. Therefore, the expectations for party assis-
tance must be realistic. The influence of foreign assistance and advice on the
dynamics of the party’s development, and consequently that of party systems,
is in general rather limited. However, there are certainly some examples that
it is nevertheless possible.

Experiences of International Party Assistance

KAF’s cooperation with the Christian Democratic Party of Chile (Partido

Demócrata Cristiano, PDC) may serve as a good example for successful
international party assistance (Angell 1996; Hofmeister 1996). The author of
this chapter was the foundation’s representative in Chile from January 1988,
when the Pinochet dictatorship was still in power, until May 1993. During
these years KAF funded the PDC’s training institute (as it had since the early
1960s), which provided training and education throughout the country for
members of the party, especially younger ones. At a think tank, also funded
by KAF, Christian Democrats analysed education, health, and housing pol-
icy matters and drafted reforms. After the regime change, researchers of this
think tank became government ministers and secretaries in these same areas.
The head of the think tank, Jaime Lavados, was twice chosen as president of
the country’s largest university, the Universidad de Chile, from 1990 to 1998.
 Can the Parties be Helped? 559

KAF also funded a training institute for trade unions that advised, among
others, the most important union leader of that time, Manuel Bustos, also
a Christian Democrat. In rural areas, an agrarian aid institution and two
cooperative unions were KAF partners that had been closely associated with
the PDC since the land reforms of the first Christian Democratic President
Eduardo Frei (1964–1970), thereby strengthening the party’s link to the rural
population. In the poor neighbourhoods of the larger cities, or poblaciónes,
KAF supported a self-help organization for the pobladores, also led by PDC
members. A very important part of the foundation’s work was the granting

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

of scholarships to younger PDC members who—with strict adherence to the
academic requirements—came to Germany to study for several years, earning
post-graduate degrees, with many completing a doctorate. After the regime
change in 1990, several of these scholarship recipients became government
ministers, members of parliament and senators, and later even president of
the Constitutional Court, while succeeding ambassadors of Chile to Ger-
many were KAF scholarship holders. After the parliament convened in March
1991, KAF expanded its programmes to include a project to advise PDC
parliamentarians, since the outgoing regime had not granted deputies and
senators any personal or congressional staff, and they were largely left on their
own, only gradually setting up the infrastructure for parliamentary work.
Therefore, the KAF programme was not only designed to directly assist the
partner party but also to support the development of professional skills, along
with the relevant network of relationships with important social groups.
The KAF regularly reviewed its entire assistance programme along with
PDC party leaders, although by no means could all wishes be met. The direct
funding of party activities such as organizational support, or any campaign
financing, was not possible under any circumstances. Indeed, there were
many differences of opinion regarding the assessment of the work and the
responsibilities of individual projects, but the mutual trust that had grown
over the years between the PDC and KAF made it possible to resolve such
differences.
During the regime transition period in Chile, the PDC strengthened its
position, first as the leading party of democratic opposition to the Pinochet
regime, and later as the ruling government party. After the victory of the
united opposition in the plebiscite of 5 October 1988, in which the dic-
tator Pinochet was seeking to extend his rule by another 10 years, PDC
leader Patricio Aylwin became the candidate for the coalition Concertación
de Partidos por la Democracia and, after his victory in December 1989, was
inaugurated in March 1990 as the country’s first democratically elected pres-
ident since 1970. With the 1989 presidential elections, the PDC became the
560 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

strongest party in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. It won the pres-
idency again in 1994 with Eduardo Frei.2 This was a success for KAF not
only because the foundation had been working continuously with the PDC
since 1963, which had even been possible during the military dictatorship
with restrictions, but also because many members of the government formed
in 1994, and many members of Congress, had worked in one way or another
at institutions and projects funded by KAF.
Essential for the foundation’s work was the close contact between the party
leadership of the PDC and the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU)

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

party, which KAF played a key role in arranging (Hofmeister 2004). There
were frequent exchanges that included inviting the PDC leadership each year
to political meetings in Germany and regular visits of German politicians to
Chile. In the run-up to the presidential elections of 1990, KAF arranged a
trip to Germany for candidate Aylwin, during which he not only met Ger-
man Chancellor and CDU Chairman Helmut Kohl but was also received by
German Federal President von Weizsäcker—an unusual gesture to an oppo-
sition leader—and met with the leader of the Social Democrat Party (SPD)
Willy Brandt, which helped build trust between Aylwin and the PDC and
their Chilean coalition partners from the Partido por la Democracia and the
Partido Socialista, with whom the SPD-aligned Friedrich Ebert Foundation
collaborated.
Between KAF and the PDC existed an established structure for coopera-
tion and a high level of mutual familiarity and trust. The work of KAF and
the other German foundations active in Chile at the time was later evaluated
by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Develop-
ment as an example of the success of party assistance (Krumwiede et al. 1995).
This was a very important assessment for the foundations because Chile was
drawing international attention like few other countries at the time due to
the circumstances of the coup and the character of the military regime. This
successful cooperation was based on two pillars:

• The selection of partners based on ideological affinity: Christian

Democrats in Germany assisted Christian Democrats in Chile.
• Exclusivity: KAF worked with just one of many democratic parties (the
‘partisan approach’).

At the time, KAF’s party assistance programme in other countries was also
characterized by ideological affinity and the partisan approach, although the
parties it was assisting did not always conquer top political positions, and
some only managed to do so temporarily. A decade prior to its success in
 Can the Parties be Helped? 561

Chile, KAF failed to help establish a Christian Democratic party in Spain,

which, incidentally, KAF was advised to do in an extensive report writ-
ten by none other than Juan Linz, a political scientist from Yale University,
well known beyond academic circles for his work on authoritarianism and
political transition towards democracy. Nevertheless, various authors and
politicians acknowledge that KAF made a significant contribution to con-
solidating the democratic system of Spain by assisting Prime Minister Adolfo
Suárez (1977–1982) and his party Unión de Centro Democrático (Poppen
2006; Urigüen 2018). After Suárez’ term in office, however, the UCD’s rele-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

vance increasingly diminished and KAF started to cooperate with the newly
founded Partido Popular.
In Latin America, the Christian Democratic parties with which KAF col-
laborated played a prominent role at least during a certain phase of the
political development of the respective countries and the region. They pro-
vided presidents and led governments in Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala,
El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and
Colombia, and later also in Mexico. The usual approaches and methods
involved the funding of training and education for party members, mostly
through the financial support of educational institutions, which were and
are officially independent of the parties (similarly to the German founda-
tions), advisory activities, analyses and publications, grants, and the planning
of political conferences and dialogue.
Despite the success of this type of party assistance, today one must
acknowledge that quite a few of the parties assisted by KAF no longer exist
or have shrunk to insignificance (Kneuer 2014). In Chile, internal con-
flicts over party strategy and personal disputes between key party leaders
have increasingly weakened the PDC, even though it continued to occupy
important government positions within the framework of various centre-left
coalitions until 2018. In some countries KAF, like other institutions provid-
ing party assistance, has problems demonstrating the specific contribution
that the parties it supports are (still) making to the further consolidation of
democracy.
This also applies mutatis mutandis to cooperation with parties elsewhere
in the world, which started later with the ‘third wave of democratization’,
and with whom it has been and continues to be difficult to work efficiently
and successfully in the long run based on ideological affinity and exclusivity.
During the transformation processes in central, eastern, and south-eastern
Europe, KAF, like other foundations and organizations from Germany and
other countries involved in party assistance, contributed to the development
of many parties based on Western European models (Pogorelskaja 2006).
562 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Many of those parties were accepted into the European party families. But
by no means were all parties able to succeed politically.
In Asia, the recent experience in Myanmar indicates how difficult it is
to promote democracy and parties. KAF was one of the first international
organizations that was able to support civil society organizations through
a local partner after the devastation of Cyclone Nargis in 2008. During the
preparations for the 2010 parliamentary elections, which were still subject
to significant restrictions, the first training activities with representatives
of many newly founded parties became possible, especially regional par-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

ties. After Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from
almost 17 years of house arrest in November 2010, her National League for
Democracy (NDL) party was legalized again a year later. KAF and the other
international organizations that had arrived in the country tried to assist the
NDL. Ms Suu Kyi somewhat reluctantly accepted that assistance. She led her
party in a rather authoritarian way and discussed party affairs only with a
small group of confidants. It goes without saying that reform of the party’s
organization or intra-party democracy were topics that could not be raised
with her. She remained sceptical of foreign actors because she did not trust
them to understand the country’s political situation, and because many orga-
nizations carried out training activities in various parts of the country, which
ran counter to NLD’s claim of exclusivity. However, training and educational
activities, particularly with younger members but also with NLD parliamen-
tarians, were possible. Only very gradually did trusting relationships develop
that might have resulted in additional activities and dialogue. However, Aung
San Su Kyi and the NLD fell victim to another military coup in February
2021. Does this say anything about the effectiveness of party assistance by
KAF and the organizations from other countries that have been active in
Myanmar? Before we address the question of effectiveness, we will first briefly
outline the structure of party assistance.

Party Assistance Actors and Activities

Cross-border cooperation between parties has existed at least since the

founding of the Socialist International in 1864, but modern party assistance,
which is not provided by parties but by intermediate organizations, first
began with the international work of German political foundations in Latin
America, starting in the early 1960s. Against the backdrop of the Cold War
and the Cuban Revolution, cooperation with parties was intended to sup-
port reform-minded political groups while preventing them from drifting
 Can the Parties be Helped? 563

into the political camp within the Soviet sphere of influence. The German
foundations benefited from the fact that there were already parties in Latin
America that had an ideological affinity with the two major parties in Ger-
many, the CDU and the SPD. Christian Democrats and Socialists were the
first partners of German party assistance. As the foundations’ work expanded
geographically, it became difficult to identify partners with the same political
and ideological affinities. Nevertheless, the foundations clung to one element
of their party assistance: exclusively working with just one party. However,
they were increasingly pragmatic when choosing these partners. They estab-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

lished contacts in Spain in the mid-1960s and later in Portugal, promoting
younger politicians from these countries through training and other activi-
ties. The democratic transition processes on the Iberian Peninsula, regarded
as exemplary in the political science literature, also became a model for the
success of party assistance provided by the German foundations. This helped
them to grow budgets and continuously expand geographically, but also
functionally, so that today party assistance is just one component of their
international cooperation programme, which includes many other topics
besides promoting democracy.
In the US, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was founded
in 1983 as an instrument for promoting democracy abroad, and shortly
thereafter, with explicit reference to the German experience, prompted the
emergence of the two party-affiliated foundations, the National Democratic
Institute for International Affairs (NDI), and today’s International Republi-
can Institute (IRI), which were also intended to assist parties abroad. As a
result of the political upheaval in Europe after 1989, institutions and foun-
dations that collaborate with parties abroad emerged in the 1990s and later,
especially at the turn of the millennium, in other European countries (Wer-
sch and Zeeuw 2004: 12; Burnell 2006: 5). The budgets of most of these
institutions are relatively small, however, which limits the scope of their
actions.
Organizations from Western Europe and the US continue to be the most
important actors and financiers of party assistance. Their work focuses on
parties in the ‘young’ democracies of Africa, Asia, Latin America, as well as in
central, eastern, and south-eastern Europe. In addition, the German founda-
tions also maintain party relations in all EU member states, North America,
and Australia, but here they focus on programmes of political dialogue, which
deviates from the traditional understanding of party assistance. The most
important actors in party assistance are listed in Table 26.1.
It is not possible to determine the exact amount of the total financial
expenditure for international political party assistance. The German political
Table 26.1 Actors in party assistance

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Country/Actorsa Political affiliation Budget for
international
work (in
millions of €)b

Austria
Dr.-Karl-Renner-Institut Social Democratic Party of Austria 0.9 (2017)
Politische Akademie Austrian People’s Party 0.9 (2017)
FPÖ–Bildungsinstitut Freedom Party of Austria 0.7 (2017)
Grüne Bildungswerkstatt Austrian Green Party—The Green Alternative 0.4 (2017)
NEOS Lab NEOS—The New Austria and Liberal Forum 0.14 (2017)
Team Stronach Akademie Team Stronach Party 0.1 (2017)
Czech Republic
CEVRO Non-partisan Not specified
Denmark
Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy (DIPD) Supported by nine parties represented in the Danish parliament 3.2 (2018)
c
Germany
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) Christian Democratic Union (CDU) 116.4 (2021)
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Social Democratic Party (SPD) 110.7 (2021)
Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung (FNS) Free Democratic Party (FDP) 41.2 (2019)
Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (HBS) The Green Party 40.5 (2021)
Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung (HSS) Christian Social Union (CSU) 37.4 (2018)
Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (RLS) The Left Party 47.6 (2021)
Finland
Political Parties of Finland for Democracy (Demo Finland) Supported by nine parties in the Finnish parliament 2.3 (2021)
United Kingdom
Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) Joint leadership by members of the Conservative and Labour 11.3 (2020/21)
Party
Netherlands
Eduardo Frei Foundation (EFF) Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) No information

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Foundation Max van der Stoel (FMS) Dutch Labour Party, (PvdA) No information
International Democratic Initiative Foundation (Stichting IDI) D66d Party No information
Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) Supported by several parties in the Dutch parliament 11.2 (2020)
Bureau de Helling GroenLinks No information
VVD International Dutch Liberal Party No information
Sweden No information
Centre Party International Foundation (CIS) Centre Party No information
Christian Democratic International Center (KIC) Swedish Christian Democratic Party No information
Green Forum Foundation Green Party Sweden No information
Olof Palme International Centre Social Democratic Party Not specified
Swedish International Liberal Centre (SILC) Liberal Party of Sweden Not specified
Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency Government institution which, in addition to partially funding Not specified
(SIDA) the aforementioned institutes, also actively promotes
cooperation between individual institutes for multi-party
cooperation
Spain
Fundación FAES Conservative. Formerly aligned with the Partido Popular (PP), Not specified
now without any party affiliation
Fundación Concordia y Libertad Partido Popular (PP) 1.2 (2021)
Fundación Pablo Iglesias Partido Socialista Obrero Español 0.1 (2021)
USAd
National Democratic Institute (NDI) Democratic Party 163 US$
(2021/22)
International Republican Institute (IRI) Republican Party 122 US$
(2021/22/20)
National Endowment for Democracy (NED)e 322 US$
(2021/22)

Continued
Table 26.1 Continued

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Country/Actorsa Political affiliation Budget for
international
work (in
millions of €)b

Australia
Centre for Democratic Institutions (CDI) Non-partisan, affiliated with the Australian National University No information
(ANU)
Multilateral Organizations:
European Endowment for Democracy 25.0 (2021)
European Partnership for Democracy Association of various organizations, including DIPD, Demo, No information
NIMD, WFD
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance Non-partisan institution supported by 34 countries around the 28.3 (2021)
(IDEA) world

Sources: Annual reports of the individual organizations.

a.
The table only lists institutions that assist international political parties. In the European Network of Political Foundations, 54 political foundations and think tanks from 23
EU member states and 6 political party families are loosely associated. All of them assist parties in their countries of origin through political education and advice, but only
about half of them also carry out international party assistance projects and programmes.
b.
The budget information is taken from the latest annual reports of the individual organizations as published on their websites by March 2023. For Austria, the figures come
from the last accessible publication of the Court of Audit on educational institutions of political parties. The figures for the US institutions are in US$.
c.
The Desiderius Erasmus Foundation, which is associated with the right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), has not yet received public funds. Following
an appeal to the Federal Constitutional Court, the latter ruled in February 2023 that the funding of political foundations must be placed on a new legislative footing. Then the
Desiderius Erasmus Foundation will probably also receive public funding for national and international activities.
d.
IRI and NDI have not published any of their annual reports on their website in the past years and do not disclose information about their budgets. Information on their
general budget (which does not exclusively refer to international cooperation also include domestic programes) are found on the on the website https://projects.propublica.
org/nonprofits/organizations/521338892 (NDI) and and https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521340267 (IRI) (Accessed 22 January 2024).
e.
Less than 10% of NED’s funds go to NDI and IRI. https://www.ned.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NED-FY21-Financial-Audit_Final-6.10.2022.pdf (Accessed 21
December 2023).
 Can the Parties be Helped? 567

foundations and the two US institutes NDI and IRI have by far the highest
budgets for cooperation with parties, but like most other institutions, party
assistance is part of broader support for democracy, which includes other
areas of activity. The share of their budgets that goes to party assistance is not
itemized separately, but it should be approximately 20–25%. Some political
institutions in other countries spend a higher percentage on party assistance,
but in many cases this is limited to a few activities each year due to their
relatively small budgets.
Regarding the international promotion of democracy, the share of party

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

assistance is very small and can be estimated at 5% at most, but it cannot
be precisely determined. The European Development Fund (EDF) alone
accounted for the highest budget in the world for promoting democracy from
2014 to 2020, with €30.5 billion. Party assistance has so far been a very small
part of that.
Most of the funding for international political party assistance comes from
state sources in the individual countries. In addition, the EU Commission
and several other multinational institutions and organizations also fund
actions to assist political parties. The European Partnership for Democracy
(EPD) and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assis-
tance (IDEA) explicitly emphasize this area of activity (among others). The
European Endowment for Democracy, the United Nations Development
Fund, the Organization of American States, the National Endowment for
Democracy (NED, USA), as well as the United States Agency for Interna-
tional Development (USAID), are also active in this area, but this primarily
involves the funding of activities of other organizations and not so much
the implementation of their own programmes to cooperate with political
parties.
Notably, in the two large EU member states France and Italy there are
apparently no institutions concerned with assisting parties beyond their
national borders. This sheds light on political assessments and preferences.
Norway established the non-partisan Norwegian Centre for Democracy Sup-
port in 2002, which also assisted political parties internationally, but the
centre was dissolved in 2009.
Finally, we should also mention international political party associations,
but they do not have sufficient funds of their own for activities to assist
individual member parties. Their most important cooperation tools are
international conferences and political dialogue. The most significant of
these organizations are Centrist Democrat International (CDI), the Interna-
tional Democratic Union (IDU), the Socialist International (SI), the Liberal
International (LI) and the Global Greens (GG).
568 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Forms of cooperation

The most important forms of cooperation continue to concern the following

areas (Erdmann 2008: 241):

• Support of a single party that sometimes has an ideological affinity with

the sponsor’s programme; however, this is no longer a prerequisite in
many places (partisan approach)
• Cooperation with various relevant parties, e.g. those represented in

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

parliament (multi-party approach)
• Promotion of a non-partisan or interparty dialogue to help overcome
conflicts within society, perhaps in the period following a civil war or
other conflict (cross-party dialogue)
• Encouragement of reforms to the underlying legal and institutional con-
ditions of the political process, perhaps with the aim of influencing
the setup of the party system (parliamentary advice, cooperation with
election commissions, debates on the voting laws, etc.) (institutional
approach)
• Promotion of trans-national cooperation between parties, or a region
or subregion, and at the continental level, through party conferences,
regional party associations, etc. (international cross-party collaboration)
• Support of civil society (civil society approach), i.e. of collateral or party-
affiliated organizations (unions, associations, etc.), thereby promoting
the linkage function of parties.

Topics of cooperation

The specific activities of the individual institutions cover the entire range of
issues relevant to political parties:

• The internal organization of a party

• Promotion of the expertise of its members, especially those serving in
parliament
• Local politics
• Political communication
• Supporting election campaign plans (but not the actual election cam-
paign)
• Promotion of dialogue and cooperation with other parties (particularly
relevant in post-conflict situations) and with civil society organizations.
 Can the Parties be Helped? 569

The education and training of younger party members and women plays
a very important role for virtually all sponsors. The matter of intra-party
democracy is also dealt with very intensively by some sponsors, although
the extent of intra-party participation has little significance for the voting
behaviour of citizens, and there is no unanimous opinion in political sci-
ence as to whether parties must be democratically organized to contribute
to democracy in their respective countries. The fact that Michels’ iron law of
oligarchy is also still in force in Western democracies is overlooked by some
of those involved in party assistance, whose habitus has been described as

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

sometimes ‘actionist and missionary’ (Carothers 2006: 383).
The funded activities are also very similar in terms of the instruments
used. Most of these activities consist of training workshops, seminars, or
conferences for party members, the advising of party leaders and other
party authorities, the invitation of party representatives to international
programmes for dialogue and visibility, parliamentary talks, and the pro-
motion of factual and policy-oriented debates conducted by political parties,
including analyses and publications and conferences.
Contrary to some isolated allegations or assumptions made in a few publi-
cations, funding or other direct support of election campaigns has no partic-
ular role in international party assistance. Not only do donors and the legal
environment in the countries of origin and the recipient countries forbid for-
eign funding of election campaigns, but the parties themselves want to avoid
giving their voters the impression that they are ‘controlled remotely’ by for-
eign actors. Moreover, the resources of external party assistance are so limited
in relation to the actual election campaign expenditures of individual parties
that they could not influence any election results. However, in many cases, of
course, party assistance is fundamentally geared towards strengthening par-
ties, and that ultimately means helping them to improve their electoral results.

The Effectiveness of Party Assistance

The effectiveness of political party assistance has repeatedly been called into
question (Carothers 2006; Erdmann 2008: 244ff; Burnell and Gerrits 2012:
4ff; Burnell 2017 and various country assessments of the book; Svåsand 2014:
46 ff.; Weissenbach 2016: 343ff ). In view of the decline of democracy in
many countries, questions regarding the purpose and effectiveness of party
assistance have become more pressing.
Peter Burnell and André Gerrits have noted that those involved in party
assistance set goals in a very ambitious but general way and normally seek
570 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

to promote the ‘formation of stable, democratic and representative politi-

cal parties, within a democratic environment’ (Burnell and Gerrits 2012:
6). The current annual reports of many of the actors listed in Table 26.1
indicate that this continues to be their main objective. Few organizations
publicly articulate such specific and detailed objectives and activities in coop-
eration with individual parties as the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty
Democracy (NIMD) and the Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy
(DIPD). The US institutions NDI, IRI, and NED provide information on
their websites about individual cooperation projects. On the websites of

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

the country offices of the German foundations, there is information about
cooperation with political parties. However, very specific goals or specific
assistance programmes are not always mentioned.
The criticism that there is a lack of concepts and strategies to disclose
motives, objectives and instruments, or the criteria and methods for assess-
ing the promotion of (democracy and) political parties (Erdmann 2006a,
2008: 246) is even less applicable to most sponsors today than in the past.
For example, in response to such criticism, KAF published various concept
papers some time ago on its international work with political parties (KAS
2007, 2008a, 2008b). The NIMD is very open regarding the disclosure of
planning and evaluation documents (Rocha Menocal et al. n.d.). Over the
past decade, many institutions have continued to develop and sharpen their
planning and evaluation tools, not least because of the requirements of their
donors. Therefore, as with other international cooperation activities, party
assistance projects and programmes practise stricter planning methods and
establish indicators to demonstrate the achievement of specific goals.
The evaluation of cooperation programmes in recent years has intensified
and its methods have improved, especially in the case of the German foun-
dations. The reports from such evaluations, which are mostly prepared by
external experts, are submitted to the German Ministry for Economic Coop-
eration and Development, which largely funds the work of the foundations,
and these are usually made available to at least academic researchers. How-
ever, it should be noted that institutions with small budgets are often unable
to fund very refined planning or evaluations. When budgets only allow a few
training programmes or invitations for one partner party, expert reports are
more likely to be foregone, and political criteria, such as affinity with a spe-
cific party, play a role in choosing a partner and the type of measures to be
adopted. However, a cooperation programme does not have to lack a concept
for this reason alone.
The general criticism first put forward by Carothers, and then by others,
continues to persist that party assistance results in too few ‘transformative
 Can the Parties be Helped? 571

effects’ (Carothers 2006: 12). Considering the state of the party systems in
individual countries, that may be true. However, before we can condemn
party assistance, we must consider its different levels.
The first level concerns the underlying political conditions. These largely
determine which role parties play and how they (can) perform these roles.
The system of government, the formal constitution, and the role of other
political and social institutions (parliament, system of checks and balances,
media, civil society, etc.) are important. However, there are other factors
that play a major role: the historic moment of a country, i.e. how long has

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

a democratic system existed? Is the country in the process of transition to
democracy? Has it been through an internal conflict that must be dealt with?
etc.; the political culture, i.e. what are the attitudes and experiences in terms
of a democratic culture of debate? Is opposition generally accepted? What
are the attitudes towards hierarchies and authorities? What roles are women
permitted to have in public life? How important are social networks? To what
degree do systems of personalism, clientelism, and patronage shape social
and political manners? etc.; the ethnographic situation of a country: Are
there different ethnic and religious groups?
Carothers criticized party assistance: ‘A s it is presently conceived and car-
ried out in most cases, party aid does not address these sorts of broader
conditions and structural factors that weigh so heavily on party develop-
ment’ (Carothers, 2006: 81f ). However, a brief look at the basic underlying
conditions makes it clear that these cannot be significantly influenced by
party assistance. It is therefore surprising that scholars concerned with the
transformation of political systems consider that external intervention has
a significant impact on a country’s future. Krastev and Holmes (2019) have
reminded us recently that this is impossible, even with a much higher amount
of funds than those available for party assistance. Even the institutional ele-
ments that directly affect the parties, such as party and electoral law, or party
financing, cannot be changed by a few cooperation activities. This kind of
influence requires long-term relationships of trust with individual parties and
party leaders if the point is to achieve more than just a debate of such topics at
an academic conference. In many countries, it was possible to turn such levers
in the framework of party assistance. This is especially true when systems are
being transformed during a transition from an authoritarian to a democratic
system. The drafting of a new constitution continues to be such a moment in
which the actors in party assistance set agendas and can possibly even initiate
decisions in favour of certain regulations, although there is no guarantee that
the intended results will be achieved. However, we cannot expect party assis-
tance to make a major contribution to comprehensive system transformation.
572 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Party leaders can be made aware of issues, and we can present them with
alternatives to certain regulations. However, restraint must be used when
assessing the chances that political engineering will successfully influence
the underlying conditions. What may seem desirable or necessary from an
academic or foreign perspective is often difficult to implement politically or
may only be possible at best over the very long term.
At another level, there has also been criticism of the approach to and
methods of party assistance, in which sponsors are accused of putting the
focus of cooperation too heavily on an ‘idealized or mythical’ political party

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

model of Northern European origin (Carothers 2006: 4094) which does not
adequately consider the unique characteristics of the party models of other
regions. Such criticisms also apply to US-based foundations, although they
are not even familiar with the European party model from their own country.
However, it must be noted in response that both party assistance and the pro-
motion of democracy overall must have a clear idea of the object they want to
help structure. Like democracy, the institution of the political party cannot
be arbitrarily defined. Although there are many alternatives for their specific
design, there are certain fundamental elements that should not be called into
question (Hofmeister 2021). The sponsors generally know this and accept
the fact that some of the parties they partner with do not correspond to the
model of Western European parties, for which they are sometimes criticized
in public or in academia. In addition, however, many of the peculiarities that
characterize the parties in ‘new’ democracies also apply to the ‘old democra-
cies’, including intentional ideological ambiguity, organizational weaknesses,
dominant or authoritarian leadership, intra-party patronage networks and
clientelism, a small membership base, lack of intra-party democracy, the
exclusion of women from leadership posts, and an insufficient connection
to society. A kind of convergence of the parties in old and new democracies,
i.e. a convergence of their political party models, had already been observed
several years ago. Therefore, ‘it may be the parties in the West European polit-
ical systems that are evolving toward the standard currently being set by the
new democracies, and not the other way around’ (Biezen, cited in Webb and
White 2007: 5448f ).
Also criticized were the methods of the sponsoring institutions, noting
individual problems such as a very stereotypical way of carrying out activ-
ities, defective planning and implementation thereof, inadequate selection of
topics, unsuitable training of professionals who are not familiar with local
conditions, selection of unsuitable participants or the consideration of the
clientele of important party leaders when assisting individuals, or research
trips to donor countries with a high percentage of tourism, so that factual
 Can the Parties be Helped? 573

information is neglected or circumstances are represented that do not reflect

the reality of the participants in such programmes, etc. (Erdmann 2006b;
2008: 245). As a blanket criticism, such reproaches are unfair, even if some
activities could be more carefully planned and carried out.
Apart from the fact that most sponsors are constantly adapting their meth-
ods (most recently with the move towards virtualization required by the
COVID-19 pandemic), they are also dealing with very practical problems,
such as: How many trainers are there in Africa or Asia who can convey their
own experiences with well-organized political parties in a vibrant democ-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

racy to the participants in the advanced training courses? How many trainers
from Europe or the US, upon being invited to Africa or Asia as ‘experts’, have
knowledge of the country and local experience? Such activities do not require
people who know the country so much as experts on matters such as party
organization or political communication. Also, the rejection of participants
who are recommended by top party leaders can sometimes create a dilemma.
On the one hand, clientelism is at least tolerated, if not encouraged. On the
other hand, access to important party representatives, as well as collaboration
on important topics, may be blocked if sponsors have a conflict with impor-
tant party representatives. Those party assistance institutions which do not
have their own permanent representative in a country have a harder time
identifying certain clientele relationships within individual parties, or even
the participants in their own activities. These are just a few examples of the
practical issues that party assistance organizations regularly face.

Multi-party vs. Single-party Approach

Some sponsors try to avoid such dilemmas by assisting several parties in a

country at the same time. This ‘multi-party approach’ is strongly empha-
sized by the NIMD but also characterizes the work of institutes such as the
DIPD of Denmark, Demo Finland, the Westminster Foundation for Democ-
racy (WFD) of the United Kingdom, and the international body IDEA. This
also tends to apply to the two US institutions NDI and the IRI, even if in
individual cases or countries the latter work with only one party. The fact
that different parties or, in the case of IDEA, different countries are repre-
sented on the governing bodies of these institutions has a decisive influence
on their attitude in favour of the multi-party approach. All institutions nor-
mally work independently of one another, but there are also projects that
are coordinated closely between several institutions, such as the NIMD and
the DIPD. The three Swedish organizations—KIC, Olof Palme International
574 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Centre, and Swedish International Liberal Centre (SILC)—carry out joint

projects in Africa and Latin America, i.e. the Program for Young Politi-
cians in Africa (PYPA), in which the Green Forum also participates, and
the Latin America Programme of Affiliated Organisations (PAOLA). Both
regional programmes focus on consolidating political parties but also assist
civil society organizations and promote a free press.
As mentioned in the previous section, there is no fundamental difference
between the working methods of the individual institutions that provide
assistance. Cooperation with political actors who teach democratic values

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

and specific skills such as negotiation, communication, political dialogue,
and conflict management, is part of a standard programme. The effort to
promote interparty dialogue is also a specific characteristic of the multi-party
approach. The European Commission and some other international organi-
zations favour this approach to a certain extent because it clearly excludes
taking sides with a particular party so that these donors can remain neutral
in party politics.
The alternative to the above is the partisan approach, which is not only
applied by the German political foundations but also by most party-affiliated
institutions of other countries. They focus their cooperation on one or—
more rarely—several ideologically aligned parties in a country. In Europe,
this primarily involves members of the same party family. An ideal example
of this partisan approach was given at the beginning in the description of
KAF’s assistance to the PDC in Chile. Due to the ideological fraying of many
political parties and the loss of importance of parties with their ‘own’ family,
the German foundations have now become somewhat more flexible or prag-
matic when choosing their partners. Ideological affinity in the narrow sense
is no longer a prerequisite for cooperation, although agreement on funda-
mental goals and political issues is still expected. Overall, however, the aim
of the partisan approach is also to promote a multi-party system, since it is
expected that parties outside of the scope of the respective cooperation efforts
will be promoted by other institutions.
The German foundations are convinced of their approach to cooperation
because, in their experience, the necessary trust of party leaders and impor-
tant representatives can only be achieved through a certain exclusivity, which
also allows difficult topics to be addressed and facilitates a certain influence
on a party’s internal decisions. In addition to onsite training and advice, they
offer their partners important international political contacts, professional
training of party leaders and international invitations to raise their profile,
or the recognition of a party through integration in international networks.
This is not just the result of higher budgets but also of building trust over the
 Can the Parties be Helped? 575

long term. The presence of their own country representatives, who maintain
continuous contacts with the partner parties on the ground, is a key instru-
ment whereby the foundations acquire direct knowledge and a feel for the
political situation of a country, allowing them to implement and adapt their
cooperation strategies in a differentiated and context-sensitive manner.
However, the limits of this partisan approach become more and more evi-
dent, especially when parties that have been assisted for many years become
less relevant, perhaps because they lack success in governance, are paralysed
by internal conflicts, have important representatives involved in corruption

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

scandals, have lost their connection to important civil society groups, or are
not in a position to address the concerns of a large part of the citizenry. These
are all issues that are very difficult to influence with party assistance even
after many years of cooperation. However, the institutions using the multi-
party approach are in even less of a position to influence the behaviour and
the structures of individual parties. Because of that, their access to impor-
tant party leaders is limited since the latter often refuse to participate in
talks with other parties or in joint activities. Moreover, if the work of such
institutions is organized only by local employees, they may be able to run
‘democratic schools’ but are not generally accepted as equal interlocutors
among the upper ranks of a party. The German foundations, but also smaller
ones in other countries, achieve this mainly due to their affiliation with one
party in their home country. On the other hand, institutions backed by vari-
ous parties appear to many party leaders to be too amorphous to allow their
representatives an insight into internal affairs or even to follow their advice.
This addresses a point of criticism of party assistance that concerns its
lack of influence on the behaviour of party leaders (Carothers 2006: 81).
Accordingly, such leaders would oppose any suggestions for party reforms
that would threaten their own power base, such as intra-party democratiza-
tion, and they often see parties as an instrument through which they and their
supporters in the party would gain positions of political power and the ben-
efits of parliamentarians. Putting aside the fact that this also describes the
attitude of many party leaders in the ‘old’ democracies, we should remem-
ber that the purpose of democratic competition is primarily to gain political
power. Only this can give the parties the competence to shape the future.
They do not exist to offer their members a level playing field for internal
democracy, or to promote specific groups such as women or young people,
but to lift their leaders and representatives into political positions from which
they can exercise power and implement their political programme.
The promotion of political parties and democracy, of course, makes an
important contribution to educating and training young people as well as
576 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

political officeholders, providing them with advice on individual matters and

integrating them into an international community of democratic parties. In
this way, party assistance makes an important contribution to political edu-
cation and training, which in most countries is not otherwise offered in any
way. However, the specific impact of such measures and offers can neither be
precisely predicted nor empirically proven. There are too many other factors
that influence the direction of a party, including the personal interest of their
leaders and the underlying political and social conditions, and these factors
cannot be influenced by foreign sponsors. Indeed, that would go against the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

spirit of democracy, which lets the citizens of a country, and not benevolent
foreign actors, choose their political leadership.

Conclusions and Recommendations for Party Assistance

Despite this somewhat sobering review of the possibilities and effectiveness

of international political party assistance, there are good reasons to continue
with it. Past experiences should be used to better gauge programmes and
projects in the future. In this regard, some conclusions and recommendations
are provided below.

1. Political parties play a central role in any democratic system. Even

if they make difficult partners for international organizations, party
assistance must be a central element of promoting democracy. Insti-
tutions, such as the European Commission, who have so far been
reluctant to fund party assistance, should pay closer attention and
devote more resources to this area and support the very different forms
and methods of party assistance.
2. In all cases, a prerequisite for cooperation should be a clear stance by
the parties and their leaders in favour of the values of liberal democ-
racy. Ideological affinity and agreement between a sponsor and its
partner party allows for broader cooperation than supposed political
neutrality.
3. Party assistance can be very helpful if the party leadership recog-
nizes its value and works to ensure the success of individual measures.
The parties must therefore take ‘ownership’ of individual projects, i.e.
leading members should be involved in discussions about objectives,
priorities, and activities, not just to pursue their personal interests
and those of the party, but also to gain a sense of what may help or
harm their country’s democracy. ‘Ownership’ does not mean giving
 Can the Parties be Helped? 577

the parties a completely free hand over the assistance programmes

but rather coordinating these programmes with them. Even while a
project is being implemented, achievements should be regularly evalu-
ated with the party representatives. The participation of high-ranking
party representatives in such arrangements is an indication of how
seriously the party takes the matter of cooperation.
4. Political momentum can significantly facilitate or hinder party assis-
tance in a country. During a political transition process, there are more
opportunities for international cooperation to influence a party in the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

opposition than a party established in a position of power.
5. Party assistance requires that the sponsor has a basic understanding
of the nature of a party and the elements that help it achieve politi-
cal success, as well as a grasp of the political situation in the country
and the underlying conditions that influence the development and
behaviour of political parties and their leaders. Foreign sponsors must
also acquire knowledge of the driving forces and networks of rela-
tionships existing within and between the parties that influence their
willingness to cooperate with foreign actors and determine the room
they have to manoeuvre in that regard. Expert opinions or studies
of the situation of a party or party system in a country can provide
important clues and should therefore be relied upon even more when
drafting or renewing concepts and strategies for assisting one or more
parties. Even the most rigorous ‘academic’ preparation of cooperation
measures, however, cannot replace a fundamental policy decision on
cooperating with a specific party or group of parties.
6. In general, most international sponsors make full use of the range of
actions available to them for cooperating with a party. Since party
assistance consists primarily of training ‘future party leaders’, i.e.
younger members and activists, including many women, it exploits the
potential of many sponsors and the resources available to them but is
an important contribution, conveying knowledge and techniques that
are important for political parties yet not conveyed in many coun-
tries. Other measures that affect sensitive areas of the party, such as
organizational reforms or even strategy scenarios, are normally used
only when there is a close relationship of trust between the sponsor
and partner party, which develops over a long period of time with the
personal presence of the sponsor.
7. In addition to cooperating with individual parties or groups of par-
ties, the structural factors that condition the development of parties
must also be addressed, such as political party law, party financing,
578 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

the organization of parliamentary work, certain procedural questions

when organizing elections, or voting rights in general. Of course, every
sponsor must be aware that activities related to the underlying polit-
ical conditions have only a limited influence on the behaviour and
development of individual parties. Assisting individual parties cannot
be replaced by pulling a few levers in the political or governmental
system.
8. Anyone assisting political parties must take sides. Therefore, where
possible, individual actors should focus on cooperating with specific

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

parties. The clear advantage that the partisan approach has over the
multi-party approach is that long-term relationships of trust can be
formed with parties or party leaders; these relationships are indispens-
able for addressing sensitive issues during cooperation.
9. Of course, the use of funds plays an important role. Many parties,
especially those in poor countries, spend a lot of money on election
campaigns, but there are often only limited resources and budgets
for ordinary party work. Foreign sponsors cannot and should not
finance political parties. However, the implementation (and foreign
financing) of educational and advisory measures is an important con-
tribution to the parties, the actual value and scope of which often
cannot be determined by the sponsors.
10. Party cooperation cannot be carried out according to a ‘one-size-fits-
all’ method but must be adapted to the respective local conditions.
Sponsors must first have a high level of understanding and sensitiv-
ity for local circumstances before they can start cooperating with the
prospect of (usually manageable) success. However, overall, they must
start from the premise that democracy without political parties is not
possible.

Notes
1. The author is a Fellow at the Düsseldorf Party Research Institute (PRuF) and has worked
for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Latin America, Asia, Spain and Germany.
2. He was the son of the Eduardo Frei who was President from 1964 to 1970.

References

Angell, Alan. 1996. ‘International Support for the Chilean Opposition, 1973–1989:
Political Parties and the Role of Exiles’. In Lawrence Whitehead (ed.), The
 Can the Parties be Helped? 579

International Dimensions of Democratization Europe and the Americas. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 175–200.
Burnell, Peter. 2006. ‘Unterstützung für politische Parteien in neuen Demokra-
tien: Parteiensystem und Globalisierungsdenken’. KAS-Auslandsinformationen, 9:
123–142.
Burnell, Peter. 2017. International Political Party Support by ‘Bad Guys’, CSGR Work-
ing Paper No. 283/17. Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation,
University of Warwick. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/csgr/papers/
283-17.pdf (Accessed 21 December 2023).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Burnell, Peter and André W. M. Gerrits (eds). 2012. Promoting Party Politics in
Emerging Democracies. London/New York: Routledge.
Carothers, Thomas. 2006. Confronting the Weakest Link: Aiding Political Parties
in New Democracies. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace.
Erdmann, Gero. 2006a. ‘Internationale Parteienförderung—neue Agenda und
ungelöste Probleme?’ In GIGA Focus Global, Nr. 8, 2006. German Institute of
Global and Area Studies—Leibniz-Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien.
Erdmann, Gero. 2006b. ‘Probleme der internationalen Parteienförderung’. KAS-
Auslandsinformationen, 11:75–98.
Erdmann, Gero. 2008. ‘Parteienförderung im Kontext von Transitions- und
Parteienforschung’. In Gero Erdmann and Marianne Kneuer (eds), Externe Fak-
toren der Demokratisierung. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 235–260.
Hofmeister, Wilhelm. 1996. Chile: Option für die Demokratie: die
Christlich Demokratische Partei und politische Entwicklung, 1964–1994.
Munich/Vienna/Zürich: Schöningh.
Hofmeister, Wilhelm. 2004. ‘Die deutschen Christdemokraten und Chile’. In Peter
Imbusch, Dirk Messner, and Detlef Nolte (eds), Chile Heute: Politik, Wirtschaft,
Kultur. Frankfurt: Vervuert, 859–880.
Hofmeister, Wilhelm. 2021. Parteien gestalten Demokratie: Theorie und Praxis in
globaler Sicht. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
Kneuer, Marianne. 2014. ‘Parteienförderung durch Parteistiftungen’. In Detlef Nolte
and Nikolaus Werz (eds), Internationale Parteienverbände und parteinahe Stiftun-
gen in Lateinamerika. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 63–90.
KAS (Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung) (ed.). 2007. International Parteienzusammenar-
beit der KAS. Globales Engagement für Frieden und Demokratie. Berlin: KAS.
KAS (Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung) (ed.). 2008a. Parteienzusammenarbeit und
Parteienförderung der KAS. Leitfaden für die Internationale Zusammenarbeit.
Berlin: KAS.
KAS (Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung) (ed.). 2008b. Parteien und Parteienkooperation
der KAS in Lateinamerika. Berlin: KAS.
580 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Krumwiede, Heinrich W., Detlef Nolte, and Renate Rott. 1995. Evaluierung
der Aktivitäten der politischen Stiftungen in Chile. Bundeministerium für
wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung, Referat 201, Bonn, October.
Krastev, Ivan and Stephen Holmes. 2019. Das Licht, das erlosch. Eine Abrechnung.
Berlin: Ullstein.
Pogorelskaja, Swetlana W. 2006. Die Bedeutung der deutschen parteinahen Stiftun-
gen für die EU-Politik gegenüber den MOE- und GUS-Staaten. ZEI Discussion
Paper, C163, 2006. https://www.hintergrund.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/
dp_c163Pogorelskaja.pdf (Accessed 20 July 2021).

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Poppen, Jens-Ulrich. 2006. Soft Power Politics: The Role of Political Foundations in
Germany’s Foreign Policy towards Regime Change in Spain, Portugal and South
Africa 1974–1994 (PhD Thesis). London School of Economic and Political Science
Department of International Relations. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/1961/1/U230889.
pdf (Accessed 21 December 2023).
Rocha Menocal, Alina, Clare Cummings, and Leni Wild (n.d.). Evaluation of
the NIMD Programme 2011–2014—Inception Study. https://cdn.odi.org/media/
documents/10099.pdf (Accessed 20 July 2021).
Svåsand, Lars. 2014. International Party Assistance—What Do We Know about
the Effects? Rapport 2014:03 till Expertgruppen för biståndsanalys (EBA),
Stockholm. https://www.oecd.org/derec/sweden/International-party-assistance.
pdf (Accessed 20 July 2021).
Urigüen López de Sandaliano, Natalia. 2018. A imágen e semejanza: La democracia
cristiana alemana y su aportación a la transición española. Madrid: CSIC.
Webb, Paul D. and Stephen White (eds). 2007. Party Politics in New Democracies,
Oxford: Oxford University Press (Kindle Version).
Weissenbach, Kristina. 2016. Parteienförderung im Transitionsprozess, vergle-
ichende Analyse der parteinahen Stiftungen Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung und Konrad-
Adenauer-Stiftung in Kenia und Südafrika. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Wersch, Jos van. 2004. Europe in Democracy Assistance: Acts and Figures. Back-
ground research paper, in A European Profile in Democracy Support, Conference
Reader, Enhancing the European Profile in Democracy Assistance, The Hague,
July 5–6 2004. Democracy AGENDA: Alliance for Generating a European Net-
work for Democracy Assistance.
27
Parties and Democracy
A Difficult Relationship

Thomas Poguntke, Paul Webb, and Susan E. Scarrow

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Introduction

Parties are essential for democracy because they represent and they govern. It
is widely accepted that these two tasks are not easy to reconcile, as one tends
to be stronger at the expense of the other. Depending on a given country’s
developmental trajectory, institutional arrangements will either strengthen
the representative or the governing function (Mair and Thomassen 2010).
However, the performance of parties is not moulded solely by their institu-
tional environment. On the contrary, it depends also to a considerable degree
on their own ideology, organization, and social anchorage—three factors that
covary with each other. In other words, how parties link to society, how
strong their leaders are, whether or not they are committed to a coherent set
of policies and can hence expect their parliamentary representatives to toe
the party line—all these are also the result of the party’s own choices and the
societal conditions of their country. Clearly, all these aspects also influence
how well parties represent and govern.
It is tempting to generalize across regions when we try to gauge the per-
formance of parties and party systems in democratic governance. This might
read as follows:

The established, cleavage-based party systems of Western Europe have performed

largely well in the post-war period, facilitating stable governments and a reason-
able degree of alternation, albeit while facing the challenge of new and often
more radical outsider parties in recent decades. The party systems in the new
democracies in Central Eastern Europe, on the other hand, have suffered from a
much higher degree of fluidity because decades of Communist rule had wiped out
much of civil society and its organizations. As a result, newly emerging democratic

Thomas Poguntke, Paul Webb, and Susan E. Scarrow, Parties and Democracy. In: Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy.
Edited by: Thomas Poguntke and Wilhelm Hofmeister, Oxford University Press. © Thomas Poguntke, Paul Webb, and Susan E.
Scarrow (2024). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888734.003.0027
582 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

parties had little to attach themselves to and party systems remained in a state
of flux. African parties have long been stereotyped as being dominated by ethni-
cization, often in a clientelist manner. In contrast to that view, however, one must
bear in mind that almost all African countries with multiparty systems banned
ethnic and other particularistic political parties. Latin American parties, on the
other hand, are now strongly moulded by the logic of presidentialism, where par-
ties are increasingly turned into instruments at the disposal of leaders aspiring
to the highest elective office in the country. Asian party systems differ consider-
ably in their degree of institutionalization, and the development of party systems

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

is significantly affected by non-institutional factors. Among these are short-term
interests; a broad range of social complexities, traditions, strategies, and decisions
of political elites; and ethnic heterogeneity.

Appealing as it may be to attempt regional generalizations, they have clear

limits. Think of the old French party system that had moulded the politics
of the Fifth Republic. First, it was undermined by the continued attack from
the populist right but then effectively wiped out by the centrist movement
of President Macron. One might want to add the UK, where the post-Brexit
Conservative Party seems to be a very different creature than it was before—
even though it is difficult to know what exactly it is. Similarly, Italian party
politics, known for hyper-stability and strong party organizations during the
so-called First Republic, is now almost entirely conquered by parties that are
leadership centred or even dominated. Furthermore, not all parties in Central
Eastern Europe are subject to electoral vulnerability. Fidesz has dominated
Hungarian politics for more than a decade, and the Polish PiS is certainly a
strongly anchored party with a disciplined, albeit selective, membership.
If generalizations are difficult across specific regions which share, at least
to a degree, commonalities that influence the performance of political par-
ties, any discussion of global trends or patterns would certainly border on the
unserious. Yet, if we climb down the ladder of abstraction somewhat (Sartori
1991), we can identify certain aspects of party performance in the process
of democratic governance which are characterized either by similarities or
clear differences, or where we can identify common challenges. This brings
us back to the aspects discussed in Chapter 2, i.e. parties and their changing
environment, parties as organizations, as facilitators of linkage, as legisla-
tors, as recipients of state funding, and as communicators. Conceptually,
these aspects can be considered as several dimensions on which parties (or
entire party systems) move in different directions. Depending on the politi-
cal context of a given country and its institutional design, different values on
these dimensions may be more or less conducive to democracy. An obvious
 Parties and Democracy 583

example is voting behaviour within parliament. While a very high level of

legislative cohesion may undermine the quality of governance in presidential
democracies because it increases the danger of gridlock under conditions of
divided government (think of the USA), it is a requirement for effective par-
liamentary government—as long as the members of parliament (MPs) are
not subjected to excessive pressure by the parliamentary leadership.
This example highlights the value of the case study approach that we have
chosen for this volume. By assembling in-depth studies dealing with parties
and party systems operating under very different political systems, different

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

historical traditions, and diverse social challenges, the chapters show that
identical phenomena may have different implications for the functioning
of democracy. To give another example: We may bemoan the overwhelm-
ing funding of political parties by the state in Western countries because it
removes the need of parties to strive for social anchorage and hence weak-
ens their linkage function. The same funding model, however, may undercut
parties’ over-reliance on funding by rich individuals or strong companies,
and thus in other senses such models could be said to help to stabilize party
democracy. What are the benchmarks against which the performance of par-
ties and party systems should be evaluated? As pointed out in Chapter 2,
peaceful governmental alternation and stable governments are certainly hall-
marks of a successful party democracy. This necessitates a reasonably stable
party system because voters need to be familiar with the choices offered and
need to be able to rely on the loyalty of elected representatives towards the
party that nominated them. It also requires responsible party competition;
it is here where the role of parties as organizations which recruit leaders is
important. To be sure, there is a second chain of delegation and account-
ability in presidential systems connecting the chief executive directly to the
electorate. Under such conditions, the competition for the highest executive
office may be largely outside the control of parties. However, in order to gov-
ern, presidents need legislative majorities, and this is where the viability of
the linkage between the parties in parliament and the electorate comes into
play.
Ideally, parties should be both social organizations—because this holds
them in place and prevents them falling victim to populist takeover—and
political organizations capable of governing. The latter requires them to have
reasonably strong leaderships which are selected through—and accountable
to—a party organization that is sufficiently strong and unified to make sure
they remain committed to the party’s general political will. Otherwise, the
principle of representation would be undermined (Müller 2000; Strøm 2000;
Strøm et al. 2003).
584 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Parties as Linkage Organizations

What do we learn from the country studies concerning the major aspects of
party analysis introduced in Chapter 2? When we look at parties in a changing
environment, it is evident that this is often associated with a decline of social
anchorage in Western Europe, while parties tended to be a lot less socially
entrenched in other parts of the world, except where strongly rooted in tribal
or ethnic loyalties. In some cases, their lack of social anchorage is (partially)
induced by the prevalence of presidentialism, which creates incentives for

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

political elites to use parties as vehicles for the pursuit of power in presidential
contests (e.g. Samuels and Shugart 2010). As a result, political parties are in
some countries little more than transient campaign organizations with little
programmatic or social profile. Here, it is an almost logical consequence that
MPs frequently switch parties in order to join the winning camp for access
to the spoils of patronage and clientelistic rewards. Brazil is an example,
as is the Philippines. The consequences for the quality of democracy are
severe: Party systems which are characterized by a lack of institutionaliza-
tion and a correspondingly high degree of fluidity cannot provide a stable
linkage between voters and the institutions of governance, which is the pre-
condition of democratic accountability. While it would be an exaggeration to
state that presidentialism is antithetical to stable parties and institutionalized
party systems, the competing chains of delegation and accountability do not
seem to work in favour of coherent and accountable parties. To be sure, this
effect is particularly strong in countries where clientelism and/or ethnicity
are prevalent.
Correspondingly, party membership tends to be a less clearly defined cat-
egory in these countries, sometimes almost indistinguishable from the mere
expression of support without any financial commitment or a real say in
intra-party affairs (Gauja 2015; Scarrow 2015). This is not necessarily con-
nected to presidentialism, as the Japanese or Greek examples show, but many
of those countries where relatively loose concepts of party membership pre-
vail are presidential (e.g. South Korea, France, the Philippines). In such cases,
plebiscitary leadership selectorates can be very inclusive, simply because the
boundary of the party as a membership organization is undefined. In its most
extreme incarnation, this can even involve opinion polls as one element of
the selectorate for presidential candidates, as the South Korean GUDNP did
in 2007. While the use of opinion polls has remained an exception, there
has been a trend towards increasingly open processes of leadership selection
(Poguntke and Scarrow 2020: 330), which carry the risk of a takeover by out-
siders or even populists. To be sure, the empirical evidence is equivocal as
regards the alleged domination of plebiscitary leadership selection processes
 Parties and Democracy 585

by a unified leadership (Mair 1994: 16; Scarrow et al. 2022). However, the
expansion of the selectorates has the potential to weaken the coherence of
the party as a purposive actor. Instead, it may turn the party into an instru-
ment of competing leaders who base their political power on a personalized
mandate rather than on the support of the dominant coalition within their
party (Poguntke and Webb 2005).
The literature on parties as organizations again has a European bias which
is strongly influenced by the analysis of parties and their linkage to society.
Much of the substance of the cadre, mass, catch-all, or cartel ideal-types can

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

indeed be read as an analysis of their changing linkages to society (Lipset
and Rokkan 1967; Lawson 1980; Poguntke 2002). While it is true that this
has been developed with a view to European parties, elitist (i.e. cadre) parties
exist also in other parts of the world, and a common trend seems to be that
parties tend to be increasingly leader-dominated, even presidentialized, and
sometimes led by politicians with populist leanings. What is more, parties
that have formerly been characterized by large membership organizations
(mainly in Western Europe) have suffered sustained membership decline
which is undermining their membership-based model of intra-party politics
(Biezen et al. 2012; Biezen and Poguntke 2014). In these countries, parties
are beginning to lose their stable social anchorage and, concomitantly, their
capacity to provide stable linkages to relevant social groups. The growth of
volatility and increasing party system fragmentation are fairly direct results
of such developments.
In other parts of the world, linkage is often based on clientelism and/or
ethnicity which may provide more stability, at least for a limited period of
time (Basedau 2019; Teehankee, Padit and Park et al. 2023). The downside
of parties based on such linkages is that patronage and clientelism, as well as
ethnicity-based linkages, undermine the very promise of liberal democracy,
which is founded on political equality rather than privileged access to politi-
cal power and/or state resources based on group membership, however that
may constitute itself. South Africa may be an example here, where the ANC
still benefits from its role in the anti-apartheid struggle while a party system
with credible alternatives which may facilitate governmental alternation is
not in sight.

Party Finance

State subsidies to political parties are an aspect that is largely uniform across
all our cases. Only 5 of our 23 countries do not have public funding of polit-
ical parties (the most notable exceptions are the US and the UK). Individual
586 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

chapters give more detailed accounts of the respective rules. A systematic

analysis of the exact mechanics in each country would be required to arrive at
a well-founded judgement concerning the conditions where they work best
to support open competition and make parties less reliant on oligarchical
donors and the best-funded interest groups—but this is beyond the scope of
this volume. However, as our broad range of cases include countries where
party democracy is functioning reasonably well and others where the chal-
lenges are more severe, it may be fair to conclude that public subsidies are
unlikely to play the paramount role. Still, it is fairly evident that public

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

funding of parties tends to weaken the influence of strong interest groups,
companies, or even rich individuals. Where there are limits to private dona-
tions combined with public funding, this effect is certainly stronger. While it
would be unrealistic to expect that legal limits to private party funding will
entirely prevent such practices and the related political influence, it certainly
makes them less likely and, depending on the sanctions, also more risky.
The prevalence of state funding as a source of party income corroborates
the part of the cartel thesis that predicted exactly this (Katz and Mair 1995).
Parties have indeed either retreated to the state or the establishment of party
democracy has gone hand in hand with the introduction of state funding.
Also, funding tends to be largely proportional to the electoral strength of
parties. Even though there is some variation in that some countries combine
proportional funding with an element of basic funding for all parties above
a minimum threshold of relevance, it is evident that state funding helps to
stabilize parties which are already established.
The dominance of state funding has changed the character of party democ-
racy: In those parts of the world where parties originated as primarily social
organizations, they have increasingly turned themselves (because they are the
lawmakers!) into a service provided by the state to the citizens (Biezen 2004).
By and large, this is true for the long-established democracies. In other parts
of the world, state funding often came about because party democracy was
established without the presence of parties that had grown ‘bottom-up’. Here,
the introduction of state funding was less a strategy of self-defence by the par-
ties to compensate for their eroding social anchorage. Instead, it tended to be,
at least sometimes, an example of conscious institutional engineering to pre-
vent excessive political influence of small groups or rich individuals on the
politics of a country.

Parties as Legislators

The performance of parties as legislators, on the other hand, offers a great

deal of variation between countries. There are examples from various regions
 Parties and Democracy 587

where parties fail to generate parliamentary groups that vote cohesively or—
even more problematically—stay together. In countries such as Brazil and
Italy, defection is endemic. This touches upon one of the cornerstones of
democratic party government in parliamentary and presidential systems
alike, in that parties can only link to voters in a meaningful way if their par-
liamentary representatives are also accountable to their party and, via the
party, to the electorate (Müller 2000; Strøm 2000). If those who are elected
to parliament (also) as a representative of a specific party switch their party
allegiance in considerable numbers over the course of a legislative term, the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

linkage between voters and what parliaments decide is severely undermined,
if not cut off entirely. There is, at the same time, a danger that party politicians
are then seen by the population as a ‘political class’ that is largely detached
from the will of the people. This is, of course, an open flank for populists
to attack (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2013). Interestingly, some coun-
tries have tried to counteract defections by attempting to make the party the
‘owner’ of the parliamentary seat (Brazil, South Africa). However, this comes
at the cost of undermining the liberal concept of a free mandate which stip-
ulates that MPs are, first and foremost, representatives of the people and not
party soldiers. While it is true that, in reality, they are both, such legislation
could tip the balance too much on one side and also fuel possible allegations
of all-too-powerful parties and their detached leaderships.
To be sure, the problem of unstable parliamentary groups is somewhat
less acute in presidential systems where a second chain of delegation exists,
namely between the electorate and the chief executive (Strøm 2000). How-
ever, the separation of powers also means that legislation should not be
dominated by the chief executive, but in some countries the fluidity of par-
ties in parliament has tended to give excessive influence to the chief executive
over the legislature. The example of Brazil’s President Bolsonaro, who was not
a member of any party for some time during his incumbency, is an example
of how far personalized rule can be pushed if parties fail to provide stable and
accountable linkage.

Parties as Communicators

All parties are important actors in the process of political communication.

This is hardly a surprising finding. However, when we take a closer look
at what they do and how they do it, we can identify interesting and politi-
cally highly relevant differences. Some parties and some candidates have been
faster and more successful than others in embracing modern social media.
The 2018 campaign of the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is an interesting
example (Krause et al. 2019). Yet the jury is still out on whether the growing
588 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

importance of social media communication works in favour of smaller chal-

lenger parties or resourceful established parties. In any case, social media are
just one facet of political communication, and the control of large portions
of a nation’s media sector (including TV stations and print media) by either
individuals or the government remains a challenge to the freedom of party
competition. Again, Italy is an example, where former Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi owned a considerable portion of the country’s media. Moreover,
media independence from the government of the day is not necessarily real-
ized even where the television and radio landscape are dominated by publicly

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

owned broadcasters (Hallin and Mancini 2004).
At the same time, political parties are not the only actors in the realm
of political communication. Their processes of intra-party decision-making
have become increasingly subject to public debates fuelled by social media
‘discussions’ (or campaigns) or the proliferation of opinion polls. Leadership
contests are often accompanied by survey results reporting the most popular
candidates in the population at large. As a result, even those who would not
stand a chance if traditional internal party selection procedures were applied
can be catapulted to the top of a party or candidate list. Hence, even parties
which select their leaders at a party congress cannot fully escape the logic of
primaries.

Conclusion

To conclude, this volume has assembled ample evidence that democratic par-
ties are struggling with several challenges. The challenges are far from being
uniform: similar problems, such as low membership and party instability,
can have different causes. In many respects, an important common denomi-
nator in many countries is a lack of stable linkage between parties and society.
While this is a sign of erosion in many established democracies, parties in
newer democracies are still struggling to build up stronger societal roots.
While the trajectories are different, the results are similar: strong linkages
can help to provide sufficient stability of the supply side of party politics
without preventing representative innovation through new parties. After all,
the growth of populism around the globe is also related to the lack of a sta-
ble and attractive supply by moderate parties. If the market is in flux, radical
challengers always find it easier to gain traction.
One quite common denominator is the trend towards a more personalized
leadership, which often goes hand in hand with a trend toward plebisci-
tary leadership selection. In a way, the formerly well-entrenched (Western)
 Parties and Democracy 589

European parties in the tradition of mass parties with clearly defined mem-
bership roles and organizational boundaries are coming to resemble the more
fluid parties in other parts of the world. As presidentalism tends to be partic-
ularly prevalent in Africa and Latin America, it is probably no surprise that
a trend towards a more presidentialized mode of governance has also been
diagnosed for modern democracies (Poguntke and Webb 2005).
What does this mean for parties and their role in democratic governance?
In the first instance, it means that parties as collective entities with a clear
vision of where society should go are increasingly becoming a relic of the past.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

To be sure, democratic parties with broad social visions were the exception
rather than the rule outside Western Europe. Here, clientelism and patron-
age tended to serve as a functional equivalent to linkage based on group
identity and political philosophy (i.e. cleavage-based politics). Also, the new
democracies in Central Eastern Europe lacked the social anchor points for
cleavage-based politics after decades of Communist social homogenization
of society at a time when cleavages were clearly eroding on the Western side
of the former Iron Curtain.
This leaves parties around the globe with relatively amorphous social and
ideological identities. In other words, their programmatic, and hence repre-
sentative, function is not as strong as it used to be in the party democracies of
(mainly) Western Europe. Their governing function, however, is still highly
relevant. They are not ‘ruling the void’ (Mair 2013), because they still select
the personnel at the levels of governance—local, regional, national, and
supra-national. Importantly, this applies also to so-called technocratic elites
who are, in the vast majority of cases, party creatures in that they have either
had a previous career in a party or were selected and/or appointed by party
politicians.
This makes intra-party career patterns and recruitment logics all the more
important. Who are the people who get to power through or, sometimes,
past political parties? The quality of democracy depends to large degree on
the capacity of political parties to produce responsible leaders. While the
chapters of this volume are no reason for despair, they are no cause for
complacency either.

References

Basedau, Matthias. 2019. Party Systems in Africa. Oxford Research Encyclopedias.

https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.891
Biezen, Ingrid van. 2004. ‘Political Parties as Public Utilities’. Party Politics, 10:
701–722.
590 Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy

Biezen, Ingrid van, Peter Mair, and Thomas Poguntke. 2012. ‘Going, Going, . . .
Gone? The Decline of Party Membership in Contemporary Europe’. European
Journal of Political Research, 51(1):24–56.
Biezen, Ingrid van and Thomas Poguntke. 2014. The Decline of Membership-based
Politics. Party Politics, 20:205–226.
Gauja, Anika. 2015. ‘The Construction of Party Membership’. European Journal of
Political Research, 54:232–248.
Hallin, Daniel C. and Paolo Mancini. 2004. Comparing Media Systems: Three Models
of Media and Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 1995. ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and
Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’. Party Politics, 1:5–28.
Krause, Silvana, Bruno Marques Schaefer, Tiago Alexandre Leme Barbosa,
Carolina Pimentel Corrêa, and Helcimara Telles. 2019. ‘Die brasilianische
Präsidentschaftswahl 2018: Ein neues Paradigma der Finanzierung. Anti-Politik
und Soziale Netzwerke’. MIP—Zeitschrift für Parteienwissenschaften, 1:94–110.
Lawson, Kay. 1980. ‘Political Parties and Linkage’. In Kay Lawson (ed.), Political
Parties and Linkage: A Comparative Perspective. New Haven, CT/London: Yale
University Press, 3–24.
Lipset, Seymour M. and Stein Rokkan. 1967. ‘Cleavage Structures, Party Sys-
tems, and Voter Alignments: An Introduction’. In Seymour M. Lipset and Stein
Rokkan (eds), Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-national Perspectives.
New York/London: Free Press, 1–64.
Mair, Peter. 1994. ‘Party Organizations: From Civil Society to the State’. In: Richard
S. Katz and Peter Mair (eds), How Parties Organize: Change and Adaptation in
Party Organizations in Western Democracies. London/Thousand Oaks, CA/New
Delhi, Sage: 1–22.
Mair, Peter. 2013. Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy. London:
Verso Books.
Mair, Peter and Jacques Thomassen. 2010. ‘Political Representation and Government
in the European Union’. Journal of European Public Policy, 17:20–35.
Mudde, Cas and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser. 2013. ‘Populism’. In: Michael Free-
den and Marc Stears (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 493–512.
Müller, Wolfgang. 2000. ‘Political Parties in Parliamentary Democracies: Making
Delegation and Accountability Work’. European Journal of Political Research,
37:309–333.
Poguntke, Thomas. 2002. ‘Parties Without Firm Social Roots? Party Organisational
Linkage’. In Kurt Richard Luther and Ferdinand Müller-Rommel (eds), Political
Parties in the New Europe: Political and Analytical Challenges. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 43–62.
 Parties and Democracy 591

Poguntke, Thomas and Susan E. Scarrow. 2020. ‘Intra-party Democracy and Rep-
resentation: Necessity, Complement, or Challenge?’. In: Robert Rohrschneider
and Jacques Thomassen (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Representation
in Liberal Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 323–339.
Poguntke, Thomas and Paul D. Webb. 2005. ‘The Presidentialization of Politics in
Democratic Societies. A Framework for Analysis’. In: Thomas Poguntke and Paul
D. Webb (eds), The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Studies of Modern
Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–25.
Sartori, Giovanni. 1991. ‘Comparing and Miscomparing’. Journal of Theoretical

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Politics, 3:243–257.
Samuels, David J. and Matthew Soberg Shugart. 2010. Presidents, Parties, and Prime
Ministers: How the Separation of Powers Affects Party Organization and Behaviour.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scarrow, Susan E. 2015. Beyond Party Members. Changing Approaches to Partisan
Mobilization. New York: Oxford University Press.
Scarrow, Susan E., Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke. 2022. ‘Intra-party Decision-
making in Contemporary Europe: Improving Representation or Ruling with
Empty Shells?’. Irish Political Studies, 37(2):196–217.
Strøm, Kaare. 2000. ‘Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies’.
European Journal of Political Research, 37:261–289.
Strøm, Kaare, Wolfgang C. Müller and Torbjörn Bergman (eds). 2003. Delegation
and Accountability in Parliamentary Democrcacies. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Teehankee, Julio C., Rey C. Padit, and Jung Hoon Park. 2023. ‘Taking a Second
Look at Asian Political Parties’. In: Julio C. Teehankee and Christian Echle (eds),
Rethinking Parties in Democratizing Asia. London/New York: Routledge, 1–25.
Index

For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion,
appear on only one of those pages.

Aam Aadmi Party (Common Man’s Party), Aksyon (Aksyon Demokratiko—Democratic

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

India 459 Action), the Philippines 473
Abacha, Sani 518 ALDE (Liberal group) 137
Abubakar, Abdulsalam 518, 520 Aldrich, John H. 433
Action of Dissatisfied Citizens see ANO Alencar, José 347
(Action of Dissatisfied Citizens), Czech Alfano, Angelino 142
Republic Alfonsín, Raúl 365, 373
AD (Alliance for Democracy), Alliance for Democracy, Nigeria see AD
Nigeria 517–518 (Alliance for Democracy), Nigeria
ADD (Atatürkçü Düşünce Derneği—Atatürkist All Nigeria People’s Party see ANPP (All
Thought Association), Nigeria People’s Party)
Turkey 189–190 All People’s Party, Nigeria see APP (All People’s
AD-M-19 (Alianza Democratica) 312–313 Party), Nigeria
AfD (Alternative for Germany) 82–83, 88, 92, All Progressive Congress, Nigeria see APC (All
94, 95, 101 Progressive Congress), Nigeria
party communication 98–99 Alternative for Germany see AfD (Alternative
party funding 97 for Germany)
party system change 85–86 AMLO (Andrés Manuel López),
and polarization of party system 90–91 Mexico 289–290, 295, 296–303
see also MORENA (National Regeneration
African countries
Movement), Mexico
liberation movements 14–15
AN (Alleanza Nazionale), Italy 132
African National Congress (ANC) 489–490,
Androulakis, Nikos 155–156, 160–161, 167
492–501, 505
ANEL (Independent Greeks party) 158, 170
ANC Youth League 503
Angeloz, Eduardo 363
AG (Action Group), Nigeria 514
Ang, Ramon 479, 481
Aguirre, Ángel 298–299
ANO (Action of Dissatisfied Citizens), Czech
Ahdut Ha’avoda party, Israel 274 Republic 108–109, 112–113, 115,
AIPD see assembly-based intra-party 116–123
democracy (AIPD) party financing 121–122
Akinloye, A. M. A. 515 technocratic populism 115, 123
AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—Justice and ANPP (All Nigeria People’s Party) 517
Development Party), Turkey 179–192 Anstead, Nick 21–22
see also Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip; Turkish APC (All Progressive Congress),
party system Nigeria 517–518, 521, 527–529
authoritarian tendencies 182–184, 190, 191 implications of rise of 529–531
as a cartel party 187 APP (All People’s Party), Nigeria 517, 521
as a catch-all party 181 AP (Popular Alliance), Spain 220
rise of 180–184, 187–188 Aquino, Benigno ‘Noynoy’ III 477
single-party governments 191 Aquino, Corazon 473, 476–477
transformation of Turkish system to Argentina
presidentialism 183–184 Chamber of Deputies 370–371
 Index 593

democracy, prospects for 374–376 two-party 361

dictatorship 357 Unión Cívica Radical (UCR–Radicals) see
MID (Movimiento de Integración y UCR—Radicals (Unión Cívica
Desarrollo) 370 Radical— Radical Civic Union),
National Congress 358 Argentina
National Electoral Chamber 365 Union of the Democratic Centre see UCeDe
National Electoral Directorate 368 (Union of the Democratic Centre),
National Reorganization Process 363 Argentina
women’s suffrage 366 Arroyo, Gloria Macapagal 471–472, 478–479,
Argentina’s party system 357–376 483
cadre (elite) parties 366–367 Asmal, Kader 498–499
catch-all parties 363 Asquith, Herbert Henry 44

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

presidential elections 368 assembly-based intra-party democracy
distrust of political parties 359 (AIPD) 94–95
elections 360–361, 363, 367–369, 374, 375 Averoff, Evangelos 166
campaigns 367–369 AWS (Electoral Action of Solidarity),
general 367–368 Poland 247–248
legislative 358, 361 Aylwin, Patricio 559–560
presidential 358, 361, 362, 368, 373 Azikiwe, Nnamdi 515
provincial 358 AZ-IV (Italian electoral cartel) 148–149
electoral system 359
Frente de Todos 361, 364 Babacan, Ali 187
Frente Grande 370, 372–373 Babangida, Ibrahim Badamasi 519
Frente País Solidario see FrePaSo (Frente Babiš, Andrej 115, 118–119, 121–124
País Solidario), Argentina Balewa, Sir Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa 515
Frente Renovador 364 Balladur, Edouard 64–65
funding system, impact of 367–370 Bangon Pilipinas (Rise Philippines) 473
distribution of campaign Bárta, Vít 114, 119
contributions 368 Basic Ecclesiastical Communities (CEB) 346
limits on election campaign BE (Bloco de Esquerda), Portugal 206–207
expenses 369–370 post-bailout elections 208–211
future models 372–374 realignment 212–213
gender parity considerations 358, 367 Bello, Sir Alhaji Ahmadu 515
hard-left groupings 364 Ben-Gvir, Itamar 280
Justicialist Party see PJ (Partido Bennet, Naftali 269–270
Justicialista—Justicialist Party), Berlusoni, Silvio 115, 136, 141–142, 144,
Argentina 146–149
organization 362–365 BharatiyaJanata Party, India see BJP
PASO (open, simultaneous, and compulsory (BharatiyaJanata Party—Indian
primaries) 359, 368 People’s Party)
Peronism see Peronism, Argentina Bielan, Adam 252
(1955–1973) Biju Janata Dal, India 455–456
Proceso de Reorganización Nacional BJP (BharatiyaJanata Party— Indian People’s
(National Reorganization Party) 447–448, 459–460
Process) 363 dissent, controlling 451
Progressive Democratic Party 357 elections 450–451
Propuesta Republicana see PRO (Propuesta ideological orientation 462–464
Republicana), Argentina leadership 460
provincial parties 361 middle-class vote 462
Radicalism see Radicalism, Argentina Modi-led, ideologies and electoral
Saenz Peña law 357 strategies 463–464
social groups, connection with 365–367 populism 462–463
Socialist Party 357 share of national vote 458–459
594 Index

BJS (Bharatiya Jana Sangh), India 456–457 social groups, connection with 333
Blair, Tony 45–47 volatility 334
Blue and White alliance, Israel 277 Worker’s Party see PT (Worker’s Party),
Boko Haram 527–528 Brazil
Bolsonaro, Jair 303, 332, 351–352, 587–588 Buhari, Muhammadu 520, 524–525, 528
Bossi, Umberto 136–137, 141–142 Burke, Edmund 49
Brazil Burnell, Peter 569–570
Chamber of Deputies 335–336, 340–341, business firm parties 12
343, 344, 347 Buthelezi, Mangosuthu 502–503
Constitution 335 cadre (elite) parties 585
Free Electoral Propaganda in Argentina 366–367
Schedule 335–336 in Brazil 332–333

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Superior Electoral Court (TSE) 335–336 classical model 11
Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) 335–336, in Czech Republic 118–121
339 in France 72–74
Brazilian party system 332–353 in Greece 159–160, 166, 168
elections 334, 337–338, 340–342, 344, in India 460
345–346, 350, 351–352 in the Philippines 477
general 337 in Poland 251–252
legislative 334 in Taiwan 387
local 346 in Turkey 183, 187–188
national 344
presidential 334, 337–338, 346 Calderón, Felipe 295–299
funding 336–338, 341, 344, 347 Cameron, David 49–51
Special Fund for Campaign Financing campaigns, political 10, 21–22, 120–121,
(FEFC) 338 271–274, 300, 450–451, 481–482, 494
gender parity considerations 348 donations to 336–337, 369
ideological positioning and agenda electoral 20, 140, 576
MDB 341–342 in Argentina 367–369
PSDB 344–345 in Brazil 338
PT 347–348 in Colombia 315
internal operational dynamics and in France 72
leadership in Ghana 543–544
MDB 342 in Greece 168
PSDB 345–346 in India 464–465
PT 348–350 in Italy 140–141
intra-party democracy 342 in Mexico 300
lack of trust in 333–334 in Nigeria 531
Movimento Democrático Brasileiro see in the Philippines 480–481
MDB (Movimento Democrático and ethnicity 549
Brasileiro), Brazil facilities for 526
New Brazilian democracy, parties funding 17, 40–41, 345, 569
in 334–339 and international party assistance 569
origin and evolution of representation leadership-led 254–255
MDB 340–341 and women 531–532
PSDB 343–344 Carey, John 19
PT 346 Carothers, Thomas 570–572
Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira see cartel parties/cartelization 585
PSDB (Partido da Social Democracia in Brazil 332–333
Brasileira), Brazil in France 58–61
personalization 333–334 in Germany 94–97, 101
regional oligarchies 333 in Greece 157–158, 164–165, 169–170
sectoral secretariats 348 ideal types 8–9, 11, 12, 15–17, 22–23
 Index 595

inclusive cartelization 129 CHES (Chapel Hill Expert Survey) data 200,
in Italy 129, 148–149 212–213, 243–244
in Portugal 206–207 Chiang Ching-kuo 388–389, 392
in South Korea 401–406, 413, 421–422 Chiang Kai-shek 388
in Spain 233 Chile
thesis 13, 72, 95–97, 190, 586 Chamber of Deputies 559–560
in Turkey 187, 190 Christian Democratic Party see PDC
catch-all parties 585 (Partido Demócrata
in Argentina 363 Cristiano—Christian Democratic
in Brazil 332–333, 337–338 Party), Chile
classical model 11–13 party system 296–297
in Germany 82–88, 91–93, 100, 101–102 China Democratic Socialist Party 381

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

in Greece 153–154, 156 China Youth Corps (formerly China
in Japan 430 Anti-communist Youth Corps) 387
in Mexico 300 Chinese Youth Party 381
in Taiwan 386 Chirac, Jacques 64–65, 72
in Turkey 181, 184–185 Choi, Jungug 470
Cavallo, Domingo 361 CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi—Republican
CD (Centro Democrático), People’s Party), Turkey 177–178,
Colombia 311–312, 315–316, 319–327 181–182, 187–190
rift with Comunes over peace negotiations elite 178
(2012–2016) 312–327 as a ‘vanguard organization’ 177–178
CD (Democratic Coalition), Spain 220 Christian Democratic parties of Europe 185
CDI (Centrist Democrat International) 567 Christian-Democratic European People’s
CDS-PP (CDS-Partido Party (EPP) 136
Popular—CDS-People’s Party), Christian Democrats (CDU), Germany see
Portugal 201–202, 206, 207, 213 CDU (Christian Democratic Union),
and transition of Portugal to democracy 203 Germany
CDS (Social and Democratic Centre), Christian Democrats, Italy see DC
Spain 220–221 (Christian Democrats), Italy
CDU (Christian Democratic Union), Christian Democratic Party, Chile see PDC
Germany 82, 100, 560, 562–563 (Partido Demócrata Cristiano—
see also CSU (Christian Social Union), Christian Democratic Party), Chile
Bavaria Chu, Eric 389
and coalition governments 91–92 Churchill, Winston 45, 49
membership ratios 93 CIPPEC (Centro de implementación de
party funding 97 Políticas Públicas para la Equidad y el
party system change 82–86 Crecimiento), Argentina 369–370
and polarization of party system 90 Civic Coalition, Argentina 361
CEN (National Executive Committee), cleavage-based parties 10–11, 581, 589
Brazil 342, 345, 349 cleavages 12, 153–154, 156, 199, 201, 266, 333,
CGT (Confédération Générale du 437, 493, 505, 589
Travail—General Labour Union), electoral 492
France 69 left–right 60–61, 201, 383
Chadwick, Andrew 21–22 national identity 382, 393–395
Chapel Hill Expert Survey see CHES (Chapel NDC–NPP 548–549
Hill Expert Survey) data political 387, 404
Chega (‘Enough’) party, Portugal 199–200, racial 492–493
207, 213–214 religious 12
and transition of Portugal to social 14, 201–202, 333
democracy 203–205 socio-political 8
Chen Shui-bian 389, 391–392 traditional cleavage politics 263
596 Index

cleavages (Continued) Centro Democrático see CD (Centro

unification–independence 383, 389, Democrático), Colombia
392–393 clientelism 311
clientelism 8, 10 Comunes see Comunes, Colombia
in Colombia 311 deinstitutionalized 310–311, 327–328
in Ghana 546–547, 549 effective number of parliamentary parties
personalized 546–547 (ENPP) 314
in the Philippines 467 effective number of parties (ENEP) 314
in South Korea 403–404, 421–422 elections 311–316,322–323, 326–327
in Turkey 185–187, 189, 191 electoral system from Political
CNTE (Mexican teachers’ union) 300 Constitution (1991) until Peace
coalition governments Agreement (2016) 312–314

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

in Argentina 360–361 legislative 310, 314, 315–316, 319–322
in Colombia 315 local 319, 325
in Germany 82–83, 91–92 national 319, 325
‘traffic light coalition’ 86–87 presidential 319–321
in Portugal 203, 209 regional 319
two- and three-party coalitions 91 FARC-EP (guerrilla group) 310–312, 316
in the United Kingdom 33–35, 42, 45 fragmentation 310–313, 316
Coalition of Left and Progress, Greece see SYN gender parity considerations 313, 315, 325
(Coalition of Left and Progress), Pacto Histórico see PH (Pacto Histórico),
Greece Colombia
Coalition of the Radical Left, Greece see Partido Conservador see PC (Partido
SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Conservador), Colombia
Left), Greece Partido Liberal see PL (Partido Liberal),
Cobos, Julio 365–366 Colombia
Coelho, Passos 208 personalization 315
cohesion of party, degree of rift between Centro Democrático and
in Czech Republic 120 Comunes over peace negotiations
intra-party 19 (2012–2016) 312–327
in Israel 278 women’s political participation 313
in Italy 141–143 Commission on Elections (COMELEC), the
in parliamentary vs. presidential systems 19 Philippines 475, 480
and unity 118 Common Market 38, 49–50
Cojuangco, Eduardo 479 communication, political
Colombia in Argentina 371–372
Congress of the Republic 312–313, in Czech Republic 116–118
315–316, 323–324, 326–327 in France 75–76
Constitution 310, 312–314, 327 in Germany 98–100
democratic security 321–322 in Ghana 547–548
House of Representatives 310, 320 in Greece 167–169
National Government 312–314 in Israel 273–274
Senate of Republic 310, 320–321 in Italy 144–145
Colombia Justa y Libre and Movimiento key questions 4
Independiente de Renovación multimedia strategies 481–482
Alternativa 315–316 in the Philippines 481–482
Colombian party system 296–297, 310–328 political parties as communicators 20–22,
Alianza Democrática see AD-M-19 (Alianza 587–588
Democratica) professionalization of 167–169
Alianza Verde see Alianza Verde, Colombia top-down 20
Cambio Radical see CR (Cambio Radical), Communist Party, France 59
Colombia Communist Party, Ghana 541
 Index 597

Communist Party, Greece see KKE Cross, William P. 95

(Communist Party of Greece) Cs (Ciudadanos—Citizens) party,
Comparative Manifesto Project, Spain 232–234
Poland 243–244 and framework conditions 221–224
Comunes, Colombia 311–312, 315–316, 320, ČSSD (Czech Social Democratic Party) 108,
321–322, 325–327 110, 111–113, 116–117, 120, 122–123
rift with CD over peace negotiations elections 115
(2012–2016) 312–327 CSU (Christian Social Union), Bavaria 82–83,
Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), 101–102
Nigeria 517–518 see also CDU (Christian Democratic
Congress of the People (COPE), South Union), Germany
Africa 491–493 and coalition governments 91

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Conservative Party, Argentina 357 intra-party democracy 95
Conservative Party, United Kingdom 33–34, membership ratios 93
48–52 party funding 97
see also Tory Party, United Kingdom and polarization in German party
(historical) system 90
and ‘Britishness’ 48–49 Cuban Revolution 562–563
donations, reliance on 40–41 Cumhuriyet (media outlet) 188–189
and electoral reform 53 Cwalina, Wojciech 254–255
ideology 48–49 cyber-parties 21
left wing of 35 Czech party system 108–124
majority governments 41, 48 Action of Dissatisfied Citizens see ANO
media support 37–38 (Action of Dissatisfied Citizens), Czech
membership 40 Republic
national party, claim to be 48–50 anti-establishment parties (ANO and
pragmatism 48–49 VV ) 108–109, 113–114
constituency executive committee (CEC), Christian Democratic Union see KDU-ČSL
Ghana 540–541, 545–546 (Christian Democratic Union), Czech
‘contagion from the left’ 11, 156 Republic
Conte, Giuseppe 146–147 Civic Democratic Alliance see ODA (Civic
cooperation, international see international Democratic Alliance), Czech Republic
cooperation—party assistance Civic Social Democratic Party see ODS
Corbyn, Jeremy 37–38, 40, 47–48 (Civil Social Democratic Party), Czech
Costa, António 207–209, 211, 212–213 Republic
Costa Rica 296–297 Communist Party of Czechia and Moravia
Council of Europe see KSČM (Communist Party of
Group of States against Corruption Czechia and Moravia)
(GRECO) 227 Czech Social Democratic Party see ČSSD
COVID-19 pandemic 573 (Czech Social Democratic Party)
Argentina 364 Dawn of Direct Democracy see Dawn
Czech Republic 123 (Dawn of Direct Democracy), Czech
Greece 171–172 Republic
India 449–450 elections 108–109, 111, 113–115, 120,
Mexico 299, 302 123–124
Portugal 199–200 lower chamber 110
Taiwan 393–394 national 111
CPI (Communist Party of India) 455–456 parliamentary 111, 115
CPI(M) (Communist Party of India presidential 115, 123–124
Marxist) 455–456 Senate 115
CPP (Convention People’s Party), Freedom and Direct Democracy see SPD
Ghana 537–538, 543 (Freedom and Direct Democracy),
CR (Cambio Radical), Colombia 315–316 Czech Republic
598 Index

Czech party system (Continued) in Mexico 301–303

Freedom Union see US-DEU (Freedom newer democracies 14–15
Union), Czech Republic non-democratic regimes 9, 263, 266
Green Party see SZ (Green Party), Czech parties as linkage organizations 10, 14–15,
Republic 584–585
Mayors and Independents see STAN semi-democracies 9
(Starostové a nezávislí—Mayors and in South Africa 505–506
Independents), Czech Republic in South Korea 421
Pirate Party (Pirates) see Pirate Party in Turkey 177–180
(Pirates), Czech Republic Democratic Alliance, South Africa see DA
Pirates and STAN electoral alliance see (Democratic Alliance), South Africa
PiratStan (Pirates and STAN), Czech Democratic Unionist Party, Northern

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Republic Ireland 51
Public Affairs Party see VV (Public Affairs), Deri, Aryeh 263
Czech Republic Dhlomo, Oscar 502–503
SPOLU alliance (ODS, KDU-ČSL, and TOP D’Hondt formula
09) 113–114 see also proportional representation (PR)
state subsidies 111 in Argentina 358
Tradice Odpovednost Prosperita see TOP 09 in Czech Republic 111
(Tradice Odpovednost Prosperita), in Portugal 203
Czech Republic in Spain 227
Czech Republic digital technologies 20–22
Agrofert business conglomerate 118–119 compared with print or broadcast 20
Chamber of Deputies 111–112, 120, 123 cyber-parties 21
Civic Forum 120 research questions 22
COVID-19 pandemic 123 rise of the digital party 21
D’Hondt formula 111 Di Maio, Luigi 146–147
ministers, selection of 110–111 DIMAR (Democratic Left), Greece 166–167
regional governors (Hejtman) 110–111 DIPD (Danish Institute for Parties and
Velvet Revolution 116–117 Democracy) 569–570, 573–574
DİSK (Devrimci İşçi Sendikaları
DA (Democratic Alliance), South Konfederasyonu—Confederation of
Africa 490–493, 495–496, 500, 506 Revolutionary Worker Trade Unions),
compared with ANC 500–502 Turkey 189–190
Danquah, J. B. 537–538 DLP (Democratic Liberal Party), South
DAP-NDFK (Democratic Renewing Korea 419
Group–New Democratic Student Dos Santos, Francisco Rodrigues 213
Movement), Greece 161–162 DP (Democratic Party), Japan 432
Darmanin, Gérard 73–74 DP (Democratic Party), South Korea 402,
Davutoğlu, Ahmet 187 406–410
Dawn (Dawn of Direct Democracy), Czech candidate selection, rules on 417–418,
Republic 112–113 420–421
DC (Christian Democrats), Italy 137–138 and clientelism 421
De Beer, Zach 500–502 quasi-open primary selection rules 417–420
De la Rúa, Fernando 363, 373 selection of presidential candidates 417–418
democracy, evaluating 1, 8–9, 13–15, 581–589 state subsidies 413–414
in Argentina 374–376 survey methods 420
in France 76–77 DP (Demokrat Parti—The Democrat Party),
in Germany 94–96 Turkey 178
in India 447–450 DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan) 431, 434–438
internal 11 determinants of policy positions 441
intra-party see intra-party democracy (IPD) leadership selection 436
long-established democracies 14–15 merger with Liberal Party (2003) 437–438
 Index 599

policy coherence 439–440 in Czech Republic 113–114

sources of electoral support and groupings in Germany 83–84
of MPs 437–438 in Japan 428–429, 432
struggle for party system change 431–432 in South Africa 491
DPP (Democratic Progressive Party), in South Korea 402–404
Taiwan 382–383, 386, 390–392, in Taiwan 384
395–396 in the United Kingdom 35–36
Central Executive Committee 390 effective number of presidential candidates
compared with KMT 390–391, 396 (ENEP Pres) 59
factions recognised by 391–392 Ekwueme, Alex 518–519
Formosa faction 391 elections 36–37
Justice alliance 391 in Argentina 357–359, 361, 362–363,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

New Tide faction 391 367–369, 373, 374–375
situational setting 384–385 in Brazil 334, 336, 337–338, 340–346, 350,
Welfare State alliance 391 351–352
Draghi, Mario 133, 148–149 campaigns 20, 140, 576
Drzewiecka, Milena 254–255 in Argentina 367–369
DS (Democratici di Sinistra—Democrats of the in Brazil 338
Left), Italy 132–133, 136, 141–142 in Colombia 315
see also PDS (Partito Democratico della in France 72
Sinistra—Democratic Party of the in Ghana 543–544
Left), Italy in Greece 168
connection to social groups 138–139 in India 464–465
plebiscitary-based intra-party democracy in Italy 140–141
(PIPD) 135 in Nigeria 531
resources and state subsidies 140–141 in the Philippines 480–481
DSP (Democratic Socialist Party), Japan 430 in Chile 559–560
Duncan-Smith, Iain 50 in Colombia 311–314, 322–323, 326–327
Duque, Iván 319–320, 325 competitive 12, 16–17, 44, 375–376
Duterte, Rodrigo 467, 471–472, 474–475, compulsory
477–479, 481–482 in Argentina 362
Duterte, Sara 471–472, 478–479, 483 in the Czech Republic 108–111, 113–115,
Duverger, Maurice 456–457, 470 120, 123–124
‘contagion from the left’ 11, 156 earthquake 112–113
Duverger’s Law 467, 493 general
democratic
Economic Freedom Fighters, South Africa see in Spain 221
EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters), direct
South Africa in Brazil 343
EFD (Europe of Freedom and in Israel 264, 267–268, 272
Democracy) 136–137 in Poland 253–255
EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters), South early 18–19
Africa 491, 502–503 in Spain 224
effective number of electoral parties (ENEP) earthquake, in the Czech Republic 112–113
in Colombia 314 by-elections, in Nigeria 516
in Germany 83–84 European 51, 115
in Japan 428–429, 432 federal, in Germany 83–88, 90
in South Africa 491 federal state, in Germany 82–83, 87–88
in South Korea 402–404 in France 58–60, 64–66, 68–70, 72–74
in the United Kingdom 35 women candidates 66
effective number of parliamentary parties free—free and fair 1
(ENPP) in Argentina 357, 362, 374
in Colombia 314 in Nigeria 525–526
600 Index

elections (Continued) in the Philippines 468

in Spain 220 in Poland 245, 248–249, 252
future in South Korea 412–413
in Mexico 303 in Spain 231
in Portugal 203–205 manipulating, in Nigeria 526
in the United Kingdom 44 mayoral
general in Poland 253–254
in Argentina 367–368 mayoral, in Poland 253–254
in Brazil 337 in Mexico 289–292, 296–297, 299, 300–303
in the Czech Republic 111, 114, 115, 120, militarization of, in Nigeria 526
123–124 municipal, in Brazil 344
in Nigeria 513, 516, 517, 519, 524, in Myanmar 562

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

528–529, 532 national
in Spain 220–221, 223 in Argentina 367, 369, 374–375
in Turkey 178–179, 181–182, 185, 189 in Brazil 344
in the United Kingdom 42–43, 46 in Colombia 319, 325
in Germany in the Czech Republic 111
Bundestag 85–86 in Ghana 541–542, 550–551
federal 83–88, 90 in India 448
federal state 83, 87, 88 in Israel 279–280
polarization 90 in Mexico 289–290, 300–301
state subsidies 97 in Nigeria 520
in Ghana 538–539, 541, 542–544, 546–551 in Poland 240, 245, 248–249, 251–252
in Greece 153–156, 158–162, 168–171 in Nigeria 513–514, 516–517, 519–526,
gubernatorial 528–533
in Mexico 290 open primary, in South Korea 417
in Nigeria 513, 517 parliamentary
in India 447–451, 455, 456–458, 462, in the Czech Republic 111, 115
464–465 in France 59–60, 66
internal in India 456–457
in France 68 in Nigeria 513–514
in Israel 261–262, 271 in Poland 247, 253–254
in Poland 250–251, 253 in Spain 219
in Israel 261–263, 264–265, 267–280 in the Philippines 467–470, 474–481, 483
in Italy 128–135, 137, 138, 141–142, plurality-based 467
146–149 in Poland 240, 245, 246, 248–255
in Japan 428–429, 433–439 polarization
leadership in Germany 90
in France 72–73 in Portugal 201–203, 208, 210, 212–213
in Greece 154 presidential
in Japan 436 in Argentina 358, 361, 362, 368, 373
in Portugal 207 in Brazil 334, 337–338, 346
legislative in Colombia 319–321
in Argentina 358, 361 in the Czech Republic 115, 123–124
in Brazil 334 in France 58–60, 74
in Colombia 310, 314, 315–316, 319–322 in Mexico 289–292
in Mexico 289, 292, 297, 299 in Nigeria 513, 517, 519–521, 533, 538
in Poland 251 in the Philippines 473, 478, 479
in Portugal 203, 206–208, 213 in Poland 253–255
local in South Korea 420
in Brazil 346 primary 13
in Colombia 319, 325 in Argentina 367
in Israel 272–273, 276–277, 279–280 in Ghana 546–547
 Index 601

in Nigeria 528–529 elites, party 11, 21

in South Korea 421 see also cadre (elite) parties
proportional representation Czech Republic 118–121
in Mexico 296–297 military–bureaucratic 180
provincial political 180
in Argentina 358 South Korea 403–405
regional Turkey 178, 180
in Brazil 344 EM! (En Marche!), France 63, 68–69
in Colombia 319 Enahoro, Anthony 515
in Poland 248–249, 252 ENF (Europe of Nations and
single, parties created for purposes of Freedom) 136–137
contesting 10–11 EPP (Christian-Democratic European People’s

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

snap, in Portugal 200 Party) 136
in South Africa 494, 496, 500, 504, 505–506 ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia), Spain 222
in South Korea 402–405, 410–413, 417, Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip
420–421, see also AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma
in Spain 218–224, 226–227, 231 Partisi—Justice and Development
state subsidies Party), Turkey; Turkey; Turkish party
in Germany 97 system
in Taiwan 382–388, 390–395 leadership of AKP 179–180, 183–186,
tertiary students’ 191–192
in Ghana 548–549 Estrada, Joseph 473
in Turkey 178–179, 181–183, 185–186, 189, ethnicity
191–192 campaigns 549
in the United Kingdom 42–44, 46, 52 collateral-based organizations, in
universal Africa 14–15
in Argentina 362 ethnic parties 12
women candidates European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) 118–119
in France 66 European Commission 573–574, 576
Electoral Action of Solidarity (AWS), Poland European Court of Human Rights 227
see AWS (Electoral Action of European Development Fund (EDF) 567
Solidarity), Poland European Economic Community
Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social (EEC) 49–50
Justice see WASG (Electoral Alternative European Endowment for Democracy 567
for Labour and Social Justice (WASG), European Fiscal Compact 72–73
Germany European Parliament
electoralist parties 10–11 elections (2014) 222
electoral laws 9, 111, 146, 154–155, 226–227, and France 74
571–572 and Italy 136–137
electoral-professional parties 12 and Spain 222
electoral reform 39, 53, 338, 438 European Partnership for Democracy
see also electoral laws; electoral systems (EPD) 567
electoral systems European Single Act (1986) 49–50
see also elections; electoral laws; electoral Europe Ecologie-Les Verts—Green Party,
reform; individual countries France 58–61, 72
Argentina 359 Europe of Freedom and Democracy see EFD
closed-list 19 (Europe of Freedom and Democracy)
Colombia 312–314 Europe of Nations and Freedom see ENF
Greece 154–155 (Europe of Nations and Freedom)
open-list 19 Europhiles 72–73
South Africa 493–494 Euroscepticism
Spain 220–221 Eurosceptic parties 85–86
United Kingdom 38–40, 45 in France 72–73
602 Index

Euroscepticism (Continued) effective number of presidential candidates

in Poland 243–244 (ENEP Pres) 59–60
in Portugal 213 elections 64–65, 68–70, 72–74
in the United Kingdom 49–51 En Marche! see EM! (En Marche!), France
eurozone 166–167, 208–209, 214 factionalism 73–74
crisis in (2009) 199, 212–213 in flux 59–61
Evert, Miltiadis 166 France Unbowed see LFI (La France
Insoumise—France Unbowed)
factionalism 73–74 French Section of the Workers’ International
Farage, Nigel 137 see SFIO (Section Française de
FARC-EP (guerrilla group), l’Internationale Ouvrière—French
Colombia 310–312, 316, 327 Section of the Workers’ International)

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Faure, Olivier 75–76 Front National see FN (Front National),
Fazilet Partisi, Turkey 184–185 France
FDI (Fratelli d’Italia—Brothers of funding of political parties 70–72
Italy) 148–149 Gaullist presidential ideal 67
FDP (Free Democratic Party, gender parity considerations 61, 66, 69
Germany) 82–84, 86–87, 90, 91, 93, Green Party see Europe Ecologie-Les
95, 97, Verts—Green Party, France
Federal Alliance, South Africa 500 lack of trust in 60–61, 67–68
Federal Constitutional Court, Germany 97 Left Party see Parti de Gauche—Left Party,
Federal Party, South Africa 500 France
Fernandes, Jorge 209 National Assembly 60, 73
Fernández, Alberto 364 National Commission for Campaign
Ferreira da Silva, Frederico 212–213 Accounts and Political Funding
Fiala, Petr 113–114, 123–124 (CNCCFP) 70
Fillon, François 64–65, 73–74 National Council 62–64
Five Star movement, Italy 21–22 National Rally see RN (Rassemblement
‘flash parties’ 361, 373–374 National—National Rally), France
FN (Front National), France 58–64, 69 NUPES see NUPES (Nouvelle Union
as traditional radical right organization 74 Populaire, Ecologique et Sociale—New
women candidates 66 Ecological and Social People’s Union),
Forza Italia, Italy 115, 131, 132–133, 135–142, France
146–148 parties and society 67–70
France party membership 64–65, 68, 70, 77
Constitution of France (1958) 61 party organization in France 61–66
and democracy 76–77 leadership selection 64–65
Fifth Republic 67, 582 overview of four main parties 61–63
First Republic 582 parliamentary candidates, selection
Franja Morada university group, of 65–67
Argentina 366–367 presidential candidates, selection
Free Democratic Party, Germany see FDP of 64–65
(Free Democratic Party, Germany) proportional representation 61–62, 66,
Frei, Eduardo 558–560 72–73
French party system 58–77 Rally for the Republic see RPR (Rally for the
as ‘bipolar four-party system’ 59 Republic), France
communications 75–76 The Republicans see LR (Les
Communist Party see PCF (Communist Républicains—The Republicans),
Party), France France
Democratic Movement see Republic on the Move see LaREM (La
MoDem—Democratic Movement, République en Marche— Republic on
France the Move), France
divided parties 72–74 sectoral groups, lack of 69
 Index 603

selection of presidential candidates 64–67 intra-party democracy 94–96, 101

Socialist Party see PS (Parti plebiscitary-based intra-party democracy
Socialiste—Socialist Party), France (PIPD) 94–95
social media, engagement with 75–76 vote share 83, 86–88, 101–102
state subsidies 70–72 West Germany 88
Union for a Popular Movement see UMP German party system 82–102
(Union for a Popular Movement), 2.5-party system 83–84, 91
France altered party competition 88–92
Union for French Democracy see UDF Alternative for Germany see AfD
(Union for French Democracy) (Alternative for Germany)
volatility of electoral politics 59 assembly-based intra-party democracy
women candidates 66 (AIPD) 94–95

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

young wing 69 cartel parties 94–97, 101
Frente de Todos, Argentina 361, 364 catch-all parties 82–88, 91–93, 100, 101–102
Frente Grande, Argentina 370, 372–373 Christian Democrats see CDU (Christian
Frente País Solidario see FrePaSo (Frente País Democratic Union), Germany
Solidario), Argentina Christian Social Union see CSU (Christian
Frente Renovador, Argentina 364 Social Union), Bavaria
FrePaSo (Frente País Solidario), demand side of politics 87–88
Argentina 360–361, 372–373 elections 90, 97
Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común federal—federal state 83–88, 90
(FARC-EP) see FARC-EP (guerrilla Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social
group), Colombia Justice see WASG (Electoral Alternative
Fundación Eva Perón, Argentina 366 for Labour and Social Justice (WASG),
funding of political parties 15–18 Germany
see also state subsidies evolution of vote share and voter turnout 88
gender parity considerations fragmentation 84–87
see also women German Political Parties Act 97
in Argentina 358, 367 green, alternative, and libertarian values
bias 280 (GAL) 84–85, 94
in Brazil 348 Greens see Green Party, Germany
in Colombia 313, 315, 325 The Left see The Left, Germany
equality 161–162, 274–275 Liberals see FDP (Liberal Party, Germany)
in France 61, 66, 69 membership ratios 93–94
in Greece 161–162 mixed-member system 87–88
in Israel 261–262, 272, 274–275, 278–280 party communication 98–100
in Italy 138–139 Party of Democratic Socialism see PDS
in Japan 441 (Party of Democratic Socialism),
quotas 69, 261–262, 272, 274–275, 278–279, Germany
313, 315 Pirate Party 21–22
polarization 89–91, 99–100
General Confederation of Labour (CGT), polarized pluralism 83
Argentina 366 Social Democrats see SPD (Social
General Sick Fund, Israel 275 Democrats), Germany
Gennimata, Fofi 160–161, 167 Socialist Unity Party see SED (Socialist
Gerbaudo, Paolo 21 Unity Party), Germany
German Federal Republic supply side of politics 88–92
‘Agenda 2010′ 85 traditional, authoritarian, and national
basic mandate clause 100 values (TAN) 84–85, 94
Bundestag 82–86, 100 volatility 87–88
coalition governments 82–83, 86–87, voter turnout 88
91–92, 101–102 Gerrits, André 569–570
East Germany 88 Gesher Party, Israel 269–270
604 Index

GG (Global Greens) 567 cadre (elite) parties 159–160, 166, 168

Ghana Coalition of Left and Progress see SYN
Constitution 537–540, 545–546 (Coalition of Left and Progress),
democratic consolidation 538–539, Greece
549–550 Coalition of the Radical Left see SYRIZA
Ghana, political system in 537–552 (Coalition of the Radical Left), Greece
Communist Party 541 Communist Party see KKE (Communist
constituency executive committee 540–541, Party of Greece)
545–546 congress as ‘sovereign collective
Convention People’s Party see CPP body’ 159–160
(Convention People’s Party), Ghana Democratic Left see DIMAR (Democratic
elections 538–551 Left), Greece

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

campaigns Democratic Renewing Group–New
national Democratic Student Movement see
form of party communication DAP-NDFK (Democratic Renewing
inter-party conflicts Group–New Democratic Student
intra-party democracy Movement), Greece
leadership of parties disengagement from society 161–163
National Democratic Congress see NDC elections 153–156, 158–162, 168–171
(National Democratic Congress), gender parity considerations 161–162
Ghana Golden Dawn see Golden Dawn, Neo-Nazi
New Patriotic Party see NPP (New Patriotic (Greece)
Party) Independent Greeks party see ANEL
Ghana 538–541, 544–547 (Independent Greeks party)
Główny, Zarząd 248–249 intra-party democracy 153, 157–158
GNP (Grand National Party), South intra-party politics 164–167
Korea 406, 419, 420 MERA25 see MERA25, Greece
see also PPP (People Power Party), South National Membership Registry 158–161
Korea networks 161–162
GNPP (Great Nigerian People’s Party) 514 New Democracy see ND (New Democracy),
Golden Dawn, Neo-Nazi (Greece) 154–156, Greece
170–171 Panhellenic Socialist Movement see PASOK
Great Recession (2008) 72–73, 214 (Panhellenic Socialist Movement),
and Spain 221–223, 233, 234 Greece
Greece parataxi (formation) 161–163
bailout programmes 158, 161, 166–167, party characteristics 156–161
169–171 PASOK-Movement of Change see
civil society organizations 161–163 PASOK-Movement of Change
‘colonization’ of society 161 (PASOK-KINAL), Greece
Constitution 153–155 Popular Orthodox Rally see LAOS (Popular
debt crisis 161 Orthodox Rally), Greece
Democratic Independent Movement of Popular Unity party see LAE (Popular
Employees (DAKE) 161–162 Unity) party, Greece
democratization process 153–154, 156, professionalization of political
158–159, 161 communication 167–169
dictatorship of 1967 to 1974 153 social links of parties 161–163
electoral system 154–155 technocratic capacity of each party 156–157
‘Metapolitefsi’ (‘regime change’) 153, 156 Youth Organization of New Democracy see
non-governmental organizations 161 ONNED (Youth Organization of New
trade union confederation (GSEE) 161–163 Democracy)
Turkey, National Independence War Greene, Kenneth F. 296–297
against 177–178 Green Forum 573–574
Greek party system 153–172 Green Party, Czech Republic 120
 Index 605

Green Party, Germany 82–83, 85–88, 90–91, Ind—Dem (Independence—

94, 97–99, 101 Democracy) 136–137
and coalition governments 91 Independent Communications Authority of
Green Party, Taiwan 394 South Africa 495
Green Party, United Kingdom 42–43, 47–48 Independent National Electoral Commission
Grillo, Beppe 141–142, 144–147 (INEC), Nigeria 516–518, 526, 528,
Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), 530
Council of Europe 227 India
GUDNP (Grand United Democratic New All India Services 454–455
Party), South Korea 407–408, 584–585 Bharatiya Jana Sangh see BJP
(BharatiyaJanata Party— Indian
HADEP (Halkın Demokrasi Partisi—The People’s Party)

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

People’s Democracy Party), cadre (elite) parties 460
Turkey 181 Central Bureau of Investigation 462–463
Hadjiisky, Magdaléna 119–120 central government agencies 451
Hamon, Benoit 72–73 and Central Information Commission 448
Han, Jeong Hun 410–411 Citizen Amendment Act (2019) 449–450,
Hatnu’a Party, Israel 269–270 453
Havel, Václav 110–111 Common Man’s Party see Aam Aadmi Party
Heath, Edward 49–50 (Common Man’s Party), India
Herut party, Israel 271–272 Communist Party of India see CPI
see also Likud party, Israel (Communist Party of India)
Hicken, Allen 470 Communist Party of India Marxist
(CPI(M)) see CPI(M) (Communist
Hinduism, India 460–461, 463
Party of India Marxist)
Histradut (General Organization of Workers),
Constituent Assembly 447
Israel 275
COVID-19 pandemic 449–450
Hlabisa, Velenkosini 502–503
Delhi riots (2020) 448, 463
Hollande, François 67–68
downgrading of democracy 447–454
Holmes, Stephen 571–572
Economist Intelligence Unit reports
Horowitz, Donald 492
(UK) 447–450
Howard, Michael 50
Election Commission 448
Hungary 108
elections 447–451,455, 456–458, 462,
464–465
Ibrahim, Waziri 515 Emergency of 1975–1977 447
ideologies, party Enforcement Directorate 462–464
in Brazil 341–342, 344–345, 347–348 evolution of party system in
in Colombia 325 phases 456–460
in Ghana 544–545 ‘Flawed Democracy,’ downgrading
in India 463–464 to 449–450
in Italy 132–145 Foreign Contribution Regulation Act
key questions 4 (FCRA) 449
in South Korea 408 Freedom House reports (USA) 447–449
in the United Kingdom 43–52 Hinduism 460–461, 463
ID (Identity and Democracy) 136–137 Indian Foreign Service 454–455
IDU (International Democratic Union) 567 Indian People’s Party see BJP
IFP (Inkatha Freedom Party), South (BharatiyaJanata Party—Indian
Africa 490–491, 502–504 People’s Party)
Il Foglio (Italian newspaper) 144 Information Technology (Intermediary
IL (Iniciativa Liberal—Liberal Initiative) party, Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics
Portugal 199–200, 203–205, 207 Code) Rules 2021 449, 451
post-bailout elections 209–211 Left Front 455–456
Il Populista (Italian newspaper) 144 Liberal Democracy Index 450
606 Index

India (Continued) recommendations for 576

Lok Sabha (Lower House) 447–448, 454, International Institute for Democracy and
456–457 Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 567
Model Code of Conduct 464–465 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 531–532
National Investigation Agency 462–463 intra-party democracy (IPD)
National Investigation Agency assembly-based intra-party democracy
(Amendment) Act (2008) 451 (AIPD) 94–95
nationalism 460–461 in Brazil 342
National Volunteers Organization see RSS in France 61
(Rashtriya Swayamsevak in Germany 94–96
Sangh—National Volunteers in Ghana 545–546
Organization), India in Greece 153

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

non-governmental organizations 449 in Israel 262–263
political parties 455–460 in Italy 133–135
political system 454–455 plebiscitary-based intra-party democracy
populism 455–456, 462–463 (PIPD) 94–95
Rajya Sabha (upper house) 454 IPD see intra-party democracy (IPD)
Right to Information Act (2005) 462–463 IRI (International Republican
State Bank of India 451–452 Institute) 563–567
Uniform Civil Code 463 ‘Iron Law of Oligarchy’ (Michels) 11, 206, 569
United Progressive Alliance see UPA (United Islamic Ra’am party, Israel 263
Progressive Alliance), India Israel
Unlawful Activities Prevention Act Knesset 261–262, 266–270, 276–278, 281
(UAPA) 450–451 Religious Zionism 280–281
V-Dem reports (Sweden) 447–448, 450 West Bank, settlers on 281
vote share 455, 458, 459, 464–465 Israeli party system 261–283
Indian Penal Code (IPC) 451 case studies of specific parties 270–280
INEC (Independent National Electoral Labour 274–277
Commission) 516–518, 525–526, 528, Likud 270–274
530 Yesh Atid 270, 277–280
Information and Communications Technology centrist parties 268
(ICT) 20 decline of political parties 263–266
Inglehart, Ronald 85 elections 263, 267, 269–275, 277, 278–280
Inkatha National Cultural Liberation Histadrut 275
Movement, South Africa 502–503 Knesset Elections Law 280
Innes, Abby 123 local 272–273, 276–277, 279–280
international cooperation—party national 279–280
assistance 557–576 primaries 265–266
actors and activities 562–569 volatility 269
and campaigns 569 evolution of 268
civil society approach 568 financing 262, 276–277, 279–280
concept of international party fragmentation 268, 281
assistance 557–558 gender parity considerations 261–262, 272,
cross-party dialogue 568 274–275, 278–280
effectiveness 569–573 Herut party see Herut party, Israel
experiences of 558–562 intra-party democracy 262–263
forms of 568 index 278–279
institutional approach 568 Knesset
international cross-party collaboration 568 Elections Law 280
multi-party approach 568 voter turnout in elections 264–265
multi-party vs. single-party Labour Party see Labour Party, Israel
approach 573–576 lack of trust in 264
partisan approach 568 Likud see Likud party, Israel
 Index 607

Mapai see Mapai Party, Israel Partito Democratico della Sinistra see PDS
mass parties 272–273, 275 (Partito Democratico della
national parties 264 Sinistra—Democratic Party of the
non-democratic parties 263 Left), Italy
personalization 269–270, 278, 282 Partito Popolare Italiano see PPI (Partito
religious/ultra-religious parties 263, 268 Populare Italiano—Italian People’s
since the 1990s 266–270 Party)
State Comptroller 262, 265–266 party system change 128
weakening of aggregative democratic People of Freedom see PDL (Popolo della
parties 281 Libertà—People of Freedom), Italy
Yesh Atid see Yesh Atid Party, Israel public funding 129
Italian party systems 128–149 relevance of selected parties 132–133

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Alleanza Nazionale see AN (Alleanza resources and state subsidies 140–141
Nazionale), Italy rules of the game, reform 128–129
Brothers of Italy see FDI (Fratelli socio-demographic profile of party
d’Italia—Brothers of Italy) constituencies 139
cartel parties 129, 148–149 splits 142
challenger parties 146 stability (1948–2018) 129–131
Christian Democrats see DC (Christian volatility (1953–2018) 131
Democrats), Italy Italy
Communist Party see PCI (Italian broadcasting 144
Communist Party) Chamber of Deputies 128–129, 142, 143
connection to social groups 137–139 Constitution 129
degree of cohesion 141–143
Constitutional Court 128–129
Democratici di Sinistra see DS (Democratici
electoral reforms 128–129
di Sinistra—Democrats of the Left),
exogenous and endogenous shocks 128
Italy
First Republic (1948–1994) 129–131,
effective number of electoral parties
135–138
(ENEP) 130–131
Forza Italia see Forza Italia, Italy
effective number of parliamentary parties
inclusive cartelization 129
(ENPP) 130–131
newspapers 144
elections 128–132, 137–138, 140–142, 149
Second Republic (from 1994) 128–131, 133,
primary 133–135, 141–142, 146–149
135–136, 145
evaluation 145–148
Five Star movement 21–22 IU (United Left), Spain 220–222
gender parity considerations 138–139 İyi Parti—The Good Party, Turkey 181–182,
ideologies and programmes 135–137 192
Index of Members’ Prerogatives 134–135
Lega see Lega Nord—Lega Salvini Premier, Jacuński, Michał 254–255
Italy Janata Dal, India 455–456, 458–459
Margherita 136 Janata Dal [Secular], India 455–456
mass parties 133, 135, 136, 140–141 Janata Dal [United], India 455–456
means of communication 144–145 Janata Party, India 455–456
membership 133–135 Janda, Kenneth 9
Movimento 5 Stelle see M5S, Italy Japan
Nuovo CentroDestra see NCD (Nuovo and Cold War, end of 427, 430
CentroDestra), Italy Diet 428
organization, ideology and members of parliament (MPs) 434–435
communication 132–145 Political Party Subsidies Act 434–435
‘particracy’ 145 universal suffrage 428
Partito Democratico see PD (Partito Japanese Communist Party see JCP (Japanese
Democratico—Democratic Party), Communist Party)
Italy Japanese party system 427–443
608 Index

Communist Party see JCP (Japanese Justice and Development Party, Turkey see
Communist Party) AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma
Democratic Party see DP (Democratic Partisi—Justice and Development
Party), Japan Party), Turkey
Democratic Party of Japan see DPJ Justice Party, Nigeria 517–518
(Democratic Party of Japan)
Democratic Socialist Party see DSP Kaczyński, Jarosław 244–245, 247–248,
(Democratic Socialist Party), Japan 251–252, 254–255
determinants of policy positions 441–443 Kaczyński, Lech 247–248
effective number of electoral parties Kadima 272
(ENEP) 428–429, 432 KAF see Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAF)
effective number of parliamentary parties Kahlon, Moshe 269–270

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

(ENPP) 428–429, 432 kaMagwaza-Msibi, Zanele 502–503
elections 428–429, 433–439 Kampi (Kabalikat ng Malayang
gender parity considerations 441 Pilipino—Partner of the Free Pilipino),
groupings of MPs 437–439 the Philippines 479
intra-party groups, effects 441–442 Karamanlis, Konstantinos 166
Japanese Communist Party see JCP Karamanlis, Kostas 166
(Japanese Communist Party) Kasselakis, Stefanos 155–156, 166–167
Japan Innovation Party see JIP (Japan Kasuya, Yuko 470–471
Innovation Party) Katz, Richard S. 2, 12, 16–17, 58–59, 187,
Japan New Party see JNP (Japan New Party) 206–207
Japan Socialist Party see JSP (Japan Socialist KBL (Kilusang Bagong Lipunan—New Society
Party) Movement), the Philippines 467, 476
Komeito see Komeito; Komeito, Japan KDU-ČSL (Christian Democratic Union),
Liberal Democratic Party see LDP (Liberal Czech Republic 110–113, 115,
Democratic Party), Japan 116–117, 121, 123–124
mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, Turkey 187–188
system 427, 431, 432 Kim Dae-jung 408
New Frontier Party see NFP (New Frontier King, Anthony 18–19
Party), Japan Kinnock, Neil 46
New Party see JNP (Japan New Party) Kirchheimer, Otto 12
New Party Sakigake 431, 437 Kirchner, Cristina Fernández de
party leadership selection and membership (CFK) 363–366, 373
vote 436 Kirchner, Néstor 363–364, 373
policy coherence 439–441 Kitschelt, Herbert 433
post-Second World War politics 428–430 KKE (Communist Party of Greece) 153–156
proportional representation 427 KMT (Kuomintang—Nationalist Party),
Reform of 1994 430–431 Taiwan 381–391, 396
single-member districts 428, 430–434 one-China/pan-China position 387
single non-transferable vote 200, 427, Kohl, Helmut, 90, 560
430–431, 433–434 Kolodny, Robin 2
struggle for party system change 431–432 Komeito, Japan 430–432, 437–438
voter turnout 428–429, 443 Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAF) 4–5,
vote share 434–435, 441 557, 558–562, 570
JCP (Japanese Communist Party) 430 Korea see South Korea
JIP (Japan Innovation Party) 432 Krastev, Ivan 571–572
JNP (Japan New Party) 430–431 Krauss, Ellis S. 433–434
John, Radek 114 Kriesi, Hanspeter 209
Johnson, Boris 51–52 KSČM (Communist Party of Czechia and
JSP (Japan Socialist Party) 428–431, 437, Moravia) 111–112, 115, 116–117,
441–443 122–123
Juppé, Alain 73–74 Kukiz’15 movement, Poland 256
 Index 609

Kulanu party, Israel 269–270, 282 LDP (Liberal Democratic Party),

Kwak, Jin Young 404 Japan 427–431, 434–443
adaptation to new electoral
Labour Party, Israel 261, 264, 268, 274–277 environment 433–434
female leaders 274–275 determinants of policy positions
Labour Party, Sweden 17–18 leadership selection and membership
Labour Party, United Kingdom 33, 35, 40–41, vote 436
44–48, 53 sources of electoral support and groupings
devolution policy 38–39, 45, 53 of MPs 437–438
and trade unions 17–18, 39–41, 45, 46 struggle for party system change 431–432
Lacson, Panfilo 473 leadership, party
LAE (Popular Unity) party, Greece 166–167 in Brazil 342, 345–346, 348–350

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Lakas Christian-Muslim Democrats (Lakas MDB
CMD), the Philippines see Lakas CMD in Colombia 323–324
(Lakas Christian-Muslim Democrats), elections 72–73, 154, 207, 436
the Philippines in France 64–65, 72–73
Lakas CMD (Lakas Christian-Muslim in Greece 154
Democrats), the Philippines 471–473, and internal operational dynamics
476, 478–479, 483 (Brazil) 342, 345–346, 348–350
Lakas Kampi CMD 479 in Japan 436
Lakas ng ESDA (Power of EDSA), the in Portugal 207
Philippines 478 selection of presidential candidates
in Argentina 363
Lakas NUCD-UMDP, the Philippines 478
in France 64–65
LAOS (Popular Orthodox Rally), Greece 154
in South Korea 403–404
Lapid, Yair 277–279
in the United Kingdom 50
see also Yesh Atid Party, Israel
Lee Teng-hui 388–389
LaREM (La République en Marche—Republic
Left Block, Portugal 208–210
on the Move), France 58, 60, 63–70,
Left Front, India 455–456
72–73, 75
The Left, Germany see The Left, Germany
selection of presidential candidates 64–65
Lega Nord—Lega Salvini Premier,
women candidates 66
Italy 132–137, 140, 141–142, 146–149
Latin American countries connection to social groups 137–139
see also Argentina; Argentina’s party system; member of Liberal group (1994–7) 136–137
Brazil; Brazilian party system; Chile; member of Technical group of Independent
Colombia; Colombian party system; MEPs (1999–2001) 136–137
Cuban Revolution; Mexican party political programmes 137
system; Mexico legislative parties 18–19
degree of trust in politics 359 Leon, Tony 500–502
instability 296–297 Le Pen, Jean-Marie 64, 74
party organization 362 Le Pen, Marine 58, 62–64, 69, 74–76
party systems 303 Letta, Enrico 142
populist parties in 186 Levi-Abekasis, Orly 269–270
presidentialism 14–15, 296–297 LFI (La France Insoumise—France
pro-market reforms 364 Unbowed) 58, 72
proportional representation 296–297 Liberal Democratic Party, Japan see LDP
Latin American Public Opinion Project (Liberal Democratic Party), Japan
(LAPOP) survey 296 Liberal Democrats, United Kingdom 39–43,
Latin America Programme of Affiliated 45, 46–50, 53
Organisations (PAOLA) 573–574 see also Liberal Party, United Kingdom
Lavados, Jaime 558–559 Liberal Party, Germany (FDP) see FDP (Free
LDP (Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino), the Democratic Party, Germany)
Philippines 473 Liberal Party, United Kingdom 44–45
610 Index

see also Liberal Democrats, United Kingdom in Brazil 332–333

liberation movements 12, 14–15, 490 classical model 11, 179–180
Libero (Italian newspaper) 144 in Czech Republic 110, 116–117
Lien Chan 389 in Greece 153–154, 156–161
Likud party, Israel 261, 264, 265, 268, in Israel 272–273, 275
270–274, 280, 281 in Italy 133, 135, 136, 140–141
see also Herut party, Israel liberal 136
LI (Liberal International) 567 in Spain 230–231
Lin Kun-hai 391–392 in Taiwan 386–387
Lisi, Marco 205 in Turkey 179–181, 184–185
Livni, Tzipi 269–270 Mattarella, Sergio 148–149
Livre (Free) party, Portugal 199–200 May, Theresa 50–51, 53

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

LKC (Lakas Kampi CMD), the Mbadiwe, K. O. 515
Philippines 478 Mbeki, Thabo 497–499
LKP (Liberty Korea Party) 419 MC (Citizens’ Movement), Mexico 290, 298
Lloyd George, David 33–34, 44 MDB (Movimento Democrático Brasileiro),
Londoño, Rodrigo 321 Brazil 340–342, 345
LP (Liberal Party), the Philippines 467, internal operational dynamics and
476–477 leadership 342
LR (Les Républicains—The Republicans), Mdlalose, Frank 502–503
France 58, 62, 64–66, 68, 70, 73 MDP (Millennium Democratic Party), South
transformation of UMP into 73–74 Korea 407–408, 417–420
women candidates 66 Meade, José 298
Lula da Silva, Ignacio 346–347, 352 Mégret, Bruno 74
Me’ir, Golda 274–275
M5S (Movimento 5 Stelle), Italy 131–133, 137, Mélenchon, Jean-Luc 58
144146–149 Meloni, Giorgia 149
change of parliamentary group 142 membership, party
connection to social groups 137–138 ballots 13–14, 64–65, 68
connection with workers 139 changing nature of 8–9
ideological orientation 137 in Czech Republic 116–117
political programmes decline in 13–14
resources and state subsidies 140–141 France 70, 77
MacDonald, James Ramsay 45 Germany 93
Macmillan, Harold 49 United Kingdom 40–41
Macri, Mauricio 360–361, 371–372 fee issue—hybrid model 68–70
Macron, Emmanuel 60–61, 63, 65, 68, 72–77, in France 64–65, 68–70
582 in Germany 93–94
election as President of French in Ghana 541–543
Republic 58–60 grassroots 13–14
Madero, Gustavo 298–299 in Italy 133–135
Maimane, Mmusi 500–502 in Japan 434–436
Mair, Peter 2, 12, 16–17, 58–59, 187, 206–207 ‘paper members’ 411
Malema, Julius 503 participatory rights 13
Mandela, Nelson 497 in Poland 251–255
Mapai party, Israel 268, 274 ratios
Marcos, Ferdinand 467, 471, 473, 476 in Czech Republic 117
Marcos, Imelda 478–479 in Germany 93–94
Margherita, Italy 136 in South Korea… 408–412
Maroni, Roberto 141–142 in the United Kingdom 40–41
Mashaba, Herman 502 Mendes, Mariana 212–213
Massa, Sergio 364, 370–371 Menem, Carlos 363–364, 372–373
mass parties 588–589 MERA25, Greece 155–156
 Index 611

Merkel, Angela 85–87, 101–102 Mitsotakis, Kyriakos 155–156, 158–159, 166,

Mexican Green Ecologist Party see PVEM 169
(Mexican Green Ecologist Party) mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system
Mexican party system 289–303 in Germany 87–88
catch-all parties 300 in Japan 427, 430–432
Citizens’ Movement see MC (Citizens’ in Taiwan 384, 395
Movement), Mexico
MMM see mixed-member majoritarian
corruption in 296
(MMM) system
elections 289–290, 295–297, 299, 302–303
Mnisi, William 502
legislative 289, 292, 297, 299
national 289–290, 300–301 MoDem—Democratic Movement, France 58,
presidential 289–292 60, 62, 73

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

volatility 296–297 selection of parliamentary candidates 65
‘Frente Ciudadano por México’ 298 women candidates 66
Institutional Revolutionary Party see PRI Modi, Narendra 449–450, 459, 461–462, 464
(Institutional Revolutionary Party), and BJP 463–464
Mexico leadership style 453–454
Labour Party see PT (Labour Party), Mexico MORENA (National Regeneration
‘mafia of power’ 296, 299 Movement), Mexico 289–290,
Mexican Green Ecologist Party see PVEM 299–301
(Mexican Green Ecologist Party) see also AMLO (Andrés Manuel López),
National Action Party see PAN (National Mexico
Action Party), Mexico campaigns 300
National Regeneration Movement
control over Congress 301–302
(MORENA) see MORENA (National
dominance of 290, 292–295, 297, 299–303
Regeneration Movement), Mexico
rise of 289, 295, 297–301
New Alliance Party see PANAL (New
Alliance Party), Mexico sub-organizations 292
organizational differences 292–293 Moreno, Isko 473
party effect 297–301 Morlino, Leonardo 205
Party of the Democratic Revolution see PRD Motlanthe, Kgalema 498–499
(Party of the Democratic Revolution), Movimento Democrático Brasileiro see MDB
Mexico (Movimento Democrático Brasileiro),
proportional representation 296–297, 303 Brazil
Social Encounter Party see PES (Social Mudde, Cas 462–463
Encounter Party), Mexico Murphy, Ricardo López 361
structural effect 295–297 Myanmar 562
Mexico Mzibuko, Lindiwe 502
Chamber of Deputies 290, 299
corruption in 296
Nacionalista see NP (Nacionalista), the
COVID-19 pandemic 299, 302
Philippines
crime rates 295–296
as a democracy under stress 301–303 national executive committee (NEC),
INE-COLMEX (Instituto Nacional Electoral Ghana 545–546
and El Colegio de Mexico) Survey National Health Service (NHS), United
(2013) 295–296 Kingdom 49, 51–52
populism in 299, 302, 303 nationalism
MHP (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi—Nationalist see also KMT (Kuomintang—Nationalist
Action Party), Turkey 181–182 Party), Taiwan; MHP (Milliyetçi
Michaeli, Merav 274–275 Hareket Partisi—Nationalist Action
Michels, Robert 11, 206, 569 Party), Turkey; NPC (Nationalist
MID (Movimiento de Integración y People’s Coalition), the Philippines
Desarrollo), Argentina 370 in India 460–461
612 Index

nationalism (Continued) Neves, Aécio 345–346

Spanish parties 220–221, 224 New Democracy, Greece see ND (New
Zulu, in South Africa 490–491 Democracy), Greece
Nationalist People’s Coalition, the Philippines New Hope party, Israel 282
see NPC (Nationalist People’s New Labour, United Kingdom 46–48
Coalition), the Philippines New Left, Poland 242–243
National League for Democracy, Myanmar see newly industrializing countries 10
NDL (National League for New Party Sakigake, Japan 431, 437
Democracy), Myanmar NFP (New Frontier Party), Japan 431,
National Rally Party, France see RN 437–438
(Rassemblement National, National NFP (New Frontier Party), South Korea 419
Rally), France Nieto, Enrique Peña 297

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) Nigeria
see MORENA (National Regeneration Action Group see AG (Action Group)
Movement), Mexico Alliance for Democracy see AD (Alliance for
National Reorganization Process, Democracy), Nigeria
Argentina 363 All Nigeria People’s Party see ANPP (All
National Union of Metalworkers of South Nigeria People’s Party)
Africa (NUMSA) 500 All People’s Party see APP (All People’s
National Unity Party, the Philippines see NUP Party), Nigeria
(National Unity Party), the Philippines All Progressive Congress see APC (All
National View tradition, Islamist 184–185 Progressive Congress)
National Women’s Anti-Communist League Board of Trustees 516–517
(National Women’s League), Congress for Progressive Change 517–518
Taiwan 387 Constitution 516–517, 525–526, 532
NCD (Nuovo CentroDestra), Italy 142 dictatorship 519
NCNC (National Council of Nigeria and the dominant political parties 513–527
Cameroons) 514 People’s Democratic Party see PDP
NDC (National Democratic Congress), (People’s Democratic Party), Nigeria
Ghana 537–538, 540, 544–545, elections in 513, 516, 517, 519–522, 524,
548–551 525–526, 528–532
membership 541–543 gubernatorial 513, 517
political ecumenism 545–546 National Assembly 517, 520, 524–525
NDI (National Democratic Institute for parliamentary 513–514
International Affairs) 563–567 presidential 513, 517, 519–521, 533, 538
NDL (National League for Democracy), Electoral Act (2010) 528–529
Myanmar 562 First Republic (1960–1966) 514–516
ND (New Democracy), Greece 153–156, 157, Fourth Republic (1999–2019) 512–534
159, 161–162, 165–166, 170, 171 governorship and State Houses of
communication, professionalization Assembly 522–524
of 167–169 Great Nigerian People’s Party see GNPP
mass party type, demise of 157–159 (Great Nigerian People’s Party)
membership House of Representatives 519, 521,
party financing 159 526–527, 530, 531
state subsidies and cartelization 164–165 Independent National Electoral
NED (National Endowment for Democracy), Commission (INEC) 516–518
United States 563 Justice Party 517–518
Nehru, Jawaharlal 456 National Assembly 520–522, 524–525,
Netanyahu, Benjamin 271–274 530–531, 533
Netherlands Institute for Multiparty National Council of Nigeria and the
Democracy (NIMD) 569–570, Cameroons see NCNC (National
573–574 Council of Nigeria and the
Neumann, Sigmund 11 Cameroons)
 Index 613

National Executive Committee 516–517 Obrador, Andrés Manuel López (AMLO) see
National Gender Policy 532 AMLO (Andrés Manuel López),
National Party of Nigeria see NPN (National Mexico
Party of Nigeria) ODA (Civic Democratic Alliance), Czech
National Republic Convention 519 Republic 111–112, 120
Nigerian People’s Party see NPP (Nigerian ODS (Civil Social Democratic Party), Czech
People’s Party) Republic 108, 111–112, 114, 115–117,
Northern People’s Congress see NPC 119–120, 123–124
(Northern People’s Congress) party financing 121
People’s Redemption Party see PRP (People’s OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office) 118–119
Redemption Party), Nigeria ONNED (Youth Organization of New
Democracy) 161–162

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Provisional Ruling Council 519
Second Republic (1979–1983) 514–516, 518 organization of parties
Senate 519, 530 centralization 17
State Houses of Assembly 522–524, 533 in France 58–59, 61–67
in Germany 93–100
Third Republic (1992–1993) 514, 533
in Ghana 540–541
United Party of Nigeria see UPN (United
key questions 4
Party of Nigeria)
mass parties 11
Ward Executive Committee 516–517
in Poland 243–246
women in politics 531–532
in Portugal 205–207
NIMD (Netherlands Institute for Multiparty
in South Africa 497–503
Democracy) 569–570, 573–574
organizations, political parties as 9–14, 585
Nkrumahism 537–538
sub-organizations 15
Nkrumah, Kwame 537–538, 544–545
Osmeña, Emilio ‘Lito’ 473
Northern People’s Congress see NPC
(Northern People’s Congress)
Pacquiao, Emmanuel ‘Manny’ 471–473, 478
North Korea 408
PANAL (New Alliance Party), Mexico 290
Norwegian Centre for Democracy Panebianco, Angelo 12, 241–242
Support 567
PAN (National Action Party), Mexico 290,
NPC (Nationalist People’s Coalition), the 298, 302
Philippines 476, 479 PAN (Pessoas Animais Natureza—People
NPC (Northern People’s Congress), Animals Nature) party,
Nigeria 514–515 Portugal 199–200, 206–209
NP (Nacionalista Party), the Philippines 467, PAOLA (Latin America Programme of
476 Affiliated Organisations) 573–574
NP (National Party), South Africa 492–493 Papandreou, Giorgos 163, 169
NP (New Party), Taiwan 383, 389, 394 Park Geun-hye, President of South Korea 401,
NPN (National Party of Nigeria) 514–515 409–411
NPP (New Patriotic Party), Ghana 537–538, parliamentary elections
540, 541–545, 548–551 in the Czech Republic 111, 115
NPP (Nigerian People’s Party) 514 in France 59–60, 66
NUCD (National Union of Christian in India 456–457
Democrats), the Philippines 478 in Nigeria 513–514
NUMSA see National Union of Metalworkers in Poland 247, 253–254
of South Africa (NUMSA) in Spain 219
NUPES (Nouvelle Union Populaire, Ecologique parliamentary systems 19
et Sociale—New Ecological and Social vs. presidential 18–19
People’s Union), France 66 Parti de Gauche—Left Party, France 58
Nyblade, Benjamin 433–434 Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira see
PSDB (Partido da Social Democracia
Obasanjo, Olusegun 518–519 Brasileira), Brazil
614 Index

Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan connection with workers 139

see PDP-Laban (Partido Demokratiko ideological orientation 136
Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan), the plebiscitary-based intra-party democracy
Philippines (PIPD)
Partido Federalista 473 political programmes 137
Partido Intransigente, Argentina 370 resources and state subsidies 140
party cartelization see cartel PDP-Laban (Partido Demokratiko
parties/cartelization Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan), the
party communication see communication, Philippines 471–472, 476, 477–478,
political 481–482, 527
party competition see competition, party PDP (People’s Democratic Party),
party elites see elites, party Nigeria 518–519, 521, 524–529

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Party for Peace and Democracy, South PDS (Partito Democratico della
Korea 408 Sinistra—Democratic Party of the
party ideologies see ideologies, party Left), Italy 132–133, 135, 141–142
party leadership see leadership, party see also DS (Democratici di
party membership see membership, party Sinistra—Democrats of the Left), Italy
Party of European Socialists 136 connection to social groups 138–139
party organization see organization of parties connection with workers 139
party switching ideological orientation 136
Philippine party system 472–473 resources and state subsidies 140–141
post-election 472 PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism),
pre-election 472 Germany 85
party unity see unity, party see also The Left, Germany
PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement), and polarization of party system 90
Greece 153–156, 161–162, 165–167, PED (Process of Direct Elections) 348–349
169, 170–171 People’s Democratic Party, Nigeria see PDP
communication, professionalization (People’s Democratic Party), Nigeria
of 167–169 People’s Redemption Party, Nigeria see PRP
demise—dissolution of 154–155, 160–161, (People’s Redemption Party), Nigeria
163, 169–170 permanent voter cards (PVCs) 528
state subsidies and cartelization 164 Perón, Eva 366
PASOK-KINAL (PASOK-Movement of Perón, Isabel 363
Change), Greece 155–156, 159, Peronism, Argentina (1955–1973) 357,
160–165, 167, 168–169, 171 360–366, 370–373
Passarelli, Gianluca 241–242 see also Radicalism, Argentina
Paterno, Pedro 473 Peronist Women’s Party 366
PCE (Communist Party of Spain) 220 personalization of politics
PCF (Communist Party), France 59, 69 in Brazil 333–334
PCI (Italian Communist Party) 133, 139, 144 campaigns 167–168
PC (Partido Conservador), Colombia 310, clientelism 546–547
312–313, 315–316 in Colombia 315
PCP (Communist Party), Portugal 201–202, in Ghana 546–547
205–214 in Greece 167–168
PDC (Partido Demócrata Cristiano, Christian in Israel 269–270, 278, 282
Democratic Party), Chile 558–561 in Portugal 202–203
PDL (Popolo della Libertà—People of in Turkey 181–184
Freedom), Italy 132–133, 136, PES (Social Encounter Party), Mexico 290,
141–142 299
connection to social groups 138–139 Petro, Gustavo 319–320
PD (Partito Democratico—Democratic Party), PEV (Green Party), Portugal 208
Italy, 132–133, 135–136, 142, 144, PFP (Partido Federal ng Pilipinas), the
146–149, 533 Philippines 473
 Index 615

PFP (People’s First Party), Taiwan 383, 389 Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng
Philippe, Edouard 73–74 Bayan see PDP-Laban (Partido
Philippine party system 467–483 Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng
Aksyon Demokratiko see Aksyon (Aksyon Bayan), Philippines
Demokratiko—Democratic Action), Partido Federal ng Pilipinas see PFP
the Philippines (Partido Federal ng Pilipinas), the
anarchy of parties 467, 469, 471–475 Philippines
citizen–party linkage 480 Partner of the Free Pilipino see Kampi
dictatorship 467, 471, 476–477 (Kabalikat ng Malayang
elections 467–470, 480–482 Pilipino—Partner of the Free Pilipino),
local 468 the Philippines
midterm 474–479, 483 party financing 480–481

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

national 468, 477 Party for Democratic Reforms see Reporma
presidential 473, 478, 479 (Partido para sa Demokratikong
Reporma—Party for Democratic
evaluation 482–483
Reforms), Philippines
Force of the Filipino Masses see PMP
party switching 472–473
(Pwersang Masang Pilipino—Force of
People’s Reform Party see PRP (People’s
the Filipino Masses), the Philippines
Reform Party), the Philippines
fragmentation 475
Power of EDSA see Lakas ng ESDA (Power
frequent party formation 473
of EDSA), the Philippines
institutional framework for party politics
presidential-based 469–471, 473, 478–479
and elections 468–469
Progressive Movement for Devolution of
Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino see LDP Initiative see PROMDI (Progressive
(Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino), Movement for Devolution of
the Philippines Initiative), the Philippines
Lakas Christian-Muslim Democrats see Rise Philippines see Bangon Pilipinas (Rise
Lakas CMD (Lakas Christian-Muslim Philippines)
Democrats), the Philippines Philippines, the 467–470, 472–473, 476, 480
Lakas Kampi CMD see LKC (Lakas Kampi clientelism 467, 472
CMD), the Philippines Commission on Elections
Liberal Party see LP (Liberal Party), (COMELEC) 475, 480
Philippines Congress 468
major parties 476–479 House of Representatives 468, 472
multimedia communication Political Party Development Act 480–482
strategies 481–482 PH (Pacto Histórico), Colombia 315–316,
Muslim Democrats of the Philippines see 319–320
UMDP (Union of Muslim Democrats Pilet, Jean-Benoit 95
of the Philippines) Pimentel III, Aquilino ‘Koko’ 471–472, 478
Nacionalista Party see NP (Nacionalista Pinochet, Augusto José Ramón 558–560
Party), Philippines PIPD see plebiscitary-based intra-party
Nationalist People’s Coalition see NPC democracy (PIPD)
(Nationalist People’s Coalition), Pirate Party, Germany 21–22
Philippines Pirate Party (Pirates), Czech
National Union of Christian Democrats see Republic 108–109, 112–113, 116–118,
NUCD (National Union of Christian 120–121, 123–124
Democrats), the Philippines party financing 121
National Unity Party see NUP (National PiratStan (Pirates and STAN), Czech
Unity Party), Philippines Republic 113–114
New Society Movement see KBL (Kilusang PiS (Law and Justice Party), Poland 240–252,
Bagong Lipunan—New Society 254–257
Movement), Philippines Prime Ministers 247–248
one-party dictatorship (1972–1986) 467 Pizzimenti, Eugenio 129–130
616 Index

PJ (Partido Justicialista—Justicialist Party), satellite parties 242–243

Argentina 357, 362, 363–364, 366, Social Democratic Party of Poland see SLD
371–372 (formerly SdRP), Social Democratic
see also Peronism, Argentina (1955–1973) Party of Poland
platform parties 12 Union for Freedom see UW (Union for
plebiscitary-based intra-party democracy Freedom), Poland
(PIPD) 94–95 political assistance, international see
PL (Partido Liberal), Colombia 310, 312–313, international cooperation—party
315–316 assistance
political communication see communication,
PMP (Pwersang Masang Pilipino—Force of the
political
Filipino Masses), the Philippines 473
Political Party Database Project (PPDB) 3

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

PO (Civic Platform), Poland 242–248,
populism 588
250–256
in India 455–456, 462–463
Podemos (We Can) party, Spain 199, 221, in Latin America 186
222–224, 232, 233–235 of Likud party, Israel 281
Poguntke, Thomas 3, 95 in Mexico 299, 302, 303
Poland 244–247, 250, 251, 256 in South Africa 491
see also Polish party system technocratic 115, 123
party law 246–247 in Turkey 190–191
President, office of Portugal, 199–201, 225–226,
voter turnout 240 Assembleia da República 205–207
polarization of party system Assembly of the Republic 208
in Germany 89–91, 99–100 bailout programmes 199–200, 206–207
post-bailout elections 208–211
in Turkey 189
Left Block see Left Block, Portugal
Polish party system 240–257
left–right cleavage 201–202
agrarian party see ZSL (Polish agrarian
social cleavages 201–202
party)
transition to democracy 201–205
Civic Platform see PO (Civic Platform), vote share 199–200, 202, 203, 209
Poland Portuguese party system 199–214
Communist Party see PZPR (Polish CDS-People’s Party see CDS-PP
Communist Party) (CDS-Partido Popular—CDS-People’s
elections 250–251, 253–255 Party), Portugal
legislative 251 Chega party see Chega (‘Enough’) party,
local 245, 248–249, 252 Portugal
mayoral 253–254 Communist Party see PCP (Communist
national 240, 245, 248–249, 251–252 Party), Portugal
parliamentary 247, 253–254 comparison of votes for PS and
presidential 253–255 PSD 203–205
D’Hondt formula 203
regional 248–249, 252
effective number of parliamentary parties
Electoral Action of Solidarity see Electoral
(ENPP) 203–204
Action of Solidarity (AWS), Poland
elections 200–205, 208, 210–213
general information on Polish party Constituent Assembly 201
politics 242–243 legislative 203, 206–208, 213
Law and Justice Party see PiS (Law and fragmentation 203–205
Justice Party), Poland Free see Livre (Free) party, Portugal
New Left see New Left, Poland Green Party see PEV (Green Party), Portugal
origins of PiS and PO Liberal Initiative party see IL (Iniciativa
organizations 247–251 Liberal—Liberal Initiative) party,
Polish People’s Party see PSL (Polish Portugal
People’s Party) majoritarian logic 202–203
 Index 617

party organization 205–207 proportional representation (PR)

People Animals Nature see PAN (Pessoas see also D’Hondt formula
Animais Natureza—People Animals Additional Member System 39
Nature) party, Portugal in Czech Republic 111
Socialist Party see PS (Socialist Party), D’Hondt formula 203
Portugal in France 61–62, 66, 72–73
PPDB see Political Party Database Project in Japan 427
(PPDB) in Latin America 296–297
PP (People’s Party), Spain 220–223, 232, in Mexico 296–297, 303
233–234 opposition to, in the United Kingdom 53
PPP (People Power Party), South Korea 402, in the Philippines 468–469
406–, in Scotland and Wales 38

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

candidate selection, rules on 417, 419, 420 in South Africa 493–494
and clientelism 421 PRO (Propuesta Republicana),
formerly known as Grand National Argentina 360–361, 371–373
Party 420 Provisional Ruling Council (PRC),
membership 409–410 Nigeria 519
state subsidies 413–414 PRP (People’s Redemption Party),
PR see proportional representation (PR) Nigeria 514, 517
PRD (Partido Renovador PRP (People’s Reform Party), the
Democrático—Democratic Renewal Philippines 473
Party), Portugal 202 PSDB (Partido da Social Democracia
PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution), Brasileira), Brazil 340, 343–346, 350
Mexico 290, 297–299, 302 funding 344
presidentialism 10–11, 14–15, 18–19 ideological positioning and agenda 344–345
vs. parliamentary systems 18–19 programmatic–ideological heterogeneity in
presidential elections origins 343
in Argentina 358, 361, 362, 368, 373, 388 PSD (Partido Social Demócrata—Social
in Brazil 334, 337–338, 346 Democratic Party), Portugal 201–208,
in Colombia 319–321 210–214
in the Czech Republic 115, 123–124 PSL (Polish People’s Party) 242–243
in France 58–60, 64–65, 74 PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero
in Japan 433–434 Español—Spanish Socialist Workers’
in Mexico 289–292, 296–297 Party) 220–224, 232, 233–234
in Nigeria 513, 517, 519–521, 533, 538 PS (Parti Socialiste, Socialist Party),
in the Philippines 469–471, 473, 478–479 France 58–66, 68, 69, 72–73, 75
in Poland 253–255 state funding 70
in South Korea 420 PS (Socialist Party), Portugal 199–214
in Taiwan 386, 388 PT (Labour Party), Mexico 290–292
selection of presidential candidates PT (Worker’s Party), Brazil 339–340, 343,
in Argentina 363 345–346, 348–350
in France 64–65 funding 347
PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), ideological positioning and agenda 347–348
Mexico 289–292, 302 Public Affairs Party, Czech Republic see VV
Process of Direct Elections (PED) 348–349 (Public Affairs), Czech Republic
professionalization 14, 167–169 PVEM (Mexican Green Ecologist Party) 290,
Program for Young Politicians 299
(PYPA) 573–574 PYPA (Program for Young
Progressive Democratic Party, Argentina 357 Politicians) 573–574
PROMDI (Progressive Movement for PZPR (Polish Communist Party) 242–243
Devolution of Initiative), the
Philippines 473 Quimpo, Nathan Gilbert 473
618 Index

Radicalism, Argentina 360–361, 363, 364–367, Sartori, Giovanni 18, 83, 85–86, 99–100
370, 371–372 Savarkar, V. D. 460
see also Peronism, Argentina (1955–1973) Scarrow, Susan E. 3, 68–69
and democracy 364 Schlein, Elly 149
Partido Intransigente 370 Scholz, Olaf 86–87
social groups, connection with 365–367 Schröder, Gerhard 85
Radio Padania Libera, Italy 144 Scotland 38–39
Rafi. Mapai/Labour party, Israel 274 see also United Kingdom party system
Rainbow group, European and Labour Party 39, 45, 53
Parliament 136–137 Scottish National Party (SNP) 39–40,
Rajya Sabha (upper house), India 454 42–43, 45–46
Ramaphosa, Cyril 497, 504 SDP (Social Democratic Party), United

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

Ramos, Fidel 473 Kingdom 46
Raniolo, Francesco 205 SED (Socialist Unity Party), Germany 85
RashtriyaJanata Dal, India 455–456 Seguro, António José 207
RashtriyaLok Dal, India 455–456 Séjourné, Stéphane 75–76
Rawlings, Jerry John 537–538 SFIO (Section Française de l’Internationale
Razon, Enrique 479, 481 Ouvrière—French Section of the
referendums, in the United Kingdom 37–38, Workers’ International) 61–62
47–48, 50–52 Sharon, Ariel 272–273
regional executive committee (REC), Shas party, Israel 263
Ghana 545–546 SILC (Swedish International Liberal
Renzi, Matteo 142 Centre) 573–574
Reporma (Partido para sa Demokratikong ‘Sindacato Padano’ (Italian trade
Reporma—Party for Democratic union) 137–138
Reforms), the Philippines 473 Singh, V. P. 458–459
Republic of China (ROC) 382 single-member districts (SMDs) 428,
establishment by KMT 385–386 430–431, 433–434, 438
research questions 3–5 struggle for party system change 431–432
RN (Rassemblement National, National Rally), single non-transferable vote (SNTV )
France 58, 60–66, 68, 74–77 Japan 200, 427, 430–431, 433–434, 438
state funding 70, 72 Taiwan 383–384, 390
Roco, Raul 473 single-party government 53
Romualdez, Ferdinand Martin 471–472, Sino-Japanese War (1894) 382
478–479, 483 SI (Socialist International) 567
Rotman, Simcha 281 SLD (formerly SdRP), Social Democratic Party
Rousseff, Dilma 345–346, 348, 352 of Poland 242–243, 247
RP (Refah Partisi—the Welfare Party), Slovenia 108
Turkey 179–181 smart card readers (SCR) 528
RPR (Rally for the Republic), France 59, 62 SMDs see single-member districts (SMDs)
membership ballots 64–65 Smith, John 46
RSS (RashtriyaSwayamsevakSangh—National SNP (Scottish National Party) 39–40, 42–43,
Volunteers Organization), India 460 45–46
Rui Rio party, Portugal 211 SNTV see single non-transferable vote (SNTV )
Soares, Mario 206
Saá, Rodríguez 361 Social Democratic Party, Taiwan 394
Salvini, Matteo 136–137, 141–142, 144–148 Social Democratic Party, United Kingdom 46
Samajwadi Party, India 455–456 Social Democrats, Germany see SPD (Social
Samaras, Antonis 166 Democrats), Germany
Sánchez-Talanquer, Mariano 296–297 social groups, connection with
Santiago, Miriam Defensor 473 in Argentina 365–367
Santos, Juan Manuel 310, 326 in Italy 137–139
Sarkozy, Nicolas 64–65, 72, 73–74 key questions 4
 Index 619

parties as linkage organizations 15 effective number of parliamentary parties

Socialist Group 136 (ENPP) 491
Socialist International 562–563 elections 493–494, 496, 500, 504, 505–506
Socialist Party, Argentina 357 Federal Alliance 500
Socialist Party, Portugal see PS (Socialist Federal Party 500
Party), Portugal Inkatha Freedom Party see IFP (Inkatha
social media, engagement with Freedom Party), South Africa
in France 75–76 Multiparty Democracy Fund 496
in Germany 98–99 National Party see NP (National Party),
in Italy 144–145 South Africa
society and political parties party organization 497–503
‘colonization’ of society 161 African National Congress

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

disengagement from society 161–163 (ANC) 497–501
in France 67–70 opposition parties 500–503
in Greece 161–163 party performance and strategy 503–505
parties as linkage to civil society 10, 12, populism 491
14–15, 584–585 Progressive Federal Party 490–491
Soong, James 389 proportional representation 493–494
public party financing 495–497
Soong Mei-ling 387
South African Communist Party 499–500
South Africa,
voter turnout 492
Afrobarometer survey (2018) 496–497, 505
South Korea
apartheid, legacy of 489, 492–493
clientelism 403–404, 421–422
Congress of South African Trade Unions
impeachment of President Park Geun-hye
(COSATU) 499–500
(2016) 401, 409–411
Congress of the People 491–493
National Assembly 401–406, 412–416
Inkatha National Cultural Liberation
National Election Commission (NEC) 402,
Movement 502–503
412–413
National Assembly 494, 502–503 and North Korea 408
National Union of Metalworkers of South South Korea, party system in 401–422
Africa 500 automatic response system (ARS) 421
Political Party Funding Act (2018) 496 candidate selection, rules on 416–421
South African Civics Movement cartel parties 401–406, 413, 421–422
(SANCO) 499–500 clientelism 422
South African Election Study (SANES) 504 Democratic Liberal Party see DLP
South African Native National (Democratic Liberal Party), South
Congress 497 Korea
Zulu nationalism 490–491 Democratic Party see DP (Democratic
South African Communist Party Party), South Korea
(SACP) 499–500 effective number of electoral parties
South African party system 489–506 (ENEP) 402–404
African National Congress (ANC) 489–490, effective number of parliamentary parties
492–493 (ENPP) 402–404
Congress of the People 491 elections 402–405, 410–411, 417, 421
contingent factors 497–505 local 412–413
Democratic Alliance see DA (Democratic presidential 420
Alliance), South Africa subsidies 412–413
Democratic Party 490–491 elite-driven 403–405
Economic Freedom Fighters see EFF Grand National Party see GNP (Grand
(Economic Freedom Fighters), South National Party), South Korea
Africa Grand United Democratic New Party see
effective number of electoral parties GUDNP (Grand United Democratic
(ENEP) 491 New Party), South Korea
620 Index

South Korea, party system in (Continued) Democratic Coalition see CD (Democratic

ideological orientation 408 Coalition), Spain
leadership 403–405 elections 218, 220–224, 226–227, 231
Liberty Korea Party see LKP (Liberty Korea electoral volatility 223–224
Party) general 220–221, 223
Millennium Democratic Party see MDP local 231
(Millennium Democratic Party), South parliamentary 219
Korea fragmentation 221–223
New Frontier Party see NFP (New Frontier and Great Recession 221–222
Party), South Korea mass parties 230–231
organizational development 421–422 multi-party system, seen as 218, 220–221
Party for Peace and Democracy 408 nationalist parties 220–221, 224

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

party membership 408–412 party organization, changing
People Power Party see PPP (People Power models 230–234
Party), South Korea open-ended change of parties and party
Political Funds Act (1989) 405–406 system 234–235
Political Parties Act (2004) 405–406, People’s Party see PP (People’s Party), Spain
411–412 Podemos see Podemos, Spain; Podemos (We
regionalism 404 Can) party, Spain
slow democratization 421 Popular Alliance see AP (Popular Alliance),
state subsidies 405–406, 412–416, 422 Spain
‘three Kims’ era 403–405, 408–409, 411–412 recent history 220–224
Uri Party see UP (Uri Party), South Korea reconfiguration of (1982) 220
volatility 404 regionalist parties 220
voter turnout 402–403 rise/demise of new parties 223–224
weakly institutionalized 401–406 single-party majority
Sözcü (Turkish media outlet) 188–189 governments 220–221, 223
Sözen, Yunus 182–183 Social and Democratic Centre see CDS
Spain (Social and Democratic Centre), Spain
Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas 231 Socialist Workers’ Party see PSOE (Partido
Constitution 224–227 Socialista Obrero Español—Spanish
Constitutional Court 226–227 Socialist Workers’ Party)
Court of Audit (Tribunal de Cuentas) 227, two-party system, peculiarities
231 (1977–2015) 220–221
D’Hondt formula 227 transformation after 2015 221–223
dictatorship 224–227 Union of the Democratic Centre see UCD
framework conditions 218–227 (Union of the Democratic Centre),
and Great Recession (2008) 221–223, 233, Spain
234 Union, Progress and Democracy see UPyD
influence of legal framework 227 (Union, Progress and Democracy),
Law 54/1978 227 Spain
Organic Law 6/2002 on Political Parties United Left see IU (United Left), Spain
(LOPP) 227 Vox (radical-right party) see Vox
political instability 221–224 (radical-right party), Spain
Political Parties Act (LPP) 227 SPD (Freedom and Direct Democracy), Czech
Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) 222 Republic 112–113, 116–118
terrorist organizations 227 SPD (Social Democrats), Germany 82–83, 93,
Spanish party system 218–235 95, 100, 101–102, 560, 562–563
Citizens see Cs (Ciudadanos—Citizens) and coalition governments 91–92
party, Spain party funding 97
Communist Party see PCE (Communist party system change 83–87
Party of Spain) and polarization of party system 90
 Index 621

SPOLU alliance (ODS, KDU-ČSL, and TOP effective number of electoral parties
09), Czech Republic 113–114, (ENEP) 384
123–124 effective number of parliamentary parties
Stability and Growth Pact 209 (ENPP) 384
STAN (Starostové a nezávislí—Mayors and elections 382–384, 387–388, 390, 392–396
Independents), Czech legislative 384, 386, 390–391, 394
Republic 112–113, 116–118, 123–124 local 385, 388, 394
Starmer, Keir 40, 48 national 385
state subsidies 585–586 presidential 386, 388
in Czech Republic 111 Green Party 394
distribution of 16–17 mass parties 386
in France 70–72 Nationalist Party see KMT

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

in Italy 140–141 (Kuomintang—Nationalist Party),
key questions 4 Taiwan
in South Korea 405–406, 412–416 New Party see NP (New Party), Taiwan
Steenhuisen, John 500–502 pan-Blue coalition 383, 389, 390, 394
Suárez, Adolfo 560–561 party finance imbalance 396
Sunak, Rishi 51–52 People’s First Party see PFP (People’s First
Su Tseng-chang 391–392 Party), Taiwan
Svåsand, Lars 76–77 Political Parties Act (2017) 385, 393, 396
Swedish International Liberal Centre Social Democratic Party 394
(SILC) 573–574 Solidarity Union see TSU (Taiwan Solidarity
SYN (Coalition of Left and Progress), Union)
Greece 158, 164, 165–168 Taiwan People’s Party see TPP (Taiwan
SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left), People’s Party)
Greece 154–156, 158–160, 162, Taiwan Solidarity Union see TSU (Taiwan
166–167, 169, 170–171, 199 Solidarity Union)
party financing 158–159 Tangwai 381
social links of parties 161–163 Tarka, Joseph 515
state subsidies and cartelization 164 Tavera, Trinidad Pardo de 473
SZ (Green Party), Czech Republic 114 Tebet, Simone 352
technocratic populism 115, 123
Taiwan Telem Party, Israel 269–270
‘citizen service centres’ 387–388 Thatcher, Margaret 49–51
cleavages 387 The Left, Germany 82, 85–86, 88, 90–91, 95,
left–right 383 100
mainlander–islander 381–383, 389 see also PDS (Party of Democratic
national identity 382, 393–395 Socialism), Germany
unification–independence 383, 389, evolution of vote share and voter turnout 88
392–393 party funding 97
democratization 387 Thuringia, eastern Germany 82
Executive Yuan 392 TOP 09 (Tradice Odpovednost Prosperita),
Legislative Yuan 384–385, 390, 392–394 Czech Republic 111–112, 114,
National Assembly 381 116–118, 120, 123–124
National Congress 386 Tory Party, United Kingdom (historical) 44,
party system see Taiwan, party system in 48–49
threats to democracy 395–396 see also Conservative Party, United
Taiwan, party system in 381–396 Kingdom
cadre (elite) parties 387 TPP (Taiwan People’s Party) 383
catch-all parties 386 trade union movements 10, 17–18, 366
Democratic Progressive Party see DPP and Argentina 366
(Democratic Progressive Party), and Greece 161–163
Taiwan and Italy 137–138
622 Index

trade union movements (Continued) volatility 181–182

and Labour Party, United Kingdom 17–18, Welfare Party see RP (Refah Partisi—the
39–41, 45, 46 Welfare Party), Turkey
and Turkey 189–190 Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi—The Grand
Tradice Odpovednost Prosperita see TOP 09 National Assembly), Turkey 178
(Tradice Odpovednost Prosperita), Tusk, Donald 248, 253–255
Czech Republic two-party systems
Treaty of Shimonoseki 382 Argentina 361
Trump, Donald 393–394 South Korea 402–403
Truss, Liz 51–52 Taiwan 392
Tsai Ing-wen 391–392 Turkey 178
Tsipras, Alexis 155–156, 158, 168

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

TSU (Taiwan Solidarity Union) 383, 389 United Kingdom 33–37, 48, 52
Turan, İlter 188–189 UCD (Union of the Democratic Centre),
Turkey Spain 220
Gezi protests 185–186 UCeDe (Union of the Democratic Centre),
mainstream media 185–186 Argentina 360
military coup (1980) 179 UCR—Radicals (Unión Cívica Radical—
‘personalist hybrid regime,’ rise of 181–184 Radical Civic Union), Argentina 357,
problems with democracy 177–180 362, 363–364, 366, 372–373
Turkish Radio and Television 185–186 UDF (Union for French Democracy) 59,
Turkish party system 177–192 73–74
cadre (elite) parties 183, 187–188 UEN (Union for Europe of the
catch-all parties 181, 184–185 Nations) 136–137
clientelism 185–187 UGCC (United Gold Coast
Democrat Party see DP (Demokrat Convention) 537–538
Parti—The Democrat Party), Turkey UKIP (United Kingdom Independence
‘double tutelage’ 180–181, 183–185, Party) 39–40, 42–43, 49–51, 137
190–191 UMDP (Union of Muslim Democrats of the
elections 182–183, 185–186, 191–192 Philippines) 478
general 178–179, 181–182, 185, 189 UMP (Union for a Popular Movement),
Fazilet Partisi 184–185 France 59, 62, 73–74
Good Party see İyi Parti—The Good Party, Unidades Básicas Femeninas (Women’s Basic
Turkey Units), Argentina 366
Grand National Assembly see Türkiye Büyük Unión Cívica Radical
Millet Meclisi—The Grand National (UCR–Radicals—Radical Civic
Assembly), Turkey Union), Argentina see UCR—Radicals
Justice and Development Party see AKP (Unión Cívica Radical— Radical Civic
(Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—Justice Union), Argentina
and Development Party), Turkey Unión de Centro Democrático, Chile 560–561
mass parties 179–181, 184–185 Union for a Popular Movement see UMP
MHP (Milliyetçi Hareket (Union for a Popular Movement),
Partisi—Nationalist Action Party), France
Turkey 181–182 Union for Europe of the Nations see UEN
People’s Democracy Party see HADEP (Union for Europe of the Nations)
(Halkın Demokrasi Partisi—The Union for Freedom (UW), Poland 247
People’s Democracy Party), Turkey Union for French Democracy see UDF (Union
polarization 189 for French Democracy)
Republican People’s Party see CHP Union of the Democratic Centre, Argentina see
(Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi—Republican UCeDe (Union of the Democratic
People’s Party), Turkey Centre), Argentina
Turkish Armed Forces 178–179 United Gold Coast Convention
two-party system 178 (UGCC) 537–538
 Index 623

United Kingdom resources (membership and finance) 40–41

adversarial politics 47–48 Scottish National Party 39–40, 42–43,
Brexit 18–19 45–46
Leave Campaign (2016) 37–38, 47–48, share of seats and share of vote 34–35
50–51 Social Democratic Party 46
constitution 36–38 two-party system 33–37, 48, 52
‘political constitution’ 36 United Kingdom Independence Party see
Democratic Unionist Party, Northern UKIP (United Kingdom Independence
Ireland 51 Party)
devolved institutions 38 Welsh Senned 39
‘elective dictatorship’ 36–37 Whig Party 44
Electoral Commission 40 United States

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

electoral system 38–40, 45 cross-party voting, in Congress 19
Greater London Assembly 39 hyper-partisanship 19
House of Commons 33–34, 38–39 United Torah Judaism party, Israel 263
parliamentary sovereignty 36–37 unity, party 19
party discipline 18–19 see also cohesion of party, degree of
plurality electoral system 38–39, 45 and cohesion 118
Prime Minister’s Questions 37 failure of 142
rebellion against party line 18–19 key questions 4
‘red wall’ 47–48 universal suffrage 11
referendums 37–38, 47–48, 50–52 Unlawful Activities Prevention Act
Scottish Parliament 39 (UAPA) 450–451
shadow cabinet 37 UPA (United Progressive Alliance), India 453
vote share 34–35, 41–42 UPN (United Party of Nigeria) 514
United Kingdom Independence Party see UKIP UP (Uri Party), South Korea 407–408
(United Kingdom Independence Party) UPyD (Union, Progress and Democracy),
United Kingdom party system 33–53 Spain 220–221
see also Conservative Party, United Uribe Vélez, Álvaro 316, 319–326
Kingdom; Labour Party, United USAID (United States Agency for International
Kingdom Development) 567
‘challenger parties’ 41–42, 52 US-DEU (Freedom Union), Czech
coalitions 33–35, 42, 45 Republic 111–112, 114, 120
effective number of parliamentary parties UW (Union for Freedom), Poland 247–248
(ENPP) 35–36
effective number of parties (ENEP) 35 Varoufakis, Yanis 155–156
elections 41–43, 44, 52 Velopoulos, Kyriakos 155–156
general 42–43, 46 Veltroni, Walter 141–142
framework conditions 33–34, 36–41 Verhofstadt, Guy 137
future 52–53 Villanueva, Eddie 473
Green Party 42–43, 47–48 Villar, Manuel 476, 481
ideology and performance of the two major voter turnout
parties 43–52 in Germany 88
Leader of the Opposition 37 in Ghana 538–539
Liberal Democrats 39–43, 45, 46–50, 53 in Italy 130–131
Liberal Party (original) 44–45 in Japan 428–429, 443
minor parties 38–39 in Poland 240
National governments 33–34 in South Africa 492
and national press 37–38 in South Korea 402–403
New Labour 46–48 vote share
‘official’ opposition 37 in Colombia 319–320
Political Parties, Elections and Referendums in Germany 83, 86–88, 101–102
Act (2000) 40–41 in India 455, 458, 459, 464–465
624 Index

vote share (Continued) political participation

in Japan 434–435, 441 in Argentina 366
in Poland 247, 250 in Colombia 313, 315
in Portugal 199–200, 202, 203, 209 in France 66
regional 250 in Nigeria 531–532
in Spain 221 women’s organizations 15
in the United Kingdom 34–35, 41–42 Worker’s Party, Brazil see PT (Worker’s Party),
Vox (radical-right party), Spain 199, 224, Brazil
233–234
Ya’alon, Moshe 269–270
V-Party Personalization Index 496–497
Yachimovich, Shelly 274–275
VV (Public Affairs), Czech Republic 109, 112,
Ya-chung, Chang 389

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024

114–123
Yemina Party, Israel 269–270
ideology 114
Yesh Atid party, Israel 266, 268, 270, 277–280,
282
Wang, Yi-ting 408–409 success 279, 282–283
WASG (Electoral Alternative for Labour and You Si-kun 391–392
Social Justice (WASG), Germany 85, Youth Organization of New Democracy see
93 ONNED (Youth Organization of New
Wayas, Joseph 515 Democracy)
Webb, Paul 3
Welsh Senned 39 Zeman, Miloš 120, 123
Whig Party, United Kingdom 44 Zille, Helen 500–502
women ZSL (Polish agrarian party) 242–243
see also gender parity considerations Zuma, Jacob 497–499, 505
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/58013 by guest on 17 November 2024