Richard S. Katz

Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy The Emergence of the Cartel Party

Many recent discussions of the decline of party are predicated on the assumption that the Duverger/socialist mass-party model is the only model for parties. We contend that this assumption is misconceived, that the mass-party model is only one, temporally limited and contingent model, and that it is necessary to differentiate notions of adaptation and change from notions of decline or failure. Following an analysis of how various models of party can be located in terms of the relationship between civil society and the state, we contend that the recent period has witnessed the emergence of a new model of party, the cartel party, in which colluding parties become agents of the state and employ the resources of the state (the party state) to ensure their own collective survival. Finally, we suggest that the recent challenge to party is in fact a challenge to the cartel that the established parties have created for themselves.

The Cartel Party Thesis: A Restatement

We restate and clarify the idea of the “cartel party,” a concept that has found considerable traction in studies of parties throughout the democratic world, including those far from the original research site and data on which the cartel model was based. The cartel party thesis holds that political parties increasingly function like cartels, employing the resources of the state to limit political competition and ensure their own electoral success. The thesis has been subject to varied empirical testing and to substantial theoretical evaluation and criticism. Against this background, we look again at the cartel party thesis in order to clarify ambiguities in and misinterpretations of the original argument. We also suggest further refinements, specifications and extensions of the argument. Following a background review of the original thesis, we break it down into its core components, and then clarify the terms in which it makes sense to speak of cartelization and collusion. We then go on to explore some of the implications of the thesis for our understanding of contemporary democracies and patterns of party organization and party competition and we identify a possible agenda for future research in party scholarship.

The Problem of Candidate Selection and Models of Party Democracy

Candidate selection is vital to political parties but it also poses a dilemma, which is particularly acute in the cartel party, stemming from the position of MPs as both the base of the party in public office and the delegates of the party on the ground. One response is for leaders to democratize candidate selection in form, while centralizing control in practice. An inclusive but unorganized selectorate may give the appearance of democracy without the substance.

The European Parliament, the national parliaments, and European integration

Introduction: European Parliament, National Parliament, and European Integration PART I: ROLE OF PARLIAMENTS AND PARLIAMENTARIANS 2. Representation, the Locus of Democratic Legitimation, and the Role f the National Parliaments in the European Union 3. Making Europeans? The Socializing Power of the European Parliament 4. Role Orientations in Parliaments 5. Recruitment into the European Parliament PART II: LINKAGES 6. European Parliament and Interest Groups 7. Partisan Structures in the European Parliament

The challenges of intra-party democracy

1. The Challenges of Intra-Party Democracy 2. Are Political Parties Meant to be Internally Democratic? 3. Shaping Intra-Party Democracy: on the Legal Regulation of Internal Party Organizations 4. Should we Believe that Improved Intra-Party Democracy would Arrest Party Decline? 5. Party Members and Intra-Party Democracy 6. Intra-Party Democracy: a Gendered Critique and a Feminist Agenda 7. Party Leadership Selection and Intra-Party Democracy 8. Policy Development and Intra-Party Democracy 9. What is Democratic Candidate Selection 10. Intra-Party Democracy and Party Finance 11. Problematizing Intra-Party Democracy References

Electoral Reform and the Transformation of Party Politics in Italy

Advocates of the 1993 reform of the Italian parliamentary electoral system intended it profoundly to alter the structure of the party system and the relationships among parties, interests and voters. The content of the reform is summarized and the expectations raised by its advocates are reviewed and tested against the outcome of the 1994 parliamentary election. While Italian politics has changed dramatically on the surface, analysis of events before and since the election raises questions about the degree to which these developments can be attributed to the electoral reform, and about whether they really signal a fundamental change in the nature of Italian party politics.

Models of Democracy

Most current debate about the democratic deficit equates democracy with party government and popular direction of policy (popular sovereignty). Alternative conceptions of democracy, pluralist or veto-group liberalism, are more consistent with European political and social circumstances and with EU institutions. After developing the difference between popular sovereignty and liberal models of democracy, the paper uses data from a survey of members of the European Parliament and members of the national parliaments in the EU to show that MP orientations with respect to these democratic values contribute significantly to explaining their evaluations of the quality of EU democracy and their preferences for EU institutional development.

The Attribution of Variance in Electoral Returns: An Alternative Measurement Technique

Swings in district vote for Congress are conditioned by many factors. An attempt is made here to apportion the variance in the partisan distribution of votes for U. S. representative among three levels of influence—national, state, and district—measuring the degree of nationalization, regionalization, and localization of voting. Previous attempts have defined “nationalization” of voting as the degree to which district interelection differences are numerically identical. Here this concept is defined in a two-stage regression model as the degree to which districts behave as if these differences were caused by the same factors. In contrast to previous research, national factors are found to be responsible for more than 50 per cent of the variance in local vote, with state and district forces accounting for 19 per cent and 26 per cent, respectively. Several analytic uses for this measure are suggested and illustrated.

Preference Voting and Turnover in Italian Parliamentary Elections

In an election of the Chamber of Deputies, Italians vote for a party list, but may additionally select up to three or four particular candidates within it. While the party votes determine the allocation of seats among parties, the individual preference votes determine which candidates will be elected. Only about 35 percent of the possible preference votes are cast, but they play an important role in parliamentary renewal. It is shown that the ability of the parties to determine which candidate will be elected by structuring their lists is substantially less than often suggested.

No man can serve two masters Party politicians, party members, citizens and principal–agent models of democracy

Both the classic mass party model of democracy and the more recent Downsian model initially appear consistent with the same, simple, principal–agent model of democratic party government. Once party is disaggregated into its ‘three faces’, however, the models are shown to be quite different. And once intra-party democracy is imposed on the Downsian model, or the idea that parties compete for unattached voters rather than each simply mobilizing its classe gardée is imposed on the mass party model, the simplicity of the original principal–agent model breaks down, with the party in public office forced to serve two masters with competing objectives and making incompatible demands. The result is to highlight both the complexity of democratic government and the limitations of principal–agent models in explaining it.