The Nature of Party Government Also by Jean Blondel

COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENT COMPARATIVE LEGISLATURES (editor) CONSTITUENCY POLITICS GOVERNING TOGETHER (co-editor) GOVERNMENT MINISTERS IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD PARTY AND GOVERNMENT (co-editor) POLITICAL LEADERSHIP PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN FRANCE THE GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE THE PROFESSION OF GOVERNMENT MINISTER IN WESTERN EUROPE (co-editor) THE ORGANIZATION OF GOVERNMENTS THINKING POLITICALLY VOTERS, PARTIES AND LEADERS WORLD LEADERS

Also by Maurizio Cotta

CLASSE POLITICA E PARLAMENTO IN ITALIA, 1946–1976 IL GIGANTE DAI PEIDI DI ARGILLA: Il governo di partito e la sua crisi nell'Italia degli anni novanta (co-editor) MANUALE DI SCIENZA POLITICA (co-author) PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION IN SOUTHERN EUROPE (co-editor) PARTY AND GOVERNMENT (co-editor) PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATIVES IN EUROPE 1848–2000: Legislative Recruitment and Careers in Eleven European Countries (co-editor) The Nature of Party Government A Comparative European Perspective

Edited by

Jean Blondel Professor of European University Institute, Florence, and and Maurizio Cotta Professor of Political Science University of Siena Italy Editorial matter and selection © J. Blondel and M. Cotta 2000 Chapters 1 and 5 © J. Blondel 2000 Chapters 4 and 9 © M. Cotta 2000 Chapter 8 © J. Blondel and J. Nousiainen 2000 Chapters 2, 3, 6 and 7 © Palgrave Publishers Ltd 2000 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 978-0-333-68199-2

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2000 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd).

ISBN 978-1-349-40010-2 ISBN 978-0-333-97733-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780333977330

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The nature of party government : a comparative European perspective / edited by Jean Blondel and Maurizio Cotta. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Political parties—Europe, Western. 2. Europe, Western—Politics and government—1989– I. Blondel, Jean, 1929– II. Cotta, Maurizio, 1947– JN94.A979 N37 2000 320.3'094—dc21 00–033337

109 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 Contents

List of Figures and Tables vi

Preface viii Notes on the Contributors x

1 Introduction J. Blondel 1

Part I

2 The Normative Foundations of Party Government A.-P. Frognier 21 3 Party Government, State and Society: Mapping Boundaries and Interrelations R. B. Andeweg 38 4 Defining Party and Government M. Cotta 56 5 A Framework for the Empirical Analysis of Government±Supporting Party Relationships J. Blondel 96

Part II 6 Political Recruitment and Party Government R. B. Andeweg 119 7 Patronage by National Governments W.C.MuÈller 141 8 Governments, Supporting Parties and Policy-making J. Blondel and J. Nousiainen 161

9 Conclusion: From the Simple World of Party Government to a More Complex View of Party±Government Relationships M. Cotta 196

References 223 Index 233

v List of Figures and Tables

Figures

3.1 A conceptual map of state, society, government and party 44 3.2 Potential party/government relations 48 3.3 Potential extents and scopes of party government 50 4.1 Potential relations and exchanges between the party in government, the membership party and the parliamentary party 71 4.2 Types of parties 72 4.3 Factors explaining the strength/autonomy of the party in government vis-aÁ-vis the parliamentary and the membership parties 73 4.4 The circles of government 76 4.5 The `representative' face of government: dimensions of variation 81 4.6 The `administrative' side of government: dimensions of variation 86 4.7 Types of `administrative' games 88 4.8 Government between representation and administration 89 5.1 Autonomy and dependence in the relations between cabinets and supporting parties 99 6.1 Appointments and party±government relations 120 6.2 The `partyness' and `governmentness' of appointments 127 7.1 The extent of government patronage in eight Western European countries 151 7.2 Majoritarian and proportional patronage 153 7.3 The relative importance of party and government in government patronage 154 7.4 Policy, patronage and party finance 156 7.5 Party±government relations in the patronage dimension 159

vi List of Figures and Tables vii

Table

6.1 Appointments to government and party leadership in , , France, Italy, the Netherlands and the 138 8.1 Distribution of policies studied by field and by country 175 8.2 Distribution of policies studied by field and initiative 177 8.3 Participation, bipolar/not bipolar, field of government and origin of the policy 178 8.4 Conflict levels, bipolar/not bipolar, field of government and origin of policy 184 8.5 Pace of decisions, bipolar/not bipolar, field of government and origin of policy 185 8.6 Policy styles, bipolar/not bipolar, field of government, origin of policy, levels of conflict, extent of participation and pace of decision-making 186 8.7 Outcomes, bipolar/not bipolar, field of government, origin of policy, level of conflict, and pace of decision-making 187 Preface

Of the relationships which characterise the institutions of Western Euro- pean democracies, that between governments and the parties which support them is perhaps the most intriguing as well as the least well- known. We may or may not like parties ± usually we do not ± yet we are convinced that parties should have a large influence in democratic politics. It seems to follow that they should greatly influence the way governments are shaped and take their decisions. Except, however, that we are only half-convinced when we come to this last point, because we also believe that governments should not be the `prisoners' of parties: we therefore quickly join our voice to the concert of those who attack `partitocracies' and their cortege of unsavoury camaraderie, favours and corruption. Such a set of rather contradictory standpoints does not help much, if at all, in a quest for the understanding of what the relationship between parties and governments is or of what that relationship should be. Contra- dictions in attitudes about the relationship echo the apparent imposs- ibility of finding an acceptable `niche' in which both government and parties which support them can comfortably live together. Hence perhaps the huge gap in this field of political science; hence, too, in a more mundane fashion, the fact that this book has taken so long to appear after a first effort was made in a volume entitled Party and Government, published in the mid-1990s, which described how the two sets of bodies ± parties and governments ± seemed to relate to each other, seriatim so to speak, in a number of countries, mainly of Western Europe. This is not a hugely valid excuse to justify the fact that this book has taken so long to emerge: the data had been collected; the will to tackle the problem was there. Yet the problem became increasingly daunting as we came closer to confronting it. Difficulties relating to data seemed to pale and to pale more and more by contrast with the difficulties which the normative and the analytical questions posed. What do we really mean by `party government'? Is it that the government should be domin- ated by the parties in a democracy? Yet if it should not be dominated, what should the mode of influence be? And should not the government also exercise an influence? We knew we had to navigate between two extreme, equally unacceptable solutions: yet only these unacceptable

viii Preface ix solutions seemed to provide answers which had a minimum of `sub- stance'. Nor was this normative puzzle the only one: the analytical difficulties posed by the two entities, parties and government, were equally daunting. For what is, indeed, a party? Everyone knows that a party is not Fjust) a set of men and women bound together to promote a cause and that there are many `parties' within each single party. If so, which of these `parties' should be regarded as the `real' one? Is it the parliamentary party, the party in the constituencies, the broad mass of supporters? Nor is it easier to describe what we mean by governments. Is it just the ministers? Do we include `aides'? Do we even include civil servants, at any rate top ones? More than once, the temptation to abandon the `quest' was great: we did not succumb and we hope we were right. We know that we do not give, by any stretch of imagination, definitive answers: but we hope that this volume will at least trigger theorists ± not just empiricists but normative theorists and analytical theorists ± to begin to raise what are unquestionably key questions for modern democracies. How should parties behave in relation to governments? How should governments behave in relation to parties? And how can the goal of a satisfactory relationship be achieved? As the other studies of this series on cabinets and governments, this work would not have finally emerged, even if after much delay, had it not been for the generous support of the European University Institute, the Italian Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Fcontract no. CNR 97.00650.ct09), the foundation Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the Dutch Science Foundation FNWO) which provided support for a meeting at the University of Leiden, as well as of the research councils of the countries of the contributors to this volume. We wish to thank them most heart- ily. We must also remember that the data on which this work is based were collected, several years ago, by a number of researchers who studied appointments, patronage practices and a number of detailed policies in the countries on which this book is based: we wish to thank them all, even if belatedly. Whether we have begun to render justice to the magnitude of the problem is not for us to judge: but what we can say is that we have been intrigued by the problem and that one of the main purposes of this volume is to communicate the feeling that there is here an intriguing situation about which much will have to be done before a solution appears.

Jean Blondel Maurizio Cotta Notes on the Contributors

R. B. Andeweg is Professor of Political Science at the University of Leiden. J. Blondel is External Professor at the European University Institute in Florence and Visiting Professor at the University of Siena. M. Cotta is Professor of Political Science at the University of Siena.

A.-P. Frognier is Professor of Political Science at the University of Louvain. W. C. MuÈller is Professor of Political Science at the University of Vienna. J. Nousiainen is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the .

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