2015 PSA Annual International Conference, Sheffield, 30Th March
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2015 PSA Annual International Conference, Sheffield, 30th March Party personalization: A comparative analysis of a traditional political party, the Democratic Party, with an insurgent populist party – the Five Star Movement. Maria Elisabetta Lanzone (University of Pavia; Université de Nice - ERMES) and Dwayne Woods (Purdue University) Introduction: «personalization of party leadership» in contemporary Western Democracies There is a growing body of literature focusing on a purportedly new phenomenon: the personalized party. The rise and spread of populist parties across Europe is largely responsible for the attention that the personalized party is attracting. Populist parties and movements are generally viewed as containing prominent personalized elements. From the North American experience, Ross Perot immediately comes to mind. In Italy, the rise of the Northern League appeared to confirm the intricate link between populism and personalization. As Pasquino (2013) noted, in the case of the Northern League, its slogan reveals much about the role of its leader «the League is Bossi and Bossi is the League». As Mény and Surel’s point out, a strong personal leadership appears to be the sine qua non of populist parties. Also, Berlusconi’s Forza Italia is often pointed to as an illustration of the phenomenon. What is now attracting the attention of scholars is the personalization of non-populist parties. In other words, more traditional parties are apparently undergoing personalization process akin to populist parties with an individual become the center of attention at the expense of the party organization and ideology. This supposed personalization of non-populist parties is leading many to conclude that the personalized party is a new emergent party type. Pasquino (2013) states, for example, that «after the collapse of the post-war party system in the early 1990s, Italy has emerged as a quasi-experimental ground of personalized leadership of political parties». Not only have Forza Italia and the Northern League been illustrative of a personal party: also the less know ‘Italy of Values’, the more recent ‘Left, Ecology and Freedom’ and the reorganized ‘Union of the Centre’ have been manifested also these characteristics. More strikingly, the personalized style of party leadership is evident with the ascendency of Matteo Renzi and his takeover of the leadership of the Democratic Party. We argue that the growing focus on the rise of a new personalized party type is a trompe l’oeil. Our contention is the political parties have always had personalized elements determined by competition for power within and outside of the traditional party system. First, even the most institutionalized political party is identified with a leader whose leadership position is, to some extent, due to how effectively he has personalized his authority in the party. In an established and institutionalized party, the party does not become fully personalized because selection and succession rules have been worked out. When these rules break down, are contested by a faction in the party, or the party system is upended by an endogenous or exogenous shock, then a high degree of personalization of the party is likely to ensue. Second, the degree and extent of personalization of a political party is determined by the nature of the challenge to the status quo. If the challenge is from within the party, then political entrepreneurs seek to personalize the party through a close identification with its ideology - if it has a well-articulated ideology - or as a challenge to the dominant elites in the party. If the challenge to the status quo is against the dominant political parties, then a newly created or reformatted party is likely to become the personalized vehicle to mount such a challenge to the system. Since populist parties present themselves as outsiders and a challenge to the status quo, the personalized element that is inherent to all forms of competition for power within and outside of established parties is more evident. It, however, is not unique to populism. Our analysis of the personalization of parties and party politics is grounded in Riker’s ‘heresthetic’ model of politics (1984). Riker defined heresthetic «as the art of political manipulation». He noted that politics was about “structuring the world so you can win.” Essentially, political actors seek to frame outcomes in order to improve the chances of the ones they most desire. By rhetorical and other devices, they set out to alter other agents’ preferences and the institutional status quo. Thus, from a heresthetical perspective, all politics is personal since you have individuals engaged in political competition with others to win power or control of a political institution – such as a political party. Riker’s heresthetic relate to political parties in two important – albeit distinct – analytical ways. First, within already established parties that have established well-defined institutional rules, the personalization dynamic is about winning the leadership of the party or consolidating a dominant position within some faction in the party with the objective of altering future outcomes in one’s favour. The second heresthetic element is the creation or taking over a political party as a means to gain power or disrupt the status quo. In this respect, the competition and by consequent the party becomes personalized because the challenger engages in «the art of manipulation» to win control of the party or its leadership position. Bordignon (2014: 3) identifies six post-modern leadership elements that he believes are reflection of the transformations the traditional party system and accounts for the rise of personalized party. Within the framework of a heresthetic model, none of these factors are new and thus do not constitute a post-modern leadership style. Instead these elements reflect the panoply of strategies that are employed by a political entrepreneur to become leader, gain control over a party, or use a party as vehicle to winning power more broadly. Essentially, we are arguing that the personalization of party politics and the emergence of personalized parties are epiphenomenal to strategies that political entrepreneurs use to win power. The type of personalization that is manifest in strategies to gain power is context contingent. By context contingent, we mean that the opportunity structure will largely determine the kind of personalization that arises with any given stratagem to gain power. Essentially, we are arguing that the personalization of party politics and the emergence of personalized parties are epiphenomenal to strategies that political entrepreneurs use to win power. The type of personalization that is manifest in strategies to gain power is context contingent. By context contingent, we mean that the opportunity structure will largely determine the kind of personalization that arises in a stratagem for power. In this respect, we adopt, for the most part, Doug McAdam’s (2001) dynamic components of the political opportunity structure: 1. The relative openness or closure of the institutionalized political system; 2. The stability or instability of the broad set of elite alignments that typically undergird a polity; 3. The presence or absence of elite allies McAdam’s dynamic components scale nicely across different levels of analysis that are needed in understanding the context contingent nature of personalization of party politics. At the micro-level, components two and three are likely to be the most important mechanisms driving personalization of party politics since a political entrepreneur is engaging in a heresthetics within an established party system. The objective is to win over party elites and reshape elite alliances (factions) within the party. McAdam’s first dynamic component is useful in understanding macro-level developments to the extent that personalized parties are more likely to arise against the party system itself. Interestingly, the entrepreneurial challenge against the party system status quo is likely to occur when party systems are permissive. That is there are few barriers of entry. In this context, political entrepreneurs view the establishment of a political party as a convenient vehicle to win power. When party systems are closed personalized parties emerge to challenge to challenge the barriers of entry to power. The relative success of personalized party will vary with the ability of the closed system to stay closed. If the party system is faced with a crisis, brought on by either endogenous or exogenous shocks, then political entrepreneurs will seize the opportunity to alter the status quo. Thus, one of the reasons that there is an uptick in personalized parties in Western Europe is due to the general crisis of European party system. From the heresthetic model and the dynamic components outlined above, two predictors can be specified. First, personalization of party politics is likely to take place within well-established political parties when a challenge to the leadership status quo is mounted. This challenge could be along generational, factional or and/or ideological lines. Secondly, personalized parties, instead of personalized strategies to win over the leadership within a party, are most likely to arise when there is an outline challenge to the status quo. In this article, we explore these two predictors in a contrasting analysis of the rise of Bepe Grillo’s Five Star movement and Matteo Renzi successful bid to win over the leadership post in the Democratic Party. The central aim of our paper is to analyze the general characteristics of the two most influent Italian parties: the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party. What are the differences between their strategies? In particular, what is the impact of a personal leadership on the organization of a neo-populist party – created by a populist leader – compared to a traditional party rebuilt around a new and strong leader? We utilize web survey results, carried out among party members and party representatives between 2012 and 2014, as a way to assess the appeal and effect of personalized leadership.