VIRTUAL POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE DECLINE OF DEMOCRACY

Focused on the surface events of politics, many of us have failed to notice the replacement of traditional political parties by “virtual parties” brought together around would-be party leaders. The winning leader’s virtual party then takes over the party “brand.” Like the body-snatchers of the Hollywood horror movie, it appropriates the shell of the old party but fills it with something quite different: a direct, unmediated connection between leader and voters that destroys one of the Reg Whitaker traditional bulwarks of civil society. We are worse off for it. En restant à la surface des événements, beaucoup d’entre nous n’avons pas remarqué le remplacement des partis politiques traditionnels par des « partis virtuels », réunis autour de soi-disant leaders qui s’arrogent la « marque » d’un parti une fois leur victoire acquise. Comme dans les films d’horreur hollywoodiens où des extra-terrestres déterrent les cadavres pour emprunter leur enveloppe charnelle, ces leaders s’approprient l’image des vieux partis mais lui donne corps d’une manière fort différente : ils imposent entre les électeurs et eux-mêmes une relation directe qui, en éliminant l’intermédiaire des formations politiques, vient détruire l’un des remparts de la société civile. Nous ne pouvons qu’en sortir perdants.

quick quiz on the major events of the political year mer federal Progressive Conservative official, early in 2000 2000 might elicit the following list: the emergence wrote an open letter to PC supporters urging them to aban- A out of the old Reform party of the new Canadian don their federal party for the Canadian Alliance. He com- Alliance under Stockwell Day; the re-election of Jean plained about his own “wasted investment” in this “brand”: Chrétien’s Liberals to a third successive majority; the appar- “it was time to invest elsewhere.” He went on: “If the feder- ent stagnation of the Bloc Québécois; the continued mar- al PC party in which you have invested so much was a ginalization of the federal Progressive Conservative and mutual fund you would have dumped it years ago.” New Democratic parties. Two of Campbell’s words are particularly significant: Appearances can sometimes be misleading, however. investment and brand. Parties are no longer about commit- Surface events and personalities mask deeper, structural ment, in the sense of principles, loyalty and tradition. Long changes taking place beneath the veneer. Distracted by the ago, partisans rallied to Sir John A. Macdonald’s Tories rise and fall of party labels and leaders, it has been easy to under the slogan “the Old Man, the Old Flag, the Old miss the subterranean transformation of political parties Policy.” No more. A party is not a collective project. It is a into different sorts of creatures than in the past. In an age of “mutual fund.” Commitment has become investment, and relentless change imposed by markets and technology, investment demands appropriate returns. If “wasted,” it political parties have had to adapt to the challenges of glob- should be pulled out and put “elsewhere.” The party’s name alization, the information revolution and the new media, or and symbols are no longer marks of allegiance, but are fade into irrelevance. merely a “brand.” Brands are corporate marketing devices The flavour of these changes can be caught in the lan- for products. Brand identification is intended to promote guage used by party insiders to describe their business. sales. If sales falter, re-branding may be required. In Alister Campbell, one of the leading architects of Ontario Campbell’s worst-case scenario, the wise investor pulls out premier Mike Harris’ Common Sense Revolution, and a for- altogether and invests in a new product line with a more

16 OPTIONS POLITIQUES JUIN 2001 Virtual political parties marketable brand. Hence, like a good investment Like “virtual” corporations in the networked analyst, Campbell is advising his clients to sell PC information economy, virtual parties form and and buy CA. reform for specific purposes. With more tasks According to political scientists, political par- “outsourced” and less done in-house, the virtual ties are crucial linkages between civil society and party networks across traditional organizational Virtual parties the state: a noble calling. But in capitalist democ- boundaries, drawing in specialists who perform racies, parties are poor cousins to their private specific functions to meet specific, market-driv- form around sector counterparts, the corporations. Corpor- en needs. Virtual parties form around politicians politicians ations sell goods and services and make profits. seeking the leadership of parties, as relatively Parties sell promises of policy and patronage. At small entourages or coteries of political strate- seeking the best, they offer insurance that profits in the pri- gists, marketing and communications experts, vate sector will not be impeded by policies pur- “spin doctors,” PR flacks and policy “wonks.” If leadership of sued in the public sector, a kind of respectable successful, the same coterie then in effect colo- protection racket. But in a competitive political nizes the party and runs its subsequent election parties, as market, few parties can bank promises contin- campaign. The party, as such, serves as little gent upon victory at the polls. Not surprisingly, it more than a convenient franchise with brand relatively small is the corporate sector where research and inno- recognition, marketing “location,” and ready vation in the technology of marketing and com- sources of campaign funding. Sometimes, it is entourages or munications take place. Parties have to catch up more convenient to “re-brand” the old party for coteries of with trends in the private sector, and struggle to better location. The real campaign dynamic cope with new techniques and tools of marketing derives from the virtual party within the shell of political as best they can, with limited resources. the traditional party. If the electoral campaign is successful, the virtual party then colonizes the strategists, ne of the organizational forms pioneered strategic heights of government, around the O in the new economy is the “virtual corpo- office of the prime minister or premier, setting marketing and ration,” a form adapted to the flexibility policy priorities, interfacing with the permanent required of a networked world. Old corporations bureaucracy and managing the government’s communications were heavy, stand-alone entities, with high fixed image and media presentation. Many of the real investment in plant and product, centralized high flyers in the team, however, will choose to experts, “spin and hierarchical in structure, slow to react to return to the more lucrative private sector, only doctors,” PR changes in their environment, commanding coming out again for a brief burst of activity dur- market share by sheer weight and inertia. ing a re-election campaign. All this is dependent flacks, policy Exemplars of old corporate culture were the big upon the leader, and the policy package he or three North American automakers before the she represents. These are the products being “wonks.” challenge of Japanese and European competition marketed. hit home. New corporations are somewhat less There are some spectacular examples of the If successful, hierarchical, more decentralized, more flexible virtual party in operation. One of the most and adaptive, with less fixed investment. New remarkable is the transformation of the British the same corporations are leaner, which does not mean Labour party under Tony Blair. Blair’s communi- that they necessarily employ fewer people. cations and publicity entourage, led by Peter coterie then Rather, they employ fewer people directly, but Mandelson, the former Northern Ireland secre- in effect many more indirectly, through outsourcing. tary, remade the party from the top down. They Here is where the idea of the virtual corporation even re-branded it as New Labour, to distinguish colonizes comes in. For specific purposes or projects, net- it from the electorally unsuccessful and media- works are formed that flow around and over the unfriendly “Old” Labour. Helped by a decaying the party. old organizational boundaries. They may Tory ancien régime, New Labour swept to office in involve temporary partnerships or alliances with 1997. Millbank, the permanent party headquar- other corporations, or at least components of ters where its publicity directors and spin doctors other corporations. These networks are function- reside, has become a kind of rival power centre to alist in design, strictly goal-oriented, and evanes- Whitehall. In office, Blair and company have cent, forming and reforming around particular been assailed by both critics and supporters as projects, and disappearing when the goals are lacking in any clear or distinctive policy direc- achieved. These commando units may be con- tion, yet at the same time as control freaks sidered, during their transitory lives, as “virtual” obsessed with spin doctoring their image at the corporations expense of substance. This is a trap that virtual

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parties can fall into, given that they are con- The Harris party has been successful because structed in the first instance for the immediate it has tightly integrated marketing with policy. It purpose of getting elected, rather than for gov- was re-branded the “Harris” party not because erning. Yet some Canadian experience suggests Mike Harris is the product, but because it is a The Common that virtual parties may be quite well prepared useful way of distinguishing its new policy ori- not only to get elected, but also to govern pro- entation from the soft, centrist conservatism Sense grammatically with distinctive policy agendas that characterized the old Tory party. The real Revolution product is the Common Sense Revolution, an remarkable case study of a programmatic, ideological program that reflects the goals and was a product A even ideological, “virtual” party is the preferences of its architects, the core of the vir- “Mike Harris party,” as the Progressive tual party. But right-wing ideological purity in whose time, Conservative party of Ontario was re-branded in itself is no guarantee of electoral success. Prior to 1995, the year of its return to power from the the 1995 campaign, the Harris people had care- and market wilderness. In the years following its traumatic fully identified their potential core supporters defeat in 1985, after 42 years of uninterrupted and what specifically they wanted from govern- niche, had rule, the Ontario Tory party was “hollowed out, ment. This is in line with the dramatic shift in broke, leaderless,” as journalist and author John recent years in the private sector from mass to come. Ibbitson put it. The Ontario Tories had been niche, or “micro” marketing. New media and The virtual known and feared for the “Big Blue Machine,” new information technologies have combined to the Conservative party organization that raised provide tools that can profile and target ever Ontario Tory lavish funds from Bay Street, ran one successful more finely honed markets. The Harris Tories electoral campaign after another, and then dis- have never looked for the illusory grail of the party was the creetly and efficiently managed the patronage “public.” Instead they have concentrated on that came with seemingly perpetual political very specific “publics”—all those elements in the marketing power. It had over the years governed resolutely Ontario population angry and resentful over the from the centre, mixing policy pragmatism with results of previous NDP and Liberal govern- vehicle that a kind of Red Tory sense of the importance of the ments—and turned to these refined marketing public sector. tools to identify specific policies that would sell delivered the The Big Blue Machine was now defunct and to these potential buyers. As it turned out, a for- product. the party a shell that could be taken over. This tuitous synergy developed between the hard represented an opportunity for ideologically right policy orientation of the Harris team and Following their committed young right-wingers to seize the party the policy preference profile of a critical mass of franchise. A small group of young activists voters in the conjuncture of mid-1990s Ontario. re-election, the formed up in 1990 to back the leadership candi- The Common Sense Revolution was a product dacy of the Tory MPP from North Bay, Mike whose time, and market niche, had come. The Tories have Harris, an affable yet ambitious politician with virtual Ontario Tory party was the marketing few ties to the crumbling party establishment. vehicle that delivered the product. Following seemed With Harris as leader, the moderate policy orien- their re-election, the Tories have seemed direc- tation of the past could be discarded, and tionless. They await a further re-branding, this directionless. replaced with a hard-right neo-. time as a party of government, no longer a party They await a Although initially unsuccessful in the 1990 of angry outsiders, a marketing task that may provincial election, the Mike Harris virtual Tory present difficulties for a virtual party designed to further re- party took brilliant advantage of the conjuncture appear as outsiders. in the early 1990s of an NDP government and a branding. severe economic recession to lay the groundwork he federal Liberals under Jean Chrétien have for a surprise victory in 1995 on a rigorously T been a highly successful political enterprise, right-wing ideological party program, the winning three successive majority governments. Common Sense Revolution. Moreover, through- The too has become a virtual party, out their first term, the Harrisites were commit- distinct from its roots, although it chooses not to ted to enacting their program with unusual zeal re-brand itself, but rather to link its pitch with a and exactitude. Returning to the electorate in long history of positive brand identification 1999, they could truthfully assert something few (since 1896, the Liberal Party has been in nation- Canadian parties in office could claim: They had al office 70 per cent of the time). Yet the party of leveled with the voters about what they intended Chrétien is a different creature than its predeces- to do, and then carried out their promises. sors. It is neither the elite-run “ministerialist”

18 OPTIONS POLITIQUES JUIN 2001 Virtual political parties party of the King-St. Laurent era, nor the “partic- appeared as a strange, two-headed beast. The ipatory” party of the Pearson-Trudeau era. It Chrétien loyalists argue that while the PM con- remains a formidable patronage machine, and an trols the patronage, the finance minister con- engine for organizing Parliament to pass the trols the policy agenda, a functional division of agendas set by the prime minister. But neither labour of sorts. It is an unusual form for the vir- The Liberal cabinet ministers nor the grass roots matter as tual party, but in the Liberals’ case, who can much as they once did. National campaigns are argue with success? Party has poll and media-driven as never before, and the The Liberals also lay claim, with some justifi- appeared as a virtual party at the heart of the shell that is called cation, to being the only genuinely national the “Liberal Party” forms the real dynamic. party in a system now characterized by opposi- strange, two- But there is one oddity about the virtual tion parties locked, either willingly in the case of Liberal Party—its two-headedness—that sets it the Bloc Québécois, or unwillingly in the case of headed beast. apart from other virtual parties, and has lent the the Alliance and the PCs, into regional ghettoes. Chrétien years a distinctive coloration. Virtual Yet the Liberals are relatively weak in the West. The Chrétien parties form up around particular leaders, in the The regional fragmentation of our present party first instance at the time they challenge for con- system is a manifestation of an underlying fea- loyalists argue trol of the party at a leadership contest. Winners ture of the virtual party system. As mass market- then usually take all, and losers typically are iso- ing gives way to niche or micro marketing, the that while the lated, neutralized and quite often blown right out “public” becomes fragmented into many publics, PM controls the of the party and/or the government. In the case each targeted for votes by parties that tailor and of when he gained the leadership of hone their appeals to particular niches. In the patronage, the the Progressive Conservative Party, his most comprehensive examination yet published chief competitor was blown all the way into the of the emerging party system (Rebuilding finance minister leadership of the Alberta Liberal Party, where she Canadian Party Politics, UBC Press, 2000), opposed him as the official opposition leader in Professors R. Kenneth Carty, William Cross and controls the the 2001 election, before resigning after another Lisa Young argue that the national discussion of crushing Klein majority. More often, losers sim- politics in an election campaign will “increasing- policy agenda, ply drop out to the private sector and are heard ly be replaced by a series of highly focused, pri- of no more, or at least until the leadership vate conversations. When coupled with the a functional reopens. regional dynamics of campaigns, this trend is division of When Jean Chrétien was himself defeated contributing to the end of pan-Canadian poli- by for the Liberal leadership in tics.” They go on to suggest that “despite calls for labour of sorts. 1984, he had felt humiliated by the winner. further democratization of political parties, these When he in turn won the leadership over Paul new communication patterns ensure that poll- It is an unusual Martin, Jr. in 1990, he behaved differently sters, advertising and marketing specialists, and toward his rival. The Chrétien virtual Liberal those skilled in the management and manipula- form for the Party has in office controlled most of the patron- tion of data sets will retain a central role within age, and the prime minister runs a notoriously campaign organizations. Fragmented and private virtual party, centralized and very tight ship. Yet Mr Chrétien political communication requires the skills and came to the top with no policy agenda whatev- technology of these professionals, reinforcing but in the er, other than becoming prime minister. The Red their place within the party structure.” Liberals’ case, Book of policy promises, a crucial element in the 1993 campaign, was constructed by a team led he most striking example of how the virtual who can argue by Martin as co-chair of the platform committee. T party is superseding the real party can be And early on in the Liberals’ first term, Martin found in the transformation of the Reform Party with success? was permitted to set the major agenda of the into the Canadian Alliance. Ostensibly designed government: deficit elimination. The success of to break Reform out of its Western ghetto and this priority became the defining mark of the challenge the Liberals in Canada’s biggest elec- Chrétien government, and Martin has conse- toral battleground, Ontario, the “United quently grown in stature, to the point of becom- Alternative” project was actually about trans- ing a putative rival to the prime minister, cer- forming the structure of the party. When Preston tainly in the eyes of his own entourage (the nas- Manning urged the Reform Party faithful to cent Martin virtual Liberal Party) and of the abandon their short-lived party attachment for a media, always alert to a saleable personality con- new and more efficacious vehicle (which soon flict narrative. Thus the Liberal Party has showed its disdain for loyalty by ditching

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Manning himself), he exhorted them to “Think Revolution, and a key catch for the Alliance’s Big.” The subtext of this message was that Ontario strategy. But voters mobilized by candi- Reform had been thinking small, not only in dates in a primary-type contest are not socialized terms of its regional base, but also in terms of its into the party in the way that those who join Above all, conception of itself as a party. For those who local constituencies and attend regional and would like to see our parties strive to become national meetings are socialized into the solidar- Reform brought more democratic vehicles, there is considerable ity and camaraderie of shared endeavour. They an insistence irony in this message. simply pay for a membership and cast a vote for The rapid rise of the Reform Party from their candidate in much the same isolation that upon concrete nowhere to Official Opposition was a remarkable characterizes voting in general elections. They example of innovation in the party system. miss the social matrix of the party, and miss democratic Along with the Bloc Québécois, Reform brought learning its norms and practices, its sense of col- to Ottawa a more programmatic, ideological and lective memory and shared identity. The accountability, principled politics than the cynical old broker- Progressive Conservatives had adopted the same age parties had offered. Above all, Reform procedure for their earlier national leadership and provided brought an insistence upon concrete democratic contest: It produced the bizarre result of the accountability, and provided elaborate institu- David Orchard candidacy, and a singular lack of elaborate tional mechanisms to ensure that accountabili- a sense of organized purpose at the centre of the institutional ty: referenda, initiatives, recall, free votes in national party. The Joe Clark virtual Tory party Parliament, fixed terms for governments and so was, and is, a large head with a tiny body or, to mechanisms to on. To a public jaded by such undemocratic exer- shift metaphors, a racing driver with a track cises as Meech Lake, free trade, and the GST, record but a toy car to drive. ensure that Reform’s democratization agenda seems a breath In the case of the Canadian Alliance, the of fresh air, and indeed Reform was able to steal Long candidacy failed to ignite an influx of new accountability: ownership of the democracy issue away from the recruits from the Ontario Tory party. This failure NDP, which had monopolized the concept for was foreshadowed by the curious “poison pill” referenda, decades. To be sure, populism of this kind is adherence of Ernie Eaves, provincial treasurer and always open to a kind of plebiscitarian manipu- No. 2 man in the Harris government (since initiatives, lation by the leadership. But the early Reform retired), and long the most prominent supporter recall, Party did demonstrate signs of genuine grass of the federal Tories within the Harris cabinet. roots participation, in organizing and financing Eaves declared that he would support the free votes in the party, and in asserting real influence over the Alliance, but only if it adopted the Ontario candi- party’s policy directions. A populist network date as its leader. When Long finished last, Eaves Parliament, sprang up in western Canada that did something was as good as his word, brusquely taking his very unusual in this country by successfully leave of the Alliance. Although the Alliance under fixed terms for launching and sustaining a new party from Day did do better with Ontario voters than below. This could only go so far, however. It Reform under Manning, clearly outdistancing the governments, stalled in Ontario and failed to evict its PCs in the popular vote, they were able to elect Conservative rivals from the political map. only two MPs. There was certainly no sense of and so on. Hence the Alliance, a re-branding of the Reform gaining a durable new mass federal base to match product designed to appeal more to the potential that of the Harris Tories. The 905 suburban belt Ontario market. around Toronto, the very heartland of the Common Sense Revolution where Long had sym- lthough the Alliance did hold a founding bolically chosen to launch his leadership cam- A convention much like traditional party con- paign, actually threw its support so monolithical- ventions, it made one major decision about ly to the Liberals as to run ahead of the 51 per process that moved the new party away from cent the Chrétien party garnered province-wide. Reform’s structure. The Alliance’s first leadership The failure to mobilize lasting grassroots contest was to be a national primary, not a con- support in Ontario partially masked one very vention. The rationalization for this was that important contribution to the new party by Tom new members would be brought into the party Long, although this only strengthened the structure as they were mobilized by competing party’s virtual status. Long was able to open up candidates—most specifically, Ontarians mobi- financial support from Bay Street that was lized by the candidacy of Tom Long, one of the unprecedented in the previous short history of architects of the Harris Common Sense the Reform Party. Although Manning had the

20 OPTIONS POLITIQUES JUIN 2001 Virtual political parties financial support of certain Western regional economic interests, especially oil money, and had gained a few supporters here and there on Bay Street, Reform had never been able to match the corporate fundraising prowess of the Even if it does Mulroney Tories or the Chrétien Liberals, and had had to rely to a degree on grassroots dona- succeed, the tions. Manning and his Western supporters had Alliance, as a appeared a bit too rough-edged and outré for Bay Street’s liking. Long was one of their own, and, structure that urged on by the National Post, they opened up their coffers for him. Unlike Long’s vanishing has moved voting support, Bay Street money stuck to the Day-led Alliance. In the 2000 election, the further along Alliance was able to rival the Liberals in corpo- rate campaign funding. However important in the continuum establishing a financial base for the Alliance’s future stability, this shift in funding from small, away from grassroots donations to big corporate giving CP Picture Archive: Frank Gunn “party” toward completes a cycle within the Reform/ The Mike Harris Party: Alliance from a grassroots populist movement to Mike Harris hugs the media mascot at the end “virtual party,” a political marketing tool for Bay Street. The of the 1999 Ontario election campaign Alliance as a virtual Ontario party had the will represent money, and a vociferous mouthpiece of Bay positions was dropped. When the Liberals clever- Street in the form of the National Post to push it ly ambushed Day by raising the spectre of an one more step forward. All that was missing were the voters. Alliance government encouraging referenda on Stockwell Day’s campaign in 2000 was of abortion and gay rights, there was furtive in the decline of course ambushed by a far more sophisticated backpedaling even on the Alliance’s commitment and ruthless marketing machine centred on the to direct democracy. Finally, one might cite the deliberative, prime minister’s office, and the Chrétien virtual Alliance’s frantic efforts to deny any distinctive negotiated party’s pollsters and spin doctors. But the scale conservative position on health care, despite the of the disaster should not obscure the effects of Klein government’s trail-blazing efforts to open democracy and campaign exigencies on the Alliance as a party in up private clinics as a component of health care its first, formative national campaign. delivery. Their flight from principle was embod- its replacement Distinctive policies that set the Alliance apart ied in the rather forlorn spectacle of Day holding from its competitors, including the Progressive up his hand-lettered sign, “No two-tier health by unmediated Conservatives, were quickly dropped on the care,” during the leaders’ TV debate. advice of Alliance advertising advisers. Delegates The 2000 election results produced very telemarketing. to the party’s founding convention had enthusi- small gains for the Alliance outside the West, astically adopted a flat tax. Moreover, as Alberta along with further deepening of support in the Treasurer, Day had already begun implementa- West. Whether the party can ever break out of tion of a flat (or at least flatter) provincial Reform’s Western ghetto, or even force a merger income tax, so the idea was clearly in the realm with the PCs, remains to be seen. But even if it of the possible and practical. No matter: Focus does succeed, the Alliance, as a structure that has groups showed there were perception problems moved further along the continuum away from with a flat tax, and it was unceremoniously “party” toward “virtual party,” will represent one dumped from the party platform. more step in the decline of deliberative, negotiat- Another distinctive feature of Day’s ascent to ed democracy and its replacement by unmediat- the leadership had been the adhesion of pro-lifers ed telemarketing. and the Christian Right, who had flocked into the Alliance to elect a candidate who forthrightly eferring to the emergence of the modern defended their moral positions on sensitive pub- R social welfare state in Canada in the 1960s, lic issues like abortion and homosexuality. Once former Ontario premier writes (in The the national campaign was launched, however, Three Questions: Prosperity and the Public Good) all mention of anti-abortion and anti-gay rights that “these achievements were brought about

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because political parties, the little platoons of and in the dark corridors of power. Social move- loyalty bound together by common affection ments and public interest groups try to influence and common conviction, advocated, persuaded, governments directly from the outside by raising compromised, and negotiated their way to their voices and making threatening gestures, Parties have achieving tangible, real, practical progress. but they are largely ignored, leaving their sup- That’s what politics is.” porters further alienated. Everywhere the “dem- been largely Rae draws the phrase “little platoons” from ocratic deficit” is identified and decried, yet the denuded of Burke, who meant all the institutions of civil traditional instruments for making government society that mediate between the individual and accountable to the people—political parties— their old the state. Parties were, for the political system, tend to be seen as part of the problem rather the pre-eminent mediating institutions. than part of the solution. legitimacy, Whether they ever quite fulfilled the role Rae has Neither corporatism nor populism, neither lovingly ascribed to them is open to question. technocracy from above nor electronic direct incapacitated in Ambition, patronage and venality were often democracy from below, have actually succeeded enough in as much evidence as “loyalty … com- so far in replacing parties. In the 21st century, filling their mon affection and common conviction” as parties remain as crucial to the workings of lib- motives for partisanship. Yet Rae’s emphasis on eral democratic politics as they have always traditional roles, how parties “advocated, persuaded, compro- been. A democratic political system without par- and held up to mised, and negotiated” surely gets the hang of ties is like an automobile without a transmission: what these peculiar institutions were supposed it might look good, but it won’t take you any- public ridicule to do. States must arrive at authoritative resolu- where. But this does not mean that under their tions of conflicts in the society. Parties were old labels, “parties” are in continuity with their and scorn. there to articulate demands, focus debates, nego- past. Here is where virtual parties step in. Like tiate workable solutions and then build broad the body snatchers of the Hollywood horror- But no new support for the compromises thus arrived at. movie, they take over the old shells, but fill them This was referred to as the “brokerage model” of with something quite different. Virtual parties in and better parties, usually in recent years with disdain. opposition are not so much participants in Brokerage politics, it has been said repeatedly, ongoing debate and deliberation as marketing institutions have were mundane, uninspiring, conservative, often tools for selling their product—themselves. been invented corrupt and ineffective. Virtual parties in power do not preside over and At one time or another, no doubt, they were organize the parliamentary process, as such; to replace them. all of these things. Like all other established rather they are devices for establishing unmedi- institutions they have suffered over recent ated producer-consumer relations between the decades a decline in the trust and deference leader and the population, while bypassing or accorded them by the democratic citizenry, most end-running Parliament and press and any other spectacularly in the case of the state itself, but institutions that get in the way. Not much room followed by corporations, unions, churches and is left for the “little platoons of loyalty bound so on. The reasons for this decline are many and together by common affection and common complex, and still perhaps obscure to contempo- conviction.” rary observers too close in time and place to fully Structural reforms of the electoral process decipher the clues. But take away the capacity of and enhancing the role of Parliament are worthy parties to link and mediate between society and objectives in themselves, but unlikely to get far the state, take away their capacity to fulfill the under the present circumstances of Liberal self- functions accorded them in theory, and we have satisfaction. Yet even such reforms might do little a serious problem with our politics. Parties have to dislodge the virtual party, which has sunk been largely denuded of their old legitimacy, roots in economic and technological changes incapacitated in filling their traditional roles, that lie deeper than political institutions. Perhaps and held up to public ridicule and scorn. But no more radical changes in forms of representation new and better institutions have been invented are required to address a growing democratic to replace them. Interest groups act directly deficit. upon the legislative and administrative process- es, without the mediation of parties, and with Reg Whitaker is Distinguished Research Professor of the result that the more powerful get their way, Political Science at York University. His most recent while leaving the losers bitter, angry and para- book is The End of Privacy (New York: New Press, noiac about what is done behind closed doors 1999).

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