Left Party Organization and Internal Democracy

Left party organization and internal democracy Luke March University of Edinburgh Email Address: [email protected] Posting Address: Politics and IR, Chrystal Macmillan Building, George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LD Draft version 1.0 – this is work in progress: please do not cite without author’s permission Introduction There is no pure, ideal-type form of democracy evident in contemporary politics: ‘Really existing democracy’ is a trade-off between concepts of ‘representation’ and ‘effectiveness’: full representation and deliberation being rarely entirely compatible with the exigencies of governing large and complex states or organisations. Similarly, there is no ideal-typical form of democracy for political parties. Whereas it is widely accepted that democracy can’t function without political parties, the importance of their internal democracy is debateable - some like Schattschneider and Sartori argue that national-level democracy is not related to the level of democracy of its component parts (democracy operates between parties rather than within them). Moreover, there are many practical arguments against intra-party democracy: for example, that it decreases the effectiveness of parties as catch-all, vote- getting machines, or that, on a broader scale, it increases parties’ entrenched loyalty towards an electoral niche, rather than the voter as a whole. However, in recent years arguments for intra-party democracy have only become more compelling, given that there is wide-spread concern about the ‘democratic deficit’ in many contemporary representative democracies. It is arguably more persuasive to argue for intra-party democracy both on a practical basis ( parties using internally democratic procedures may select more capable and appealing leaders, to have more responsive policies, and, as a result, to enjoy greater electoral success) and a normative one (parties that ‘practice what they preach’ by using internally democratic procedures strengthen democratic culture generally (Scarrow 2005). 1 For the left, this concern with intra-party democracy is obviously more important than for other party families: the legacy of ‘totalitarian’ state socialism has indelibly linked socialism with Stalinism and anti-democracy amongst significant portions of the European electorate. Moreover, a significant concern of left parties and followers themselves has been (since the 1960s and again since the late 1980s) to find an optimal form of intra-party democracy that can overcome this negative legacy while combining both representation and effectiveness. This paper will discuss the advantages and risks of intra-party democracy for left parties, while examining some of the specific problems they face in implementing more internally inclusive decision-making procedures . It then looks at a number of case studies of contemporary left parties that implement different models of intra-party democracy: three contemporary communist parties which cleave to (different) forms of traditional Soviet-style internal practices; and parties that have to a varying degree implemented forms of post-Leninist internal democracy as a reaction to the Soviet model. My aim is not to advocate a preferred form of intra-party democracy. Indeed, party organisation is heavily context and history-specific; moreover informal factors often matter more than formal organisation: therefore what may work with one party may be entirely dysfunctional in another context. Therefore there is no single, discrete set of ‘best practices’ for intra-party governance (Scarrow 2005). The purpose of this paper is to look at (some of) the options, and their respective benefits and problems as a basis for further discussion. How important is internal democracy? The importance parties might place on democracy varies much according to the type of party. Broadly, apart from classification by ideological traditions (the ‘party family’ approach), parties can be best classified according to their function and goal. Their (party system) ‘function’ describes their overall role as links between the state, their members, and ! ¶µ¨¨•≤ ¢©¢¨©Øß≤°∞®π £°Æ ¢• ∞≤Ø∂©§•§ ØÆ ≤•±µ•≥¥ wider electorate. According to this approach: the ‘mass’ party of the early 20 th century aimed to directly subordinate the interests of state to those of their core membership; the ‘catch all’ party of the mid-20 th century aimed to use the preferences of a broader electorate to influence the state, while the ‘cartel parties’ of the later 20 th century acted more as arbiters between state and society (and largely in the interests of the former) (Katz and Mair 1995). Each model entails a distinct model of intra party democracy: the mass party’s aim is to encapsulate and represent the wishes of its core membership: therefore the preference is for intra-party party participation; for the catch-all party, representing the broader electorate is of greater importance than representing member’s issues: intra-party democracy is important only to the degree it does not conflict with those of maximising the electorate. For the cartel party, gaining access to state resources takes precedence to the interests either of the electorate or membership: intra-party democracy is likely to be of less interest than either the two preceding models, and interesting to the party leadership only to the degree it can provide an organisational or financial resource. Moreover, different parties contain different strategic goals that have been characterised as orientations towards ‘policy, office, or votes’ (Kaare Strøm 1990; Müller and Strøm 1999). For many parties, winning elections (‘votes’) is sometimes the least important goal. A ‘policy’ goal involves implementing internal ideological or identity aims on the public policy agenda in the most direct and consistent way; an ‘office-seeking’ goal implies the aim of attaining and maximizing political power (e.g. by gaining governmental portfolios or coalition bargaining potential). Harmel and Janda (1994) add ‘implementing party democracy’ as a primary goal for 'new politics' parties. These goals can be linked to the party functions above: a ‘mass party’ is a policy-seeking or democracy-seeking party aiming to articulate policies for its core membership; a catch-all party is a ‘vote-seeking’ party trying to maximise its electorate, while a cartel party is an ‘office-seeking party’ aiming for power goals. Nevertheless, there will be proponents of each different goal within most parties, although a united party will have an over-riding ‘primary goal’ (Harmel and Janda 1994). In general, the question of whether and to what extent parties need to be internally democratic in order to promote democracy within wider society is disputed (Scarrow 1995). We can relate some of the different positions on this question to the party goals already outlined. Those parties supporting a more office-or vote-seeking goal will tend to see intra- party democracy as more of a means to an end. They are focused on outcomes, and consider that parties’ organizational structures should help parties choose policies and personnel that reflect the preferences of their broader electorates or potential office partners. What’s more, they may be suspicious of granting too much internal democracy, since too much democratization could overly dilute the power of their inner leadership and make it difficult for that party to keep its promises to the electorate or coalition partners. Behind such views lies a well-articulated suspicion (the Law of Curvilinear Disparity –see May (1973)) that party activists tend to hold more extreme political views than the rest of a party’s supporters – and so maximizing the influence of members will drive away voters. Whether there is indeed such a trade-off between ‘extreme’ members and ‘moderate’ voters is disputed . Parties with more policy-seeking or democracy-seeking goals tend to regard intra- party democracy as a valid process in itself . For a start, they may regard members’ interests as prior or at least equivalent to, those of voters. Second, parties they may aim to act as an ‘incubators that nurture citizens’ political competence’, fostering their decision-making structures and processes in order to maximize citizen participation (Scarrow 1995). Third, those parties (like left parties) which aim at a radical transformation of society’s political practices, may aim to use their internal procedures explicitly as a test-bed for their future external aims. As did the Greens in the 1980s, the first step in changing wider society may be to change themselves. Left parties and the Soviet ‘democratic’ legacy Where do left parties fit more precisely into such schema? Traditionally, in the Soviet period, most might be seen as both ‘mass parties’ (formally speaking anyway), with an aspiration towards controlling the state in the interests of a proletarian constituency, and policy-seeking parties: After all they often disparaged seeking office or electoral success in ‘bourgeois’ society. ‘Better fewer but better’ said Lenin, i.e. small ideologically pure parties were preferable to larger revisionist ones (cf. McInnes 1975: 5) In the post-communist era, the situation is somewhat more muddled. While most left parties are still ‘policy-seeking’ in as much as they have a distinct (socialist) policies that they wish to put into practice, a large number are more open than ever to ‘office-seeking’ (as part of coalitions) (Bale and Dunphy 2007). Some larger parties might even be seen as ‘vote seeking’ in as much as they

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