Cartel Parties and Cartel Party Systems

From the SelectedWorks of riccardo pelizzo January 2008 Cartel parties and cartel party systems Contact Start Your Own Notify Me Author SelectedWorks of New Work Available at: http://works.bepress.com/riccardo_pelizzo/27 Cartel Parties and Cartel Party System By Riccardo Pelizzo A dissertation submitted to the johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland November 2003 Table of Content Chapter 1. Introduction, p. 3 Chapter 2. A Subjective Approach to the Study of the Cartel of Parties, p. 26 Chapter 3. The Vanishing Party Member, p. 40 Chapter 4. The Voters and the Cartel, p. 76 Chapter 5. Political parties and Macroeconomic Policy, p. 107 Chapter 6. The Cartel Party and the Rise of the New Extreme Right, p. 149. Chapter 7. Conclusions, p. 170 2 Chapter 1. Introduction Nihil est opertum quod non reveletur, & occultum quod non sciatur1. All human knowledge is subjective2. The objective phenomenon is never identical to the subjective phenomenon. With regard to social facts, it is often the latter that we know, and the other that we have to infer3. Introduction This manuscript represents an attempt to apply a new political economy approach to the study of party politics. Katz and Mair suggested that the transformation of Western European party systems from the early 1970s onward was associated with the emergence of a new model of party organization, that Katz and Mair called the cartel party. This new party model, according to Katz and Mair, represents an organizational novelty for several reasons. It is less an agent of society, has interests on its own, depends financially on state subventions and attempts to preserve the state in which it is flourishing by distorting political competition. Through such distortion, the cartel of parties arguably resembles 1 Matthew, X. 2 My translation of a statement of Pareto who argued that “ogni conoscenza umana é soggettiva”, see Vilfredo Pareto, “Le Azioni non logiche”, in Giovanni Busino (ed.), Vilfredo Pareto, Scritti Sociologici Minori, Torino, UTET, 1980 (second edition), pp. 344-408. The quote is taken from p. 345. 3 My translation of a statement of Pareto who wrote that “il fenomeno oggettivo non é mai identico al fenomeno soggettivo. Nei fatti sociali, é sovente quest’ultimo che conosciamo, ed é all’altro che dobbiamo risalire”, see Vilfredo Pareto in “Programma e Sunto di un Corso di Sociologia”, in Giovanni Busino (ed.), op. cit., pp. 292-316. The quote is taken from p. 301. 3 the behavior of oligopolistic firms. Building on this body of scholarship, I investigate whether and to what extent patterns of inter-party competition mimic the functioning of oligopolistic markets. Specifically I investigate whether parties’ political offers to the electorate fail to satisfy the electorate’s political demands. But how do we know whether voters’ demands are satisfied by parties’ offers or not? How do we know whether political competition is distorted or not? As I will argue in greater detail in Chapters 2 and 4, the cartel party literature has formulated two basic answers to these questions. According to what I call the ‘systemic’ conception of the cartel, the cartelization of parties and party systems is associated with an observable phenomenon, that is the increasing similarity of party programs or the narrowing of viable policies. According to what I call the ‘systemic-subjective’ conception of the cartel, the existence of the cartel is subjective and not objective. This means that the cartel exists in voters’ perceptions, which are, in turn, generated by a systemic change, namely system parties’ centripetal convergence. Building on the previous cartel party literature, this manuscript presents a new, ‘subjective’ conception of the cartel. My approach is consistent with Kitschelt’s ‘systemic-subjective’ approach in that we both recognize that the existence of the cartel is subjective, or, to put it differently, that the cartel exists only in the voters’ minds. My ‘subjective’ approach differs from Kitschelt’s with regard to what generates the perception of the cartel. For, Kitschelt the perception of cartelization is generated by an objective phenomenon -- the centripetal convergence of the Social Democratic and Moderately Conservative parties. For me, the voters’ perception of cartel party system, reflects instead the gap between voters’ political demands and their perceptions of the parties’ political offers to the electorate. I argue that 4 the perception of parties’ oligopolistic behavior does not have to reflect parties’ objectively oligopolistic practices, but reflects instead the perception that Western European party systems’ political offers to the electorate is not adequate to satisfy the electorate’s political demands. My ‘subjective’ approach to the study of cartel parties and cartel party systems will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter. The purpose of the present chapter is to introduce the reader to problems discussed at some greater length in the rest of the manuscript. In the first section, I discuss the problems that plague both macro-level and micro-level analysis of political change. Building on this discussion, in the second section I argue that, not surprisingly, the literature of political science has experienced some serious difficulties in understanding parties and party system change in the past three decades. In doing so, I identify two major approaches to parties and party system change. The first is the crisis approach which conceives any departure from the mass party politics as a symptom of parties’ untreatable crisis. The second approach to party change conceptualizes party transformations as the sign of parties’ adaptation to an ever changing environment. I further argue that the cartel party represents one of the most interesting arguments elaborated within the adaptive framework. In the third, and final, section of this introduction, I present the structure of the manuscript. The Mystery of Change Change is pervasive. Everything changes, everywhere and all the time. Given the ubiquitous presence of change, it should not be terribly surprising that social scientists 5 have attempted and attempt to understand and/or explain change, its determinants and its consequences. Yet, in spite of all the attention that has been paid to change and its correlates, change remains an intellectual problem. This seems to be the case for two different, but possibly related, reasons. The first reason is that in spite of the alleged ubiquity of change, it is not always easy to assess what change is and, hence, to recognize whether and to what extent change has occurred. For example, the party system literature has often identified in recent higher levels of volatility one of the most significant transformations in the Western European party systems4. Yet, to the contrary Bartolini and Mair argue that party systems are quite resilient against any pressure to change5. Bartolini and Mair, in their work, show that the increase in total volatility reflects an increase in within bloc volatility rather than an increase in between bloc volatility. As the same cleavage lines are still salient and divisive, the cleavage structure has not changed, and in the absence of such a transformation it is not appropriate to talk of a party system change. To say whether changes in the levels of within bloc volatility provide sufficient evidence of party system change or not is beyond the scope of the present chapter, yet this debate is fairly instructive for us for two different reasons. The first is that it provides a good example of diverging assessments of change. The second is that it also provides an explanation for these divergences. As Knill and 4 That European party systems have changed in the past three decades has been widely acknowledged in the scholarly literature. On party system change in Western Europe see at least, Russell J. Dalton, Citizen Politics. Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies, Chatam, Chatam House Publishers, 1988 (1996); Peter Mair, “The Problem of Party System Change”, Journal of Theoretical Politics, vol. 1, 1989, pp. 251-276; Peter Mair, “Continuity, Change, and the Vulnerability of Party”, West European Politics, vol. 12, 1989, pp. 169-186; Mogens N. Pedersen, “The Dynamics of European Party Systems: Changing Patterns of Electoral Volatility”, European Journal of Political Research, vol. 7, 1979, pp. 1-26. 5 Stefano Bartolini and Peter Mair, Identity, Competition and Electoral Availability: The Stabilisation of European Electorates, 1885-1985, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990. See also, Peter Mair, “Myths of electoral change and the survival of traditional parties”, European Journal of Political Research vol. 24, n. 2, 1993, pp. 121-133. 6 Lenschow noted “it is not the faulty collection or interpretation of empirical data but the application of different analytical perspectives that results in contrasting assessments of change”6. In other words, we see what we consider pertinent, and the decision about whether something is pertinent or not is dependent on our conceptual lenses7. The second reason why it is still so difficult to understand change is that it is not always clear which factors are responsible for, and hence explain, change. In this respect there is clear disagreement among theorists and theories as to the determinants of change. Structural conditions, culture, institutions, ideas and individual preferences

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