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POLS 494 Comparative Political Parties - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Defining what parties should be, what's a normal party?
  - - - Defining political parties is not a simple task. The task is difficult and contentious, and remains unresolved.
      - Key reason for this: Disagreement over empirical and normative aspects (the “what is” vs “what ought to be”), over what parties should be and should do.
    - - Ideological /principled
        
        Burke: Body of people united upon particular principle.
        
        Reagan: Banding for certain beliefs about how government should be.
      - Office-seeking
        
        Epstein: Any group seeking to elect government officeholders under a label.
        
        Schlesinger: group organized to gain control of government in the name of the group.
        
        Aldrich: institutionalized coalitions of elites to capture and use political influence.
      - Mediating /aggregate
        
        Downs: Coalition seeking to control the governing apparatus by legal means.
        
        V.O. Key: "group" of peculiar sort. More or less professional workers. Groups within government. Entity (party-in-the-electorate, professional political group, party-in-legislature...). Wtf is bro saying stfu
      - Huckshorn: Autonomous group of citizens having the purpose of making nominations and contesting elections in hope of gaining control over governmental power through the capture of public offices.
    - - Party as Organization: Formal machinery (organization) of party, local to state-level commitees.
      - Party as the mass of supporters: Bundle of electoral loyalties. Identification can be strong (back candidates every time) or weak and casual.
      - Party as a body of notables: The collectivity of notables who accept the party label. Policy is then the prevailing policy tendencies of the collectivity.
      - **Some scholars argue that nowadays the tripod is more complex and should include affiliated interest groups, donors, media, consultants, activists, etc
  - - - Rational-efficient party
        
        Politics is understood primarily as winning electoral competitions through vote maximization.
        
        Ran by professional political entrepreneurs.
      - Responsible party
        
        Offers coherent program and has internal cohesion sufficient to implement it
        
        Within this system, voters can hold the governing party accountable by choosing between it and the coherent alternative of the opposition.
    - - Parties vs interest groups: The distinction between them is becoming increasingly blurry.
      - Parties vs social movements: Distinction is blurry when social movements evolve into political parties.
      - Permanent ruling parties vs fake parties: In non-democratic regimes, parties never face elections and other parties that serve as window dressing.
  - - - Sociological: parties as manifestations of social divisions and reads internal conflict as conflict between social interests.
      - Teleological: attributes goals a priori and deduces behavior from them; but goals cannot be the starting point--they are what has to be explained
    - - Rational model vs natural systems model (from using party to reach goals to focusing on party's survival)
      - Collective versus selective incentives (people participate because of the "social movement" to because of professional shi like power/status)
      - Domination versus adaptation of the environment (the strategy is to change surroundings to adapting to adjusting to them)
      - Freedom of action versus organizational constraints (freedom to restricted movement of leaders)
      - **This occurs in three phase model: genesis (first thing), institutionalization (transition), maturity (second thing).
  - - - Cyber party: online technologies substitute for traditional membership as the link to voters.
      - Connective party: technology replaces core bureaucratic functions, including affiliation management, policy generation and candidate selection.
- - - - Narrow usage: the party's administrative apparatus (i.e., organizational flowchart)
      - Broad usage: the party's organizational structure and governance practices (including both formal and informal aspects)
    - - Focus on formal documents (i.e., statutes) and the procedures in them. The documents parties produce provide insights into operation, deciding on policy, how democratic they are, etc.
      - Focus on observed practices: how parties operate in practice.
  - - - The masses: position of subordination and inferiority vs the leader; ignorance; apathy; inability to mobilize; no resources; can be manipulated; need for leadership; veneration of strong leaders and gratitude to them
      - The leaders: access to institutional memory; access to media; ability to apply rewards and sanctions.
      - Other factors
        
        Psychological metamorphosis: Apathy + need for guidance of the masses; leaders' greed for power = accelerating the process.
        
        Bonapartism: Le parti c'est moi: demanding that massess obey blindly and refrain from criticism.
  - - - Rightist parties followed suit in seeking to expand their membership bases, as 20th century demands mass organizations
        
        After WWII, both parties lose members because a) technological change (radio and TV makes reaching voters easy), b) institutional change (state funding makes large memberships unnecessary), c) social change (weakening of social divisions led parties to compete for median voter instead of betting on core–shi backfires, anti-establishment wins).
        
        Last 15-20 years: shift to social media leads to "political hobbyism": political activity is confined to commenting in online spaces.
  - - - Large memberships look good, suggest strength
      - Members tend to be loyal voters
      - Can bring in new voters through word of mouth
      - Can provide funds through dues or donations
      - Provide volunteer labor
      - Can be source of fresh ideas
      - Provide a pool of talent for potential future leaders
    - - Large members with ability to influence candidate selection and policy direction could mean less flexibility for leaders, who may want to e.g. trade-off policies to get into public office.
      - Tending to mass membership takes a lot of organizational and material resources.
  - - - Two possible paths after this
        
        Virtuous circle: Leaders appeal to marginal voters, demobilize ideologues and core, party enters government and pushes through some of its policies, and then gains more electoral support
        
        Vicious circle: Pragmatic leaders fail to deliver, radicalizes constituency ("betrayal!") party loses electoral competitiveness and support election after election, gets more radicalized.
- - - - Increasing cognitive sophistication of voters (less inheritance more conscious choice
      - Intergenerational value change
      - Erosion of group-based politics
    - - Changes in the media system (tech, audiences, outlets)
      - Greater role of special interests (donors, intense policy demanders)
      - Greater role of political professionals (consultants, pollsters)
    - - New campaign technologies (ads, polling, microtargeting)
      - New methods of candidate selection (esp. primaries)
  - - - Countries implemented public financing of parties and election campaigns, and others opened it up to non-party actors (PACs)
      - Many countries implemented reforms to curb patronage and professionalize their public sector. Patronage is corrupt but it gave parties a mechanism to hold people within their fold.
      - Countries have implanted primary elections, taking control of the candidate nomination process away from party.
    - - In some countries, (US) these changes have been driven by pressure to democratize parties internally.
      - In countries post-dictatorship, re-democratization was accompanied by passage of laws regulating