Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party by Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair

Is the Duverger/socialist mass party model the only model for parties?  The mass-party model is only one, temporally limited and contingent model, and that it is necessary to differentiate notions of adaptation and change from notions of decline or failure. A new model of party, the cartel party, in
which colluding parties become agents of the state and employ the  resources of the state (the party state) to ensure their own collective survival.



The mass-party model is tied to a conception of democracy and now dated, ideal of social structure, neither of which is characteristic of postindustrial societies.  There has been a tendency in recent years towards an ever closer symbiosis between parties and the state, and that this then sets the stage for the emergence of a new party type, which we identify as 'the cartel party'.


The mass-party model


Politics is primarily about the competition, conflict and cooperation of these groups, and political parties are the agencies through which these groups, and thus their members, participate in politics, make demands on the state, and ultimately attempt to capture control of the state by placing their own representatives in key offices. Each of these groups has an interest, which is articulated in the programme of 'its' party. This programme is not just a bundle of policies, however, but a coherent and logically connected whole.


Party unity and discipline are not only practically advantageous, but are also normatively legitimate. This legitimacy depends, in turn, on direct popular involvement in the formulation of the party programme and, from an  organizational perspective, this implies the need for an extensive membership
organization of branches or cells in order to provide avenues for mass input into the party's policy-making process, as well as for the supremacy of the extra-parliamentary party, particularly as embodied in the party congress.


Individual electoral choice is constrained by the encapsulation of the mass of the electorate into one of the subcultural groups that the parties represent, Differential rates of mobilization.

The socialist/mass-party model provides for prospective popular control over 

policy.

Parties provide the essential linkage between citizens and the state. 

Organizational expediency: Since electoral

competition is primarily about mobilization rather than conversion, the key 

requirement for a successful party is to increase the level of commitment of 

those who are already predisposed to offer it support - that is, the members 

of its 'natural' social constituency.

The catch-all party

In the fi rst place, the beginnings of an erosion of traditional 

social boundaries in the late 1950s and 1960s implied a weakening of 

formerly highly distinctive collective identities, making it less easy to identify 

separate sectors of the electorate and to assume shared long-term interests.

Second, the economic growth and the increased importance of the welfare state 

facilitated the elaboration of programmes that were no longer so necessarily 

divisive nor partisan.

Third, with the development of the mass media, party leaders 

began to enjoy a capacity to appeal to the electorate at large, an electorate 

made up of voters who were learning to behave more like consumers than 

active participants. 

Elections were now seen to revolve around the choice of leaders rather than the choice of policies or programmes, while the formation of those policies or programmes became the prerogative of the party leadership rather than of the party membership.

Popular control and accountability were no longer to be ensured prospectively, on the basis of clearly defined alternatives, but rather retrospectively, on the basis of experience and record.

Electoral behaviour based on choice.


The mobilization: voters were believed to have become free floating and uncommitted, available
to, and also susceptible to, any and all of the competing parties.

Party continued to be evaluated primarily in terms of the linkage between party and civil society, and it was precisely this linkage that was being undermined.


Relation between the classic mass-party system and catch-all party systemThe classic mass party is a party of civil society, emanating from sectors of the electorate, with the intention of breaking into the state and modifying public policy in the long-term interests of the

constituency to which it is accountable. The catch-all party, while not emerging as a party of civil society, but as one that stands between civil society and the state, also seeks to influence the state from outside, seeking temporary custody of public policy in order to satisfy the short-term demands
of its pragmatic consumers.

Despite their obviously contrasting relations with civil society, both parties lie outside the state, which remains, in principle, a neutral, party-free arena.


Stages of party development

1. Liberal régime censitaire of the late 19th and early 20th century.
   Single national interest
   Groups of men in pursuit of the public interest, parties were committees of those people who jointly constituted the state and the civil society
   Resources required to election were find in the local level
   Caucus type
2. Mass party 1880-1960
   Industrialization and urbanization, more people able to meet the suffrage requirements
   Working class organise and take action in the political and industrial spheres
   Organized membership, formal structures and meetings
   Newly elements of civil society trying to gain a voice in politics and control over the ruling structures of the state
   New party rely in quantity of supporters, collective action and organized numbers
   Strenght lay in formal organization. Party cohesion and discipline
   The political party was the forum where the political interest of the social group was represented
   Universal suffrage
   Elections become choice of delegates, representative government
3. Catch-all model 1945-
   Leaders of the traditional parties tend to establish organizations that look like mass parties in form but which in practique continue to emphasize the role of the mass organization as supporters of the parliamentary party. The can't accept the idea that parties exist to represent well-defined segments of society.
   Welfare state and educational services  (Amelioration of social conditions)
   Party accepts member wherever it finds them, recruits members on the basis of policy agreement (They want continue winning)
   Offensive strategy. Seeks a wider audience and more inmediate electoral sucess
   Importance of mass comunication
   Parties are less the agents of civil society, they are brokers between civil society and the state with the party in the government
   Pluralist view
   Each party open to every interest
   Elections are properly choices between teams of leaders
   Party oligarchy
   Parties got interests distinct from those of their clients
   Appeal the electorate and ability to manipulate the state (own interests)
   Parties become part of the state apparatus itself
   
   
   
   (Decline in the levels of participation and involvement in party activity, citizens prefer invest their efforts elsewhere in groups where they can play a more active role)
   
   (Parties look elsewhere for their resources. They pursue the provision and regulation of state subventions to political parties)
   
   (Growth of state subvention to parties and control of media supposed barriers to the growth of new parties)
   
   (The State is invaded by the parties. Parties use state resources to help ensure their own survival and their capacity to resist challenges, they become semi-state agencies)
   
   (A party exclude from government will also be exclude from access to resources. But all parties can survive together, the conditions become ideal for the formation of a cartel in which all the parties share in resources and in which all survive)
4. Cartel Party 1970-
   All substantial parties are regardes as governing parties, all have access to office
   Interpenetration of party and state
   Pattern of inter-party collusion
   Collusion and cooperation between ostensible competitors
   (Not  likely in UK, but yes in countries such as Finland, Norway and Sweden)
   Politics as profession
   Capital intensive
   Relatively diffused
   Mutual autonomy between parties
   Efectiveness in policy making
   Goals of politics become more self-referential
   Electoral competition, ''narrow the support market''
   Competition is contain and manage
   Campaigns are now almost exclusively capital-intensive proffesional and centralized
   Depends on the subventions and other benefits
   Membership position less privileged, allowing people to affiliate directly with the central party, no need for local organizations
   Leadership can legitimize its position inside and outside the party. Local office holders will be discouraged from intervening in national affairs by the knowledge that the national leadership can appeal directly to the individual memebers. Anyway each side is encourage to allow the other a free hand.
   The results is stratarchy
   
   
   Democracy and the Cartel Party

Ability of voters to choose from a fixed menu of political parties.
Parties are group of leaders who compete for the opportunity to occupy government offices and to take responsibility at the next election for government performance, they are paternships of professionals. They  are afraid of being thrown out of office by the voters. Full time career.
Politicians regard their opponents as fellow professionals. Stability becomes more important than tiumph.
Voters concerns with results.
Rulers control the rule.
Party programmes become similars, and campaigns are oriented towards agreed goals.
The degree to which voters can punish parties is reduced.
Participation is based on the electoral process, others channels for political activitiy are made less legitimate.

Democracy becomes a means of achieving social stability rather than social change, and elections become 'dignified' parts of the constitution.
Democracy ceases to be seen as a process by which limitations or controls are imposed on the state by civil society, becoming instead a service provided by the state for civil society.

Feedback is neccesary if rulers are to provide government that is broadly acceptable and contested elections which signal public pleasure with policy and outcomes provide that feedback.
Parties in state try to guarantee their own existence.
Lower costs of electoral defeat.
State provides this service: elections, political parties. Democracy is no longer a process by which limitations or controls are imposed on the state by civil society.
Toning down of competition.  Alternation on the office. 

Challenges to the Cartel Party

Neocoporatism: granting of a privileged and secure position to certain groups in exchange for good behaviour. Groups protecting particular interests.

Try to exclude challenges from outside the cartel can be counter-productive.
Protest taps, extreme parties.
Break the mould of established politics. Seeking support among the new middle class.

Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party
Richard S.Katz and Peter Mair
Party Politics 1995 1:5