Begin Reading: H and B 3,4,5

Political Parties

Party Organization

(From a Comparative Perspective)

In order to explore party organization in America, let's first do a little comparing!

Remember that many definitions of political party suggest that there are three specific aspects of the party to explore:

1) the party-in-the-electorate;
2) the party organization; and
3) the party-in-government

Both of the major political parties of the United States are organized along similar lines.

Why isn't this surprising?

Political parties in other systems may be organized differently. 

Here is a simple chart that we need to explore:

Comparative Party Typology

	Cadre	Mass-based	Fringe
Incentive	material/ financial	solidary/ social	psychic/ ideological
Organizational Style	caucus	branch	cell or militia
Societal Cleavages	one (socio-economic)	non-unimodal	many
Number of Parties	2	multiple	varies
Electoral System	first-past-the-post	proportional	proportional

Cadre and Mass-based parties

The Cadre Party

The cadre party is characterized by a small number of individuals with real access to the resources necessary to direct the party's efforts.  Historically, cadre parties arise in systems where the franchise is limited (usually to those with property). The organizational unit, the caucus, is generally comprised of a small number of political notables.  The party is focused primarily only on electoral success and is organized at every level in which elections are held (stratarchy).. Traditionally there has been little coordination among the levels although that is changing. Duverger argued that party organizations of this type are archaic in that they are more appropriate to political systems with limited suffrage or in middle-class societies. As electorates have expanded, cadre parties have maintained their organizational structure but have often become more "nationalized" (especially as money, management and technology have changed political campaigning).

The Mass-Based Party

The mass-based party arose in Europe to mobilize the working class to political activism after the franchise was expanded.  The mass-based party emphasizes the important role of education its members on political issues of interest to them and plays a propagandizing role to encourage people to vote in their self-interest.  Social incentives play a very important role in expanding membership. The mass-based party thus seeks to play an important role in the political and social life of its members. While the cadre party emphasizes a relatively small number of people possessing the resources to direct party efforts, the mass-based party emphasizes a larger number of people with smaller amounts of individual resources (hence the need for mass membership!).  The major organizational unit of the mass-based party is the branch, a hierarchical organizational form which emphasizes more centralized patterns of authority.

The Fringe Party

Also known as the devotee party, fringe parties are usually small groups of people (who might eventually like to become large parties). They are tightly organized along either cell or militia lines. The cell (first developed by Lenin to organize the Russian Revolution) is a limited and tightly organized membership (often organized in the workplace), often originally banned by the system.  Its outlawed origins encouraged it to use conspiratorial action, agitation, progandization and clandestine activities as its major forms of operation. The militia style (normally associated with right-wing parties) emphasizes a highly centralized, military-style organization that sees marches and intimidation as viable political tactics. It tends to possess an ideology, or more precisely, a world view, that seeks to control all aspects of life (personal, political. economic and social).

	Cadre	Mass-based	Fringe
activity focus	elections	all aspects of political and social life	all aspects of life
scope of membership	small	very large	small to very large
organizational development	weak	strong	very strong
degree of centralized discipline	weak	strong	very strong

Question to Consider

What type of party organization would your Ruritanian political party have?

Why?

Read:  Schlessinger for Friday---Quiz