Political party

by Maurice Duverger
Political party, a group of persons organized to acquire and exercise political power. Political
parties originated in their modern form in Europe and the United States in the 19th century,
along with the electoral and parliamentary systems, whose development reflects the evolution of
parties. The term party has since come to be applied to all organized groups seeking political
power, whether by democratic elections or by revolution.
In earlier, prerevolutionary, aristocratic and monarchical regimes, the political process unfolded
within restricted circles in which cliques and factions, grouped around particular noblemen or
influential personalities, were opposed to one another. The establishment of parliamentary
regimes and the appearance of parties at first scarcely changed this situation. To cliques formed
around princes, dukes, counts, or marquesses there were added cliques formed around bankers,
merchants, industrialists, and businessmen. Regimes supported by nobles were succeeded by
regimes supported by other elites. These narrowly based parties were later transformed to a
greater or lesser extent, for in the 19th century in Europe and America there emerged parties
depending on mass support.
The 20th century saw the spread of political parties throughout the entire world. In less-
developed countries, large modern political parties have sometimes been based on traditional
relationships, such as ethnic, tribal, or religious affiliations. Moreover, many political parties in
less-developed countries are partly political, partly military.
Certain socialist and communist parties in Europe earlier experienced the same tendencies.
These last-mentioned European parties demonstrated an equal aptitude for functioning within
multiparty democracies and as the sole political party in a dictatorship. Developing originally
within the framework of liberal democracy in the 19th century, political parties have been used
since the 20th century by dictatorships for entirely undemocratic purposes.

Types of political party

A fundamental distinction can be made between cadre parties and mass-based parties. The two
forms coexist in many countries, particularly in western Europe, where communist and socialist
parties have emerged alongside the older conservative and liberal parties. Many parties do not
fall exactly into either category but combine some characteristics of both.
Cadre parties
Cadre parties—i.e., parties dominated by politically elite groups of activists—developed in
Europe and America during the 19th century. Except in some of the states of the United States,
France from 1848, and the German Empire from 1871, the suffrage was largely restricted to
taxpayers and property owners, and, even when the right to vote was given to larger numbers of
people, political influence was essentially limited to a very small segment of the population. The
mass of people were limited to the role of spectators rather than that of active participants.
The cadre parties of the 19th century reflected a fundamental conflict between two classes:
the aristocracy on the one hand and the bourgeoisie on the other. The former, composed of
landowners, depended upon rural estates on which a generally unlettered peasantry was held
back by a traditionalist clergy. The bourgeoisie, made up of industrialists, merchants, tradesmen,
bankers, financiers, and professional people, depended upon the lower classes of clerks and
industrial workers in the cities. Both aristocracy and bourgeoisie evolved their own ideology.
Bourgeois liberal ideology developed first, originating at the time of the English revolution of
the 17th century in the writings of John Locke, an English philosopher. It was then developed by
French philosophers of the 18th century. In its clamouring for formal legal equality and
acceptance of the inequities of circumstance, liberal ideology reflected the interests of the
bourgeoisie, who wished to destroy the privileges of the aristocracy and eliminate the lingering
economic restraints of feudalism and mercantilism. But, insofar as it set forth an egalitarian ideal
and a demand for liberty, bourgeois classical liberalism expressed aspirations common to all
people. Conservative ideology, on the other hand, never succeeded in defining themes that would
prove as attractive, for it appeared to be more closely allied to the interests of the aristocracy. For
a considerable period, however, conservative sentiment did maintain a considerable impact
among the people, since it was presented as the expression of the will of God. In Roman
Catholic countries, in which religion was based upon a hierarchically structured
and authoritarian clergy, the conservative parties were often the clerical parties, as in France,
Italy, and Belgium.
Mass-based parties
Cadre parties normally organize a relatively small number of party adherents. Mass-based
parties, on the other hand, unite hundreds of thousands of followers, sometimes millions. But the
number of members is not the only criterion of a mass-based party. The essential factor is that
such a party attempts to base itself on an appeal to the masses. It attempts to organize not only
those who are influential or well known or those who represent special interest groups but rather
any citizen who is willing to join the party. If such a party succeeds in gathering only a few
adherents, then it is mass-based only in potential. It remains, nevertheless, different from the
cadre-type parties.
At the end of the 19th century the socialist parties of continental Europe organized themselves on
a mass basis in order to educate and organize the growing population of labourers and wage
earners—who were becoming more important politically because of extensions of the suffrage—
and to gather the money necessary for propaganda by mobilizing in a regular fashion the
resources of those who, although poor, were numerous. Membership campaigns were conducted,
and each member paid party dues. If its members became sufficiently numerous, the party
emerged as a powerful organization, managing large funds and diffusing its ideas among an
important segment of the population. Such was the case with the German Social Democratic
Party, which by 1913 had more than one million members.
Such organizations were necessarily rigidly structured. The party required an exact registration
of membership, treasurers to collect dues, secretaries to call and lead local meetings, and a
hierarchical framework for the coordination of the thousands of local sections. A tradition
of collective action and group discipline, more developed among workers as a result of their
participation in strikes and other union activity, favoured the development and centralization of
party organization.
The first communist parties were splinter groups of existing socialist parties and at first adopted
the organization of these parties. After 1924, as a result of a decision of the Comintern (the Third
International, or federation of working-class parties), all communist parties were transformed
along the lines of the Soviet model, becoming mass parties based on the membership of the
largest possible number of citizens, although membership was limited to those who embraced
and espoused the ideology of Marxism-Leninism.
The communist parties developed a new structural organization: whereas the local committees of
cadre and socialist parties focused their organizing efforts and drew their support from a
particular geographical area, communist groups formed their cells in the places of work. The
workplace cell was the first original element in communist party organization. It grouped
together all party members who depended upon the same firm, workshop, or store or the same
professional institution (school or university, for example). Party members thus tended to be
tightly organized, their solidarity, resulting from a common occupation, being stronger than that
based upon residence.
The 1920s and ’30s saw the emergence of fascist parties that attempted, as did the communist
and socialist parties, to organize the maximum number of members but that did not claim to
represent the great masses of people. Their teaching was authoritarian and elitist. They thought
that societies should be directed by the most talented and capable people—by an elite. The party
leadership, grouped under the absolute authority of a supreme head constituted such an elite.
Party structure had as its goal the assurance of obedience to the elite.
This structure resembled that of armies, which are also organized in such a way as to ensure, by
means of rigorous discipline, the obedience of a large number of individuals to an elite
leadership. The party structure, therefore, made use of a military-type organization, consisting of
a pyramid made up of units that at the base were very tiny but that, when joined with other units,
formed groups that got larger and larger. Uniforms, ranks, orders, salutes, marches, and
unquestioning obedience were all aspects of fascist parties. This similarity rests upon another
factor—namely, that fascist doctrine taught that power must be seized by organized minorities
making use of force. The party thus made use of a militia intended to assure victory in the
struggle for control over the unorganized masses.