Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T09:36:31.946Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Erosion of the Function of Political Parties in the Post-Liberal State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Extract

Jimmy Carter's farewell address deplored the pernicious influence of “single-interest” groups in America. These are said to harm the two-party system, which is already in trouble in any case. Such groups are not interest groups in the classical liberal sense, but are more like unusually narrow mass movements.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Lijphart, Arend, The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands, 2nd ed. (University of California Press, 1975), p. 200.Google Scholar

2 Tsurutani, Taketsugu, Political Change in Japan: Response to Post-Industrial Challenge (New York, 1977), pp. 198–94.Google Scholar

3 Berger, Suzanne, The French Political System (New York, 1974), p. 120.Google Scholar

4 Lane, Robert E., “The Decline of Politics and Ideology in a Knowledgeable Society,” American Sociological Review, 31 (10 1966), 636662.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 LaPalombara, Joseph, “Decline of Ideology: A Dissent and an Interpretation,” American Political Science Review, 40 (03 1966), 516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Bell, Daniel, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting (New York, 1973), p. 79.Google Scholar

7 Ellul, Jacques, The Technological Society (New York, 1967), p. 51Google Scholar. See also Ellul's, later synthesis, The Technological System (New York, 1980).Google Scholar

8 Ellul, Technological Society p. 218.

9 Ellul, Jacques, Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (New York, 1965).Google Scholar

10 Elllul, Jacques, The Political Illusion (New York 1967).Google Scholar

11 Cf. Schurmann, Franz, The Logic of World Power (New York, 1974), p. 130.Google Scholar

12 Anton, Thomas J., Administered Politics: Elite Political Culture in Sweden (Boston, 1980), pp. 78, 164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Wolfe, Tom, Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (New York, 1970).Google Scholar

14 Heisler, Martin O., Kvavik, Robert B., “Patterns of European Politics: The ‘European Polity’ Model,” in Politics in Europe: Structure and Processes in Some Postindustrial Democracies, ed. Heisler, Martin O. (New York, 1974), pp. 2789, at pp. 36–42, 62–63, 65, 66.Google Scholar

15 Dahl, Robert, Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven, 1966), pp. 399400.Google Scholar

16 Inglehart, Ronald, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics (Princeton, 1977), p. 113.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., p. 4.

18 Bell, Coming of Post-Industrial Society, p. 114; Bell, Daniel, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; also Huntington, Samuel P., “Postindustrial Politics: How Benign Will It Be?Comparative Politics, 6 (01 1974), 163191, 188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Ellul, Jacques, Autopsy of Revolution (New York, 1971).Google Scholar

20 The seminal works are, of course, Bentley, Arthur F., The Process of Government (Boston, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Truman, David B., The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion (New York, 1951).Google Scholar

21 For example, Skilling, H. Gordon, ed., Interest Groups in Soviet Politics (Princeton, 1971).Google Scholar

22 Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York, 1957), p. 256.Google Scholar

23 Habermas, Jurgen, Legitimation Crisis (Boston, 1975).Google Scholar

24 Sartori, Giovanni, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis, Vol. I (Cambridge, 1976).Google Scholar

25 Kirchheimer, Otto, “The Transformation of European Party Systems,” in Political Parties and Political Development, ed. LaPalombara, Joseph and Weiner, Myron (Princeton, 1966), pp. 177200Google Scholar; and “Germany: The Vanishing Opposition,” in Dahl, Political Oppositions, pp. 237–59.

26 Zuckerman, Alan and Lichbach, Mark Irving, “Stability and Change in European Electorates,” World Politics, XXIX, 4 (07, 1977), pp. 523551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Reich, Charles A., The Greening of America1 (New York, 1970).Google Scholar

28 Tufte, Edward, Political Control of the Economy (Princeton, 1978), pp. 104, 89.Google Scholar

29 Lijphart, Arend, “Typologies of Democratic Systems,” Comparative Political Studies, 1 (04 1968), 344CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See especially the table on p. 38.

30 Anton, Administered Politics, p. 78.

31 Childs, Marquis, Sweden: The Middle Way on Trial (New Haven, 1980), pp. 7072.Google Scholar

32 On Japanese factions, see Thayer, Nathaniel B., How the Conservatives Rule Japan (Princeton, 1968), chap. 2Google Scholar; and Scalapino, Robert A. and Masumi, Junnosuke, Parties and Politics in Contemporary Japan (University of California Press, 1967).Google Scholar

33 For electoral politics see Fukui, Huruhiro, Party in Power: The Japanese Liberal Democrats and Policy-Making (University of California Press, 1970), pp. 63, 100, 134, 169.Google Scholar

34 Scalapino and Masumi, Parties and Politics, p. 79.

35 Sartori, Parties and Party Systems, pp. 131–45; and the brilliant application of Sartori's theory in DiPalma, Giuseppi, Surviving Without Governing: The Italian Parties in Parliament (University of California Press, 1977).Google Scholar

36 Tarrow, Sidney, Between Center and Periphery: Grassroots Politicians in Italy and France (New Haven, 1977)Google Scholar, shows there is greater partisan influence over local level administration in Italy than in France.

37 Macridis, Roy C., French Politics in Transition: The Years After DeGaulle (Cambridge, 1975), p. 99Google Scholar. For a view that French parties are in fact important in the system, see Wilson, Frank L., “The Revitalization of French Parties,” Comparative Political Studies, 12 (04 1979), 82103CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The present argument concedes that parties continue on the whole to structure the vote, and they may even be vehicles for political disputation; but they have become relatively less important in translating opinion into policy, or in making policy generally.

38 Lijphart, Arend, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven, 1977), p. 1.Google Scholar

39 Steiner, Jürg, “The Principle of Majority and Proportionality,” British Journal of Political Science, 1 (01 1971), 6370; 68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies, p. 16.

41 Ibid., p. 2.

42 Nie, Norman H., Verba, Sidney, and Petrocik, John R., The Changing American Voter (Boston, 1976), pp. 1, 105, 193, 347.Google Scholar

43 Wilson, James Q., The Amateur Democrat: Club Politics in Three Cities (Chicago, 1962), p. 18 and passim.Google Scholar

44 Burnham, Walter Dean, Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics (New York, 1970).Google Scholar

45 For a popular presentation of the findings of voting studies, see Ladd, Everett Carll, Where Have All the Voters Gone? The Fracturing of American Political Parties (New York, 1978)Google Scholar. More recent writings take a mildly more optimistic view, but the data could be interpreted just as easily to show the decline of parties. The optimism is based at least as much on faith as on reason. See Eldersvelt, Samuel J., Political Parties in American Society (New York, 1982)Google Scholar; and The Future of American Political Parties: The Challenge of Governance, ed. Fleishman, Joel L. (New York, 1982).Google Scholar

46 Hirschman, Albert O., Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (Boston, 1970).Google Scholar

47 Butler, David, Stokes, Donald, Political Change in Britain: The Evolution of Electoral Choice, 2nd ed. (New York, 1974), p. 206CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Alt, James E., The Politics of Economic Decline: Economic Management and Political Behavior in Britain Since 1964 (Cambridge, 1979), p. 270.Google Scholar

48 Unger, Roberto, Knowledge and Politics (New York, 1975), p. 67.Google Scholar