Intermediation through Parties

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Session 5 Intermediation through Parties
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Possible Midterm-Exam Questions
Which evidence supports the party-voter
dealignment thesis?
Which factors impede party-voter realignment?
What is meant by the transformation of social
group cleavages into issue group cleavages?
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The Group-Basis of Politics Model Party-Voter
Alignments
Occupational differentiation and other forms of
social stratification structure societies into
groups with conflicting interests workers want
taxes on capital but no taxes on labor
capitalists want taxes on labor but not on
capital peasants wants subsidies for their
products and so forth.
The natural addressees of conflicting interests
are state governments because they have the
power to make binding decisions in the interest
of social groups.
Political parties search for the support of
specific social groups by translating their
economic interests into policy programs.
Parties compete in elections with these programs
in order to take over governmental power.
Parties in government try to implement their
originally promised policies. Parties in
opposition criticize governmental parties on the
basis of their own programs.
Voters evaluate the performance of parties in
government and opposition and lend their support
to those most in line with their class interests.
There is a continuation of group-based
party-voter alignments. Democratic elections
translate group differences in society into
party competition.
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Changes Related to Emerging Postindustrial Society
Party-voter dealignment decreasing saliency of
class voting and denominational voting.
Two-dimensional cleavage-space Old Politics vs.
New Politics
What about the new middle class?
Ann Arbor Model of Voting Behavior - Party
identification (long-term) - Issue orientation
(short-term) - Candidate orientation (short-term)
Role of the Mass Media
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What are political parties doing?
Interest aggregation packaging articulated
interests and translating them
into policy programs ( policy
formulation)
Political recruitment!
Differentiate clientelistic versus
institutionalized personnel recruitment and
policy formulation
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Competitive Party Systems
Electoral rules (Duvergers law) Candidate vote
majority rule two-party system centrist
competition List vote proportional rule
multi-party systems polarized competition
Which one is more competitive?
How does this refer to Lijpharts distinction
between majoritarian and consociational
democracies?
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Parties in non-democratic systems
How does interest aggregation work in
a non-democratic system?

• Two criteria for differentiation
• Degree of accepted pluralism within and outside
  governing party
• Intensity of social mobilization

Alternative institutions of interest aggregation
the military?
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Why are non-democratic forms of
interest aggregation in such sharp decline?
The question of legitimacy!
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