Party Elites in Divided Societies

Political Parties in Consociational Democracy

Kris Deschouwer, Kurt Richard Luther

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9781134634934
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Working from the basis of Arend Lijphart's 1968 work on divided societies, the authors go on to look at such cultures and subcultures thirty years on, bringing in new evidence and analysis to bear on the issue. They also examine the essential role of party politics within and between these ^D ", framing comparisons with a number of countries from Belgium to Israel.

Part I
Introduction: the significance of party elites

1
A framework for the comparative analysis of political parties and party systems in consociational democracy

Kurt Richard Luther

Consociational and party theory

The theory of consociational democracy was developed some thirty years ago, principally as a result of the simultaneous and yet initially largely independent work of Lijphart (1968a, 1968b, 1969, 1975, 1977, 1981), Daalder (1971, 1974), Lorwin (1971), Lehmbruch (1967a, 1967b, 1968) and Steiner (1969a, 1969b, 1971, 1974). At its simplest, consociational theory seeks to explain the existence of political stability in certain countries with deeply fragmented political cultures. It comprises a set of propositions concerning in the main two aspects of such political systems: their political sociology and the nature of their political elites’ behaviour. In respect of the first, consociational theory emphasises sociopolitical segmentation, i.e. the existence of vertically encapsulated and mutually hostile political subcultures. For its part, elite political behaviour is seen as characterised above all by co-operation and accommodation, by means of which a metaphorical bridge (or ‘arch’) is built over the gulf separating the political subcultures (or ‘pillars’) and thus the political system’s stability is ensured. Consociational theory undeniably constitutes one of the most influential post-war contributions to the comparative study of West European politics. It generated considerable academic debate, not least regarding its own theoretical status and explanatory power (e.g. Barry 1975a, 1975b; Daalder 1974; Halpern 1987; Kieve 1981; Lustick 1979; Pappalardo 1981; Van Schendelen 1985; Steiner 1981a and 1981b). In addition, it spawned numerous studies of one or more of the West European countries originally considered archetypal consociational democracies, namely, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland. The inclusion of Switzerland in the universe of consociational democracy though has long been disputed (e.g. Henderson 1981, Steiner and Obler 1977). Chapter 6 will obviously address this debate.

However, the theoretical status of the consociational literature is not my primary concern here. Instead, I shall regard it as offering a model with strong heuristic power. My prime goal is to demonstrate that one very important set of political actors has so far been underemphasised in the model: political parties. I would like to make this role explicit, and to show that by looking in a systematic manner at the role of political parties in consociational democracies, one can produce greater insight into the functioning and into the strategies and procedures of political decision-making of this type of democracy. I shall return to aspects of the theoretical status of the consociational literature later. For now, it will suffice to note that the problem of causality is especially important, and cannot be avoided when looking at the role of parties in consociational democracies. Did the (party) elites introduce accommodating devices and subcultural autonomy as a result of societal pressures (the mobilising power of the subcultures), or is the extent of subcultural encapsulation of society at least in some measure the result of attempts by (party) elites to organise society in a manner that maximises their potential to exercise political control over it?¹

Such considerations have led me to decide to raise an important terminological issue at this point. The literature has employed two concepts to refer to the societal divisions of consociational democracies: ‘segmentation’ and ‘pillarization’. We propose to differentiate clearly between them throughout this volume. ‘Segmentation’ will be taken to refer to the visible and permanent cleavage lines in society, while ‘pillarization’ will be used to denote rival organisational networks that share the identity of their respective subcultures. This distinction helps highlight two important issues: the sequence of segmentation and pillarization and the nature of what causal relationship, if any, exists between them. Did pillarization precede the adoption of accommodative techniques and can the former thus be regarded as constituting a threat to political stability which consociationalism was designed to overcome? Alternatively, were the societies of countries that became consociational democracies originally merely segmented, and was pillarization a consequence of consociational devices, such as proportionality and granting autonomy to the segments? This is one of the central questions of this book and is picked up in several chapters.

If one compares early case studies of consociationalism in action (e.g. Dunn 1970, 1972; Engelmann and Schwarz 1974a and 1974b; Houska 1985; Huyse 1971; Lijphart 1968b; Powell 1970; Steiner and Obler 1977; Stiefbold 1974b) with more recent accounts (e.g. Daalder 1987a; Huyse 1987; Deschouwer 1994a; Luther and Müller 1992a; Van Schendelen 1984), it appears that since the 1960s there has in each country been a decline in the political salience of structures and practices traditionally associated with consociationalism and a trend towards depillarization, instability and protest. Thus many studies have found a reduction in the affective orientation towards the subcultures, an atrophying of the organisational networks supporting the latter and a concomitant decrease in their size and impermeability. Combined with a decline in the frequency of subject orientations within the countries’ political cultures, these changes have contributed to challenging the autonomy of the subcultural elites. Previously unquestioned consociational practices have in part come under severe pressure, as can be seen from the success of political movements and parties that challenge the manner in which political power has traditionally been exercised in these systems. The literature on these countries has therefore shifted its focus from explaining stability to explaining change, or resistance, to reform.

At the time consociational theory was developed, the academic literature on West European parties and party systems was also mainly concerned to explain stability and continuity (e.g. Lipset and Rokkan 1967a). Since the mid 1970s, however, there has been a marked shift of emphasis towards the analysis of change in many different aspects of parties and party systems. A generation of political scientists has produced an immense amount of literature on topics such as the internal articulation of parties (mass parties’ transformation into catch-all parties); the evolution of ideologies and the breakthrough of ‘new values’; the subsequent growth and development of new parties (e.g.‘new polities’, ‘regionalists’, ‘right-wing populists’); relations between parties and pressure groups; pressure groups’ assumption of functions previously performed by political parties (see especially the literature on neo-corporatism); changing campaign styles (e.g. professionalisation, the importance of personalities, the use of the new electronic media); relations between parties, parliaments and governments; patterns of competition; the increasing reliance on state resources; volatility and increasing fractionalisation; as well as dealignment and realignment. A useful recent summary of the state of the art in party research is provided by the volume edited by LeDuc, Niemi and Norris (1996), which summarises the work of this generation of scholars.

Amongst the most important of recent research into West European parties has been the work of the research group led by Richard Katz and Peter Mair (Katz and Mair 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996), which has devoted its attention not only to party organisational change, but also to changes in parties’ relationship to the state. The insights of such recent party theorising have of course already been applied to Belgium (e.g. Deschouwer 1992, 1994a), the Netherlands (e.g. Koole 1994) and Austria (e.g. Müller 1994). They also underpin a new research project on Switzerland. The findings of these various studies demonstrate that each of the above-mentioned changes also obviously pertain—albeit in varying degrees—to consociational democracies. Moreover, it may well be that the Katz and Mair (1995) notion of a ‘cartel party’ or a ‘cartel party system’ is especially relevant to consociational polities. It is interesting to note that the concept of ‘cartel democracy’ was put forward by Arend Lijphart (1975:201–3; 1984a; see also Koole, 1996). He used the Dutch word ‘kartel’ to refer to a depoliticised democracy, that is to say, a democracy still characterised by elite accommodation, despite now having a more homogeneous political culture. The link between the idea of a ‘cartel party’ and Lijphart’s ‘cartel democracy’ is very obvious, in the sense that both are highlighting parties’ reduced societal linkage, as well as their use of state resources and state services to defend or promote their status as central political actors.

Whilst the literature on consociationalism and parties has recently been focusing on change, I was struck by the fact that there has to date been no attempt on the part of those concerned with the comparative study of political parties to undertake a systematic examination of the operation of parties and party systems in consociational polities. Nor has consociational theory itself ever paid much attention to what I believe to be the central role within consociational democracies of political parties and party systems. To be sure, parties are mentioned in Lijphart’s early work, where at one stage he even argues in respect of the four Dutch blocs that ‘The political parties play the most significant role in tying the elites together…’ and are thus ‘the central and most influential organs’ (Lijphart 1968b: 67). However, neither here, nor in his later writings (where he moves away from the notion of consociational democracy to the wider concept of ‘consensus democracy’), does Lijphart undertake a systematic examination of the role of political parties. As discussed in the following chapter, only one of the indicators of ‘consensus democracy’ which Lijphart advances in that later work is directly concerned with political parties: the effective number of parties (Lijphart 1984a:116–23). Nor is the role of political parties in consociational democracy the focus of subsequent empirical studies. Exceptions include Dunn (1970) and Gerlich (1987), but even here the link is implicit, rather than explicit, or the focus is not comparative. In other words, consociational theory and party theory have not yet been brought together in a truly comparative perspective. It was not done during the period when the academic literature on political parties was concerned with ‘stability’, nor has it been the subject of the more recent phase, which has focused on ‘change’.

Yet as I argued some time ago (Luther 1992 and 1997b), a detailed consideration of, above all, Lijphart’s (early and original) theory of consociational democracy allows one to deduce the crucial role which political parties might be expected to perform in respect of both the political sociology and the overarching elite behaviour of consociational democracy. First, it is reasonable to suppose that the prime responsibility for mobilising the rival subcultures, aggregating subcultural interests and recruiting the subcultural political elite would rest in modern party democracies with political parties. Second, it is above all between the party elites of the various subcultures that the overarching accommodation would be likely to occur. Moreover, that accommodation would of necessity have to embrace not only the policymaking, but also the policy-implementation process, for unless the subcultural political elites were capable of ensuring that their subcultural organisations ‘deliver’ the side of the bargain which had been struck at the elite level, accommodative policy-making would be meaningless. Accordingly, in the highly segmented world of consociational politics, the party-political writ of one or other of the main subcultures would be assumed to run not only in the key socioeconomic interest groups, but also within many of the formal policy-implementation structures. In sum, it is my contention that political parties are likely to be the key actors that provide the two-way linking mechanism between the mass and the elite of the encapsulated subcultures, as well as the personnel and policy-implementation structures that enable binding elite accommodation to take place.

Parties between their pillars (Inter-subcultural interaction, or the party system)
4. Structural features (‘format’) of party interaction (a) concentration (b) proportionality (c) segmental autonomy (functional and/or territorial)	(d) ubiquity (inter alia) via low role differentiation and overlapping leadership (e) presence of formal rules/conventions facilitating inter-subcultural accomodation?
5. Style (‘mechanics’) of party interaction (a) limited competition (b) accommodation	(c) mutual veto (d) log-rolling

Party within pillar ‘A’ (Intra-subcultural linkage)

1. Organisational penetration and incorporation of the subculture, esp. via (a) mass party membership (b) extensive auxiliary association network

2. Political mobilisation ot and the provision of values/incentives for the subculture via (a) ideational values (b) material values

3. Hierarchical party control oi the subculture via (a) the bureaucratic principle (b) the technocratic principle (c) the oligarchic principle (d) overlapping memberships (e) overlapping leaderships (f) party control of the reward system (g) formal rules/conventions facilitating parties’ control of their subcultures?

Party within pillar ‘B’ (intra-subcultural linkage)

1. Organisational penetration and incorporation of the subculture, esp. via (a) mass party membership (b) extensive auxiliary association network

2. Political mobilisation of and the provision of values/incentives for the subculture via (a) ideational values (b) material values

3. Hierarchical party control of the subculture via (a) the bureaucratic principle (b) the technocratic principle (c) the oligarchic principle (d) overlapping memberships (e) overlapping leaderships (f) party control of the reward system (g) formal rules/conventions facilitating parties’ control of their subcultures?

Figure 1.1 Pillar parties and party systems in consociational democracy: a framework for comparative analysis

Proposed framework for comparative analysis

My reading of consociational theory led me to deduce a number of roles which political parties might be expected to perform in consociational democracies and these will now be discussed in detail. They are identified in Figure 1.1, which presents those roles i...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures
• Tables
• Contributors
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Editors’ Preface
• Party Abbreviations
• Part I: Introduction: The Significance of Party Elites
• Part II: Case Studies In Comparative Perspective
• Part III: Party Dimensions In Comparative Perspective
• Bibliography