Party system

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The party system of a state comprises the individual political parties , their characteristics and the network of relationships between them. As early as when the first parties were formed, explanations were sought for why there are (different) parties and why a specific party system has developed in a country at a certain period of time.

In modern democratic systems, voter mobilization and conflict processing takes place through party competition. The party system is part of the intermediary system in which mediation services must be provided between the electorate and the government system. The system function of the party system must therefore first and foremost ensure the stability of the political system, in particular by bringing about the necessary political change in order to adapt to changing framework conditions.

The most obvious characteristic and distinguishing feature between party systems is the number of (relevant) parties. A distinction was then made between one , two , multiple and multi-party systems , and other constructions, such as B. the so-called two-and-a-half party system of the Federal Republic of Germany between the late 1950s and the emergence of the Greens in the early 1980s.

The ideological distance between the parties, and thus the (im) possibility of forming a joint government coalition , is another important characteristic of a party system. Although there is still no consensus on all relevant properties, at least seven can be distinguished: fragmentation (number of parties), asymmetry (proportions), volatility (changes in size between elections), polarization (ideological distance), legitimacy (acceptance by the population), segmentation ( Isolation of the parties in terms of coalition formation) and government stability (duration of the government coalitions).

The question of why a particular party system developed was explained in the older institutionalist party research mechanistically by the existing electoral system . For example, Duverger's law consistently states that a two-party system will develop under a relative majority vote ( Westminster system ). However, even for the eponymous example of Great Britain, this has hardly ever been fulfilled (today e.g. Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party ). However, the institutional perspective is decisive for dictatorships and countries in which the extent of repression hinders free party formation and development.

Under the conditions of modern liberal-democratic systems, as they predominate today and especially in the western industrialized countries , the formation of parties and their participation in elections is usually guaranteed by the constitution . It has been shown that more than the electoral system, the social structure with its social lines of conflict , the existing social milieus and the dominant constellations of interests of the citizens are decisive for the formation and explanation of party systems.

Properties of party systems

Party systems can be roughly differentiated according to two distinguishing features: Structural, ie according to the number of parties, or according to behavioral patterns, in particular the conflict strategies used and the ideological distances. For a more precise description, one can consider the parties as part of the intermediary system and their tasks within it with regard to elections and government . In this way, an electoral and a governmental dimension can also be distinguished in the properties of party systems. The properties include fragmentation, asymmetry, volatility, polarization and legitimacy (electoral) or segmentation and government stability (governmental) within the party system.

Fragmentation

The fragmentation, ie the degree of fragmentation or concentration of the party landscape, was one of the first typology characteristics used. However, simply counting the existing parties raises two problems:

  1. Small parties that have only a few members or can only collect a few votes are irrelevant for assessing the function of a party system, so should not be taken into account when counting (otherwise Germany would not have 6 relevant parties, but many dozen). But where is the line to be drawn? It is often set at 2% of the vote. However, despite a certain plausibility, this exact size ultimately remains arbitrary.
  2. Even after choosing a relevance lower limit, the problem remains that parties that are very different in size would be counted and weighted equally. The party fragmentation of a country with two roughly equally strong parties (two-party system) would be counted with “2”, as would the party system of a pseudo- democracy with one party with over 90% and a second just around 5%. But that would be a meaningless indicator .

Therefore, in addition to the number of parties, their different weights are also taken into account. This is often done using the so-called “effective number of parties”. This is equal to the actual number if all parties are the same size (e.g. each of 2 parties owns 50% or three of them 33%), but becomes almost 1 if the dominance of one party is very large (e.g. one party over 90%). This can also prevent a necessary but ultimately always arbitrary minimum party size from distorting the result.

asymmetry

This describes the size ratio of the two largest parties. As a rule, these are also the main competitors for the position of the government majority and thus also represent the most important exponents of their respective political camp (e.g. SPD for the 'left' camp and CDU for the conservative camp in Germany). This can also be used to clarify whether a party has structural advantages in gaining government power because of its greater long-term voter potential.

polarization

For the stability of a government system, it is precisely the possibility of agreement and the ability to compromise between the political groups. In order to capture this, Sartori recorded the degree of polarization of the parties, which expresses the ideological distance between them. For this purpose, the individual parties are ideologically positioned through document evaluation, expert surveys or population assessments (which, astonishingly, mostly produce identical results), usually along a right-left scale. The distance between the two 'most extreme' parties or an average distance including all parties can then serve as a meaningful variable.

Sartori's classification of party systems according to ideological polarization

  1. Two-party systems are an ideal type that rarely occurs in reality. Even Great Britain, Canada or New Zealand, as classic examples of the Westminster model (with actually only 2 parties), were only two-party systems insofar as they tried to maintain the alternating government position, by one of the two big parties, without a coalition.
  2. In moderate pluralism , the relevant parties often have only a small ideological distance, tend to form polar coalitions and prefer centripetal competition. However, one can distinguish between three sub-types:
    a) alternating government without coalition possible (GB, Canada, Austria up to the 1980s);
    b) Government only possible with a coalition ( Australia , Germany before 2017);
    c) Coalitions of the middle or large coalitions, often as a tolerated minority government ( Benelux countries , Nordic countries except Finland , Switzerland ).
  3. The polarized pluralism , which is characterized by a high number of parties with a great ideological distance from each other and from the political system itself, can hardly be distinguished from moderate pluralism today. Sartori placed the border between five to six parties. Today, however, real anti-system parties in particular can hardly be found any more. Therefore, this type should also be subdivided:
    a) polarized pluralism with fundamental opposition from right and left (Weimar Republic, Federal Republic of Germany from 2017, Second Spanish Republic);
    b) with central parties capable of governing (France, Israel, Finland, Italy)
  4. Systems with a dominant party , which usually forms the government and can / could only be replaced by a coalition of (almost) all other parties (Mexico)

volatility

A party system can be relatively static or very changeable and adaptable. With the volatility one tries to measure the strength of the changes of the party sizes, over their votes between z. B. to capture two consecutive elections. In the comparative analysis, the profits of all parties in an election are summed up in comparison to the previous election using the so-called “Pedersen Index”. Thus, although no statements can be made about the individual swing voter, an assessment of the change dynamics of the system as a whole is possible.

legitimacy

Another important system characteristic is the legitimacy of the party system in the eyes of the citizens . According to system-theoretical considerations following Easton , the behavior of the citizens, such as B. the voter turnout can be used as a yardstick, but only the orientations and attitudes of the people towards the entire party system. This so-called diffuse system support is measured using representative population surveys. “Diffuse” is better than just “special” system support that only relates to individual elements, such as B. only approval of individual legislative initiatives, with a simultaneous possible rejection of the (party) system as a whole.

segmentation

The segmentation of the party system describes one of the two properties that belong to the government-forming function and dimension of the party system. This refers to the extent to which the parties are sealed off from one another with regard to possible coalitions. One possibility is to weight the politically impossible coalitions against the theoretically available possibilities.

Government stability

Many political decisions have to be prepared for a long time, especially within coalition governments. Therefore, a certain minimum level of stability of the individual (coalition) governments is necessary for the stability of the political system as a whole. This can be captured by the average duration of government constellations.

Explanation of the development of party systems

On the one hand, political and institutional framework conditions, such as the type of government system (parliamentary vs. presidential, federal vs. unitary) and especially the right to vote, have an impact on the development of political parties . On the other hand, the historical development and the socio-structural basis are used to explain. But also economic theories of politics explain the interaction and arise from parties in consideration of competition rules.

Institutional approaches (electoral system)

This includes approaches that attempt to explain the party system in a country from the existing regulations on the electoral system . The distinction between states with majority voting and those with proportional representation plays a central role . The majority vote then favors the concentration of votes on two parties, whereas the proportional representation supports a large number of parties. With absolute majority voting, a party or a coalition determined before the election usually wins a governable majority. The relative majority vote inhibits the fragmentation of the party system and rewards associations of voter groups. It is extremely difficult for new parties to establish themselves under majority voting. A two-party system tends to develop.

The situation is empirically more complicated, but it can be plausibly justified as a theoretical assumption. According to Duverger's law , in an electoral system with relative majority voting (e.g. Great Britain , USA ) a two-party system will arise because under these conditions the votes within a constituency that are cast for the losers (all others except the one with the most votes) , do not influence the distribution of seats in parliament and are therefore lost. In order to see his position represented in parliament at all, from the voters' point of view it is therefore rational for a larger party that has at least certain prospects of winning the constituency to vote. This preference for larger parties by the electorate also creates an incentive for the political groups standing up for election to join forces and form electoral alliances. This is the only way for minority positions to have a chance to be represented in parliament. This connection lasts, thought through to the end, until only two parties stand for election in such an electoral system. These can certainly include changing voter alliances, which can then also guarantee the necessary adaptability to changing social framework conditions.

The classification according to two- and multi-party systems is also associated with ideas that the former would produce stable governments and frequent changes of government according to the English Westminster model . There is intense, conflict-ridden competition and a clear ideological and social profile between the “left” and the “right” party. In the multi-party system resulting from proportional representation, on the other hand, there is a salutary compulsion to cooperation and compromise. The political systems of Switzerland, the Netherlands and Austria are therefore characterized by a system of concordance . Politics there is decided less by majority and more by unanimity rules.

However, the actually existing diversity of parties shows that the electoral system is not sufficient as the sole variable to explain the party constellation. Even in countries with majority voting rights, more than two significant parties often form (e.g. Scottish National Party and Liberals in the country of origin of the Westminster Model). The concentration is more pronounced, the lower the socio-political conflict level in a country. Only the usually actually higher average number of parties in electoral systems with proportional representation can be explained by this mechanism.

Socio-structural approaches

In the currently existing parties, according to these approaches, the social disputes and socio-political lines of conflict over the formation of modern states have been reflected and maintained. Depending on the role played by the social division between capital and labor, the tensions between the industrial and agricultural sectors, or the religious and ethnic conflicts, different party systems and social milieus have developed.

Lines of conflict (cleavages)

Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan designed an influential development model for parties in the 1950s and 60s with the cleavage theory . Parties are the expression of socio-structural conflict situations (cleavages). In addition to the class conflict (cleavage “ work versus capital ”) there are also historical conflicts such as “ city ​​vs. Country ”,“ Center vs. Periphery "and" Church vs. State ”as well as a further development, especially by Ronald Inglehart , the cleavage“ Post-materialism vs Materialism ”.

If these conflicts are resolved at an early stage, there is no need for separate parties to emerge (e.g. England ). However, if conflicts last longer and intersect, more party formation is likely (e.g. Weimar Republic ). Such fragmented party systems make it difficult to form compromises and form a majority.

For the Western European party system, Lipset and Rokkan diagnosed a freezing of the party systems from the 1920s to the 1960s. An explainable exception was the Federal Republic. But here, too, the cleavage theory was applicable: "City vs. country" was blurred by post-war mobility, but "work vs. capital" remained explosive between the bourgeois camp of CDU / CSU and FDP versus the SPD. “Religious vs secular”, on the other hand, was currently between the CDU / CSU versus the SPD and FDP. The most loyal regular voters, as well as the active party members, came from easily describable social groups (SPD-union, not church-oriented; CDU / CSU-church-affiliated from the middle class; FDP-church-independent, from middle-class, old middle class).

Party supporters according to value orientation 1994 (East-West comparison), from Neugebauer / Stöss: PDS, Opladen 1996.

The breakup of the occupational structure since the 1960s (fewer workers , more services , salaried employees and civil servants) and the strengthening of post-materialist orientations due to the change in values and the new social movements since the 1970s make the allocation of lines of conflict and parties increasingly questionable. For the 1990s in the FRG, Flanagan and Kitschelt diagnosed new, significant lines of conflict: “market freedom vs social justice” and “authoritarian vs libertarian” conception of society. Kitschelt also suspected that the all-German party competition could be sorted along a diagonal from social-libertarian politics to neoliberal-authoritarian politics. In fact, Neugebauer and Stöss were able to empirically show this bundling of the two conflict dimensions (see graphic). Almost 90 percent of those surveyed could be classified in this way. The remaining 11.5 percent expressed disenchantment with politics and not along other lines of conflict. They describe the line of conflict summarized in this way as “social-libertarian vs neoliberal-authoritarian”. Despite considerable differences between East and West Germany (sometimes larger within the parties than between the parties within one part of the country), one can order the attitudes of party supporters along this new axis.

Social and moral milieus

M. Rainer Lepsius proposed a theory in 1966 that specifically targeted the German party system from the founding of the Reich in 1871 to the Weimar Republic . The particular stability of the German party system was based on the close connection of parties with closed social milieus. The parties are fixated on their traditional milieus and unable to address new groups of voters. As a result, the existing lines of conflict are stabilized again and again through the mobilization of voters by the parties. Lepsius distinguished four socio-moral milieus for the period he examined: the Catholic ( center ), the conservative-Protestant in the country ( conservative ), the Protestant-bourgeois in the cities ( liberals ) and the social-democratic social milieu among the workers and craftsmen ( socialists and communists ).

More important than the concrete differentiation is Lepsius' idea that these milieus go back to pre-political social structures and thus develop their own political-social subculture. Only the final phase of the Weimar Republic led to the dissolution of the party system that had been stable for over 60 years. The NSDAP in particular , like the people 's parties today, gathered a wide variety of social groups under one roof.

Despite the extensive dissolution of these strong links between milieu and party, it has been proven time and again that in some regions it is still possible to speak of socio-moral milieus with some justification. In certain strong strongholds of the Ruhr area , for example, a union-oriented , social democratic milieu survived (at least until the 1990s) and in some rural diaspora areas in southern Germany there are still strong Catholic social milieu with a penchant for the CDU / CSU.

Party identification in Germany continues to decline overall, with stagnation among the CDU / CSU and a slow decline among SPD voters in the West in the 1990s . In the east there is not only a slight decline in the SPD, but also a significant increase in party identification among supporters of the PDS and, above all, the CDU. The cause is the weakening identification of voters from the working class, while at the same time identification with Christian Democratic politics within the Catholic, or in general, the “churchgoer” milieus in East and West has stabilized. The lower level of party identification in East Germany explains the lower voter turnout and the higher volatility of the election results. In addition, party affiliation in East Germany is less socially structured. A higher level of identification has a considerable influence on the choice (explains 80–95% of the voting decisions). For East Germans without party affiliation, the attitude towards socialism has a major influence on the voting decision. In this regard, the PDS and CDU voters are strongly polarized, whereas the SPD was eligible for everyone (in the 1998/2002 elections).

The eight social milieus of the sinus study from 1984 have established themselves in sociology, but are poorly suited for the explanation of parties, since these milieus are neither clear nor even traditional "milieus" in the sense of Lepsius, in which joint activities or, at least to some extent, communicating with one another. The social groups are defined here only through socio-economic and ideological characteristics. A more intensive coupling is to be expected less and less in the "leveled medium-sized society", reply the proponents of this social milieu construction.

Economic theory approaches

Economic theories of politics are an important tool in the "analytical toolbox" of political science. Their specialty is that they make the theoretical and methodological instruments of economics for explaining political phenomena and the actions of parties explainable from an economic point of view. Although not without controversy, it can hardly be doubted that they have significantly expanded our understanding of the functioning and internal logic of political institutions and processes.

Competition theory

In his very influential book " Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy ", Josef P. Schumpeter reformulated the theory of parliamentary democracy. Schumpeter defined the democratic method as "the institutional way of making political decisions in which individuals gain the authority to make decisions through a contest for the people's votes." According to Schumpeter, this eliminated the unrealistic assumption that the voters must have a specific and rational opinion on every single question.

In the competition for a majority of the votes, the parties are of particular importance: "A party is a group whose members agree to act in a coordinated manner in the competition for political power." For the parties, it is not so much about the realization of certain political contents as the majority and thus the possibility of filling political offices. With this interpretation, the decision on political issues is in a sense only a by-product of the struggle for majorities.

Schumpeter's assumptions such as a lack of political interest and low political participation among a large part of the population as well as a non-existent common will, but rather different economic and political interests that divide society, are also of great importance for political discourse in the 21st century.

Political scientist Przeworski also emphasizes the competitive nature of democracy: "Democracy is a system in which parties lose elections. There are parties, different interests, values ​​and opinions. There is competition organized by rules. And there are periodically winners and losers." Based on Joseph Schumpeter's competition theory, Przeworski analyzes democracy from a game theory perspective as the uncertain result of conflicts of interest: "Democracy is a system of dealing with conflicts, in which the results depend on the actions of those involved, without a single force controlling the events The results of the conflicts are not known in advance to any of the competing political forces, since the consequences of their actions depend on the actions of others, which in turn cannot be foreseen. (...) Democracy creates uncertainty because it is a system of decentralized strategic action. "

Economic theory of democracy

The theoretical basis of these approaches is the " Economic Theory of Democracy " by Anthony Downs , which sees parties as organizations to maximize votes in the electoral market. Both the mandate seekers and the voters act in a completely non-ideological way and only try to enforce their own interests (to maximize their benefits).

As the starting point of his theory, Downs takes up the provocative idea also formulated by Joseph Schumpeter that one must strictly distinguish between the private motivation of an action and its social functions. This initial thesis means that the individual reasons that motivate a person to act must not be equated with the resulting social consequences. The cultivation of grain by a farmer or the baking of bread by a baker fulfill a social function, namely that of contributing to the nourishment of society. However, neither the farmer grows grain, nor does the baker use it to bake bread in order to feed society, rather the real drive for both is the highly private motivation to ensure their own livelihood. From an economic point of view, this distinction is self-evident and completely understandable. She postulates that one can rely on the principle of "private motivation" when it comes to fulfilling social functions (such as the production of goods based on the market economy ). Up to Schumpeter and Downs, this idea was largely alien to political theory and democracy theory, at least in such an explicit formulation. It was common, as is still assumed in many cases today, that the political actors orient themselves towards a common good, however defined, and that their activities are based on this standard. Schumpeter and, in his successor, Downs explicitly oppose the normative charge of this view and oppose it with a positive theory of democracy. "Positive" means here that it does not describe how a democracy should work, but rather provides a model of how it really is, how it actually works.

The analytical separation between private motivation and social function as well as the renunciation of normative statements let democracy appear in a completely new light from the Downs perspective. From this point of view, it is simply a method of government selection or governance. Voters and parties meet in a political market, with the latter competing for the votes of the former. This political market follows the same functional logic as any other economic market mechanism: rational and self-interest-maximizing entrepreneurs (here: parties) develop products (here: political programs and proposed solutions) in order to achieve the highest possible profit (here: votes or public offices). to achieve. The equally rational and self-interest-maximizing consumers (here: voters) weigh between the various products offered (here. Election programs) and decide on the best offer (here: choice of the preferred party).

With this, the two decisive premises on which the economic theory of democracy is based and on which Down's entire model is based have already been mentioned:

  1. The only goal of parties is to win the election. They strive for this in order to be able to use and enjoy the material and immaterial advantages associated with assuming office (prestige, power, income, etc.). So you are formulating political programs to win elections. However, the reverse, that parties want to win elections in order to implement their programs, does not apply.
  2. Voters compare the parties standing for election and cast their votes in such a way that they derive the greatest possible benefit from the activities of the elected government.

Rational parties: democratic competition (median voter theorem)

In Downs' model, parties strive to maximize utility . In her case it is about maximizing her share of the vote. How can the rational behavior of parties be analytically grasped and explicated?

According to Downs, there is a crucial contextual condition on which the parties base their actions: the distribution of voter preferences . For this, imagine a model in which the preferences of the voters are represented on an ideological left-right continuum. Each point on the horizontal axis represents a possible ideological point of view that can be taken by the parties. The curve above this left-right continuum indicates the frequency distribution of voters: the more voters locate themselves on one of these ideology points, the higher it is. Voters now choose the party to which they are ideologically closest. In other words, voters minimize their ideological distance from a party when they make their choice. The figure shows e.g. B. a unimodal distribution of voters. Most voters are therefore in the middle of the political spectrum (point M), with the greater the distance from the center, the lower the number of voters (symmetrically). Since the distribution of voters is both symmetrical and unimodal, not only are most of the voters at point M, but also the median of the distribution. The median voter (this is the name of the voter who is located exactly on the median) is located exactly where the electorate can be divided into two equal parts: There are as many voters to the left of the median voter as to the right. In statistical terms, it can be said that in the figure the mode value, i.e. H. the maximum of the distribution, and median coincide. This distinction is important in order to be able to understand the following arguments of the logic of party behavior.

The further you move politically to the left or to the right from M, the fewer voters there are who locate themselves there. Such an ideal typical distribution of voters corresponds most closely to that of a developed, socially pacified industrial society; one speaks of a " leveled medium-sized company " (Schelsky 1953)

Based on given and fixed (i.e. fixed) voter preferences, the behavior of parties A and B is now essentially determined by the distribution of voters. Assuming full voter turnout, the two parties will converge in the direction of M: Since, by definition, half of the voters are to the left or right of M, all voters to the left of A, for example, have "none "other choice" than to vote for A, since A is necessarily the closest party to them. For this reason, however, A can also move further to the right in the direction of M in order to gain new voters. In doing so, she does not risk losing the voters on her left. For party B, this logic applies in reverse. The relationship mentioned here has become known as the so-called median voter theorem: In order to win the election, rational parties move towards the position of the median voter. However, it is also reasonable, and even far more realistic, to assume that the greater the distance between the party and the voter, the less inclination they have to vote for them. If a certain distance value is exceeded, the voter may react by abstaining. If one abandons the assumption of full voter turnout, it can be argued in the case of the figure that voters who are very far left or very far right no longer vote A or B if they move further in the direction of M. Nevertheless, in this case a convergence of both parties in the direction of M would be rational: Since M is not only the median voter, but also the (only) peak of the (symmetrical) voter distribution, more voters can be won in the middle than are lost at the edge .

Otto Kirchheimer recognized as early as 1965 that due to growing prosperity, the traditional ties and restrictions were becoming looser and that the “leveled medium- sized society ” would lead to a de-ideologization (and depoliticization) of the voters and thus also of the party landscape. The conventional mass integration party , which was a lifelong (“from cradle to grave”) political home, was increasingly being replaced by the catch-all party type, which was also prevalent in the USA . Such commonplace parties offer politics for everyone, like a large department store, and often call themselves "people 's parties " to underpin this claim .

Assuming that voters want to maximize their utility according to Downs, and that there is a de-ideologized, leveled middle-class society (that is, most voters are “in the middle” with their political ideas), the voting competition tends to lead to two large games, the the votes in the middle fight (centripetal competition). This struggle for the center of society, not to be confused with moderate views, can only be won through a non-ideological election platform.

This explanatory model is apparently all too simple. In contrast to the cleavage theory, it can neither explain why, for example, the FDP has abandoned its claim to be a “people's party”, nor can it explain the emergence of the Greens, who never claimed to be such an all-world party.

Outlook and criticism

From a system-critical point of view, it is noted that the explanatory models currently prevalent in political science for the party systems have massive deficits with regard to the consideration of values and interests. And the alleged lack of consequences for party competition and the preservation of the status quo (ie capitalism ) through the structure of the party systems are not addressed enough. Rather, we should ask about the peculiar selectivity patterns and closure processes of party systems. However, such a criticism presupposes an understanding of science that is not purely descriptive, but also evaluative.

The development of the party systems in the Eastern European transition states , which recently switched to liberal-democratic systems, will raise new questions with regard to the formation and development of parties. But also in the long-established democracies of the western industrialized countries, it remains to be seen whether the trend towards a de-ideologized and leveled society will continue. Or whether the increasingly widening gap between rich and poor - including the increasingly less socially cushioned economic globalization - and the possibly self-fulfilling prophecy of the “clash of civilizations” against the background of the Middle East conflict does not lead to a renewal. Ideologization is pioneering within western societies. The resurgence of nationalist parties in Europe and the clear electoral and agenda-setting successes of the Republicans in the USA, by bundling the neoconservative ideology with the simplistic worldview of religious groups (so-called evangelicals ), indicate at least an opposing trend.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kai Arzheimer: How has party identification developed since 1990?
  2. ^ Joseph A. Schumpeter: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy . 8th edition. A. Francke Verlag Tübingen / Basel, 2005, p. 427-450 .
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Muno: The political dynamics of economic reforms . Ed .: JOHANNES GUTENBERG UNIVERSITY MAINZ INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL SCIENCE. Mainz, S. 19-20 .
  4. ^ A b Jochen Dehling, Klaus Schubert: Economic Theories of Politics . Ed .: Hans-Georg Ehrhart. 1st edition. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2011, p. 49-60 .

literature

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Web links

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