Leader party
A leader's party is a political party that is tailored to a person, who sets the political goals and paths and makes all essential decisions. The opposite is a grassroots party where politics is developed by the active members.
As a result of the dominance of the - mostly charismatic - party leader and an extremely tight party organization, leading parties tend towards a dictatorial form of government or one- party rule . Some of the organizations that emerged in the 1920s developed into distinct mass parties with a propaganda machine that pervades all areas .
historical development
The prototype of the Führer party is the NSDAP , from whose “ Führer ” Adolf Hitler the name is derived (see also: Führer principle ). Knaurs Konversationslexikon A – Z from 1934 explains under the heading "Führer": " The Führer is called Adolf Hitler as the trend-setting and decisive personality [...]."
In the interwar period , especially in Europe, there was a trend towards leadership parties, which u. a. was caused by the considerably lower confidence in the democratic parties since 1929 after the global economic crisis (see disaffection with parties ). In its purest form, this type of party asserted itself except in Germany, especially in Italy , whose politics was dominated by Benito Mussolini from 1921 to 1945 . As a founder of the fascist party Partito Nazionale Fascista , he carried the title Duce del Fascismo ("Leader of Fascism").
Charisma of the "leader"
The leaders impressed the masses not only with their charismatic charisma, but also with striking, populist approaches to solving the general crisis and clear enemy images such as communism . But there were also leading parties on the left , including the Movimiento Quinta República ( Movement for a Fifth Republic ), founded by Hugo Chávez in Venezuela .
On the social structure of leadership parties
The reason why the two prototypical parties - the German NSDAP and the Italian PNF - became dominant mass parties from small beginnings is due to specific incentives to join the party and to time-related external influences. The latter include the hardship and unemployment of the interwar period and, in Germany, the excessive reparation payments to the victorious powers of the First World War .
In the case of the NSDAP, the zeitgeist, which doubted democracy, was accompanied by the hope that a “strong man with charisma” could quickly improve the situation. In 2005 Oskar Niedermayer wrote in an explanatory model on the social structure of party memberships:
“In the extreme case, the type of followers of a charismatic leader according to Heberle (1951), all 'followers' are tied to one leader in this way, while an affective bond [note: the party members] among one another is largely absent. Affective incentives in the area of the relationship between the individual and an intra-party group are, in particular, sociable, friendly and other socially integrative ties that are viewed as positive within the local party organization [...]. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hans-Ulrich Thamer : The National Socialist Mass Movement in the State and Economic Crisis , Federal Center for Political Education / bpb, 2005.
- ↑ Oskar Niedermayer: A model to explain the development and social structure of party membership , in: Uwe Jun, Oskar Niedermayer, Elmar Wiesendahl (ed.): The future of the member party , Burrich-Verlag, 2009, p. 97 ff.