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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Many modern theorists of political parties see the party system not only as an adjunct to democracy but as a necessary precondition of it. In an almost complete reversal of classical doctrine, these theorists argue that competition between parties, preferably two, is the very life blood of democracy. This paper attempts an evaluation of this thesis, which may be called the “organizational theory” of democracy, as it applies to conditions in three counties in a southern state.
Three cases do not warrant conclusions extrapolated beyond our data, for any truly rigorous evaluation would require more cases in more different types of situations. This limitation particularly holds for extrapolations to national governments, since we can not assume that parties operate similarly at all levels. However, the choice of three units of local government makes possible a more intensive coverage of the events, men and patterns of politics. Furthermore, they are sufficient for present purposes, for if the organizational theory is to be accepted as completely explanatory, it should apply to all cases. Otherwise it must be viewed as partial, limited to special cases, in need of further elaboration and refinement, or, at worst, incorrect.
1 Cf. Schumpeter, Joseph, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York, 1942)Google Scholar; Schattschneider, E. E., Party Government (New York, 1942)Google Scholar; Committee on Political Parties, American Political Science Association, “Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System,” this Review (Supplement to Vol. XLIV, No. 3)Google Scholar; Heard, Alexander, A Two-Party South? (Chapel Hill, 1952)Google Scholar; Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York, 1957)Google Scholar. These works are not all equally explicit in the statement of the theory, but all in varying degrees accept it, particularly those of Schumpeter and Downs.
2 Joseph Schumpeter, op. cit., p. 269.
3 Perhaps the most explicit definition of democracy in terms of parties is that by Downs. In serial order he lists eight conditions which must be present to qualify a government as democratic. Five of these have parties as their central concern; two deal with the citizen as a voter; and a final one specifies periodic elections “which cannot be altered by the party in power acting alone.” Anthony Downs, op. cit., pp. 23–24.
4 We take power to mean the ability of a person to move other persons, goods, and services toward a desired goal involving the change, interpretation or maintenance of policy, defined as an agreed upon means of allocating goods, services, personnel and values in a given social structure. So defined, power can be viewed as a series of relations among persons and can thus be described structurally. For a concise but thorough discussion of this view of power, see Hunter, Floyd, Community Power Structure (Chapel Hill, 1953)Google Scholar, ch. I.
5 Obviously we need not maintain that this requires every man of power to be a successful competitor for the vote, but it does mean that a goodly proportion of those who participate in decision making owe their participation, directly or indirectly, to the electoral process.
6 It must be noted that this and the other formal hypotheses are not to be taken in their present form as hypotheses descriptively oriented to a specific body of data. Their translation into empirically more concrete statements is undertaken in the analysis of the data.
7 This hypothesis should be viewed as one aspect of popular control of policy making. Almost all democrats since the Eighteenth Century—be they classicists, republicans, populists, parliamentarians, or organizationalists—have held that the actions of policy makers should be reviewed by the general public.
8 Cf. Key, V. O. Jr.,, with the assistance of Heard, Alexander, Southern Politics (New York, 1949), pp. 37–41Google Scholar.
9 The county surveyor is a Republican and has held that office for many years. The Democrats do not seem concerned about this and they hardly need to be since the position plays an inconsequential role in the determination and execution of county policies.
10 A more complete analysis of these seemingly incongruous findings and of the several dimensions of factionalism is undertaken in an article presently being prepared by the writer.
11 For a detailed description of these techniques see Floyd Hunter, op. cit., Appendix.
12 A positive answer on at least two of four sources of data, including either (c) or (d) below, was used as the minimum for establishing electoral dependence: (a) Estimates of the power source of an individual by respondents; (b) the political contacts and “capital” used or required in furthering a person's view of a major public issue; (c) the overlap between a person's rise to a position of general power and his career, if any, in political influence; (d) the possibility that a person's position of power was or could be affected by the outcome of elections.
13 In order to make the lists for each county as comparable as possible, no a priori number was stipulated. Instead the men of power were listed roughly in order of their power, and the cut point was made at the most significant break in the list. Consequently, a different number of men in each county were listed as members of the power elite.
14 Obviously no incontrovertible conclusions can be drawn from such small numbers; however, the reliability of the pattern can perhaps be increased by noting its stability when different cut points in the membership of the power elites are used. If, instead of making the cuts where a “natural” break was indicated, we take an arbitrary figure, say 15, essentially the same pattern is found. The actual figures are (with the politically dependent persons listed first) two and thirteen for Lincoln, five and ten for Bryan, and eleven and four for Jefferson. These figures when placed on a contingency table yield a chi square of 11.70, significant at the .01 level of probability with two degrees of freedom. On the other hand, if the number actually used in Jefferson, seven, were made the limit for the others, then there would have been no electorally dependent men in the power elite of Lincoln County. There are no chi squares for this latter cut-point and the originals for the values are too small to permit analysis of contingency.
15 The notion of political leader excludes the politician who is electorally successful for administrative posts for himself but who otherwise is not viewed as being influential in politics. Only if he successfully used this skill in aiding other candidates, in winning posts other than the routine ones, or in shaping party affairs would he be considered a political leader.
16 Lubell, Samuel, The Revolt of the Moderates (New York, 1956)Google Scholar, ch. 3.
17 This stricture does not apply to Downs whose entire theory is based on the flow of information regarding wants of the citizens and the policy position of the parties.
18 Joseph Schumpeter, op. cit., p. 283.
19 Manufacturing accounts for nearly 50 per cent of the labor force in Lincoln and approximately half that in Jefferson and Bryan. Agriculture accounts for about 45 per cent in Bryan and about half as much in the other two.
20 This should not be taken to mean the demise of the “old order” as an indpendent source of power, for they still remained capable of winning public office and were able to thwart through their political and economic connections the attempt to gain a new bank in the county. Like the Populists of the Midwest, the “new Order” discovered that political power does not immediately supplant other sources of power.
21 For a recent statement of the functional position, cf. Merton, Robert K., Social Theory and Social Structure, revised and enlarged edition (Glencoe, Ill., 1957)Google Scholar, ch. I.
22 With only a few exceptions, as in his concern with producers and consumers (pp. 253–259), the model is almost a replica of the free market of the classical economists. The mirror-like desires of the party politicians replace the price system as the regulator. Anthony Downs, op. cit.
23 Ibid., esp. chs. 6–8.
24 Joseph Schumpeter, op. cit.; Committee on Political Parties, American Political Science Association, op. cit.; Alexander Heard, op. cit.
25 Anthony Downs, op. cit.
26 Two recent works typifying this orientation are Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite (New York, 1956)Google Scholar, and Floyd Hunter, op. cit. Of the two, Mills is much more concerned with the assumption and strives much harder to demonstrate the irrelevance of party politics.
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