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The Primary Goals of Political Parties: A Clarification of Positive Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Joseph A. Schlesinger
Joseph A. Schlesinger*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Abstract

Positive or rational choice theorists have tended to suppress under the rubric of “winning” elections a critical distinction in ths goals of political parties (or candidates)—the distinction between the primary goal of office and the goal of the benefits derived from the control of office. The distinction, however, has strategic consequences. Logically, the office-seeker should follow the vote-maximization strategy put forth by Downs, whereas the benefit-seeker should find Riker's minimal winning coalition most congenial. The distinction in goals and strategies also implies divergent ways of organizing political parties. A concern for benefits logically leads to the development of structures designed to insure that the party's officeholders will deliver the desired benefits. The office-seeking goal implies structures which free the party and the office-seeker to maneuver in response to electoral needs. Thus there are two positive theories resting upon two primary political goals. In their differences we find an explanation of the tensions in democratic parties.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 69 , Issue 3 , September 1975 , pp. 840 - 849
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1975

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References

1 I use the term “positive theory” following the example of Riker, William H. and Ordeshook, Peter C., who have synthesized much of this literature in their book, An Introduction to Positive Political Theory (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973)Google Scholar.

2 A thorough review of the varying scholarly meanings for the term “party” is presented in Ranney's, Austin “The Concept of ‘Party’,” in Political Research and Political Theory, ed. Garceau, Oliver (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 143–162 Google Scholar. The solution of V. O. Key, Jr., who probably ranks as the most influential single writer on American parties, to the problem of membership was to speak of the “party-in-the electorate,” “party-in-government,” and “party of organized workers”; see Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups, 5th ed. (New York: Crowell, 1964), pp. 163–165 Google ScholarPubMed. An alternative solution grades members or participants according to degree of activism from leaders to occasional supporters. See Ranney, Austin and Kendall, Willmoore, Democracy and the American Party System (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1956), pp. 199–212 Google Scholar.

3 Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1957), pp. 25–26 Google Scholar.

4 Many studies attest to the complexity of attitudes of participants in parties. One of the most thorough is Eldersveld's, Samuel Political Parties, A Behavioral Analysis (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964)Google Scholar.

5 Key, , Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups, chap. 8, pp. 199–227 Google Scholar; Chambers, William N., Political Parties in a New Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 45–51 Google Scholar; Burnham, Walter Dean, Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1970), pp. 91–134 Google Scholar; Sorauf, Frank J., Party Politics in America, 2nd ed. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972), pp. 7–27 Google Scholar; Epstein, Leon D., Political Parties in Western Democracies (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1967), pp. 3–18 Google Scholar.

6 Riker, William H., The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962)Google Scholar and Anthony Downs, Economic Theory of Democracy.

7 Downs, p. 25.

8 Ibid., p. 28.

9 Riker, pp. 32–33.

10 Ibid., pp. 98–101.

11 E. E. Schattschneider clearly anticipated the reasoning of positive theorists, including Downs and Riker. Anticipating the concept of the minimal winning coalition, he wrote that a party would not want to win 100 per cent of the vote because “it is unnecessary and wasteful. Fifty-one per cent of the vote will give any party all there is of the power to govern. … From the point of view of the interests participating in the political venture, it is more profitable to share a victory with a narrow majority than it is to partake of the spoils of victory with a larger number, for the smaller the number of participants the greater will be the share of each … the perfect party victory is to be won by accumulating a relatively narrow majority, the mark of the skillful conduct of politics.” Party Government (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1942), pp. 95–96 Google ScholarPubMed.

12 Shepsle, Kenneth A., “The Strategy of Ambiguity: Uncertainty and Electoral Competition,” The American Political Science Review, 66 (06, 1972), 555–568 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, presents a different resolution to Downs's rationality crisis.

13 Even though a minimizing strategy makes sense for voters, they are hardly capable of carrying one out. To pursue such a collective strategy requires organization, a point to which I return below. Candidates, on the other hand, can seek a maximizing strategy, as has been demonstrated by Hershey, Marjorie R., “Incumbency and the Minimum Winning Coalition,” American Journal of Political Science, 17 (08, 1973), 631–637 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 The economist, Stigler, George J., in “Economic Competition and Political Competition,” Public Choice, 13 (Fall, 1972), 91–106 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has sought to resolve the conflict between party objectives found in Downs and Riker. While his argument is interesting, it rests upon the complete elimination of winning office as a party goal, a most apolitical assumption.

15 Downs, , Economic Theory of Democracy, p. 28 Google Scholar.

16 Riker, , Theory of Political Coalitions, p. 209 Google Scholar. The discussion of special payments to leaders is in pp. 203–210.

17 Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965)Google Scholar.

18 On the debate within the labor movement as well as the impact of direct involvement on the unions' own political flexibility, see Greenstone, J. David, Labor in American Politics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969)Google Scholar.

19 The fact that office-seekers must win while benefit-seekers in parties find winning the election only the best alternative is one reason that the former tend to dominate parties. Lacking an alternative, the office-seeker must either keep pressing his strategy, give up his goal, or move on to another party. The benefit-seeker, because his objectives are likely to be satisfied in some measure, is under less pressure to insist upon his strategy. He may even be able to withdraw from direct partisan activity and remain a benefit-seeker, something an office-seeker cannot do with respect to his goal.

In addition, the office-seeker and everyone else know when his goals have been achieved. The achievement of benefits, however, is not always so clear. The fact that one goal—office—is simple, observable, and easily measured in its achievement, while the other—benefits—is usually ambiguous and always subject to argument over its achievement reinforces the ten-dency for the office-seeking goal to dominate political parties, as well as the attitudes of candidates themselves.

20 Hinich, Melvin J. and Ordeshook, Peter C., “Plurality Maximization vs. Vote Maximization. A Spatial Analysis with Variable Participation,” The American Political Science Review, 64 (09, 1970), 772–791 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 One positive theorist has addressed the problem of relating turnout to plurality. See Kramer, Gerald H., “A Decision-Theoretic Analysis of a Problem in Political Campaigning,” in Mathematical Applications in Political Science II, ed. Bernd, Joseph L. (Dallas: Arnold Foundation, Southern Methodist University Press, 1966), pp. 137–160 Google Scholar.

22 The proposition that benefit-seekers want a minimal victory rests on the assumption that control of the office can produce the benefit. The American system, combining separation of powers with bicameralism and federalism, means that control of one element does not necessarily produce the desired benefits. The need, therefore, to control more offices may lead the rational benefit-seeker to adopt a more than minimum winning strategy.

23 On political parties as coalitions of ambitious office-seekers, see Schlesinger, Joseph A., Ambition and Politics (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966)Google Scholar.

24 Davis, Otto A., Hinich, Melvin J., and Ordeshook, Peter C., “An Expository Development of a Mathematical Model of the Electoral Process,” The American Political Science Review, 64 (06, 1970), 438 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 The benefit-seeking officeholder's problem is not unlike that analyzed by Thomas C. Schelling in which a bargainer increases his strength by proving his inability to change his position. The Strategy of Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 22–28 Google ScholarPubMed.

26 Hinich and Ordeshook, pp. 772–791.

27 Positive theorists have examined possible goals for parties and candidates other than plurality and vote maximization. Riker, and Ordeshook, , “Plurality Maximization vs. Vote Maximization,” p. 336 Google Scholar, mention briefly such goals as maximizing the proportion of the vote, the probability of winning, and the probability of securing a fixed percentage of the vote. None of these, however, is identical with the minimal winning coalition.

28 Their discussion of the size principle is found on pp. 176–201, assumptions about the objectives of candidates on pp. 333–337, in Introduction to Positive Political Theory.

29 Ibid., p. 335, fn. 33.

30 Positive theorists have examined the possibility that candidates and parties are subject to internal restraints, i.e., their ability to respond to electoral competition may be affected by the need to respond to activists either in obtaining nominations or campaign resources. Riker and Ordeshook, raise the problem briefly on pp. 361–362. It is also raised in Davis, , Hinich, , and Ordeshook, , “An Expository Development,” pp. 426–448 Google Scholar and in Coleman, James S., “Internal Processes Governing Party Positions in Elections,” Public Choice, 11 (Fall, 1971), 35–60 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The argument of these articles is quite distinct from the one I am making since they treat activists as people who have preferences, while only candidates or parties have strategies. Thus their analysis is similar to James Q. Wilson's distinction between amateurs and professionals. My contention is that the activist is capable of strategic judgments; a primary voter can be concerned with choosing the candidate likely to win in the general election as much as with choosing one who comes closest to his preferences.

Two articles which do treat the activist as a potential strategist are Aranson, Peter H. and Ordeshook, Peter C., “Spatial Strategies for Sequential Election,” in Probability Models of Collective Decision-Making, ed. Niemi, Richard G. and Weisberg, Herbert F. (Columbus: Charles E. Merrill, 1972), pp. 298–331 Google Scholar, and Coleman, James S., “The Positions of Political Parties in Elections,” in Niemi, and Weisberg, , pp. 332–357 Google Scholar. These do not, however, develop my point that the activist as benefit-seeker attempts to win with a strategy different from that of the office-seeker.

31 Wright, William E., A Comparative Study of Party Organization (Columbus: Charles E. Merrill, 1971), pp. 17–54 Google Scholar.

32 Wilson, James Q., The Amateur Democrat (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962)Google Scholar.

33 Putnam, Robert D., “Studying Elite Political Culture: The Case of ‘Ideology’“ The American Political Science Review, 65 (09, 1971), 669 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Ordeshook, Peter C., in “Extensions to a Model of the Electoral Process and Implications for the Theory of Responsible Parties,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 14 (02 1970), 43–70 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, applies positive theory to one concept usually associated with problems of internal party organization. His discussion of the responsible party concept, however, deals entirely with the question of whether or not parties present clear and distinct electoral choices.

35 In many political situations open voting does exist, thus making the type of organization required by voters with a secret ballot unnecessary. It is in such situations, quite naturally, therefore, that the concept of the minimal winning coalition has been applied most successfully. Thus it has been applied to presidential nominating conventions by Brams, Steven T. and Riker, William H., “Models of Coalition Formation in Voting Bodies,” in Mathematical Applications in Political Science VI, ed. Herndon, James F. and Bernd, Joseph L. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1972), pp. 79–124 Google Scholar. Legislative voting is also open so that benefit-seekers need no special structure to demonstrate their support, hence the strategy of the benefit-seeking coalition is most readily observed there. The volume edited by Groennings, Sven, Kelley, E. W., and Leiserson, Michael, The Study of Coalition Behavior (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970)Google Scholar contains a number of such studies in various countries, the common feature of which is that the coalitions are formed by individuals overtly.

33 Duverger, Maurice, Political Parties (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1963)Google Scholar.

37 Hirschman, Albert O., Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970)Google ScholarPubMed.

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