The Anatomy of Power Inside Political Parties

Before we discuss how to apply the principles of representative democracy to political parties, we need to understand the allocation of power inside them. Power struggles within organizations in general and within parties have many features in common studied in organizational theory.

One feature that is salient in political parties is the extreme greed for power, well expressed in the popular saying: “In the other parties I have adversaries; in my party I have enemies”. Another distinctive feature of party organizations is that members tend to be aligned in groups. However, this form of tribal or feudal organization often ends up in two opposite forms of power sharing. In some parties the contenders defeated are selectively invited to join the winners while in others they ostracized into permanent opposition or expulsion.

Such groups are formed in many different ways, including the sharing of ideals or ideology, but generally they fight for power over mundane issues. For instance, the most common is to fight over some obscure amendment to the Party’s charter, which is immediately forgotten once the fight is over. Another bizarre form of fight for succession in communist parties was over the organization of the burial ceremony of deceased leaders. Many leaders also run the parties in a courtier system and therefore give a lot of power to those with the door keys to the courtroom.

In my brief experience as member of a Party Directorate I identified three major sources of power within political parties. These are the Leader’s entourage, the Administration in charge of liaison with the local sections of the party and the Fundraisers. The Leader’s Cabinet is usually made up of at least four or five people: his head of cabinet and secretary, media and intelligence liaison officers and the head of administration.

Among them they manage a network of official and unofficial political advisers. Their role can be quite distinct and there are those who do not seat in the party’s elected bodies and some who are not even party members. There are many that come and go as policies shift and there a few with lasting influence over the leader. The later are the most powerful and are usually on the unofficial or undisclosed list of advisers, often including family members and party financiers. The Cabinet and Administration heads are essential for the relationship of the Party Leader with the party members and interest groups in general.

The second-in-command is usually the Head of Administration (with a title of Secretary-General, Chief of Staff or similar). Because of the role he plays in the control over the party membership, he is essential for the reelection of the leader. His influence derives from the power to distribute resources among the various sections of the party, and, most importantly, from his role in organizing all party events and elections. However, the way the party is organized in terms of local sections and the process of selection of its members to national elections may mitigate the influence of the Head of Administration.

Finally, the third most influential members are those responsible for fund raising. These may include three different types of fund raisers: a Party Treasurer, who in some cases has a simple accounting role without political influence, wealthy supporters of the Party, who are also some of the biggest party donors, and non-donor fund raisers. The second may have some influence in policy setting, but the later are the most active and influential in selling political favors and legislative votes to special interest groups. Among these we often find some obscure and dodgy characters that the parties reward with sinecures or by letting them take a cut in the donations received.

So it is against this background of organizational power within parties that any regulation aimed at improving representative democracy within parties has to be discussed. This will need to consider the relationship within local sections of the party and their role in the selection of candidates for national office as well as the role of the various national bodies representing the party.

Political Parties and Representative Democracy

What do the Norwegian bomber, the London rioters and the Madrid sit-in have in common? All questioned the capacity of the elected representatives to listen to their demands. All used the new media to organize themselves to commit and promote their acts. Politicians and the media have always been blamed for steering the extremism and madness of individuals and mobs. Such events are also invariable followed by repeated calls for regulation of the parties and the media. Let us consider then the case for more party regulation.

It is a well established fact that representative democracy needs to be complemented by constitutional liberalism and an independent judicial system to protect individuals and minorities from unwarranted interference of governments and oppression by the majorities. That is generally considered enough and therefore political parties were usually left to themselves. So, has something changed? Yes and no!

The mainstream parties lost most of their ideological imprint, leaving the confrontation of ideologies for non-parliamentary small parties. There has been also a growing trend towards rotation within a two-party system. Therefore political parties became murky grand coalitions of interests, relying on large secretive organizations fed by an ever increasing number of partisan jobs in government and the regulated industries. Their communication with the electorate is delegated to expensive marketing and public relations groups with enormous resources and privileged access to the mass media, which perpetuates them in a duopolistic position at the expense of the small parties.

The smaller parties (parliamentary and non-parliamentary) occasionally achieve ephemeral visibility but only by taking radical positions on single-issue policies. This is a self-defeating route. It bars them from participating in government or having their views considered by legislators and the public in general. They face a situation similar to that of the small suppliers of large corporations. Likewise they would benefit from a stronger regulation of big political parties to get closer to a leveling playing field in the electoral system.

It is true that technological progress towards internet-based media may give them a new opportunity to challenge the big players. But as the emergence of cheap email brought with it the need for anti-spam programs so will the public ask for protection against a spam of miniscule parties.

Therefore, any increase in regulation needs to address both big and small parties, but it needs to differentiate. For instance, while the public disclosure of membership should be required from both types of parties, rules on the selection of their electoral candidates should apply only to the big parties. Likewise, the same applies to many aspects of the regulation of their financing and access to broadcasting services.

One important area of the regulation of big political parties is the imposition of limits on their campaign spending. This is so because long media-based campaigning periods become absurdly long, and consequently expensive. This gives the incumbent leading parties an unfair competitive advantage. Moreover, it compromises effective public governance and generates “democracy fatigue”.

Yet, although the new realities require a better regulation of political parties, representation in democratic societies is still better protected by restricting it to clearly defined broad political associations like the political parties. Resorting to other types of associations, pursuing specific interests or confessional values, would easily degenerate into broken societies falling either in anarchy or totalitarianism. That is, we need to improve competition between parties rather than search for new players.