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The Structuring of Mass Politics in the Smaller European Democracies: A Developmental Typology*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Stein Rokkan
Stein Rokkan
Affiliation:
University of Bergen and Chr. Michelsen Institute
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Extract

There is a curious awkwardness about discussions of “types” in comparative politics. Aristotle and Montesquieu taught us to proceed by classifications of regimes, and the current generation of computer enthusiasts have offered us more and more powerful tools for the handling of wide ranges of attributes of political entities and for the establishment of complex multi-dimensional typologies. Yet as soon as we are confronted with a concrete table of alternative types and look over the lists of cases assigned to each cell, our first reaction is almost immediately to add further distinctions, to reject the imposition of similarities across historically distinct units. The student of politics is torn between two sets of super-ego demands: he feels an obligation to reduce the welter of empirical facts to a body of parsimoniously organized general propositions but he also feels under pressure to treat each case sui generis, as a unique configuration worthy of an effort of understanding all on its own. This is of course a dilemma common to all social sciences but is particularly difficult to handle in the study of such highly visible, amply documented macro-units as historical polities. Students of census records, elections and survey data have an enormous analytical advantage: they deal with large numbers of anonymous units and can therefore proceed with the analysis of their data with a minimum of interference from exogenous “noise”. The student of comparative politics is roughly in the position of a social scientist asked to analyze the census records or the survey responses of a set of close friends: he cannot prevent himself from bringing into his analysis of the coded data on the punched cards a wide range of uncoded “surplus” information acquired through years of acquaintance with the subjects. The standardized sample survey derives great methodological strength from its programmatic insistence on equality, anonymity and distance in the treatment of the information collected: the data are given once and for all in the protocols or on the IBM cards and there is no allowance for fuzzy interaction with the subjects outside that framework.

Type
Typologies for Development: Political and Economic
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , January 1968 , pp. 173 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1968

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References

1 A vastly more complex model has been developed to map out the sources of variations among Latin American polities at the diTella Institute in Buenos Aires: see O. Cornblit, T. diTella, and E. Gallo, “Politics in New Nations: A Model of Social Change for Latin America in the Nineteenth Century”, paper, Sixth World Congress of Sociology, Evian, France, September, 1966.

2 Lipset, S. M. and Rokkan, S., “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: an Introduction”, in Lipset, S. M. and Rokkan, S. (eds.), Party Systems and Voter Alignments (New York, Free Press, 1967), pp. 1–64.Google Scholar

3 See e.g., Lipset, S. M. et al. , “The Psychology of Voting”, in Lindzey, G. (ed.), Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. II (Cambridge, Addison-Wesley, 1954), pp. 1123–1175.Google Scholar

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5 A pioneering effort along these lines is Philip Converse, “The Problem of Party Distances in Models of Voting Change”, in Jennings, Kent and Zeigler, Harmon (eds.), The Electoral Process (Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1966), pp. 175–207.Google Scholar

8 Data archives for parliamentary personnel are under development in a number of countries and will soon allow detailed comparisons of variations in the socio-economic distinctiveness of the parties at this level, see e.g., Valen, Henry, “The Recruitment of Parliamentary Nominees in Norway”, Scand. Pol. Studies., I (1966), pp. 121–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 For an example of a possible approach see Borg, Olavi, “Basic Dimensions of Finnish Party Ideologies”, Scand. Pol. Stud., I (1966), pp. 94–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Here again a number of national studies of party cohesion and party distinctiveness will offer possibilities of cross-country comparisons, see e.g., Pedersen, Mogens N., ”Consensus and Conflict in the Danish Folketing 1945–65”, Scand. Pol. Studies, II (1967), pp. 143–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 For further discussion of the “fit” for Britain, Prussia/Germany, France, Italy and Spain, see Lipset, S. M. and Rokkan, S., op. cit., pp. 38–50.Google Scholar

10 The paper in fact represents an early report on one facet of the work carried out within the collaborative international project “The Politics of the Smaller European Democracies”. This project is supported by the Ford Foundation and is directed by four “editors”: Hans Daalder, Robert Dahl, Val Lorwin and Stein Rokkan.

11 For details on PR thresholds see Rokkan, Stein, “Electoral Systems”, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, forthcoming 1968.Google Scholar

12 Examples: C. J. Friedrich in his Introduction to Hermens, F. A., Democracy or Anarchy? (Notre Dame, Review of Politics, 1941), p. XXV,Google ScholarUnkelbach, H., Grundlagen der Wahlsystematik (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck, 1956), “These 9”, pp. 59–65.Google Scholar

13 This point has been brought out with great force in Giovanni Sartori's analysis of the aggregating effects of “strong” electoral systems such as the single-member plurality, the absolute majority run-off or the high-threshold, small-constituency PR as against ”weak” systems such as the low-threshold, large-constituency PR: see Parties and Party Systems (New York, Harper, 1968), Ch. 21.Google Scholar

14 For a first attempt at a clarification of the issues of “macro”-”micro” logic see Rokkan, S., “The Comparative Analysis of Political Participation”, in Ranney, A. (ed.), Essays on the Behavioral Study of Politics (Urbana, Univ. of Illinois Press, 1962), pp. 47–90.Google Scholar

15 The original designs were heavily influenced by Lewinian field psychology, see especially the theoretical introduction to Campbell, Angus et al. , The American Voter (New York, Wiley, 1960).Google Scholar The Michigan analysts were themselves among the leaders in the movement to develop the historical dimensions of electoral analysis and have pioneered the organization of a large-scale computer archive for time series data for elections and censuses: see Campbell, A. et al. , Elections and the Political Order (New York, Wiley, 1966).Google Scholar

16 Lipset, S. M. and Rokkan, S., “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: an Introduction”, op. cit., pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

17 For Britain, see Taylor, Charles L., The Emergence of British Working Class Politics, Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1962.Google Scholar For Ireland, see the maps for the frequencies of British-Irish aggression in Rumpf, E., Nationalisms und Sozialismus in Irland (Meisenheim, Hain, 1959), pp. 62–63, 73–74, 81.Google Scholar

18 For evidence of the openness of the Danish absolutist regime to pressures from dissident publics see the remarkable analysis by Seip, J. A., Det opinionsstyrte enevelde (Oslo, Universitetsforlaget, 1958).Google Scholar

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20 This argument has been elaborated in further detail by Lehmbruch, Gerhard in Proporzdemokratie: Politisches System und politische Kultur in der Schweiz und in Osterreich (Tübingen, Mohr, 1967): he stresses the functions of pluralist segmentation and Proporz executives for the stabilization of the national polity against disruptive pressures from the international environment; his main examples are Switzerland, Austria, the Lebanon and Cyprus.Google Scholar

21 Cf. Rokkan, S., “Electoral Mobilization, Party Competition and National Integration”, LaPalombara, J. and Weiner, M., eds., Political Parties and Political Development (Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press, 1966), pp. 241–265,Google Scholar and Rokkan, S. and Meyriat, J., eds., International Guide to Electoral Statistics (Paris, Mouton, 1968).Google Scholar

22 See Rokkan, S., “Electoral mobilization …”, op. cit.Google Scholar

23 For France see Kesselman, M., “French Local Government: a Statistical Examination of Grass Roots Consensus”, Amer. Pol. Sci. Rev., 60 (12 1966), 963–973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For details on Norway see Rokkan, S. and Valen, H., “The Mobilization of the Periphery”, in Rokkan, S., ed., Approaches to the Study of Political Participation (Bergen, Michelsen Inst., 1962), pp. 111–158,Google Scholar and Hjellum, T., “The Politicization of Local Government in Norway”, Scandinavian Political Studies, vol. II (1967), pp. 69–93.Google Scholar An analysis of the spread of national parties in Iceland confirms the findings of the Norwegian studies:

24 In order of precedence: Uri, Obwalden, Nidwalden, Appenzell Inner Rhodes, Appenzell Outer Rhodes, Grisons. For details see Girod, Roger, “Geography of the Swiss Party System”, in Allardt, E. and Littunen, Y., eds., Cleavages, Ideologies and Party Systems (Helsinki, Westermarck Society, 1964), pp. 132–161.Google Scholar

25 “Especially in small groups making genuine decisions rather than playing what they know is a game, considerations of maintaining the solidarity of the group and the loyalty of members to it probably dominate considerations of maximum victory on particular decisions.” Riker, W. H., The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1962), p. 51.Google Scholar

26 For a classification of such coalition costs, see Riker, , op. cit., “The Cost and Value of Side-Payments”, pp. 115–120.Google Scholar

27 Similar arguments have been advanced for the Netherlands by Lijphart, Arend in The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley, Univ. of California Press, 1967)Google Scholar and in his paper, “Typologies of Democratic Systems”, Seventh World Congress of Political Science, Brussels, 1967. All the eleven smaller democracies are markedly more dependent on international trade than any of the larger ones. See Russett, B. et al. , World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators (New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1964),Google Scholar Table 46 and t he further analysis in Dahl, Robert A. and Tufte, Edward R., “Size and Democracy”. Paper, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, 1967.Google Scholar

28 Lipset, S. M. and Rokkan, S., “Cleavage Structures …”, op. cit., p. 50.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., p. 54.

30 Epstein, Leon D., “A Comparative Study of Canadian Parties”, American Political Science Review, 63 (1) (03 1964), 46–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 See e.g., Rokkan, S., “Norway: Numerical Democracy and Corporate Pluralism”, in Dahl, R. A., ed., Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 89–105.Google Scholar

32 For a full statement of the assumptions and an initital discussion of the fit for the larger polities see Lipset, S. M. and Rokkan, S., “Cleavage structures”, op. cit., pp. 36–50.Google Scholar

33 Rumpf, E., Nationalismus und Sozialismus, op. cit., Ch. II.Google Scholar

34 Pocock, J. G. A., “The Case of Ireland Truly Stated: Revolutionary Politics in a Context of Increasing Stabilization”, Paper, Dept. of History, Washington University, St. Louis, 1966.Google Scholar

35 See Rokkan, S., “Geography, Religion and Social Class: Cross-Cutting Cleavages in Norway”, in Lipset, S. M. and Rokkan, S. (eds.), Party Systems, op. cit.Google Scholar

36 See especially Rantala, O., “The Political Regions of Finland”, Scandinavian Political Studies, vol. II (1967). Erik Allardt has based a number of his ecological factor analyses on the regional demarcation originally established on the basis of the votes for Old Finns vs. Young Finns.Google Scholar

37 For further details see Lipset-Rokkan, , “Cleavage Structures …”, op. cit., pp. 44–46.Google Scholar Barrington Moore focuses his theory of the conditions for the emergence of stable representative democracy on the alternative options for land-industry-State alliances; see Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston, Beacon, 1966), especially Ch. VII.Google Scholar

38 See Rokkan, S., “Electoral Mobilization …”, op. cit.,Google Scholar and Rokkan, S. (ed.), Data Archives for the Social Sciences (Paris-The Hague, Mouton, 1966).Google Scholar