Development of Parties and Party Systems in ... - lah@sam.sdu.dk

The assumption that a better parti organisation in itself leads to better election results, has not beenconfirmed. Thus, at the 1994 election in Hungary the post-communist Socialist Party (MSZP)gained more than half of seats in parliament in spite of a fall in number of party members to 40.000.At the 1993 election in Poland the left wing alliance SLD did well in spite of the fact that thenumber af members in the peasant party PSL, the junior party in government, was three timeshigher than in SLD. Nevertheless, on the longer term political parties with a small membership basemay face insurmountable difficulties in times of crisis and decay and making it impossible torecover.Several parties have aimed to compensate for low institutionalisation by high level activities inmacroeconomic level, e.g. in the parliament. The high activity in parliament, however, led to moredisagreements on leadership level, reinforced the “elititisation”, and fostered lower party discipline.In the end, lack of discipline and too many “wars in the top”drained the political parties of energy.High institutionalisation inevitably foster more input-articulation. Which means that the politicaldemands are put forward in the decision making stage. In the first stage the input-side was grosslydowngraded, thereby enhancing the development towards total articulation, outputarticulation anddemocratic overload (Heywood, 1998:80). Contributing to that were the almost hermetically closeddecision making procedures 34 . The centralisation of decision making was due to the many problemsconnected with abosrbation of demands from outside, the aggregation of demands and convertion ofdemands to political decisions. Low institutionalization was not only af party phenomenon, butalso signified interest organisations, including the post-communist trade unions. In general theparties were notin the position to “sell themselves” to the electorate because of a bad party press, abad profile in media, too few party members and a low administrative capacity. Under thosecircumstances the political debates became zero sum plays and political life an almost permanentelection campaign. Between parties as well as inside parties the aim to provide more consultativeforms of articulation did not succeed.1.13. The party culture and party lifeThe party culture is often closely connected with collective memories, in the case of the CEEC’sprevious political battles before and under the communist rule. Collective memories may constitutea specific “pantheon” and “demonology”, sometimes a “foundation myth” involving the formationof the party, previous leaders and their contribution to the frther development of the parties andsometimes even former enemies of the party and “cowards”, who betrayed the party and evadedunpleasant situations. That might be the persecutions under the communist rule or as in the case ofthe communist parties the persecutions back in the 1930’s and under the nazi rule. In short,memories about “traitors” and enemies of the party at some time had left the party and scoffed atthe party, may foster more solidarity and cohesion, a more distinct “we versus them” basedfoundation 35 .To the party culture in the broader sense belong party symbols suchs as songs, flags, logo’s andnarratives about the past, in short a party tradition. The party institutionalization itself provide theparty with symbols, a party press and norms and rules for decision making and behaviour andcustoms more broadly speaking. That together constitute the cement that keeps the party together. A34 Bohdan Szklarski (1997):Semi-Public Democracy, articulation of interests and system transformation,Warszawa:Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, PAN ISP:65-6635 Michal Waller, “Party inheritance and party identities”, in Pridham and Lewis (eds) (1996:25.41