Parties and Interest Groups
A political party seeks to place its candidates in office under a common label. Parties perform four core functions:
- They recruit and select candidates for office.
- They aggregate scattered demands into policy programmes.
- They simplify voter choices using familiar party labels.
- They organise government and opposition after elections.
Party models have evolved over time:
| Type | Period | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Cadre | 19th century | Small groups of notables |
| Mass | Late 19th–mid 20th | Large dues-paying membership |
| Catch-all (Kirchheimer) | Postwar | Diluted ideology to broaden appeal |
| Cartel (Katz and Mair) | Late 20th onward | State funding and collusion |
Most modern European parties have shifted towards the cartel model.
Interest groups
Two models describe how interest groups interact with the state:
- Pluralism: many competing groups, none dominant, with the state acting as arbiter.
- Corporatism: recognised peak associations negotiating policy directly with government.
Mancur Olson analysed the logic of Collective Action. He showed that small groups with concentrated interests organise more easily than large groups with diffuse ones.
Movements, Elites, and Media
Social Movements pursue change through collective action outside routine channels. Theorists study their rise using two key concepts:
- resource mobilisation: the money, networks, and organisation needed to act.
- political opportunity structure: system openness, such as Elite divisions and new allies.
Elites and the media
Michels's iron law of oligarchy (1911) argues that organisation always creates a ruling minority. Michels showed that full-time leaders gain informational and organisational advantages over ordinary members.
Media systems have evolved from party-controlled presses to mass broadcasting, and finally to fragmented digital platforms.
Common pitfall: assuming that a large, sympathetic public makes a group influential. Olson showed that concentrated interests consistently out-organise diffuse masses.