In the nineteenth century elections and political parties developed the form that is recognizable today. It was during that time that the franchise - the right to vote - steadily expanded in a number of (mainly European and North American) countries. See also Political Organisations.
There had, of course, been elections before that time, but the number of voters had usually been so small that candidates could appeal to them on a more or less individual basis, and without the necessity of party organizations. Also, there had been political parties before the nineteenth century, but normally they had consisted of factions within the legislature. It was only with the growth of electorates that the need arose for extra-parliamentary party organizations to help to run the new, extended election campaigns. The widening of the franchise also meant that it became more difficult for candidates to campaign as independents; a party label became a key to success at the polls.
The Spread of Democratization
Since the nineteenth century, democracy has spread in two main ways. First, it has spread within those countries that were already partly democratic. Second, it has spread to a large number of new countries. It is nevertheless a mistake to view the flow of recent history as a simple progress towards a democratic nirvana. Democracies have been destroyed as well as created. Noble experiments in popular self-government have been accompanied by the worst tyrannies in history, and by some of the most pernicious doctrines of all time - most notably those popularized in Hitler's Germany from 1933 to 1945.
Richard Katz cites statistics to illustrate the deepening of democracies within the countries from which democracy initially emerged. He shows that, even in countries where competitive elections already existed, it took a succession of developments during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to establish the principle of the United Nations of a universal right of adult citizens to the vote. In most countries, voting rights were initially restricted to male property-owners. In Britain, a series of Reform Acts extended the franchise in 1832, 1867, 1884, 1918, 1928, and 1948. The percentage of the total population
entitled to vote in some of the pioneering democracies is shown in the following table (the figures do not approach 100 percent since they include children as well as adults).
| | 1840 |
1900 |
1930 |
1950 |
1980 |
| Belgium |
-1 |
22 |
30 |
65 |
70 |
| Britain |
-4 |
16 |
66 |
68 |
75 |
| France |
-0.4 |
29 |
28 |
61 |
67 |
| Netherlands |
-4 |
12 |
51 |
56 |
72 |
| Norway |
-8 |
-9 |
57 |
66 |
74 |
| Sweden |
-7 |
-8 |
61 |
66 |
74 |
(Richard S. Katz, Democracy and Elections. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997, table 13.3.)
As far as the geographical spread of democracy is concerned, Joshua Muravchik has traced 'a gradual and ragged advance of democracy.' (Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America's Destiny. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1991, p.73.) When 'modern democracy' was born in the United States in 1776, the right to vote was restricted to less than one million white males who, in some states, were also required to be property owners. It took some time for democratic constitutionalism to spread. Beside the developments in
Britain and its (mainly white) Dominions, the revolutionary spasm in Europe in 1848 led to a spread of democracy in much of Europe. In Latin America, too, there was some notable democratic progress in the decades before the First
World War.
After a shaky period between the two World Wars, democracy resumed its advance from the time of the defeat of Hitler and his allies in 1945. Not only was democracy restored in Germany, Austria, and Italy, but it was created in Japan. The widespread breakdown of colonial rule, most notably in India, led to the creation of a new wave of democracies, although in some newly-independent states, one party rule and military dictatorship became all too common. In Latin America, too, dictatorships destroyed democracies in many countries in the 1960s and 1970s.
In the 1970s the emergence of democratic government in Portugal and Spain heralded what has come to be known as a 'third wave' of democratization. This includes the re-emergence of elective democracies in many Latin American, and some Asian and African countries, as well as the fall of the Soviet Union and its replacement by states committed to competitive elections. According to the New York research institute, Freedom House, 61 of 167 of the world's sovereign states, comprising about 39 percent of the world's population, lived in free, democratic states. (Muravchik, p. 80.)
The Development of Elections and Political Parties
The growth of political parties was, according to a conventional view of political scientists, a result of the spread of elections. Extra-parliamentary organizations became necessary to make elective democracy work. Political parties, at least those in Western democracies, came to fulfil at least six functions. These were:
Voters came to base their voting choices less on the qualities of individual candidates and more on the image of the party under whose label or banner they presented themselves.
- The integration and mobilization of the mass public:
Membership of political parties and participation in their activities came to provide an important form of civic involvement by citizens, and thus helped to strengthen civic values; political parties also played the main role in the organization of election campaigns.
- The recruitment of political leaders:
The selection of candidates for parliament and, if a party won office, for the top government positions was a party function.
- The organization of government:
When a party won power, it could normally expect its supporters in the legislature to vote on party lines to ensure that its policies were accepted.
- The formation of public policy:
Party organizations, especially their research departments, were a significant source of new policy ideas that then became government policy.
- The aggregation of interests:
In order to win votes, parties had to persuade voters to support them on a variety of issues. In this respect, parties differed from 'single issue' pressure groups.
It is vital to bear in mind that this list refers to the roles of parties belonging to multi-party systems. Organizations called 'political parties' also existed in non-democratic systems - the Nazi Party, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were examples. 'Parties' were prominent, too, in the one-party states common in Africa following independence from colonial rule. Non-democratic parties have sometimes fulfilled one or more of the above functions. Yet, they are essentially different from democratic parties: they are much closer to the apparatus of the state, and they do not have to compete against other parties in free and fair elections.
The Growth of Media-Centred Electioneering
Since the 1960s, observers have remarked ever more frequently on the gradual decline in the importance of political parties in competitive democracies. The 'decline of party' thesis need not mean that parties have become unimportant. However, it does suggest that they have become considerably less important than before. The decline of party is evident in their decreasing memberships in many countries. There is evidence too that voters are no longer as loyal to party labels as they once were; the qualifications and images of individual candidates have become more significant. This is especially the case in some countries with a majoritarian electoral system.
Social and technological reasons have been given for this apparent decline of party loyalties. When a high proportion of voters worked in factories, the divide in the work place between workers on the one hand, and owners and managers on the other hand, led naturally to a divide of political loyalties along class lines. While class loyalties remained the main basis of allegiance to political parties, voters were likely (it is argued) to remain loyal to a single party. However, social changes have meant that ever fewer people work in heavy industry. Class lines have fractured and, with them, automatic party loyalties. These social changes have affected much of the industrialized world. Ethnic factors are strong determinants of party allegiance in many developing countries and in some economically advanced societies too.
The main technological development is the advent of television. In the past, electoral success depended to a large extent on the efficiency of local party organizers. They were (again, according to commonly accepted, but possibly exaggerated arguments) the main link between the party leaders and ordinary voters. Now that television has come into almost every home, party leaders no longer need the services of local party organizers. The essential skills in
modern elections are those of media advisers, opinion polling experts, and advertising men. This is certainly the case in many industrialized countries. The extent to which similar skills are applicable in less developed nations is a matter of controversy.
The decline of traditional party organization and the growing importance of political marketing have made election campaigns more costly. This is one reason why politicians have arranged in a large number of countries for subventions to parties from public funds. As with the other trends outlined above, there is considerably less evidence about trends in political financing in less developed countries than in industrially advanced countries.
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