Taxonomy of Political Parties

- Types of classifications:
-> uni-dimensional (using only one criterion and resulting usually in
dichotomies)
-> multi-dimensional (using multiple criteria)
- Types of classifications:
-> functionalist (classifies parties on the basis of the specific, peculiar goal
they pursue)
-> organizational (makes distinction taking into account the manner in
which parties are structured)
-> sociological (puts the emphasis on the aspect that parties represent the
interests of and are the outcome of certain social classes/ groups)
1) The functionalist classifications of political parties
1.a. Sigmund Neumann, Modern Political Parties (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press,
1956)
-> parties of individual representation (represent the interests and
demands of
a specific social group/ class)
-> parties of social integration (represent the interests of a wider
community,
possessing a well-developed network of organizations and a
veritable partisan
community; they provide various services to
their members and they receive,
in exchange, financial contributions
and volunteered services of members
during electoral campaigns)
-> parties of total integration (have more ambitious goals of
seizing power and
radically transforming societies, demanding the full
commitment and
unquestioning obedience of members)
1.b. Herbert Kitschelt, The Logic of Party Formation (Ithaca, New York:
Cornell
University Press, 1989)
-> parties that put forward the logic of electoral competition
-> parties that emphasize the logic of constituency representation
(e.g. the left
libertarian parties)
1.c. Max Weber, Economy and Society
-> simple patronage parties (functioning based on clientelar
relations between
the leaders and the active members)
the same

-> ideological parties (functioning and mobilizing people based on

vision of the world)

2) The organizational classifications of political parties

2.a. Ferdinand Mler-Rommel, Small Parties in Western Europe.
Comparative and National Perspectives (London: SAGE Publications, 1991)
-> small parties
-> big parties
2.b. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties (London: Meuthen, 1954): twoand-a-half- category typology
-> cadre parties (personnel parties, the caucus) (small number
of members,
usually led by individuals with high socioeconomic
status, representing the
interests of middle or upper classes)
-> mass parties (the branch) (many and complex suborganizations,
mobilizing broad segments of the electorate,
usually those of the lower social
classes)
-> the half category: the Leninist devotee party (too vague to
constitute a
separate category)
2.c. Herbert Kitschelt, The Transformation of European Social Democracy
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994)
-> centralist clubs
-> Leninist cadres
-> decentralized clubs
-> decentralized mass parties
2.d. Angelo Panebianco, Political Parties: Organization and Power (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1988)
-> the mass-bureaucratic parties
-> electoral-professional parties
2.e. Maurice Duverger, A Caucus and Branch, Cadre Parties and Mass
Parties (1963),
distinguishes between 3 partisan families: the bourgeois
parties (today, conservative
and liberal parties), the socialist parties and an
heteroclite type called the communist
and the fascist parties; by 1963, he
make a final distinction between communist and fascist parties (la cellule and
la milice):
-> the caucus (la comit) (narrow character regarding
organization and
membership aspects)
bankers,

-> conservative (consisting of aristocrats, industrial magnates,

churchmen, etc.)

-> liberal (composed of trade people, writers, journalists, civil

lawyers, etc.)

servants,
membership

-> the branch (la section) (the party of an assembly, with broad
and multi-layered structure)

-> la cellule (the communist model of the branch: local and

professional base
party, with constant and permanent contacts between
members, solidarity being
the dominant relation among adherents)
-> la milice (the fascist model of the caucus)
2.f. Max Weber, Economy and Society (pp.375-376)
-> ephemeral parties
-> permanent parties
2.g. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties uses the distinction between the
unitary and the federal state for the differentiation between:
time the

-> parties with direct structure (the members forming at the same
partisan community)

-> parties with indirect structure (constituted as a union of social

groups with
trade unions and corporations)
-> socialist parties
-> agrarian parties
-> catholic parties
of the

2.h. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties using the criterion of the strength
structures of parties)
-> parties with thin structural links (partis avec faible articulation)

-> parties with strong structural links (partis avec forte

articulation)
This results in another classification, provided also by Duverger:
-> decentralized parties
-> locally decentralized parties
cantonal

-> federally decentralized parties (e.g. in Switzerland, the

parties)

certain
e.g. the
Russian Social-

-> ideologically decentralized parties (retaining, promoting a

autonomy regarding factions, tendencies within parties;
Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks within RSDLP, the
Democratic Labor Party)

social,

-> socially decentralized parties (separating the party into

corporate sections)

-> centralized parties

-> autocratically centralized parties
-> democratically centralized parties
the

2.i. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties using the criterion of the sense of
structures of parties)

-> parties with horizontal links (every two organisms within the
party are on
the same foot, they are hierarchically equal)
-> parties with vertical links (one organism within the party is
subordinated to
another, they are not hierarchically equal; e.g. the
communist parties)
4) The mixture classification of political parties (neither functionalist, nor
organizational, nor sociological, but a combination of the three, or making no
distinction between the three)
4.a. Otto Kirchheimer, The Transformation of the Western European Party
System (in Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weimer (eds.), Political Parties and
Political
Development, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1966)
-> bourgeois parties of individual representation
-> class-mass parties
-> denominational-mass parties
-> catch-all people`s parties
4.b. Norberto Bobbio, Dreapta i stnga (Bucureti: Humanitas, 1999)
uses the
ideological criterion
-> left-wing (leftist) parties
-> right-wing (rightist) parties
4.c. Kare Strom uses the rational choice theory as a criterion
-> vote-seeking parties
-> office-seeking parties
-> policy-seeking parties
4.d. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties uses the origins as a criterion

-> parties with parliamentary origin (generally linked to the

interests of the
middle and upper strata)
-> parties with extra-parliamentary origin (the Labor Party, the
Scandinavian
agrarian parties, the parties of the religious groups:
more centralized and
disciplined, representing the interests of
the lower classes)
5) Multi-dimensional classifications
5.a. Stein Rokkan, Party Systems and Voter Alignments, then Daniel L.
Seiler, Les partis politiques, Partidele politice din Europa (Iai: Institutul
European, 1999, transl. Eugenia Zinescu) use the concept of cleavage for
classifying parties. Cleavage is
defined as a bureaucratized and
routinized conflict and every revolution produces a
cleavage; each
revolution produces 2 cleavages: one functional, one territorial
-> the religious revolution in the 16th century determined the
cleavages: the
Church the state (functional) and the center the
periphery (territorial); the 2
cleavages produced:
-> the clerical parties vs. the anti-clerical (lay, secular) parties
-> the centralist parties vs. the autonomist parties
-> the industrial revolution in the 18th-19th centuries determined the
cleavages:
the owners the workers (functional) and urban rural
(territorial); the 2
cleavages produced:
-> the bourgeois parties vs. the labor parties
organized

-> the agrarian/ the green parties (cities and town did not
themselves in parties, as a response to this cleavage)

Taking into account the intensity of the cleavage, there is the distinction
between:
-> the moderate parties (when the cleavage is attenuated)
-> the extremist parties (when the cleavage is sharpened)
A last cleavage is mentioned by Seiler: the state the civil society, which
determined the
distinction between:
-> the totalitarian parties
-> the anarchical (auto-administered) parties
5.b. Larry Diamond and Richard Gunther, Political Parties and Democracy
(Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) use the
following criteria:

Criterion

Classification

The varying electoral strategies

- clearly programmatic or ideological parties

- pragmatic, unprincipled parties

Social representation

- parties that are exclusively based on a

particular ethnic, religious, socioeconomic
group
- heterogeneous or promiscuously eclectic
parties

Principal objectives

- parties that are intensely committed to

securing some specific social objective
- parties that merely want to win elections

Organizational capacities

- organizationally thin parties

- large and complex parties

PLURALISTIC
ELITE PARTIES

PROTO-HEGEMONIC

Local Notable
Clientelistic

MASS-BASED PARTIES
IDEOLOGICAL/SOCIALIST

Class-mass

Leninist

IDEOLOGICAL/NATIONALIST

Pluralistic Nationalist

Ultranationalist

RELIGIOUS

Denominational-mass

Religious Fundamentalist

ETHNICITY-BASED PARTIES

Ethnic
Congress

ELECTORALIST PARTIES

Catch-all
Programmatic
Personalistic

MOVEMENT PARTIES

Left-Libertarian
Post-Industrial Extreme
Right