Giovanni Sartori “Parties and Party Systems” review on chapters 6-7

Guzun Grigore
In chapter 6, the author begins his ideas with description of polarised pluralism.
And for better understanding, he propose to discuss in the section which countries
actually enter the class, and especially the type, of extreme and polarised pluralism.
These countries are German Weimar Republic in the 1920s, French Fourth Republic,
Chile (until September 1973) and Italy. The main task is to to analyse its distinctive
features and systemic properties.
The first distinctive for him is the presence of relevant anti-system parties, as
Communist, Fascist or other varieties. The second distinctive feature resides in the
existence of bilateral oppositions. In the polarised pluralism we cannot discuss about
unilateral opposition, but the system has 2 oppositions then they are counter-
oppositions that are, in constructive terms incompatible. Another one feature of
polarised pluralism is its congenital ideological patterning. Ideology may signify 1.a
highly emotive involvement in politics and 2. a particular mentality(forma mentis).
Basically, in pluralistic systems the emphasis should be laid on the second, on the
mentality, that is, on ideology understood as a way of perceiving and conceiving
politics. The most important feature for me is the presence of irresponsible
oppositions. The irresponsible oppositions are the parties that oppose the system,
and they are not destined to govern.- In these conditions, is finding a peripheral
turnover. Peripheral turnover presuppose a system in which all relevant parties are
governing oriented and acceptable as governing parties.
There are a part of features which I nominalized, and from my point of view
there are most important. With these features we can analyse the distinctive features
of polarised pluralism.
The next paragraph is very interesting, usefull because there is in equal measure
about moderate pluralism in the most democratic countries (my idea), and in the
same time about how and how long have governed the parties. We can see for
example in Sweden, the social-democratic predominance started in 1932. Between
1936-1939, they joined forces with the Agrarians, and again in 1951-1957.
Interesting thing is that the social-democratic party hinged on the Communist party
in 1958. This thing helped Social-Democratic party to govern alone. In Germany,
there was different situation than in Sweden. From 1953 to 1972 the percentage
strength of the Christian Democratic party (CDU and CSU) in the Bundestag has
been 49.9 (1953), 54.3 (1957), 48.5 (1961), 49.4 (1965), 48.8 (1969), and 45.4
(1972). In comparison with Sweden – that the Christian Democrats maintained the
relative majority in the Bundestag even in the 1969 elections (48.8 against 45.2 per
cent of the SPD) and lost it only by a hair’s breadth in 1972 (45.4 to the CDU against
46.4 per cent to the SPD). This thing is due to the difference of systems.
Twoparty system is further more the most known system, because major
international actors as, USA, England, Canada have it. There are many opinions how
many countries have it. Starting with Banks and Textor which said that 11 of 115
have it, to Blondel who said 21 states. The popular opinion have thought that SUA,
Canada, Australia, England, New Zeeland have it. This opinion I support the most.
The twoparty system mustn’t be tangled with ALTERNATION. There is the
USA case when the REPUBLICANS won presidential election between the
beginning of the century and Great Depression, or the Australian case where for 60
years governed the country. The best twoparty system case in England, when since
1945 until 1974 had 5 different governments.
In this description about twoparty system the author explain very good what is
thowparty system and how it works. At page 172 (TABLE 25) we can see the
difference election results between the predominant party and others. One of the
thing which get my attention is what the most countries are from Latin America.
In conclusion, the fact that the predominant-party systems display, in the main,
a relatively high rate of entries and exits goes to confirm that they are competitive
systems with respect to which it can be asserted that, on the starting line, all the
parties have equal opportunities. To be sure, equality of opportunity is always
relative, for nobody is really equal at the starting line. Furthermore, equal
opportunities are not the same as equal resources; and in the predominant systems
the disparity of resources between the party in power and the parties out of power is
likely to be greater than in the other pluralistic systems. Even when all these fine
distinctions are taken into account, the standing fact remains that the parties of a
predominant-party system enjoy an equality of opportunity unheard of in, and
unknown to, the minor parties of the hegemonic systems.
In the chapter 6 we discussed about competitive systems, especially I got
attention to the twoparty system. In the next chapter 7 Sartori wants to explain us
how important is to make difference between COMPETITION and
COMPETITIVENESS. Competition is a structure, or a rule of the game.
Competitiveness is a particular state of the game. Thus competition embraces ‘non-
competitiveness’. For instance, a predominant-party system abides by the rules of
competition but testifies to low competitiveness, or even to no near-competitiveness.
At the other extreme, competition is ‘competitive’ when two or more parties obtain
close returns and win on thin margins. In effect competitiveness is one of the
properties or attributes of competition, or property of competition.
At the page 202, TABLE 27, we can see the characteristics of single party
states by types and criteria.In this table the author described characteristics for
TOTALITARIAN, AUTHORITARIAN and PRAGMATIC UNIPARTISM. The
strongest of them is TOTALITARIAN, because it is very strong and totalistic, has
high coercion, etc.
With notion “HEGEMONIC PARTY” we understand “a party which dominate
the elections. But “dominant party” covers 3 widely different cases: 1.
“predominance”, 2.hegemony, 3. whatever major party outdistances the other parties
in whichever type of party system. Hence the most sensible course is to use
‘dominant party’ in this last, third sense – which makes the label unfit for typological
purposes. Predominance and hegemony remain, therefore, as the two unspoiled, or
less spoiled, available terms; and, on balance, the latter conveys the idea of a stronger
degree of hierarchical control than the former.
The difference between HEGEMONIC and PREDOMINAT PARTY is that
first will remain in power whether it is liked or not, but the second one remains
submissive to the conditions that make for a responsible government, no real
sanction commits the hegemonic party to responsiveness. Hegemonic party formula
may afford the appearance but surely does not afford the substance of competitive
politics. The out parties can never become in parties, and their opposition is licensed
opposition. Much more interesting is that it is divided in 2 subtypes:
1.ideological-hegemonic party and
2. Pragmatic-hegemonic party.
Poland is an example for first subtype, but Mexico belongs to the second subtype.
In conclusion, we can say that a majority of countries are governed today by
single parties. This thing maybe is good because the population can see better all
goodest and all worst, but from my point of view is more better when we have an
alternative solution and can choose what we need!