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DEMOCRACY AND THE CARTELIZATION

OF POLITICAL PARTIES
COMPARATIVE POLITICS
Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of
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books in the series are characterized by a stress on comparative analysis and strong
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<http://www.ecprnet.eu>.
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Democracy and
the Cartelization of
Political Parties
RICHARD S. KATZ AND PETER MAIR{
1
3
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Preface
This book represents the culmination of a project that began at an ECPR

Research Sessions meeting at the University of Mannheim in 1987. For a long
time, it threatened to be one of those “much anticipated forthcoming books”
that somehow never come forth. The project began simply as a data-collection
effort. It appeared obvious to us that there were important changes happening
in the organization of political parties that could have profound consequences
for the way in which democracies work, and that these changes needed to be
understood. But it also appeared obvious that before these changes could
be explained—and at the beginning we had no favored “candidate” to be the
explanation—they simply needed to be recorded in a systematically comparable
way. With the financial support of the American National Science Foundation
(grant SES-8818439) and the Forschungsstelle für Gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen
(FGE) of the University of Mannheim, and with the collaboration of a
talented team of scholars, that is what we set out to do, and in 1992 we
published Party Organizations: A Data Handbook on Party Organizations in
Western Democracies, 1960–90, close to 1,000 pages, almost all of which were
tables, documenting what had happened during those thirty years.
The scope of the project, both geographically and temporally, was largely
determined by practicality. We want to be comprehensive, but limited funds
meant that we could not include every democracy. Moreover, in an era before
elaborate party websites and high-speed internet connections made remote
access of extensive party archives possible, we believed that this research
would require “boots on the ground” in each country included: someone
personally to go to party headquarters and hector party officials until they
delivered the data we wanted. Thus we only included countries for which we
knew, or could readily identify, a local collaborator. The starting date of 1960
was chosen partially in the interest of manageability and partially on the, now
recognized to be dubious, assumption that it would represent a reasonably
stable “old normality” from which change could be assessed. The United
States was included in part to make the project more appealing to the
National Science Foundation (NSF) and in part because it represented a
“different systems” comparator; inclusion of the protoparty system of the
European Union (EU) reflected the strong bias in Europe at the time to
include the EU in any project.
Once the data were in hand and we started our analysis, the question of
scope became more complex. Clearly, we did not intend our conclusions to be
relevant only to the twelve countries (plus the EU party federations) included
vi Preface
in the data-collection effort, but equally we recognized that, as with any
hypotheses that draw on history, or social structure, or institutional arrange-
ments, our conjectures were going to be more appropriate to some times and
places than to others. Even granted that observation, we were never entirely
agreed regarding the appropriate scope for our work. Mair tended to have a
more Euro-centric focus, in particular treating such Europe-specific events as
the Maastricht Treaty as establishing differences between the members of the
EU and those outside of it (and similarly to see the advent of the euro as
establishing differences between countries within the eurozone and those
outside it) that might be seen to limit the scope of our theorizing. Katz, on
the other hand, tended to interpret these events as Euro-specific extreme
examples of more general trends, such that while our conclusions might be
especially relevant within the Eurozone, they were also applicable well beyond
the borders of western Europe.
Indeed, both the idea of a set of cozy arrangements through which osten-
sibly competing parties work together to protect their shared interests, and the
idea that this collusive behavior might be successfully challenged by those
excluded, had roots in the experience of what Katz and Kolodny (1994)
described as a “six-party” national party system of the United States, with
presidential, Senate, and House Democrats, and similarly Republicans, in
many ways organized and acting as three separate, if generally allied, parties.
We saw American politics through the 1970s and 1980s as being characterized
by what we would later call a “cartel” consisting of presidential Demo-
crats and Republicans, Senate Democrats and Republicans, and House
Democrats—but excluding the House Republicans, who had been in the
minority since January 1955, and appeared to be condemned to permanent
minority status. On the one hand, this meant that the other five parties had
little need to accommodate their concerns, and on the other hand it meant
that the House Republicans had little incentive to join with the others in
acting “responsibly.”1 In the end, this led to Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with
America,” which challenged the general elite consensus regarding the charac-
teristics of “responsible” policy, put the Republicans in the majority in the
House of Representatives for the first time in forty years, and by showing that
a frontal attack on “the establishment” and its sense of what was acceptable
could be electorally successful at the national level effectively broke the cartel.
Notwithstanding the significance of this American example, however, our
thinking was largely rooted in the experience of the established parliamentary
democracies of western Europe. Our early analysis of what we called
1
This was mitigated by the weak cohesion of American parties, which meant that even if there
was little incentive for accommodation of the House Republicans as a party, the votes of
individual Republican members of the House (and Senate) frequently were required by the
majority party if it wanted to pass significant legislation.
Preface vii
“the three faces of party organization” (the party central office, the party in
public office, and the party on the ground—Katz and Mair 1993), although in
some important ways paralleling V. O. Key’s (1964: 163–5) conception of
American parties as comprised of “the party organization,” “the party in
government,” and “the party in the electorate,” assumed a more formal
structure, and particularly a more formal sense of party membership and a
more formal boundary between the party itself and a penumbra of loyalists
and supporters (both individuals and organizations) than found in the United
States. Nonetheless, even if our schema fits parties with formal membership
structures more directly than it fits those without, the underlying insight, that
all political parties—including those with only one member like Geert Wil-
ders’ Partij voor de Vrijheid or parties essentially paid for and run by a patron
like Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia—should be understood as political sys-
tems in their own right remains. Moreover, we would suggest that the general
principles that we suggested shape competition and cooperation among the
three faces of membership-based party organizations should be expected to
apply, mutatis mutandis, to other types of party organizations as well.
Similarly, our historical/adaptive account of the evolution of party organ-
izations from elite to mass to catch-all to cartel initially appeared relevant
only to the countries of western Europe in which parliamentary institutions,
and thus rudimentary elite parties within parliament, developed before wide-
scale suffrage expansion, perhaps with the addition of the democracies of the
“old” British Commonwealth—and by an even greater stretch the addition of
the United States, which might be argued to have been an early example of the
catch-all model, but which never had approximated the mass party type. As
the idea of a party cartel as a way of accounting for contemporary political
events gained traction, however, it appeared to resonate with the experience of
countries outside of its locus of origin notwithstanding that they had not
experienced the same evolutionary processes. Moreover, although our ori-
ginal account of how a cartel party system evolved was rooted in the unique
historical experiences of western Europe, our account of the social, economic,
and political conditions that might lead to the establishment and maintenance
of such a system was not. Simply, it might be possible for a country to “skip”
some or all of the stages of the process and still arrive at the same result.
As with all theories dealing with complex social phenomena, it is impossible
to identify a crisp set of cases to which our hypotheses should be expected to
apply perfectly, and to contrast that to a crisp set of cases to which they should
not apply at all. Rather than trying to construct a dataset including all of the
variables, events, and processes in which we are interested for a well-defined
but comprehensive set of countries—a task that would in any case be
impossible—we have used, in addition to our own data, a variety of datasets
originally constructed by others to address other questions and then either
made publicly available in data archives or provided to us through the courtesy
viii Preface
of the original investigators. The selection of cases was decided by their
research priorities, with the result that our analyses are based on overlapping
but not entirely static sets of cases. In many cases, we have drawn on the work
of other researchers to provide examples without trying to replicate every
observation in the full range of cases; we can only leave it to the reader to
decide at what point a series of anecdotes cumulates to the status of data.
Any project that goes on for three decades accumulates an enormous
backlog of debts of gratitude to an enormous number of people and institu-
tions. Both constraints of space, and fear of inadvertently leaving someone
out, preclude attempting to name them all. Certainly, we are indebted to the
European Consortium for Political Research and its then chairman, Professor
Rudolf Wildenmann, for helping to launch the “party organization project,”
and to the NSF, the FGE, and the numerous other funding bodies that helped
to pay for it. None of this would have been possible without our collaborators
in that project. Ideas were tried out on generations of our students—some of
whom went on to do the research on which we have drawn in this book.
Numerous colleagues, friends, and conference participants have read and
commented on papers that later were incorporated into this work. Reviewers
from Oxford University Press made invaluable suggestions for improvement
to the completed draft. We have profited from their insights and are grateful
for their contributions, but also absolve them of any blame for what we have
made of their suggestions.
Finally, although this manuscript is being completed more than six years
after Peter Mair’s sudden and untimely death, it is indeed a co-authored work.
At the time of his passing, we had developed a full outline for the book, and
Peter had early drafts of three of the chapters for which we had agreed that he
would take the lead. While I have edited those drafts extensively—so that, as
I hope was the case with our earlier publications, it would not be evident
which of us had originally drafted what—his insights are reflected not only in
the chapters for which he wrote the first drafts, but in the chapters that I wrote
as well. This is his book as well as mine, although I am sure it is not as good as
it would have been had we been able to see it through to completion together.
One of the things I tell my students is that every book, no matter how
carefully researched and edited and read and proofread, inevitably will con-
tain mistakes. Notwithstanding what we say in the book about the desire to
politicians (like everyone else) to take credit and avoid blame, I accept that the
mistakes are mine.
Richard S. Katz
Contents
List of Figures xi
List of Tables xiii
1. The Problem 1
2. The Rise and Decline of Parties 29
3. The Locus of Power in Parties 53
4. Parties and One Another 81
5. Parties and the State 101
6. The Cartel Party 124
7. The Cartel Party and Populist Opposition 151
References 189
Index 209
List of Figures
1.1 Simple principal-agent model of democracy 3

1.2 Mass party principal-agent model with three social
segments/parties and coalition government 4
1.3 Downsian principal-agent model with three parties and
coalition government 5
2.1 The mass party and the catch-all party 50
3.1 Cotta and Best’s typology of legislators 79
6.1 Parties, civil society, and the state: the caucus party type 125
6.2 Parties, civil society, and the state: the mass party type 126
6.3 Parties, civil society, and the state: the catch-all party type 127
6.4 Parties, civil society, and the state: the cartel party type 127
7.1 Ties to groups and parties 161
List of Tables
3.1 Party leadership in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Poland,

Portugal, and Spain 59
3.2 Party membership as a percentage of the electorate, 1960–2010 63
3.3 Change in the numbers of party members 1980–2010 63
3.4 Incongruence of regional and national coalition before and
after 1999 71
3.5 MP annual base salary divided by median net household income 75
3.6 Parliamentary base salary 1976, 2012 76
4.1 Percentages of quasi sentences coded in “Labour Group:
Positive” for social democratic party manifestos and
“Labour Group: Negative” + “Middle Class and
Professional Groups: Positive” for liberal and conservative
party manifestos, 1950–70 and 1991–2005 85
4.2 Electoral volatility, 1945–65 and 1970–2004 86
4.3 Expert survey left-right party placements 88
4.4 Mean left/right positions of the left-most party in the social
democratic family and the right-most party in the liberal,
conservative, and Christian democratic families, 1950–70
and 1996–2005 89
4.5 Proportions of manifestos devoted to the economic cluster 92
4.6 “Governmental and administrative efficiency: positive,” “political
corruption: negative,” and “political authority: positive” 95
4.7 References to (party) government and (prime minister)
government in the Times (London) 1949, 1952, 1996, 2004 95
4.8 Numbers of new formulas, 1947–59, 1960–79, 1996–2015 98
4.9 Numbers of government formulas, 1947–69 and 1993–2015 98
5.1 UK appointments and reappointments to executive
non-departmental public bodies and National
Health Service bodies 122
6.1 Effective numbers of parties 133
6.2 Patterns of coalition formation, 1990–2015 135
6.3 Characteristics of party ideal types 141
xiv List of Tables

6.4 Percentage of British MPs whose “main prior Profession”
was “politician/political organizer” 142
7.1 Recent performance of populist parties in Europe 153
7.2 Effective numbers of parties in the first election after 2000 and
the last elections before 2017 155
7.3 Union density, 1982 and 2013 160
7.4 Percentage of the population that changed usual residence in the
preceding year 161
7.5 Average vote share of the mainstream parties by decade: Austria,
Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK 176
The Problem
There is little dispute with the idea that “democracy is a messy concept.”
Nonetheless, most political scientists, most democratic politicians, and most
of the growing “democracy-promoting industry,” share a common, and rela-
tively simple, understanding of democracy. At least in the modern age, they
agree with Joseph Schumpeter’s definition of democracy as a system “in which
individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for
the people’s vote” (1962: 269). Moreover, in a large society meaningful
competition for the people’s vote requires both that the options among
which the people are asked to choose be sufficiently limited in number, and
that they be sufficiently coherent, that what might be called the “Ostrogorski
problem”1 can be mitigated. And providing those coherent options is identi-
fied as either a principal function, or else as the defining characteristic, of
political parties. Parties also are understood to provide the coordination
within representative assemblies, and across different branches or agencies
of government, that is required for the efficient conduct of business. As a
result, effective democracy is not just competition among individuals, but
competition among individuals organized into political parties. Both as def-
inition, and as the conclusion of an assumed causal process, democracy is
what results when people are free to form political parties, those parties
compete in periodic free and fair elections, and the winners of those elections
take effective control of the government until the next elections.
If there is little doubt that “democracy is a messy concept,” there is also a
growing consensus that “democracies are in a mess,” particularly with regard
to political parties. As we will show later in this book, parties have become
one of the least trusted political institutions; politicians are almost everywhere
the least trusted professionals; with a few upward blips, turnout in elections is
declining markedly, as is membership in political parties and identification
with them. If political parties are divided into two groups—the mainstream
parties that dominated post-war governments at least into the 1990s, on the
one hand, and populist or anti-party-system parties, on the other hand—
electoral support for the first group has declined (in many cases, plummeted
might be a more accurate description), while support for the latter has grown.
1
“[A]fter ‘the voice of the country had spoken,’ people did not know exactly what it had said”
(Ostrogorski 1903: vol. II, 618–19).
2 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

Not only have the post-1989 predictions of a universal triumph of liberal
democracy proven to be overoptimistic with regard to the former Soviet bloc
and the so-called Third World, even in its heartland of the first world the
future of liberal democracy appears less secure than only a few decades ago.
The natural question is how did this happen. E. E. Schattschneider’s often
quoted observation “that the political parties created democracy and that
modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of the parties” and its less
often quoted continuation that “the condition of the parties is the best possible
evidence of the nature of any regime . . . The parties are not therefore merely
appendages of modern government; they are in the center of it, and play a
determinative and creative role in it” (1942: 1), is representative of the
centrality accorded to parties in modern empirical analyses of democracy.
Following Schattschneider’s lead, we look to the parties to provide some of the
answers to the question of how this, admittedly only the latest, “crisis of
democracy” came about. In particular, we argue that the mainstream parties
have formed, or at least have behaved in ways that could lead an outside
observer to believe that they have formed, what is in effect a cartel. This cartel-
like behavior has been driven by rational adaptation to social and political
changes, but it has also rendered the mainstream parties unable or unwilling
(often in the name of behaving “responsibly”) to address many problems that
confront their societies. This, in turn, has opened a space for challenges not just
to the parties in power at any moment, but to the whole idea of liberal party
democracy. While this is the particular theme of Chapter 7, the entire volume is
directed at laying the groundwork for that analysis.
In arguing for the centrality of political parties to any understanding of
democracy, Schattschneider (1942: 16) also complained that “the political
parties are still the orphans of political philosophy.” As van Biezen and
Saward (2008) say, that complaint remains largely true seventy-five years
after it was originally published. At a more mundane level, however, the
perceived centrality of parties has led to widely accepted, and in some cases
quite specific and detailed, prescriptions regarding how both parties and
government more generally should be organized. These prescriptions fre-
quently have been justified by a particular, albeit at the same time somewhat
vague, idea of democracy as “democratic party government”(Castles and
Wildenmann 1986; Katz 1987; Rose 1974). This, in turn, is often elaborated
in the increasingly popular terms of a “principal-agent” model of party
politics (Müller 2000; Strm et al. 2003).
This principal-agent model and its associated prescriptions for the organ-
ization and behavior of individual parties, and for the relationships among the
several parties, and among parties, citizens, and the state has exercised strong
influence over the way both social scientists and “political engineers” think
about establishing and maintaining healthy democracies. Our contention in
this book, however, is that this model in fact has only quite marginal
The Problem 3
connection to the ways in which parties and party systems really work in the
early twenty-first century. Moreover, we contend that the disconnect between
the normative justifications of, and prescription for, party democracy, on the
one hand, and the contemporary realities, on the other hand, is an important
contributor to the current malaise. Many of the empirical claims about parties
and party systems that we will be making—for example, that party member-
ship has been declining nearly everywhere—have been recognized for some
time. They have, however, generally been recognized only one at a time, and
interpreted as independent “problems” that can be addressed individually,
and rectified within the established principal-agent framework for under-
standing party government. In contrast, we propose a comprehensive frame-
work that explains how these individual findings hang together, how they
came about, and how, in particular, they undermine both the empirical
validity and the theoretical utility of the standard principal-agent model of
democracy—and how, in doing so, they pose an important challenge to the
survival of party government—and potentially to the survival of democratic
government as understood through the latter half of the twentieth century and
beyond more generally.
THE SIMPLE PRINCIPAL-AGENT MODEL

OF PARTY GOVERNMENT
In its simplest form, the principal-agent model of democracy in a parliamentary

system can be portrayed as illustrated in Figure 1.1. Starting on the right-hand
side of the figure, the apparatus of the state (particularly the bureaucracy)
works as the agent of the ministry, exercising authority delegated to it by the
Electorate
Party or parties in Ministry State

power administration
F I G U R E 1 . 1 Simple principal-agent model of democracy

Source: Katz (2014)

ministry in the pursuit of objectives set by the ministry. The ministry, which is
thus the immediate principal of the state apparatus, is simultaneously the agent
of the parliament, which is to say of the parliamentary majority as organized in
a coalition of parties. Finally, the parties in parliament act as the agents of the
electorate. The result is an unbroken chain of principal-agent links from the
electorate to all of the government (parliament, ministry, state apparatus),
ultimately making all of the government the agent of the electorate, and thereby
rendering the whole arrangement democratic.
This highly schematic rendering of democratic party government glosses
over many significant variations. Particularly from a European perspective,
attention primarily focused on variants of what Beer, drawing on the British
case, labeled “Socialist Democracy,” rooted in both the social and the polit-
ical theory of the mass party of integration (Beer 1969: ch. 3; Duverger 1959
[1951]: bk 1). The democratic theory associated with this can be expressed
as the principal-agent model illustrated in Figure 1.2, in which the single
“parties” box from Figure 1.1 is disaggregated into three separate parties, to
allow the idea of elections as competition among alternatives, and at the next
stage to allow the distinction between electoral winners and losers, to be made
explicit. In this version of democratic party government, each party is the
“political committee” of a particular segment of society (for example, of a
social class or confessional group) and acts as its agent, with the social
segments collectively encompassing the entire body of citizens. A coalition
of the parties in parliament then negotiates the formation of a ministry as their
agent; assuming that it is a majority coalition, and further assuming that its
majority in parliament reflects the support of a majority in the electorate, it is
therefore also the agent of the electoral majority—and if one accepts the
principle that the majority is entitled to decide/act for the whole, it becomes
the agent of the whole electorate. Finally, the ministry employs the state
Electorate Party 1
Segment 1 Ministry State

administration
Segment 2 Party 2
Segment 3 Party 3
F I G U R E 1 . 2 Mass party principal-agent model with three social segments/parties

and coalition government
Source: Katz (2014)
The Problem 5
apparatus as its agent. The direct principal-agent chain from voters to parties
to ministry to administration summarized in Figure 1.1 is thus maintained,
with the administration still the ultimate agent of the voters.
Particularly in the later decades of the last century, an alternative version of
this model, derived from economic theory and identified eponymously with
Anthony Downs (Downs 1957), rather than being derived from sociology as
interpreted, for example, by Lipset and Rokkan (1967), came to prominence.
In this model, parties are teams of politicians (Downs 1957: 25; Schumpeter
1962 [1942]: 283; Schlesinger 1994: 6), rather than associations of citizens, and
compete to be “hired” as the agents of the whole society, rather than operating
as the already established agents of particular social segments. The principal-
agent understanding of democracy, at least in stylized form, however, appears
to be virtually the same—especially if the primary competitors are assumed to
be either two parties or two distinct and stable coalitions. Even in a multiparty
case, the graphic representation in Figure 1.3 appears essentially the same as
that illustrated in Figure 1.2. The voters as principals choose a party to act as
their agent, although in this case it is not majority support for a particular
party or coalition, but rather that the governing coalition includes the party
that represents the first preference of the median voter, that underpins legit-
imacy, whether or not the cabinet represents a majority coalition. The party
(or coalition of parties) in parliament installs a ministry to act as its agent. The
ministry employs the state apparatus as its agent. Yet again, government is the
ultimate agent of the voters, and the system is, therefore, democratic.
This model (at this level of generality, it is reasonable—and common—to
regard the models in Figures 1.2 and 1.3 simply as variants of the simple
model in Figure 1.1) is very comforting for those who would like to reconcile
the realities of modern politics with a normatively informed vision of democ-
racy as “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” although its
Electorate Party 1
Ministry State
administration
Party 2
Party 3
F I G U R E 1 . 3 Downsian principal-agent model with three parties and coalition government

Source: Katz (2014)

appropriateness as an empirical model, as opposed to a normative ideal, has
always been open to some question. Indeed, Blyth and Katz (2005) have gone
so far as to suggest that the entire model might be reversed, with the cabinet
acting as the agent of the administration (individual ministers arguing for
their department’s policies and budget) rather than its principal, the cabinet
buying the support of MPs with the prospect of career advancement and
promotion of pet policies, and the parties buying voters with policy promises
and patronage.
Be that as it may, like all principal-agent relationships, those portrayed in this
model are subject to “agency slack.” One of the “core assumptions” of the
canonical principal-agent is that the interests or preferences of the agent differ
from those of the principal (Miller 2005: 205–6), and this creates incentives for
shirking by the agent. Much of the literature on principal-agent relationships
concerns ways in which such shirking can be contained, but at its base, it still
retains the basic idea that initiative lies with the principal, so that outcomes
ultimately can be traced to the interests or preferences of the principal. From this
perspective, agency slack accounts for observed failures of agents to act opti-
mally in the interests of their principals in much the way that friction accounts
for the failure of falling objects to conform exactly to the predictions of the
simple equations of first-year physics. As some exponents of “behavioral eco-
nomics” (e.g., Cartwright 2011; Diamond and Vartiainen 2007) have argued in
contrasting their approach to that of classical (or “rational choice”) economics,
it is possible for the divergences between model and reality to become so great
that the model no longer provides even a useful baseline against which diver-
gences can be assessed, and becomes instead an impediment to understanding.
For the principal-agent model to be appropriate for describing the relation-
ship between citizens and parties requires that ultimate power rests with the
citizens as principal. In Sappington’s (1991: 47) words, “The principal is
endowed with all of the bargaining power . . . and thus can make a ‘take-
it-or-leave-it’ offer to the agent.” As translated into the electoral sphere, this
means at least that, on the one hand, the electorate must have a substantial
choice among competing parties, and, on the other hand, that the cost of the
potential sanction of electoral defeat to a party is sufficiently high as to
“concentrate the mind wonderfully.” The essence of our argument, first
advanced some twenty years ago (Katz and Mair 1992a, 1995) but even
more true today, is that these conditions are not well met in modern democ-
racies: the choice offered to electors by the “mainstream parties” (i.e., those
with a realistic chance of being in government in the medium term) has
become progressively less substantial in the sense that changes of government
are less directly tied to changes in policy or outcomes, and the cost to parties
in the mainstream of losing an election (the difference in pay-offs between
being a winner and being a loser) has been significantly reduced. Going
beyond this simple observation, we make two additional claims. On the one
The Problem 7
hand, even if these changes can in some ways be traced back to long term
social processes, many of these social processes are, in their turn, the result of
government policies, and thus they are only partially exogenous to the parties.
On the other hand, it is most immediately the intentional responses of the
parties to these social processes, not the social changes themselves, that have
undercut the basis for a principal-agent understanding of party government.
In particular, our argument is that at the level of party systems, the main-
stream parties, and most minor parties as well, have effectively formed a
cartel, through which they protect their own interests in ways that sap the
capacity of their erstwhile principal—the electorate—actually to control the
parties that are supposed to be the agents of the electorate. While the appear-
ance of competition is preserved, in terms of political substance it has become
spectacle—a show for the audience of “audience democracy” (Manin 1997; de
Beus 2011). Further, we argue, in order to facilitate this cartel-like behavior,
political parties have adapted their own structures, giving rise to a new type of
party organization, which we identify as the “cartel party.”
This book is devoted to connecting these twin developments of waning
substantive competition and political party transformation, along with the
social, historical, and political processes that underpin them, to understanding
their impact on both the practice of, and popular support (or not) for,
democratic government, and to considering what these processes mean for
the future of liberal democratic party government.
PARTY CHANGE
As is true of virtually all social processes, with the benefit of hindsight the
roots of these developments can be found reaching back well before they were
generally recognized to be significant—in our case, at least to the 1950s. Also,
like most general social processes, they developed at different times and at
different rates (and from different starting points) in different countries. Their
acceleration and confluence at a level sufficient to pose a serious challenge to
the practices and legitimacy of established institutions of party government
are of fairly recent origin, however. We do not suggest that there was some
golden age in which democratic party government functioned smoothly and
with unquestioned legitimacy. Nonetheless, while the party government
model was always an ideal type rather than a fully accurate description, an
array of social changes have occurred, accompanied by changes in the parties
themselves, that have moved reality so far away from the ideal type that even
its heuristic utility must be questioned. The result is a far less sanguine view

than the “triumph of democracy” literature (e.g., Mitchell 1997; Preston 1986)
might lead one to expect.
At least into the 1980s, most theory and research concerning political
parties, at least outside of the United States, was premised on the assumption
that the norm, both empirically and evaluatively, was either the mass party of
integration, or else the more modern catch-all party, still understood to be a
variant of the mass party. This was what parties in democratic polities should
be like, and how they should be organized and behave. To the extent that they
did not meet these standards, they were, essentially by definition, somehow
weak or failing. Philippe Schmitter’s (2001) critical evaluation of the role of
parties in the consolidation of the new democracies of the last quarter of the
twentieth century provides a good example of the persistence of this mode of
thinking. Even in the 1990s, however, it was apparent to some observers that
the process of party organizational development and adaptation was more
varied, more fluid, and more open-ended than that narrow conception
allowed (Katz and Mair 1994).
In particular, the decline in partisan attachments (party identification, party
membership, electoral turnout), declining social segmentation, increasing
education and leisure time, all appeared to be undercutting the assumptions
upon which the mass party model had been constructed. Simultaneously, the
economic model upon which many government policies, especially those that
defined the welfare state, had been built was also being called into question.
Not surprisingly, accounts of party change (e.g., Katz and Mair 1992a)
focused almost exclusively on domestic factors, whether social, political,
economic, or institutional.
In retrospect, it is clear that the influence of factors drawn from the world of
international politics might have been taken into account even then, and
certainly need to be included now. In the early 1990s, economic globalization
began to be recognized as a serious constraint on the capacity of all govern-
ments to manage their national economies. In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and
the Soviet Bloc, and then the Soviet Union itself, began to crumble. In
February 1992, the Maastricht Treaty was signed by the member states of
the European Union (EU), with the national currencies of all of the then
members of the EU except the United Kingdom (UK), Denmark, Sweden,
and Greece (which joined the rest in 2001) replaced by the euro on January 1,
1999, ending national control over monetary policy in the eurozone countries.
In January 1995 the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established. The
events between 1989 and 1999 obviously brought about major changes in
international affairs, but they also had a profound impact on domestic politics
in the advanced industrial democracies. Although Maastricht, the treaties
that followed it, and the introduction of the euro are specific to the EU, the
impact of the collapse of the Soviet empire and of economic globalization and
the WTO has been felt far more widely.
The Problem 9
These developments substantially undermined the stakes of traditional
electoral competition, first by reducing the perceived importance of the left-
right ideological divide that lay at the heart of most Western party systems,
and that, whether implicitly or explicitly, fed off the Cold War divide; second
by transferring control over a range of economic (and other) concerns beyond
national borders to technocratic and largely non-partisan institutions like the
EU system, the WTO, the International Monetary Fund, and World Bank—
and to multinational corporations, some of which have budgets larger than
the GDPs of many of the countries in which they operate; and third, even
beyond the formal transfer of powers and responsibilities to institutions like
the EU or the WTO, by facilitating an ideational shift (Blyth 2002) suggesting
that what had traditionally been the central political concerns of inflation and
unemployment now properly lay outside the control of national governments,
and thus were no longer among the core responsibilities of the parties that
formed those governments. We address all of these issues elsewhere in this
volume, and particularly in Chapter 4.
These changes in the international arena interacted with the tendencies
already noted in the domestic arena to give all significant political parties, no
matter how bitter their rivalries had been in the past—and indeed no matter
how intense their rivalries might appear to be in the present—a core set of
common interests and common constraints, and thus also common incentives
to cooperate, and to collude, to protect those interests. Cooperation and
collusion, which are obviously important elements in our cartel thesis, become
easier when the stakes of competition are reduced, and this was one of the
results of the shedding of responsibility for managing the economy and of the
end of the existential struggle between the “free” and “communist” worlds.2
THE CARTEL THESIS
We initially arrived at the idea that new patterns of relationships were

emerging among parties, society, and the state, among the parties themselves,
and within individual parties among their various “faces” (Katz and Mair
1993) inductively from a data-gathering project whose primary purpose was
to document changes in party organizations from 1960, when the mass party
was widely believed to be losing ground to the catch-all party as the dominant
2
While Huntington’s (1966) struggle between Muslim and Western worlds may have an
equivalent existential import, it does not represent a cleavage within the Western democracies
with which we are concerned, because unlike the cleavage between socialism and capitalism, there
have been no significant Islamist parties in the Western democracies.

form of party organization in Europe. Although the project did not start from
any particular hypothesis or theory, our attention was quickly drawn to a
series of real-world developments that appeared to be striking, to be reason-
ably pervasive, and not to have been widely noticed or studied. Two of these
in particular need to be emphasized.
The first was the evident transformation of parties from purely private
organizations, structured by their own constitutions, governed by their own
rules and procedures, and funded by their own resources, into organizations
that were ever more controlled by regulations laid down by the state and ever
more dependent on resources provided by the state. Although Kirchheimer
had already noted in the 1950s (e.g., Kirchheimer 1957, see also Krouwel
2003, 2006: 258–60) that parties were being drawn into what he saw as an
excessively close relationship with the state, most work on party organiza-
tional change—including that of Kirchheimer himself—focused on the society
as the driving force and as the place where explanations for party change
could best be sought (for an exception, see Müller 1993).
In contrast to society-driven explanations of party change, we saw decisions
made by the state and embodied in law to be of great significance. One of these
decisions that stood out in particular in our early work was the increasingly
widespread practice of providing the parties with substantial state subventions
to fund party organizations both within and outside of parliament. These
subventions were often accompanied by party laws that laid down, sometimes
in quite detailed terms, what parties could or could not do, not only with
regard to the use of these state-supplied funds, but with regard to privately
raised funds, and indeed with regard to their organizational practices more
generally. Access to public service broadcasting and sometimes even commer-
cial broadcasting and media, which were becoming more and more important
for party campaigning and publicity, was increasingly a subject for detailed
state regulation. Simply, parties were becoming less able to make their own
decisions without reference to legal restrictions—and because those restric-
tions applied to all parties, there was less room for parties to distinguish
themselves from one another in organizational terms.
If, as now seems undeniable, parties are strongly influenced by the state,
and indeed in a real sense are drawing closer to, and more involved with, the
state, might they also be drawing further away from society? In our original
papers, we suggested that this was the case, without presenting systematic
evidence. Later research, summarized very comprehensively in Dalton and
Wattenberg (2000; see also Mair 2013), has suggested that the ties between
parties and society are indeed becoming more tenuous: there has been a sharp
decline in party membership in the 1990s and into the 2000s; there has been a
consistent decline in levels of party identification; there has been a somewhat
more erratic but nonetheless pronounced fall in voter turnout. We discuss this
later in the volume, and in particular in Chapter 2.
The Problem 11
Further, if parties are increasingly influenced by the state, and in particular
by regulations that apply to all parties, then it is likely that they will also come
increasingly to resemble one another. Many things would be shared by all
parties, including their means of communication, their principal sources of
finance, their internal organizational form and modes of adapting to party
laws, and their ever more common experience of holding public office—see
especially Chapters 4 and 5. In other words, when speaking of party experi-
ences or the nature of a party, it had begun to make more sense to speak in
terms of “the parties” or “the party system” rather than in terms of any
individual party or party “family.” To be sure, the influence of the state on
the parties was only one of a number of factors pushing parties to resemble one
another and thereby promoting organizational convergence (Epstein 1967).
Other influences stemmed from social changes that led the parties to appeal to
similar and overlapping constituencies and from the development of modern
campaign technologies. Adaptation to party laws, state subvention require-
ments, and the exigencies of holding government office were also crucial,
however, and these factors had often been overlooked by the literature.
Moreover, although parties were more influenced by the state, by public
regulations, and so on, this did not imply that they were being influenced by
something that was entirely exogenous to themselves. The laws and rules
influencing parties were those that they themselves, as governors, had been
centrally involved in writing. Indeed, the parties are unique in that they have
the ability to devise their own legal (and not only legal) environment and,
effectively, to write their own salary checks. As van Beyme (1996: 149)
observed, “the new political class as a transfer class was privileged in two
respects: by being the only elite sector which determines its own income, and
by organizing state-support for the organizations which carried them to
power, e.g., the parties.”3
Given all this, it also makes sense for us to expect that parties would
cooperate with one another. In fact it is generally necessary (or at least
politically expedient) for parties to cooperate with one another if general
party regulations are to be written and if a system of public financing is to
be introduced. And it is clearly a small step from consideration of cooperation
and agreement, particularly with regard to measures perceived by the parties
to be necessary but unpopular like increasing subsidies for themselves, to
consideration of collusion. But to recall: all of this starts from the empirical
3
The claim that the political class is the only elite sector that determines its own income is
probably a bit exaggerated, as the compensation packages of corporate CEOs, often determined
by “compensation committees” made up of the CEOs of other corporations, illustrate. And both
have led to complaints of self-serving behavior in which the interests of constituents (voters in the
case of politicians; shareholders in the case of CEOs) are sacrificed to benefit those making the
decisions.

observation that shows that parties are moving towards the state. And while
what follows in our reasoning may be contested or qualified, the original
observation nevertheless still stands.
From the very beginning we conceived of party organizations as being akin
to political systems, with three important constituent units or “faces” (see also
Chapter 3). This was different from the approach commonly used up to that
point to discuss party organizations, which simply distinguished the party in
parliament and the extraparliamentary party. Our division was similar to, but
not identical with, V. O. Key’s (1964: 164) tripartite division of US political
parties into the party as organization, the party in government, and the party
in the electorate. Our concern was only with the party itself, and for the most
part with parties that (unlike American parties) have formal membership
organizations, and hence we distinguished among the party in public office
(PPO), which included the party both in parliament and in government; the
party in central office, which was constituted by the permanent bureaucracy,
national executive organs, and so on; and the party on the ground—the
organized membership. We had expected that the balance among these
might shift, and this is indeed what we found. This led to our second uncon-
tested finding: in those long-established democracies for which we gathered
data, the weight of power within the party, as measured by changes in the
locus of decision making, as well as by the distribution of internal resources—
finance, staff, etc.—has moved much more firmly into the hands of the party
in public office.
This finding then led to additional hypotheses that subsequently fed into the
general cartel thesis and which, of course, proved more disputable. The first of
these emphasized the sheer self-interest of those actors who actually occupy
the public offices in the name of the parties and who, like the politicians and
administrators observed by Skocpol (1992: 40), “have ideas and organiza-
tional and career interests of their own, and they devise and work for policies
that will further those ideas and interests, or at least not harm them.” Our
hypothesis was and is simply this: that as the party in public office gains
ascendancy within the party as a whole, its particular interests will be treated
as being the interests of the party writ large. We discuss this at greater length
in Chapter 3. Moreover, although it might seem at first sight that the interests
of the PPO could be summarized simply to lie in winning, in our view it made
more sense to see those interests as lying equally in having the possible costs of
losing reduced as much as possible. After all, always winning is unlikely,
either for parties as organizations or for many of their candidates as individ-
uals.4 We also further hypothesized that this would be true for the PPOs in all
(mainstream) parties. And this, in turn, would be likely to encourage a system
4
The exceptions include candidates nominated for safe seats or to the top of closed PR lists.
The Problem 13
of mutual cooperation that should, under normal circumstances, lead to the
emergence of a Nash equilibrium: an equilibrium or compromise from which
no one participant will have an incentive to defect.
Putting these two sets of findings and their related hypotheses together leads
to the following conclusions. First, parties are increasingly part of the state,
and increasingly removed from society, and this new situation encourages
them, or even forces them, to cooperate with one another. They can write their
own checks, but only if there is general agreement to do so. Second, these
parties increasingly resemble one another; in terms of their electorates, pol-
icies, goals, styles, there is less and less dividing them—their interests are now
much more shared, and this also facilitates cooperation. A very important
part of their shared interest is to contain the costs of losing, and in this sense to
find an equilibrium that suits all of their own “private” interests. This also
means cooperation, even if this cooperation need not be overt or conscious.
That is, even if parties might be disinclined to rely heavily on overt deals with
one another, their mutual awareness of shared interests, and their sense of all
being in the same boat and relying on the same sorts of resources, means that
we can conclude by hypothesizing collusion (or its functional equivalent) and
cartel-like behavior.
CARTEL PARTIES AND A PARTY CARTEL
Although the idea of a cartel implies concerted action, when translated into
the cartel party model the term was not intended to imply or depend on an
actual conspiracy and it is particularly in this respect that the choice of
denomination may have been less than perfect (Chapter 6). Rather, as anyone
involved with regulations or legislation concerning anti-competitive practices
in the economy is well aware, it is possible to produce the effects of collusion
without any illicit communication or covert coordination (e.g., Werden 2004).
In an oligopolistic market, which the electoral market with only a handful of
parties receiving nearly all of the votes certainly approximates, overt signaling
can produce virtually the same result as covert conspiracy.
The denomination “cartel” also implies attention to interparty or system-
level dynamics, and in particular to a distinction between those players that
are “within” the cartel and those that are excluded from it. Indeed, part of
the original argument was that participation in a cartel-like pattern of con-
strained competition with other parties would both facilitate and, at least to a
certain extent, require many of the changes in internal party arrangements
that we identified with the cartel party as an organizational form. Thus
even if analytically separable, the idea of a party cartel as a system-level

characteristic and the idea of a cartel party as a type analogous to the mass
party or the catch-all party are closely intertwined.
Attention to the system-level or interparty side of the argument requires
that a further point be clarified, and that is the specification of the set of
parties that are expected to be “in” the cartel. We have sometimes identified
this as the set of “governing” parties (Katz 2002, 2003). Unfortunately in
practice this phrase has proven to be slightly ambiguous, but what it clearly is
not intended to denote is simply those parties that are in government (holding
ministerial portfolios, or the equivalent) at any particular time. While it does
not necessarily extend to all parties that might in theory be considered as
potential coalition partners (i.e., that are not excluded from government on a
priori grounds)—indeed, one of the hypothesized characteristics of a cartel
system is to minimize the importance of the distinction between being in and
being out of office at any particular time—or that play a governing role in any
subnational government, it does extend to all parties that have a reasonable
expectation that they might be included in a national governing coalition or in
a significant share (defined jointly by number, size, and range of competences)
of subnational governments within the reasonably foreseeable future. More-
over, while a cartel does imply constrained competition, this refers to the
nature of the competition rather than to an absence of electoral turnover—to
the question of whether it makes any difference who wins, not to the frequency
with which different parties win. Indeed, the absence of an expectation of
turnover would be a factor strongly militating against the formation of a
cartel. Thus, that the American Republicans in the House of Representatives
appeared in the early 1990s to be condemned to permanent opposition
status was a major contributor to Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America”
as a way to fracture a cartel that arguably included both Democrats and
Republicans in the Senate and in presidential politics.
MAKING SENSE OF CARTELIZATION
Given this background and these clarifications, our argument can be sum-
marized relatively briefly. At least by the 1970s, the dominant form of party
organization in most democratic countries approximated what Kirchheimer
(1966) had identified as the catch-all party. While there were still obvious
connections, both in terms of formal organization and affective ties, between
particular parties and particular social groupings, these had noticeably weak-
ened. Increasingly, parties were seen, and saw themselves, as brokers
among social groups and between social groups and the state, rather than as
the political arms of specific groups. Ideological conflicts and deep social
The Problem 15
cleavages had been transformed into amorphous differences in general
left-right orientation. A significant component of electoral competition
involved the provision of public services, with parties in effect bidding for
support from voters by promising more services (especially on the left) and
lower taxes (especially on the right), and for support from potential contribu-
tors by offering specially tailored legislation that often resulted in subsidies to
special interests, the weakening of otherwise desirable regulation, or the
collection of less revenue.
This situation confronted the parties with three interrelated classes of
problems, some of which might be characterized as largely exogenous, but
others of which were largely the result of actions taken by the parties them-
selves in the past. First, the moderation of class and other subcultural con-
flicts, and the increasing homogeneity of experiences and expectations of the
vast majority of citizens associated with the rise of mass society and the
welfare state (mass media and mass culture, mass education, near universal
provision for health care, unemployment, and old age insurance) reduced the
value of appeals to class or cultural solidarity. Concurrently, the process
identified by Inglehart (1970, 1990) and Dalton (1984) as “cognitive mobil-
ization” contributed to a general decline in affective attachment to parties per
se as part of a process of partisan dealignment. Not only party psychological
identification, but formal party membership, declined. As the other side of the
same coin, electoral supporters (party members, party voters, organizational
contributors) became less reliable.
Second, with the increasing reliance on mass media as the most effective
mode of campaigning, and with the attendant increase in the need for profes-
sional expertise (pollsters, advertising consultants, direct-mail fundraisers and
marketers), the economic costs of remaining competitive were rising more
rapidly than the ability or willingness to pay on the part of the party on the
ground. The initial response of turning to a range of interest organizations
(primarily unions) and corporations also began to reach the limits of willing-
ness to pay, at least without quid pro quos bordering on, or entering, the
realm of the corrupt. These changes also meant that the non-monetary
resources that the party on the ground could bring to the table (e.g., volunteer
labor for campaigning; knowledge of local opinion) were becoming relatively
less valuable to the party in public office (in comparison to mass media space
or information gathered by professional pollsters).
Third, at least if one accepts the idea that there is a real limit beyond which
the provision of public goods cannot be expanded without creating a fiscal
crisis, then the governments of many welfare states appeared to have backed
themselves into a corner from which the only escape without, and potentially
even with, untenable tax increases was equally untenable service cuts. More-
over, servicing the public debts that accumulated while deferring addressing
this dilemma ultimately made even that “strategy” increasingly untenable.

Although of a different type, one additional development can be added to
this list. As politics has become an increasingly specialized profession, the
potential personal costs for politicians and party functionaries of electoral
defeat or organizational contraction have increased. Further, the separation
of parties from ancillary and other interest organizations that was character-
istic of the catch-all party has proceeded even further, and has reduced the
availability of jobs in those organizations for politicians who are (to use the
theatrical euphemism) “resting” between engagements. This loss of “out-of-
office” employment possibilities has only been partially mitigated—and
mitigated only for particular types of politicians—by the possibility of post-
politics careers in journalism or lobbying and, at the very top, making public
speeches for large fees. Simply put, when politics is a person’s primary
source of income, the stakes are higher (Borchert 2000; see also Chapter 3).
One implication of this is to reorient the meaning of party rationality
away from maximizing the expected (average) pay-off or probability of
victory, and toward maximizing the reasonably anticipated minimum pay-
off (“maximin”) even in defeat. Significantly, this is something that all the
mainstream parties can do simultaneously.
These problems are shared by all governing and would-be governing par-
ties, and set up the conditions for the formation of what is effectively a cartel,
in which participating parties serve their joint interest in providing for their
own security and survival. In terms of relations among parties, this has two
primary aspects. The first is restriction of policy competition, with policy
promises effectively playing the role of quantity offers in an economic cartel.
This is evident in the increasingly common moves to take issues out of the
realm of party competition by delegating them to non-partisan agencies like
independent central banks, courts, or the EU Commission, by privatizing
previously public functions (e.g., pension reform or health-care reform), and
by the increasingly common acceptance of various models of governance, new
public management (Hood 1991), and the regulatory state (Majone 1994,
1997), all of which privilege questions of technical and managerial expertise
over those of values or political preference (see Chapter 4). Even in the case of
issues that have not explicitly been removed from the realm of partisan
debate, cartel parties limit the degree to which they attempt to “out-bid”
one another. The result is that many issues are simply avoided by the main-
stream parties as demagogic or populist, and the range of proposals offered
for those issues that remain is often limited in the name of “realism” or
“responsibility.”
The second aspect involves attempting to solve the problem that internally
generated funds prove inadequate to the exigencies of modern politics, and to
mitigate the risks of electoral misfortune by reducing the disparity of
resources available to those in and out of government at any particular
moment, in both respects by turning to the coffers of the state. In the first
The Problem 17
respect, state subventions become significant—in some cases helping to fill the
gap between traditional sources of party income and perceived needs, and in
others largely replacing private contributions. In the second respect, a system
in which the parties of the ruling coalition enjoyed the resources of the state
(the power to appoint to office (and perhaps to “tax” the appointees), the
research capacities of the civil service, etc.) while the other parties were left to
their own devices is supplanted by arrangements that allow all of the cartel
parties to share in the bounty, and thus to reduce the pecuniary difference
between being in office and out of office.
CARTEL PARTIES
Cartels face two potential threats. One, as Kitschelt (2000) has pointed out, is
defection. The other is challenge from new entrants. Thus an additional aspect
of the cartel is the structuring of institutions such as the financial subvention
regime, ballot access requirements, and media access in ways that disadvan-
tage challengers from outside (Bischoff 2005). Moreover, because parties are
not unitary actors, the leaders of the party in public office (from whose
perspective this model has been developed) face not only the threat of defec-
tion or challenge by new party entrants, but also pressures or threats from
within their own party. It is in responding to these challenges that parties tend
to become cartel parties with respect to their internal structures.
One aspect of this has already been mentioned: by turning to state subven-
tions, parties—that is, their leaders—become less dependent on members and
other contributors.
A second aspect is the disempowering of the activists in the party on the
ground, who are the ones most likely to make policy demands inconsistent
with the “restraint of trade” in policy that is implied by the cartel model.
Although the objective is a kind of party oligarchy, the means ironically (or
not, depending on one’s reading of Michels (1962 [1911]) and the “iron law of
oligarchy”) may be the apparent democratization of the party through the
introduction of such devices as postal ballots or mass membership meetings at
which large numbers of marginally committed members or supporters—with
their silence, their lack of capacity for prior independent (of the leadership)
organization, and their tendency to be oriented more toward particular
leaders rather than to underlying policies—can be expected to drown out
the activists.
A third aspect is the centralization and professionalization of the party
central office (in particular, emphasizing the cash nexus of an employment
contract instead of partisan loyalty or ideology as the basis for commitment),

or ultimately even the outsourcing of campaigning and of the other functions
of the central office and the traditional party on the ground, again with the
result of freeing the leadership of constraints from below.
One consequence of all this is that while it may be appropriate to attribute
functions to parties, for example to provide a linkage between citizens or
social groups and the state, within the context of a theory about how demo-
cratic governments should work, it is not necessarily appropriate to assume
that parties (or more accurately their leaders) do give the performance of these
functions the highest, or even high, priority over such other potential goals as
personal power or economic/job security. In particular with regard to party
finance, the claim is not that state subvention makes it more difficult for
parties to provide this linkage (e.g., “extensive reliance on the state for
funding contributes to an erosion of parties’ capacity to link society and the
state”—Young et al. 2005), but rather that it reduces the parties’ need or
desire to do so, and thus is likely to reduce the degree to which parties actually
provide linkage, even if their hypothetical capacity to do so were increased by
access to additional funds.
The cartel party model also further cements the relationship between
parties and the state. With significant policy competition largely precluded,
whether as part of cartelization, or because of domestic fiscal and political
constraints, or because of the ever more powerful international constraints,
party spokesmen tend to become apologists for and defenders of policies that
they have inherited from their predecessors (Rose and Davies 1994) or, more
recently, have been imposed from outside, for example by the European
Commission (“Brussels made me do it!”—Smith 1997) or by the “troika” of
the Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monet-
ary Fund, and that have thus become more generically policies of the state
than they are the policies of any particular party or coalition. Moreover, as
part of the price for state funding, parties have also accepted that there will be
a significant body of regulations limiting both their activities and their struc-
tures, regulations which they themselves then developed. In this way, parties
move beyond the public utility model of regulation discussed by van Biezen
(2004; see also Epstein 1986) to approximate, in effect, full-grown institutions
of the state.
CONSTRAINTS ON CARTELIZATION
It is important to emphasize that the cartel party remains an ideal type, which
may be approximated or approached but which will not be fully realized—just
as there never were any parties that fully met the ideal type definitions of the
The Problem 19
mass party or the catch-all party (Katz 2017). Even with that said, however,
two forces restraining the cartelization of parties must be recognized.
The first restraint is that although the process of cartelization may be seen
as anti-democratic, parties, even in the cartel model—or perhaps particularly
in the cartel model—justify their own existence and their claim on state
resources on the basis of their contribution to democracy, and it is in this
respect that they are often open to challenge. On the one hand, cartelization
has clearly contributed to the rise of populist anti-party-system parties that
appeal directly to public perceptions that the mainstream parties are indiffer-
ent to the desires of ordinary citizens. Such parties have grown substantially in
both prominence and support in the last decade, and serve to underline the
dangers to cartel parties of excessive, or excessively overt, cartelization (see
Chapter 7). On the other hand, cartel parties also have to be attentive to the
potential backlash of being perceived to have excessively violated norms of
democratic fairness. While one would expect a certain level of disingenuous
rhetoric attempting to justify regulations that are in the parties’ interest as
actually being in the public interest, particularly with an aggressive free press
there will be real limits to the degree to which parties can construct institu-
tional biases in their favor without incurring even greater political costs.5
A second restraining factor is that although parties through their parlia-
mentary majorities make the rules that govern their own behavior and struc-
tures, govern entry to the political marketplace, and allocate state resources,
they do not do so with complete autonomy. Most obviously, and only
exacerbated by the increased role of courts, they are bound by constitutional
restrictions. Thus, although the basic logic of a cartel might lead one to expect
the ruling parties to restrict access to public finance to themselves (as to a great
extent they have done in American presidential elections6), German parties
were forced by the Bundesverfassungsgericht to provide public funding not
just to parties that clear the 5 percent threshold for representation in the
Bundestag, but to all parties that achieve one tenth of that result. Similarly,
5
With specific regard to reforming electoral laws to advantage those writing the reforms, see
Katz (2005).
6
“Major” parties, defined as those that received at least 25 percent of the vote in the previous
presidential election, are eligible for a subsidy; “minor” parties (those that received between 5 and
25 percent in the previous election) can receive a proportionately reduced subsidy; new parties or
those that received less than 5 percent of the vote in the last election can receive a similarly
proportionate subsidy—but only if they clear the 5 percent threshold in the current election, and
only after the fact. In 2000 (the last time a party other than the Democrats and Republicans
received a general election campaign grant), the campaign of Reform Party candidate Patrick
Buchanan received $12,613,452—in contrast to the $67,560,000 received by each of the major
party campaigns. In 1996, Ross Perot received $29,000,000 (the major parties each received
$61,820,000). Because acceptance of the general election campaign grants requires acceptance
of overall limits, the last major party candidate to accept the grant was John McCain in 2008.

in Figueroa v Canada (Attorney General) the Supreme Court of Canada over-
turned the provision of the Canada Elections Act that required a party to have
candidates in at least fifty ridings in order to reap the benefits of party regis-
tration, a requirement that would either have denied those benefits to most
small parties or forced them to bear the burden of nominating candidates in
many ridings that they did not intend seriously to contest.7
CRITICISMS
Although the cartel party thesis has become an important point of reference
for studies of political parties, it has not been without criticism. Ruud Koole,
one of the original collaborators in our data-collection project, and later
(2001–5) chairman of the Dutch Labor Party, raised a number of significant
points (Koole 1996), to which we responded at the time (Katz and Mair 1996);
the substance of those responses is reflected in the chapters that follow.
Perhaps the most elaborate critique was advanced by Herbert Kitschelt
(2000). He raises three basic objections, to which we respond briefly here
(see also Blyth and Katz 2005), although our real purpose now is to use
Kitschelt’s critique to call attention to basic disjunctures between our argu-
ment and the way it has been interpreted by some of its critics.
Kitschelt’s first complaint is with our claim (put in the terms of principal-
agent models, as exemplified by Figures 1.1 through 1.3) that parties and their
leaders have become less faithful agents of their electoral principals. He asks,
for example (p. 155), “[w]hy do parties wish to abandon their voters’ prefer-
ences . . . Would not vote- and office-seeking politicians attempt to realize
their goals by being more responsive to a greater share of the electorate
than their competitors?”8 But this, along with his doubts about the “state”
7
One of the costs was a requirement that each candidate post a deposit of CAD$1000. Prior to
2000, CAD$500 would be refunded only if the candidate received at least 15 percent of the vote;
after 2000, the full deposit would be returned upon satisfaction of reporting requirements, but a
small party might still be forced to borrow (presumably at interest) much of the $50,000 required
for fifty candidates.
8
Another complaint (p. 158) is that our “hypothesis asserting the empowerment of (generally
passive) members at the expense of local party activists is inconsistent with their claim that even
contemporary parties value activists and therefore permit greater participation in strategic
decision making.” But while we would not deny the utility of active members both as a source
of “free” labor and for increasing the apparent democratic legitimacy of the party, our suggestion
is that participation is broadened precisely to dilute the influence of activists, and thus to render
the leadership more, rather than less, independent in strategic decision making.
The Problem 21
as an alternative principal, means accepting the principal-agent model as
appropriate in the first place—contrary to our observations above. Moreover,
even if one were to accept in part the principal-agent framework for its
heuristic value, the answer to Kitschelt’s question just quoted would be that
one cause of cartelization is the desire of professional politicians to lessen the
force of the electoral incentive—making vote and office seeking less important
to the realization of their goals.
Kitschelt’s second complaint (p. 149) is that “inter-party cooperation gen-
erates a prisoner’s dilemma in the competitive arena that ultimately prevents
the emergence of cartels. Ideological convergence of rival parties has causes
external to the competitive arena, not internal to it.” This actually comprises
two claims: that cartels will not form, and that the causes of policy conver-
gence are exogenous to party politics. With regard to the latter, we appear to
disagree with regard to the meaning of exogeneity, our position being that
many of the causes that appear to be currently external to the competitive
arena (e.g., debt crises and globalized economies) are actually the effects of
prior policy decisions.
The claim that cartels will not form is directly related to Kitschelt’s third
complaint, that cartels are vulnerable to new entrants into the market (we
agree, see Chapter 7) and that it is not true that (p. 170) “party cartels
manage to prevent entry and, failing to do so, are able to coopt new parties
into the existing cartel, except those that make the new party cartels them-
selves the critical point of attack.” As noted above, the capacity of cartel
parties to prevent entry (or to handicap new entrants) is limited by the fact
that they are not all powerful. Likewise, the capacity of a cartel to coopt new
entrants depends on the willingness of the cooptee as well as the desires of
the coopter.
This points, however, to three more fundamental misunderstandings that
affect many of the criticisms of the cartel thesis. First, we never claimed that a
cartel of cartel parties would be stable; indeed, we argued exactly the opposite,
that the self-protective mechanisms of a party cartel would be unable
to prevent the emergence of challenges from outside the cartel . . . Thus in

much the same way as the elite parties created the social and political
conditions for the emergence and success of mass parties, and as the mass
parties, in turn, created the conditions for the emergence and success of
catch-all parties, and as the catch-all party led to the conditions that
generated the cartel party, so the more recent success of the cartel inevit-
ably generates its own opposition. (Katz and Mair 1995: 23–4)
Second, although we identified the cartel party with a particular time period
(Katz and Mair 1995: 18), we did not mean to imply that all parties in all
countries should be expected to be cartel parties in any full sense of the term.
Rather, for each of the models of party organization, we were suggesting that

there was/is a kind of “Zeitgeist” that would be especially conducive to one
model or another in a particular period, but that in each period other party
forms from earlier periods would continue to exist, and that new forms would
be in the process of emerging. Third, there is confusion of claims that parties
will pursue strategies with claims either that those strategies will be mutually
consistent or that they will be successful.
IMPLICATIONS
In the years subsequent to the publication of our original paper, the trends to
which we drew attention have become more easily seen, and serve to bolster
rather than weaken the overall argument. This is particularly so when we
look at the behavior of the established parties, which seems to come closer
and closer to the pattern we sketched, both in terms of party organizational
styles and patterns of competition. Moreover, regardless of whether one
accepts the cartel thesis in its entirety, it is evident that the growing incorp-
oration of parties within the state, their increasingly shared purpose and
identity, and the ever more visible gap that separates them from the wider
society, have contributed to provoking a degree of popular mistrust
and disaffection that is without precedent in the post-war experiences
of the long-established democracies. One may dispute the interpretation of
cartelization, but what is beyond dispute is the popularity of what is now
often identified as a populist, anti-cartel rhetoric. We will look at this issue
in Chapter 7.
One question that remains is where this leaves the concepts of party and of
party government—concepts that have been at the core of the understanding
of European democracy in particular and that we explore throughout this
volume. As suggested above, there are restraining factors that may limit the
degree to which parties follow the path we have identified. At the same time,
however, it seems unlikely that the parties would—or could—reverse their
drift towards the state, or that they could all somehow reinvigorate their
organizational presence on the ground.
It also seems unlikely that the parties—at least within the mainstream—will
discover some great issue divide or a new basis for policy polarization, and
when one remembers the bloodshed frequently associated with polarizing
questions of class or religion, it is not clear that it would be desirable if they
did. The neoliberal economic consensus is now well established in the minds
of mainstream political leaders, and on many of the issues that might offer the
basis for polarization in left-right terms the room for maneuver is either
limited, or the capacity to decide has been delegated elsewhere. This also
The Problem 23
seems to be the case even when parties have had to confront the worst effects
of the financial crisis after 2008. Beyond the economy and welfare, and
beyond the heavily constrained options available in fiscal and monetary
policy, there lie other issue dimensions that might serve to organize opposition
and that cut across the traditional class-based left-right divide. The environ-
ment offers one set of issues; immigration offers another; the international
order offers a third. But whether meaningful choices might be meaningfully
politicized in any of these issue areas, or whether, even if politicized, they
might offer the basis for widespread popular re-engagement in the electoral
process, is very much open to question. Moreover, even if such issues were
politicized and proved capable of stimulating popular re-engagement with
electoral politics, it is virtually unthinkable in modern societies that they
would be rooted in the kind of social cleavages that were a necessary condition
for the mass party model. For example, although Kriesi and his colleagues
(2008) are very emphatic in claiming to identify a new cleavage in European
politics shaped by the division between the winners and losers of globaliza-
tion, it is not at all clear that this conflict has found a consistent party political
expression, except perhaps in the support for new populist parties, or that it
can endure in the form of a stable alignment.
Much of contemporary debate concerning, and criticism of, parties and
party government, and much of the advice for building strong democracies in
the “third-wave” countries, and for addressing the “crisis of democracy” in
first- and second-wave countries, remains strongly informed by the mass party
model of ideologically/programmatically distinctive parties, each supported
by strong roots in society and governed internally by bottom-up democratic
practices. But at the same time, it is undeniable that for all practical purposes
the mass party is dead.
For now, it seems, we remain with a reality that is defined by a set of
mainstream parties that many perceive to be largely indistinguishable from
one another in terms of their main policy proposals, and that are closer to one
another in terms of their styles, location, and organizational culture than any
one of them is to the voters in the wider society. Elsewhere (Mair 2009), this
new configuration of party politics has been discussed in terms of the erosion
of the parties’ representative roles and the retention of their procedural roles,
and it has also been argued that in the absence of a capacity to combine both
roles, parties risk losing their legitimacy. That is, unless parties can represent
as well as govern, it may turn out to be more and more difficult for them to
legitimize their command of governmental institutions and appropriation of
public resources.
More immediately, however, these developments also raise the issue of
future models of party organization. To adopt Katz’s (1986) terms, the current
situation is characterized by an enhancement of the partyness of government—
as reflected in enhanced levels of party recruitment, nominations, and office

holding—but by a reduction of the partyness of society and party
governmentness—that is, reduction in the degree to which parties penetrate
the broader society and in the degree to which party government characterizes
the overall regulation of society. Within the institutions of government, party
organizations often dominate; within the wider society, the party presence has
been transformed into a professional electoral campaigning machine. The party
as campaigner attempts to reach out to as wide a range of voters as possible, but
the links that it establishes to these voters are at best contingent, instrumental,
and short term. They are also very direct, in the sense that the waning of the
party on the ground has left little or nothing in-between the competing sets of
leaders, on the one hand, and the available and often indifferent body of voters,
on the other. In this version of post-party democracy, there is little or no
mediation, and hence little or no role for traditional party organizations.
What lies between the elector and the elected is all but disappearing, rejected
by the disengaged voters, on the one hand, and by campaigning politicians, on
the other.
Whether this constitutes cause for alarm, or merely identifies a need to
adjust expectations and criteria for evaluation, is a matter of subjective
judgment. As Whiteley and his associates (2001: 786) observed—before
using the term themselves to describe the dramatic drop in voter turnout in
the 2000 British General Election—“[t]he word crisis is often abused in
contemporary accounts of politics.” Is a “crisis of democracy” that has
been going on for more than forty years (to date it from 1975, the publica-
tion of the Crozier et al. book of that title) really a crisis? At the same time,
popular disenchantment with democratic governments and with political
parties as the central actors in those governments, if not necessarily with the
abstract idea of “democracy,” is undeniably growing. To some extent,
disenchantment now is the result of unrealistic expectations (in part created
by the parties themselves) in the past, but whether or not prior expectations
were realistic, their disappointment has real consequences for the future. The
possible consequence on which most attention has focused is the rise of
populist, anti-party-system parties, and the danger that they will undermine
the liberal rights on which modern democracy rests. There is certainly
adequate precedent in the red scares of the 1950s, and the rise of fascist
regimes in the interwar period, to make this threat credible. But there is
another, and perhaps more insidious possible outcome. Rather than being
replaced by some kind of authoritarian, or perhaps initially authoritarian-lite,
regime, democracy might instead be hollowed out, becoming what Walter
Bagehot might have described as a “dignified part of the constitution”—a
revered legitimizing myth, but with little practical consequence in the actual
governance of society. But if the sphere in which the parties, including
the populist parties work, is marginalized, what power will move in to fill
the resulting void?
The Problem 25
PLAN OF THE BOOK
These developments then raise three important questions, or research agenda,

for scholars of political parties, and we seek to address—if not always to
answer—these questions in the present volume. Our first agenda, and the
major focus of this book, is to address more directly and fully the range of
empirical questions that have been raised with regard to the cartel thesis itself.
In Chapter 2, we trace the evolution of parties and party systems from the
mid-nineteenth century development of the mass party through the era of the
catch-all party in the last third of the twentieth century. Although the devel-
opments that together have led to the “crisis of party democracy” may be of
fairly recent origin, both the developments themselves and the set of expect-
ations that led to the diagnosis of crisis have much deeper roots.
Chapter 2 has two main objectives. The first is to emphasize the evolution-
ary nature of party change and that, in particular, the evolution is driven by
the rational adaptation of parties to social change, but also to the adaptive
behavior of other parties. As Marx (1852) observed, “Men make their own
history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-
selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and
transmitted from the past.” If we are to understand party and party system
change going forward, we must first examine the processes through which
such changes have occurred in the past.
The second objective is to highlight the interconnection between party and
party system organization, on the one hand, and understandings of democ-
racy (including understandings of the nature of the demos), on the other.
Although it is tempting, and not entirely without truth, to assert that the
democratic theories articulated by political parties are little more than ration-
alizations for their own self-interested practices, once a democratic theory has
been claimed by a party to justify itself, that theory becomes a constraint on
future adaptation. In particular, because the appeal of the theory often
outlives the circumstances that made the party behavior that the theory
justifies attractive in the first place, the result can be a serious disjuncture
between expectations and practice that leads to widespread dissatisfaction.
One of the recurring themes of this book is that this is precisely what has
happened with the democratic theory of the mass party; although the mass
party form may have passed into history, the democratic theory that devel-
oped to justify it continues to influence both political science and quotidian
political discussion, to the detriment of current parties.
Although they are often treated as unitary actors, each political party is
actually a small political system in its own right. In Chapter 3 we develop this
point further, elaborating on the relations among “the three faces of party
organization”: the party on the ground, the party central office, and the party

in public office. The main themes in this chapter are the increasing dominance
of the party in public office and the increasing professionalization of the party
in public office and the party in central office—both the development of a
separate vocation of politics and the replacement of people who “live for
politics” with people who “live off politics” (Weber 1919).
Chapters 4 and 5 are concerned with relations among parties (Chapter 4)
and between parties and the state (Chapter 5). In both cases, this is a story
about moving together. On the one hand, the parties have tended to become
more similar to one another. There is less differentiation among their policy
proposals in elections and the policies they pursue in office; their methodolo-
gies in electoral competition have become more similar, as have their organ-
izational structures. On the other hand, the distinction between the parties as
tools of civil society attempting to secure temporary control over the state,
and the state itself, has become increasingly difficult to maintain; rather than
being private actors attempting to control the state apparatus, the parties
increasingly have become part of it.
The joint result of these processes has been the gradual and partial evolu-
tion of a new model of party organization, a new pattern of “normal”
relations among parties, and a new set of legitimizing principles, that come
together to define what we have identified as the “cartel party.” In Chapter 6
we both develop these ideas and, building on the evidence presented in earlier
chapters, advance the claim that parties are in fact evolving organizationally
and behaving in ways that reasonably approximate the cartel ideal type.9
Given the two-pronged nature of the cartel party argument—that is, a cartel-
ized party system and individual cartel parties within that system—this
requires us to confront two sets of questions. On the one hand, we develop
and assess indicators of the cartelization of the party system, for example,
addressing whether we see a constriction of competition among cartel mem-
bers and increasing rules that advantage cartel members over those outside
the cartel. Whether or not there is evidence of actual collusion among the
parties, do we find evidence of the behavior that we would expect if there were
collusion? On the other hand, we look inside parties for evidence that their
organizations and practices are coming into line with the predictions of the
cartel model: more dependence on state resources; greater emphasis on
improved management rather than reformed policy; more formal but less
substantive internal democracy.
Finally, in Chapter 7 we address the question of what difference this
all makes for the future of democracy. As we have already observed, there
9
Again, approximation to an ideal type is all that can be claimed for the real-world mass
parties or catch-all parties. Indeed, because each step in the evolution of party types has
stimulated the development of a countervailing form, failure of real parties fully to conform to
any of these ideal types is actually part of the model.
The Problem 27
is—and has been for at least forty years—widespread talk of a “crisis of
[party] democracy.” Two of the contemporary manifestations of this crisis
are the increasing withdrawal of citizens from involvement with the main-
stream parties, and the concurrent rise in support for radical populist parties,
generally but not exclusively of the right. The cartelization of mainstream
party politics is clearly implicated in these processes, both as cause (main-
stream parties failing adequately to represent the perceived interests of citi-
zens) and as effect (all the mainstream parties “circling the wagons” and
turning to the state for support in the face of declining support from their
erstwhile base). The overall result is a growing disjuncture between popular
expectations regarding parties and their actual performance.
One clear danger, which fortunately does not yet appear to have material-
ized, is disenchantment with democracy tout court. While it may be exces-
sively alarmist to see the populists as harbingers of a return to fascism, the
possibility that liberal democracy will be supplanted by some fundamentalist
(whether religious or not) ideology that promises to protect the interests of the
people against the corrupt and corrupting elite cannot be entirely discounted.
If the gap between performance and expectations continues to grow, the
danger of reaching the breaking point will grow as well.
One strategy suggested for closing the gap between performance and
expectations lies in the emphasis in the “New Public Management” school
for improved “customer service,” taking the supposed “customer responsive-
ness” of the private sector as its point of reference (Osborne and Gaebler 1992:
Barzelay 1992). In this scenario, citizens as active participants in their own
government are transformed into consumers of government services. While
initially this idea was advanced as a prescription, more recently it has also
been suggested as a description of what governments actually are doing—
whether by intent or as an unintended, but nonetheless real, consequence (e.g.,
Mosse and Whitley 2009). But as many critics have pointed out, the relation-
ship of citizen to state is not the same as the relationship of customer to firm.
The state is a monopoly supplier with the power of compulsion, in both
respects denying to the citizen the option of exit that is characteristic of
most private-sector transactions. The relationship of consumer to firm is
individual and concerned with private goods, while that of citizen to the
state is often collective and concerned with public goods (whether policies
or material goods). The private sector is characterized by a direct connection
between delivery of services and payment for those services; the public sector
is not (Pegnato 1997). Thus, even if the goals of the New Public Management
were achieved, this would likely only reduce the gap between expectations and
performance with regard to individual interactions with the state and the
delivery of personal services. It would be far less likely to ameliorate dissat-
isfaction concerning the content of policy, the constriction of the range of
options offered to voters, or the general quality of democracy.

Although it is possible that the gap between performance and expectations
will be reduced by improved performance, the trends that we document in this
book are all in the opposite direction. Eurobarometer data show a substantial
(11 percent), and nearly monotonic, drop in the proportion of respondents
“satisfied with the way democracy works” in their country between Autumn
2004 and Autumn 2013, albeit with a 4 percent recovery in Spring 2014 (EB81
Report). There is, however, an alternative way in which the gap can be
reduced: that is, by lowering expectations of what governments can achieve
or be held accountable for. A not-always-successful attempt to do this is
already evident in the offloading of responsibilities to independent central
banks, the EU, or the WTO. Although generally proposed as ways of improv-
ing performance, the parties also can hope that they will lower expectations
for the parties themselves—because they are at worst indirectly responsible
for the outcomes, and at best not held responsible at all. In this case, we have
an evolution of liberal democracy in which the liberalism is heightened and
the democracy is hollowed out. Rather than government by the people, it
becomes government for the people by civil servants and technocrats. The role
of elections is reduced (in the words of British satirists Antony Jay and
Jonathan Lynn (1988)) to “deciding which bunch of buffoons will try to
interfere with our [the technocrats’] policies.”
Notwithstanding obvious differences, the result would bear many resem-
blances to the practices of earlier centuries in which the monarch (now
replaced by bureaucrats and associated experts) ruled, and the people’s rep-
resentatives voiced grievances but did not exercise substantial power. As
Schattschneider observed in the passage quoted in the introduction to this
chapter, political parties played a crucial role in the transition from monarchic
government to democratic parliamentary government. We now turn to the
question of how parties evolved after they became the central players in
liberal, and then in liberal democratic, government.
The Rise and Decline of Parties
In this book we address the contention that many Western democracies are
now experiencing a major crisis of party government and party democracy.
How exactly one defines the concepts of party government or party democ-
racy, and whether they denote the best or only possible form of democratic
government, or whether alternatively they denote only a pale shadow of real
democracy, are, of course, subject to debate. For some, little more is required
for democracy than that the principal offices of state be filled by contested
elections meeting quite minimal standards of fairness (e.g., Collier and Le-
vitsky 1997: 440), while for others this is at best “thin” (Barber 1984) or
“elitist” (Bachrach 1967) democracy. But at the core of both party govern-
ment and party democracy is the notion that political representation and
authority within democracies are and should be channeled through the
medium of party. In a system of party government, adopting the criteria
specified by Katz (1987), political decisions are made by elected party officials
or by those under their control; policy is decided within parties, which then act
decisively to enact these policies; and, finally, public officials are recruited
through and held accountable by parties, or else are controlled by those who
are so recruited and accountable. Party democracy is less tightly defined, and
in the literature is often taken to refer to democracy within parties rather than
to the role of parties within democracy at the system level. Indeed, in this
latter and wider sense, it is rarely even discussed. Bernard Manin (1997), who
adopts the term as a cross between the English “party government” and the
German “Parteiendemokratie” (p. 197, fn. 6), speaks of it as a system in which
“people vote for a party rather than for a person” (p. 208), and in which
“parties organize both the electoral competition and the expression of public
opinion (demonstrations, petitions, press campaigns)” (p. 215), thereby laying
a welcome emphasis on the role of parties within the wider democratic
process.1 Similarly, in contrasting “party democracy” to both populism and
technocracy, Bickerton and Invernizzi Accetti (2017) define it as
1
Given that in one of the archetypical cases of party government, the UK, people technically
vote for a person rather than a party (until 1998 officially recognized party names did not even
appear on the parliamentary election ballot), the first of Manin’s conditions clearly has to be
understood subjectively.

a regime based on two key features: the mediation of political conflicts
through the institution of political parties; and the idea that the specific
conception of the common good that ought to prevail and therefore be
translated into public policy is the one that is constructed through the demo-
cratic procedures of parliamentary deliberation and electoral competition.
Since party is central to our current understanding and learned practice of

democracy, a crisis of party government and party democracy can be seen to
have major implications for democracy itself. At the very least, a questioning
of the legitimacy and capacity of parties to represent citizens, on the one hand,
and to manage the institutions of government, on the other—the two key
functions of the democratic polity that were fused through the medium of
political parties—obliges us to rethink many of the models and assumptions
regarding the good functioning of twenty-first-century democracy. Without
parties, and indeed without legitimate parties, how would democracy and
representative government be sustained? Without parties, would citizens still
be able to find a voice within the polity and able to hold their governments
accountable? Is partyless democracy, to paraphrase Schattschneider (1942: 1),
genuinely unthinkable?
Given that talk about a “crisis of party” or a “crisis of democracy” has been
common for half a century, our concerns may seem excessive. More than forty
years ago, democracy was also seen to be in crisis, but at that point it was
believed to be the result of a combination of government overload, increased
social mobilization, and a popular demand for greater equality and participa-
tion (Crozier et al 1975). Since then, as Pharr and Putnam (2000: 3–27) remind
us in their introduction to a more recent re-evaluation of these questions, we
have witnessed the end of the Cold War, the global resurgence of democracy,
and—at least then—a period of unprecedented material prosperity. Rather
than excessive demands burdening governors, it began to seem that citizens
were becoming indifferent to politics and were increasingly likely to withdraw
into their own well-furnished private spheres. As Galbraith (1992) had sug-
gested in the American case, the earlier crisis of democracy appeared to have
been succeeded by “a culture of contentment.” The idea that this has now been
followed by a new crisis of democracy might therefore seem equally misplaced.
Perhaps either the problems will be ameliorated, or the parties’ capacity to
cope with them will increase, so that the current crisis is supplanted by another
period of relative satisfaction only to be followed by a new crisis, in an
unending stream of “crises,” none of which ultimately proves to be critical.
We do not take much comfort in this possibility, for reasons that we will
develop in this and the chapters that follow. One reason why one might think
that our projection is too dire, however, would be the claim that in pointing to
problems faced by party democracy and party government today, we under-
estimate the extent to which these or other problems also confronted parties in
the earlier periods. As Scarrow (in Dalton and Wattenberg 2000; and in more
detail in Scarrow 2015) has suggested, arguments such as ours risk assuming
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Hanna ymmärsi syyn hänen äkkinäiseen päätökseensä ja katsahti
häneen hymyillen. Toiset kumarsivat, mutisten kiitoksiaan. Hanna
kiitti kreiviä ainoastaan katseellaan ja se olikin ainoa, minkä tämä
huomasi. Samassa oli kreivi jo Hannan vierellä.
»Te saatte nähdä erästä esiäitiäni kuvaavan taulun, jolla on onni

olla teidän näköisenne, arvoisa neiti», sanoi hän.
»Ehkä heidän joukossaan on joku Orfalvy», vastasi Hanna.
Tällä nimellä oli hyvä kaiku, ja itse teossa olikin avioliittoja solmittu
Edelberg- ja Orfalvy-sukujen jäsenten kesken.
»Olette siis Orfalvy… ehkäpä minun serkkuni?»
Nyt yhtyi kenraalitar keskusteluun. Hän sanoi Hannan olevan

nuoren rouvan, syntyisin Orfalvy, eikä neidin, sekä esitti itsensä
saman nimen kantajana. Kreivi kumarsi; tuttavuus oli tehty. Sitten
kenraalitar esitti seurueen muut jäsenet.
Kreivi suoritti isännänvelvollisuutensa linnassaan mitä suurimmalla

rakastettavuudella. Hän oli melkein koko ajan Hannan lähettyvillä, ja
Hanna esiintyi edukseen. Hän oli päättänyt valloittaa tämän
mieltäkiinnittävän miehen, olisihan se kuitenkin voitto, ja sitten olisi
suurenmoista hyljätä tällainen valloitus.
Kun huoneet, kokoelma ja varuskamarit olivat nähdyt, halusi

seurue tuhansin kiitoksin palata ravintolaan. Mutta kreivi ei sitä
sallinut.
»Tehän olette huvimatkalla», sanoi hän. »Sallikaa minun ottaa

siihen osaa 'huvitusmestarina'. Ennen kaikkea syömme nyt
aamiaista; kello on kaksitoista. Sitten valjastutan hevoset ja ajamme
metsästyslinnaani, jonka asekokoelman luulisin huvittavan herroja;
sitten pieni souturetki järvellä ja vasta päivällisen jälkeen, jonka
toivon teidän syövän luonani, sallin teidän palata kotiin.»
Kaikki olivat ihastuneet, mutta Hanna tiesi kenen takia kreivi

tämän teki. Hän tunsi itsensä onnelliseksi. Tämähän oli jo elämisen
arvoista. Päivän ohjelmaa seurattiin uskollisesti, ja kun seurue kello
yhdeksän tienoissa sanoi jäähyväiset — kreivi itse auttoi naisia
vaunuihin ja puristi intohimoisesti Hannan kättä — oli nuori
maailmanmies korviaan myöten rakastunut.
»Tämän viehättävän pikku-rouvan tahdon voittaa», hän ajatteli.
Hanna nojasi vaunun selustaan vaipuen sanomattomaan

onnenhuumeeseen.
»Tätä viehättävää miestä tahdon vastustaa», paloi hänen

mielessään.
Dori täti, joka istui hänen vieressään, ei voinut kyllin ylistää nuoren
linnanherran rakastettavaisuutta sekä kuluneen päivän huveja. Mutta
Hanna ei vastannut tähän mitään.
»Suo minun levätä hiukan; minulla on päänsärkyä», sanoi hän

tahtoen olla rauhassa ajatuksineen.
Kun hän saapui kotiin, istui Ewald kirjoituspöytänsä edessä.
»Oh, vihdoinkin sinä tulet», sanoi hän. »On jo myöhä… Mennään

levolle. No, onko sinulla ollut hauskaa?»
»Oi, kuninkaallisen hauskaa», vastasi Hanna.

VII.
Viikko kului eikä Hanna nähnyt uutta ihailijaansa. Hän ajatteli jo

kreivin poistuneen paikkakunnalta koettamatta lähestyä häntä, ja
hän tunsi katkeraa pettymystä. Ei juuri siksi, että olisi tahtonut
rohkaista häntä, vaan siksi, että kreivi saattoi hänet niin pian
unohtaa… siksi, että päivän kestäneen unen hän oli ehkä yksinään
uneksinut. Kaikki tämä loukkasi häntä.
Kahdeksan päivää huviretken jälkeen Hanna istui kummitätinsä

kanssa kaupunginpuistossa, jonne joka viikko kaikki kokoontuivat
sotilassoittokunnan n.s. kävelykonserttiin. Molemmat naiset olivat
sillä haavaa yksin. Kenraalitar tarkasteli ohikulkevien pukuja, ja
Hanna istui ajatuksiinsa vaipuneena. Orkesteri soitti Brindisiä
Traviatasta.
Äkkiä hänen sydämensä alkoi kiivaasti sykkiä. Käytävän päässä

hän oli nähnyt kreivin. Tämä tuli, huomattuaan molemmat naiset,
nopein askelin heidän luokseen.
Kenraalitar osoitti lähellä olevaa vapaata tuolia, jolle kreivi istuutui.
»Minä matkustin vierailunne jälkeisenä päivänä Edelbergistä»,

sanoi hän. »Asiani kutsuivat minut takaisin Wieniin; mutta nyt aion
viipyä täällä jonkun aikaa.»
Hän silmäili tulisin katsein nuorta rouvaa.
»Täällä kaupungissako?» kysyi hän. »Vai linnassanneko?»
»En, täällä kaupungissa. Minusta tuntuu, kuin tämä kaupunki olisi

valtakunnan mielenkiintoisin kaupunki», jatkoi hän hiljaa.
»Teilläpä on ihmeellinen maku», vastasi Hanna hymyillen.

»Teillehän on koko maailma avoinna. Te voitte halunne mukaan
lähteä pikajunassa Pariisiin tai huvialuksella purjehtia valtameren
poikki…»
»Taikka lentää kanuunankuulan matkassa kuuhun», naureskeli

kreivi.
»Ei, niin pitkälle emme toki ole vielä tulleet.»
»Te huomaatte siis, ettei koko maailma ole avoinna minulle.

Jokaista ihmistä varten on olemassa ainoastaan pieni osa maata
taikka unelmien valtakuntaa, jota hän voi sanoa omaksi
maailmakseen… nimittäin se osa, jonka hänen rakkautensa
käsittää.»
»Taikka hänen velvollisuutensa», jatkoi Hanna.
»Miten kukin tahtoo», arveli Edelberg.
»Miten kunkin tulee», jatkoi Hanna.
Pikku rouva raukka! Hän oli jo asettunut puolustuskuntoon, tuntien

siitä nautintoa. Hän ei tiennyt, että nainen on varmimmin turvassa
hyökkäyksiltä niin kauan, kun hän ei ole huomaavinaan olevansa
vaarassa.
Tämän jälkeen hän tapasi usein kreivin. Kreivi toimeenpani juhlia

ja huvimatkoja; hän vieraili usein Hannan kummitädin luona;
kävelyillä ja teattereissa hän oli aina Hannan vierellä. Ballmannin
kodissa hän ei kuitenkaan käynyt, joten pian kaikki puhuivat nuoren,
kauniin professorinrouvan huomiota-herättävästä valloituksesta;
Ewald yksin ei siitä tiennyt mitään. Hanna vastaanotti kreivin
kunnioituksenosoitukset ilontuntein, mutta torjui rohkeasti kaiken
tunkeilevaisuuden. Kreivi rakasti häntä; hän ei tosin ollut sitä
sanonut… eikä hän saakaan sitä sanoa, ajatteli Hanna… mutta hän
tiesi sen kuitenkin. Entä hän itse? Oi, jospa hän olisi ollut vapaa,
kuinka hän olisikaan rakastanut tuota miellyttävää, hurmaavaa
miestä! Mutta hän oli naimisissa ja — kunniallinen vaimo. Tätä hän
toisti itselleen kerran toisensa jälkeen.
Eräs asia olisi hänet voinut pelastaa. Jos hän olisi voinut sanoa
miehelleen:
»Sinä suojelijani, parhain ystäväni, anna minun avata sinulle

sydämeni… Minua seuraa miehen rakkaus, joka voi syöstä minut
turmioon. Koetan vastustaa vaaraa, mutta tunnen sen vetävän
minua puoleensa. Auta minua, tee vaara tehottomaksi, suojele
minua rakkaudellasi!»
Mies, joka on elänyt maailmassa tai ainakin tutkinut sellaisia

kirjoja, joissa maailma kuvastuu, hän tietää vaaran hetkiä olevan
kauniitten nuorten naisten elämässä; hän tuntee intohimon,
heikkouden ja sydämen ristiriidat ja hän on yhä suuremmalla
hellyydellä sulkeva apuatarvitsevan syliinsä ja voimakkaalla
käsivarrellaan pidättävä häntä kuiluun syöksymästä. Mutta Ewald
Ballmann ei olisi ymmärtänyt vaimoansa, jos hän olisi siten hänelle
puhunut, sen Hanna tunsi, ja se saattoi hänet vaikenemaan. Ewald
olisi suuttunut ja halveksinut häntä tai sanonut häntä »haaveelliseksi
romaanienlukijaksi». Hän olisi yhtä hyvin voinut puhua hänelle
unkarinkielellä — jota hän ei ymmärtänyt — kuin kertoa intohimojen
lumoista.
Eräänä päivänä tai oikeammin sanoen iltana tuli kauan sanomatta

ollut ja kuitenkin jo niin kauan mieliä kalvanut sana sanotuksi.
Oltiin huvimatkalla. Seurue palasi jalkaisin voidakseen paremmin

nauttia kuutamoisesta kesäillasta. Edelberg oli tarjonnut Hannalle
käsivartensa. He kulkivat hiukan toisista edellä, eikä kukaan voinut
kuunnella heidän keskusteluaan.
»Eikö totta, Hanna, te olette tietänyt sen jo kauan», sanoi kreivi

äkkiä.
»Mitä minä olen tietänyt jo kauan?»
»Sen että rakastan teitä.»
Hanna tiesi sen kylläkin, mutta tämä ensimäinen julkilausuminen

iski häneen kuin salama. Hän pysähtyi, ja hänen käsivartensa vapisi
hänen kainalossaan.
»Älkää puhuko niin», pyysi hän hiljaa. »Se loukkaa minua…»
Mutta hänen äänensä ei ollut vihainen, ainoastaan kiihtynyt.
Kreivi veti hänet muassaan kauemmaksi.

»Älkäämme pysähtykö! Se voisi herättää huomiota. Miksi minun
rakkauteni loukkaisi teitä? Jos te olisitte vapaa, tarjoaisin teille käteni
ja nimeni. Te olette ihanin, jumalallisin, hurmaavin nainen, minkä
olen tavannut. Elämäni kuuluu teille… kuuluu sinulle… Tee minulle
mitä tahdot…»
Ensi kertaa lausuttu »sinä» iski häneen taas kuin salama.
»Kuinka te uskallatte sinutella minua?»
»Hanna, Hanna, älä kiellä sydämesi ääntä! Sinun täytyy tietää,

että minun tuntemani rakkaus, sellainen rakkaus on sinun arvoisesi.
Sinähän et tunne itseäsi, sinä ihana nainen, jos sinä…»
»Te olette mieletön! Laskekaa minut irti!»
Hanna tahtoi vetää kätensä pois, mutta kreivi ei hellittänyt.
»Hanna, älkää olko minulle vihainen! Jos tahdotte, olen puhumatta

rakkaudestani… minä vaikenen siksi, kunnes te itse sanotte: 'Elämä
on sentään ihanaa… vie minut pois!'»
»Sitä en sano koskaan. Kalleinta minulle on kunniani.»
»Uskokaa minua, Hanna, kun rakastaa, ei koko maailmassa ole

mitään 'kalliimpaa kuin rakastettu olento.»
»Onpa kylläkin. Jospa rakastaisinkin, pitäisin aina velvollisuutta

kallisarvoisempana.»
»Mutta kun te ette rakasta, ette myöskään voi arvostella sitä

asiaa…»
»Kukapa tietää?…»
»Hanna, rakastatko minua?»
Hanna ei vastannut. Kreivi ymmärsi hänen vaitiolonsa, ja he

jatkoivat matkaansa ääneti. Hetken kuluttua hän sanoi:
»Minä olen niin sanomattoman, niin äärettömän onnellinen, että se

vallan pelottaa minua. En tahdo toivoa mitään muuta kuin sitä, minkä
jo olen voittanut, tietoisuutta siitä, että te…»
»Hiljaa!» huudahti Hanna. »Sitä ei koskaan saa lausua.»
»Minä tottelen käskyjänne. Mitä teillä on vielä sanottavaa?»
»Te ette koskaan saa enää puhua tästä… tämä viimeinen

neljännestunti on pyyhittävä todellisuudesta… Ainoastaan sillä
ehdolla annan teille anteeksi», lisäsi hän hiljaa, »mutta en unohda.»
Siten solmittiin vaarallinen liitto. Ensimäinen pysäkkihän

vaarallisella tiellä on juuri molemminpuolisen tunnustuksen
uusiutumisen kielto. Puhutaan jokapäiväisistä asioista. Katsellaan
toisiaan hellästi silmiin ja sanotaan: »Tänään on kaunis ilma.»
»Sanomalehdet kertovat ministerinvaihdoksesta.» Ja näihin sanoihin
sisältyy kuitenkin: »Minä rakastan sinua, minä rakastan sinua.» Se
kuuluu rakastetun äänestä, se soi alituiseen, vaikka se onkin vain
yhden ainoan kerran ilmilausuttu. Tämä on ehkä viehättävämpää,
salaisempaa, ihanampaa kuin sanoilla ilmituoden. Sydän värähtelee
silloin kuin ilmakanteleen kielet. Kun Hanna lausui vaarallisen
»kukapa tietää», sanoi hän oikeastaan enemmän kuin tunsi. Hänen
sydämensä ei ollut silloin vielä pauloissa; vasta tämä sana sitoi
hänet, eikä hänellä ollut enää voimia katkaista tätä sidettä. Hänen
puolustusmenettelynsä mukaan oli kunniakkaampaa vastustaa
miestä, jota rakasti, kuin sitä, joka oli ainoastaan vaarallinen; hän
tahtoi kohottaa siveyttään niin hyvin omissa kuin hänen silmissään
näyttämällä, että siveys voi kunniakkaasti vastustaa rakkautta.
Vielä olisi Hannalla ollut tilaisuus pyytää miehensä suojelusta.

Mutta hän katsoi olevansa kyllin vahva yksin kestämään
kamppailunsa. Ketään hän ei enää tahtonut uskotukseen… hänen
salaisuutensa oli hänelle kallis. Rikkauden, aarteen tavoin se oli
kätkettynä hänen ahdistettuun sydämeensä.
Palatessaan huvimatkalta vastasi hän Ewaldin tavanmukaiseen

kysymykseen: »Onko sinulla ollut hauskaa?» hyvin
välinpitämättömästi, haukotellen:
»Ei, siellä oli hyvin ikävää.»
»Sen kyllä uskon», vastasi Ewald.

VIII.
Asiat kehittyivät kuten saattoi aavistaakin. Yhä kiihkeämmin, yhä

huimaavammin veti kuilu puoleensa. Hanna koetti ajatella
kunniaansa, omanarvon-tunnettaan, velvollisuuttaan, mitään pahaa
aavistamatonta, luottavaa miestään, jonka kunnia oli hänenkin
kunniansa. Hän piti siveyttään suuressa arvossa… mutta eikö
ihminen rakasta myöskin elämää, jos hän korkean tornin huipusta
katselee alas ja haluaa auttamattomasti suistua syvyyteen?
Jo aikoja sitten he olivat rikkoneet sopimuksensa olla puhumatta

rakkaudestaan. Sata kertaa oli kreivi intohimoisesti rukoillut Hannaa
omakseen. Yhdeksänkymmentäyhdeksän kertaa hän vastasi »ei».
»Paetkaamme, Hanna!» kysyi hän sadannen kerran. »Me emme

tahdo valehdella, emme pettää; julkisesti tahdomme asettaa
rakkauden elämämme päämääräksi. Sinulle omistan koko
tulevaisuuteni. Minä kannan surut puolestasi, minä jaksan kestää
moitteet; lähtekäämme vieraaseen maahan, jossa ei kukaan meitä
tunne, missä sinä vallitset kauneuden kuningattarena. Ellet sinä tule
omakseni, täytyy minun kuolla… Hanna, tule — tule — meitä odottaa
taivaan autuudet…»
Hanna sulki silmänsä.
»Minä olen hukassa», sanoi hän.
Kreivi tukahutti riemuhuutonsa.
»Sinä tulet siis?»
»Tulen.»
Paosta sovittiin seuraavalla tavalla: kreivi matkustaa ensin yksin

Wieniin. Hannan tulee, otollisen hetken ilmaantuessa, lähteä
iltajunassa jälkeen. Väliasemalta hän sähköttää kreiville, joka on
sitten häntä vastassa asemalla. Ellei kreivi saa ajoissa
sähkösanomaa eikä niin ollen saavu asemalle, ottaa Hanna vaunut
ja ajaa »Hotel Imperial'iin, jossa on asunto varattuna »kreivitär
Edelbergille».
Tuskin oli Hanna myöntynyt, ennenkuin hän jo tunsi tällaisen

askeleen tuottamaa tuskaa. Mutta arpa oli heitetty. Siitä hetkestä
aina lähtöpäivän iltaan saakka hän eli kuin unessa. Hänen
rakastettunsa puolesta antamansa uhri oli todellakin suuri. Ewaldin
näkeminen oli murtaa hänen sydämensä. Oli hetkiä, jolloin hän
todella rakasti miestään tuota hyvää, levollista, lapsellisen onnellista
miestä, joka nyt oli tuleva onnettomaksi — rakasti enemmän kuin
loistavaa, hemmoteltua kreiviä, johon ei oikein luottanut.
Edelberg oli jo ollut viikon Wienissä, kun lukion johtajan

kaksikymmenviisivuotisjuhla soi Hannalle tilaisuuden Ewaldin
poissaollessa ryhtyä matkavalmistuksiin ja lähteä kotoa. Hän päätti
käyttää tätä hyväkseen, mutta oli kuin joku muu Hanna olisi tehnyt
tämän päätöksen ja toimeenpannut sen ja kuin oikea Hanna olisi
vavisten ollut katsojana. Ja sitten näimme hänen viimeisen kerran
astuvan peilin ääreen sanomaan jäähyväisiä kyyneleiselle kuvalleen.
*****
Neljä tuntia myöhemmin Ballmann palasi kotiin. Hän avasi

äänettömästi oven omalla avaimellaan ja meni suoraa päätä
makuukamariin. Siellä hän sytytti kynttilän ja hämmästyi suuresti,
kun vaimonsa ei ollut mennyt levolle.
»Hän on odottanut minua», ajatteli hän mennen saliin. Mutta siellä

oli pimeää, lamppu oli sammunut. Hakien kynttilän hän meni vielä
kerran sinne. Avatut kaapit, huiskin haiskin olevat paperinpalaset,
sammuneen lampun käry herättivät hänessä arvaamattoman
levottomuuden.
»Onkohan jokin onnettomuus tapahtunut?» kysyi hän ääneen.
Hän meni kirjoituspöydän ääreen. Siellä oli hänelle osoitettu kirje.

Mitä tämä oli? Häntä värisytti. Hän tunsi käsialan: »Hannalta». Hän
ajatteli häntä rakkaudella, sillä hän oli juuri kaivannut häntä tyhjässä
kodissa.
Hän avasi kirjeen ja alkoi lukea. Hänen silmissään musteni. Hän ei

heti ymmärtänyt Hannan kirjeen tarkoitusta, vaan luki sen vielä
kerran. Sitten hän vaipui kirjoituspöydän ääressä olevalle tuolille ja
luki kirjeen kolmannen kerran. Kauhistuen hän katseli ympärilleen
huoneessa. Siellä vallitseva epäjärjestys toisti kirjeen sisällyksen:
»Sinä olet yksin, kunniasi on tahrattu, sinä olet hyljätty, mies
raukka!» Vaikeroiden hän antoi kätensä vaipua pöydälle ja painoi
päänsä niihin.
Kauan, kauan hän oli samassa asennossa. Kynttilä paloi loppuun,
ja yhä istui Ewald kasvot käsien peitossa ja — itki.
IX.
Sillä välin Hanna istui yksinään ensi luokan osastossa silmät

ummessa. Hän ajatteli huomispäivää; edellistä päivää hän ei
tahtonut ensinkään muistaa. Kuvat miehestään, kummitädistään,
entisestä elämästään hän karkoitti ajatuksistaan, hän tahtoi vain
uneksia tulevaisuudesta. Taistelu oli päättynyt. Hän oli
auttamattomasti katkaissut kaikki siteet, mitkä häntä yhdistivät
takanaolevaan. Hänen edessään häämötti ihmeellinen elämä täynnä
yllätyksiä, tuntemattomia, viekoittelevia ja värisyttäviä seikkailuja,
joihin sekoittui rakkautta ja syntiä, kunniaa ja häpeää, iloa ja kauhua.
Että hän saakin kokea jotain sellaista!
Hän kuunteli pyörien jyrinää, veturin puhkumista, viereisestä

osastosta kuuluvia ääniä, junailijain huutoja, vaunujen töytäyksiä,
yleensä kaikkia rautatiematkoihin yhdistyviä ääniä, jotka hänen
mielestään soittivat hänelle tulevaisuuden outoa symfoniaa. Kuinka
ihmiset saattoivat olla niin välinpitämättömiä! Miten he asemilla
häärivät edestakaisin löytääkseen matkakapineensa! Ja että he
saattoivat jäädä väliasemille eivätkä matkustaneet Wieniin, Hotel
Imperialiin… rakastettua tapaamaan! Voi heitä poloisia, heillä oli vain
jokapäiväinen elämä edessä!
Hanna nukahti hetkeksi, mutta alituiseen hän kuuli — unissaankin
— rautatiesymfonian, minkä sävelissä soi hänen määrätty, mutta
epäselvä tulevaisuutensa.
Junailija herätti hänet.
»Saisinko piletin?»
Hanna otti käsineestään pienen keltaisen lipun.
»Olemmeko pian perillä?» kysyi hän.
»Seuraava asema on Wien», vastasi junailija jättäen takaisin

piletin ja meni seuraavaan vaunuun.
Nyt häntä ei haluttanut enää nukkua. Päivä oli jo valjennut. Hanna

katseli ikkunasta ohikiitäviä sähkölennätinpatsaita näennäisesti
kohoavine ja laskevine lankoineen, viljavainioita, joiden sarat
ikäänkuin muodostivat avattuja ja tien luona suljettuja viuhkoja,
ratavartiatupia pienine puutarhapalstoineen, joissa koreat asterit ja
jäykät georgiinit kukkivat, rautatiekiskoja, joita näkyi nyt yhä
tiheämmin ja joilla oli numeroituja tavaravaunuja; kaikkea tätä hän
katseli tahtomatta ajatella mitään muuta. Hän tahtoi hetkessä koota
matkan vaikutelmat ja unohtaa sen päämäärän. Hänestä
rautatiematkat olivat hauskoja. Hän oli saanut tehdä ainoastaan
joitakuita matkoja, kaksi tai kolme kertaa hän oli ollut Wienissä,
kerran Triestissä, siinä kaikki; mutta hän oli kuitenkin säilyttänyt
muistossaan lapsellisen ihastuksensa niiden johdosta. Nyt hän sai
matkustaa avaraan maailmaan… Hän pääsi Pariisiin, Lontooseen,
Italiaan, Amerikkaan, milloin häntä vain haluttaisi. Hän vaipui
matkaunelmiinsa. Juna hiljensi kulkuaan ja vieri suurelle asemalle…
Wien!
Vaunujen ovet avattiin; kantajia ryntäsi esille, ja asemasillalla vilisi
ihmisiä.
Äkkiä nuori rouva säikähti. Matka oli lopussa, ja nyt alkoi

tuntematon elämä. Hän ei ollut sähköttänyt, vaikka oli sovittu. Viime
hetkessä hän oli päättänyt ilmoittaa tulostaan vasta hotelliin
saavuttuaan. Mutta ehkäpä Edelberg oli sittenkin tullut. Hän katseli
arasti ympärilleen tietämättä, pelkäsikö vai toivoiko kreivin olevan
vastassa. Jos hän olisi nähnyt hänet, olisi hän ehkä ajatellut:
»Jumalan kiitos, hän on täällä!» Mutta kun ei kukaan tullut häntä
vastaan hänen seuratessaan ihmisvirtaa ja tullessaan rappusille
näkemättä kreiviä, tunsi hän rauhoittuvansa ja ajatteli: »Jumalan
kiitos! Hän ei ole täällä.»
Kantaja kulki hänen jäljessään tuoden hänen matkalaukkuaan.
»Haluatteko vaunut?» kysyi hän.
»Kyllä», vastasi Hanna.
»Onko armollisella rouvalla muita tavaroita?»
»Ei; viekää minut vaunuihin.»
»Olkaa hyvä, tännepäin!»
Hanna seurasi kantajaa kadulle, missä vaunuja ja muita ajopelejä

oli pitkässä rivissä. Hiukan kauempana olivat raitiotievaunut. Kantaja
avasi vaunujen oven ja asetti matkalaukun niihin. Hanna nousi
vaunuihin.
»Entä juomarahat!»
Hanna avasi kukkaronsa. Hänellä ei ollut pikkurahoja, joten hän
antoi miehelle guldenin.
»Kiitoksia, armollinen rouva. Minne kuski saa ajaa?»
»Hotel Imperialiin.»
»Hotel Imperialiin!» huusi kantaja kuskille ja sulki oven.
Matka sujui wieniläisvaunuille ominaisella nopeudella; kuljettiin

etukaupungin läpi ja saavuttiin keskikaupungin kautta Ring'ille.
Kello oli lähes yhdeksän aamulla. Puodit olivat jo avatut. Kaduilla

vilisi kävelijöitä ja ajavia. Tämä vilkas hälinä häikäisi Hannan silmiä.
»Ja kaikilla näillä ihmisillä ei ole aavistustakaan siitä, mimmoinen

kohtalo minua odottaa!» ajatteli hän. »Tiedänkö sitä edes itsekään?
Miten ihmeellistä! Eilen tähän aikaan olin vielä kotona; silloin saatoin
vielä päätellä suuntaan tai toiseen, tänään ympäröi minua jo uusi,
tuntematon maailma… en ole niin onneton kuin eilen illalla… minä
olen… ei, onnellinen en ole… mutta niin utelias, niin äärettömässä
jännityksessä.»
Vaunut pysähtyivät hotellin eteen.
»Onko kreivitär Edelbergiä varten tilattu huone?» kysyi Hanna

hiukan epävarmalla äänellä ovenvartialta.
»On kyllä, armollinen kreivitär», vastasi tämä syvään kumartaen ja

auttoi nuoren rouvan vaunuista.
»Vie kreivitär N:o 20:een», sanoi hän palvelijalle. »Kuskin maksan

minä. Armollinen kreivitär ei huoli vaivautua.»
Hanna seurasi palvelijaa ylös portaita. Hotel Imperial oli vanha
herttuallinen linna. Leveät, matoilla peitetyt portaat kullattuine
käsipuineen, kukkineen ja peileineen tekivät juhlallisen vaikutuksen.
Hannan tuli hyvä olla. Ensimäinen askel oudossa maailmassa oli toki
kullattu. Tästä hetkestä saakka hän saisi elää aina sellaisissa
palatseissa.
Saavuttuaan ensimäiseen kerrokseen palvelija avasi kaksiosaisen

oven sekä sanoi:
»Tässä ovat tilatut huoneet. Haluaako teidän armonne syödä

aamiaista?»
Hanna vastasi myöntävästi astuen huoneistoonsa. Ensimäinen

huone, suuri sali, keltaisella damastilla päällystettyine
huonekaluineen teki loistavan vaikutuksen; salin vieressä oli
makuuhuone ja pukeutumishuone. Jokaisessa uunissa loimusi kirkas
takkavalkea. Hanna riisui hatun ja palttoon, astui peilin luo ja
huomatessaan, etteivät matkan rasitukset olleet vähintäkään
himmentäneet hänen kukoistavaa kauneuttaan, hän hymyillen
järjesti kiharoitansa.
Senjälkeen hän siirtyi parvekkeelle. Hänen edessään oli kaunis

Ring-katu. Leuto syksyilma väreili plataanien latvoissa. Vaunujen
tärinä ja omituinen suurkaupungin tuoksu, jonka hän muisti
aikaisemmilta käynneiltään Wienissä, tunkeutui hänen luokseen.
Sillä aikaa oli palvelija asettanut hopeatarjottimelle katetun

aamiaisen pöydälle. Hanna palasi saliin ja kaatoi itselleen teetä. Hän
oli nälissään ja hiukan väsynyt. Komea aamiainen erinomaisine
wieniläisleipineen, tuoreine voineen, vaahtoavine kermoineen,
munineen, kinkkuineen ja piirakaisineen maistui erinomaisen hyvältä
ja antoi hänelle uusia voimia. Hän soitti. Palvelija saapui.
»Milloin nämä huoneet tilattiin?» kysyi hän.
»Kahdeksan päivää sitten. Kreivi Edelberg käy kahdesti päivässä

kysymässä, onko hänen rouva serkkunsa jo saapunut.
Ilmoitammeko herra kreiville?»
»Minä kirjoitan lipun. Asuuko hän kaukana täältä?
»Edelbergien palatsi sijaitsee Oopperan luona, aivan lähellä.»
»Hyvä, antakaa minulle paperia ja mustetta, niin kirjoitan.»
»Tässä, teidän armonne. Odotanko.»
»Ei, soitan sitten kun olen kirjoittanut.»
»Hyvä.»
Ennenkuin Hanna istuutui kirjoittamaan, kulki hän huoneissa vielä

kerran. Hän huomasi silloin vasta, että siellä oli sellaisia tavaroita,
joita hotellihuoneissa ei juuri tapaa. Salissa oli flyygeli ja nuotteja.
Eräällä pöydällä oli sanomalehtiä, kirjoja ja albumi. Kukkaspöytiä oli
nurkissa, ja uuninreunalla ja peilipöydillä olevat maljakot olivat
täynnään kukkia. Miten hellästi ja huomaavaisesti hänen
rakastettunsa olikaan ajatellut häntä!
Ja kuitenkaan hän ei tuntenut jälleennäkemisen iloa; päinvastoin

hän ajatteli vavisten tapaamista. Tuskainen puna peitti hänen
poskiaan hänen ajatellessaan hetkeä, jolloin hänen voittajansa
astuisi kynnyksen yli. Hän halusi siirtää sitä hetkeä vielä hiukan. Ja
siksi hän istuutui pöydän ääreen kirjoittamaan:
»Olen juuri saapunut. Olen väsynyt ja tarvitsen parin tunnin levon.

Odotan teitä — ei, sinua — kello viiden tienoissa. H.»
Hän soitti ja jätti kirjeen palvelijalle.
»Viekää tämä heti Edelbergien palatsiin.»
»Toimitetaan.»
Sitten hän lukitsi ovet voidakseen rauhassa katsella kauniita ja

mieltäkiinnittäviä tavaroita. Hän tarkasti kaikkia erikseen. Ensin hän
avasi flyygelin. Se oli Streich. Hän soitti muutamia akordeja: oi, miten
täyteläiset, pehmeät ja kirkkaat ne olivat. Nuottien joukosta hän löysi
uusimpien, suurten oopperain sekä Karl- ja Wiedener-teattereissa
juuri myrskyisintä suosiota herättäneiden operettien partituurit,
muutamia Straussin valsseja, Chopinin nocturneja sekä Verdin
messun. Pöydällä oli ranskalaisia, englantilaisia ja saksalaisia
kuvalehtiä; Wienin pilalehtiä, muotilehtiä sekä Octave Feuillet'n
»Camorsin kreivi»; joku Disraelin romaani Tauchnitz-painoksena;
valokuvakokoelma Belvedere-näyttelystä sekä toinen, jossa oli
eurooppalaisten hallitsijain ja taidepiirin kuuluisuuksien kuvat.
Hanna silmäili kaikkea tätä pintapuolisesti. Hän päätti myöhemmin

kiinnittää niihin enemmän huomiota. Kun oman romaanin tapahtumat
seuraavat toisiaan niin nopeasti kuin tässä, ei saata syventyä
mielikuviin. Salista hän meni makuu- ja pukeutumishuoneeseen.
Vasta nyt hän huomasi täälläkin häntä odottavan yllätyksiä.
Peilipöydän viereisellä tuolilla oli avonainen, noin puolilleen täytetty
matkalaukku. Peilipöydälle posliinikehyksisen peilin ympärille oli

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Democracy and the cartelization of

political parties Katz

DEMOCRACY AND THE CARTELIZATION

OTHER TITLES IN THIS SERIES

Multi-Level Electoral Politics

RICHARD S. KATZ AND PETER MAIR{

This book represents the culmination of a project that began at an ECPR

1.1 Simple principal-agent model of democracy 3

3.1 Party leadership in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Poland,

xiv List of Tables

2 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

THE SIMPLE PRINCIPAL-AGENT MODEL

In its simplest form, the principal-agent model of democracy in a parliamentary

Party or parties in Ministry State

F I G U R E 1 . 1 Simple principal-agent model of democracy

4 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

Segment 1 Ministry State

F I G U R E 1 . 2 Mass party principal-agent model with three social segments/parties

F I G U R E 1 . 3 Downsian principal-agent model with three parties and coalition government

6 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

8 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

THE CARTEL THESIS

We initially arrived at the idea that new patterns of relationships were

10 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

12 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

CARTEL PARTIES AND A PARTY CARTEL

14 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

MAKING SENSE OF CARTELIZATION

16 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

18 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

20 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

to prevent the emergence of challenges from outside the cartel . . . Thus in

22 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

24 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

These developments then raise three important questions, or research agenda,

26 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

28 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

The Rise and Decline of Parties

30 Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties

Since party is central to our current understanding and learned practice of

»Te saatte nähdä erästä esiäitiäni kuvaavan taulun, jolla on onni

»Ehkä heidän joukossaan on joku Orfalvy», vastasi Hanna.

»Olette siis Orfalvy… ehkäpä minun serkkuni?»

Nyt yhtyi kenraalitar keskusteluun. Hän sanoi Hannan olevan

Kreivi suoritti isännänvelvollisuutensa linnassaan mitä suurimmalla

Kun huoneet, kokoelma ja varuskamarit olivat nähdyt, halusi

»Tehän olette huvimatkalla», sanoi hän. »Sallikaa minun ottaa

Kaikki olivat ihastuneet, mutta Hanna tiesi kenen takia kreivi

»Tämän viehättävän pikku-rouvan tahdon voittaa», hän ajatteli.

Hanna nojasi vaunun selustaan vaipuen sanomattomaan

»Tätä viehättävää miestä tahdon vastustaa», paloi hänen

»Suo minun levätä hiukan; minulla on päänsärkyä», sanoi hän

Kun hän saapui kotiin, istui Ewald kirjoituspöytänsä edessä.

»Oh, vihdoinkin sinä tulet», sanoi hän. »On jo myöhä… Mennään

»Oi, kuninkaallisen hauskaa», vastasi Hanna.

Viikko kului eikä Hanna nähnyt uutta ihailijaansa. Hän ajatteli jo

Kahdeksan päivää huviretken jälkeen Hanna istui kummitätinsä

Äkkiä hänen sydämensä alkoi kiivaasti sykkiä. Käytävän päässä

Kenraalitar osoitti lähellä olevaa vapaata tuolia, jolle kreivi istuutui.

»Minä matkustin vierailunne jälkeisenä päivänä Edelbergistä»,

Hän silmäili tulisin katsein nuorta rouvaa.

»Täällä kaupungissako?» kysyi hän. »Vai linnassanneko?»

»En, täällä kaupungissa. Minusta tuntuu, kuin tämä kaupunki olisi