Factional Politics: How Dominant Parties Implode or Stabilize

284 Pages·2012·1.246 MB·English

by  Françoise Boucek (auth.)

Factional Politics
Factional Politics
How Dominant Parties Implode
or Stabilize
Françoise Boucek
SchoolofPoliticsandInternationalRelations,QueenMary,UniversityofLondon,UK
©FrançoiseBoucek2012
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Boucek,Françoise.
Factionalpolitics:howdominantpartiesimplodeor
stabilize/FrançoiseBoucek.
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Summary:“Drawingontheoriesofneo-institutionalismtoshowhow
institutionsshapedissidentbehavior,Boucekdevelopsnewwaysof
measuringfactionalismandexplainsitseffectsonofficetenure.
Ineachofthefourcases–fromBritain,Canada,ItalyandJapan–
intra-partydynamicsareanalyzedthroughtimesseriesandrational
choicetools”—Providedbypublisher.
1. Politicalparties—GreatBritain. 2. Politicalparties—Canada.
3. Politicalparties—Italy. 4. Politicalparties—Japan. I. Title.
JN1121.B682012
324.2—dc23 2012033376
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
Transferred to Digital Printing in 2014
To Jan, Emilie and Louise
and the memory of my mother who would have been proud
Contents
ListofTablesandFigures viii
PrefaceandAcknowledgements x
Introduction 1
1 TheTheoryofOne-PartyDominance 6
2 WhyDoesOne-PartyDominanceEndinFactionalism? 33
3 MajoritarianDemocracies:Executive-DominatedBritain
andDecentralisedCanada 50
4 Case1–TheThatcher–MajorFactionalWarsoverEurope 71
5 Case2–TheDemiseofCanadianLiberalHegemony 101
6 Non-MajoritarianDemocracies:CentrifugalItalyand
ConsensualJapan 123
7 Case3–Italy’sChristianDemocrats:HowFactional
CaptureBredSelf-Destruction 144
8 Case4–TheLiberalDemocraticPartyofJapan
(1955–2009):EndofHegemony 183
Conclusion:HowPartiesSucceedorFailtoManage
FactionalismandStayinPower 205
Notes 214
Bibliography 228
Index 258
vii
Tables and Figures
Tables
1.1 Partyparliamentaryrepresentationandpivotalpower
foraselectionofgovernmentcoalitionsinItaly1958–92 24
1.2 Partyparliamentaryrepresentationandpivotalpower
Italiancoalitiongovernments,1983–92 25
3.1 ConservativeMPs’rewardsanddeprivation1979–97 60
6.1 Italy’sDC–factionalrepresentationonintraparty
organsandingovernmentin1971 131
6.2 DC–factionalrepresentationonintrapartyorgansand
ingovernmentin1986–87 132
6.3 Factions’sharesofdelegatevotesandofnormalised
BanzhafpowerDCnationalcongressesof1949,1969
and1982 138
6.4 TheLDPsenioritysystem 142
7.1 ChristianDemocraticPartyofItaly,factionalstrength
andpivotalpower,1946–62 148
7.2 SouthernvotesharesforChristianDemocratsandRight
Parties,generalelections1948and1953(percent) 150
7.3 ChristianDemocraticPartyofItaly,factionalstrength
andpivotalpower,1964–73 154
7.4 ChristianDemocraticPartyofItaly,factionalstrength
andpivotalpower,1976nationalcongress 159
7.5 ChristianDemocraticPartyofItaly,factionalstrength
andpivotalpower,1980and1982nationalcongresses 165
7.6 ChristianDemocraticPartyofItaly,factionalstrength
andpivotalpowernationalcongresses(1984,1986
and1989) 171
7.7 Italiannational,regional,provincialandcommunal
elections,April1992–November1993 177
Figures
2.1 Partysystemcompetitionandthedemandforintraparty
consent.(a)Elasticdemand;(b)inelasticdemand 41
viii
ListofTablesandFigures ix
2.2 Theinterplaybetweenpartydominanceandfactionalism 43
4.1 Pay-offmatrix:gamebetweenconservativedriesand
wets;March1981budget 76
4.2 Maastrichtgamepay-offmatrix 89
4.3 GamebetweenMajorandEuroscepticrebels.Maastricht
Treatyratification22–23July1993 90
4.4 European(finance)bill,November1994gamebetween
MajorandEuroscepticrebelspay-offmatrix 95
7.1 EffectivenumberoffactionsandfactionalpowerItalian
ChristianDemocraticParty 146
7.2 TherelativesignificanceofvoiceandexitforDC
supporters–demandinelasticforpoliticalconsentwith
respecttoquality 173
7.3 TherelativesignificanceofvoiceandexitforDC
supporters–demandelasticwithrespecttoquality 174
8.1 Effectivenumberoffactionsandfactionalpower
JapaneseLiberalDemocraticParty 186
Preface and Acknowledgements
If this book was a wine it wouldn’t be a Beaujolais nouveau given the
amount of toiling away and different stages of fermentation it took to
matureandbringtoconsumption.
Myinterestintheinternalpoliticsofdominantpoliticalpartiesdates
back to the early 1990s when I returned to Britain after a decade in
Canada having swapped a career in finance for political science. The
ruling Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher was then in a state
ofmutinyoverEurope.Thatcher’sinternecineoverthrowinNovember
1990 and replacement by John Major had won the Conservatives a
fourth term in office in 1992 which led some academics to claim that
theBritishpoliticalsystemwas‘turningJapanese’.Exceptthatwithina
year Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) were thrown out of office
for the first time in 38 years and Italy’s ruling Christian Democratic
Party (DC) were imploding after more than four decades in power and
inbothcasesinternalconflictandfactionaldefectionshadplayedabig
role. Meanwhile, back in Canada the Liberals who had dominated fed-
eral politics and government for most of the 20th century had come
back to power after the near-fatal implosion of the Progressive Con-
servatives. Was there something about longevity in office that made
ruling parties prone to internal division and disintegration? I started
myquest.
Writing this book has been quite a solitary journey. However, many
people have helped me along the way and I want to take this oppor-
tunity to thank them. I owe special thanks to several people in the
GovernmentDepartmentattheLondonSchoolofEconomicsandPolit-
ical Science (LSE) particularly the late Gordon Smith who fostered my
interestinthestudyofpoliticalpartiesandpartysystemsduringlively
discussionsinhisMScseminarintheearly1990s.Gordonthenencour-
agedmetoreturntotheLSEfordoctoralresearchandstartanacademic
careerlaterthanmostpeopleashedid.Heremainedafriendandinter-
ested in my research until his untimely death in 2009. I am thankful
to Patrick Dunleavy for his research guidance, stimulating discussions
and staunch encouragement to get this work into print. Along with
Keith Dowding, Patrick provided a very stimulating research environ-
ment at the LSE for those of us interested in rational choice theory
x
PrefaceandAcknowledgements xi
andnewinstitutionalism.Theyinvitedtoprationalchoiceinternational
scholars to their seminar series and facilitated face-to-face discussions
during‘brownbagging’lunchtimesessionsintheShapiroroomatKing’s
Chambers. Rosa Mulé and Moshe Maor helped me refine the framing
of my research question and Bob Leonardi kindly shared his detailed
knowledge of Italy’s Christian Democratic Party (DC) and commented
onapreliminaryversionofthisvolume.
ForthequantitativedataonDCfactionrepresentationIamgratefulto
Bob Leonardi and Douglas Wertman for their co-authored work which
allowed me to do times series analysis and develop new measures of
intra-partyfragmentationandfactionalpower.Onthelatter,Iamgrate-
fultoThomasBräuningerandThomasKöenigattheMannheimCentre
forEuropeanSocialResearchattheUniversityofMannheim,Germany.
Thesoftwareprogramtheydeveloped(inthepre-internetage)forcalcu-
latingpowerindicesenabledmetoexaminethestructureofbargaining
insidethefactionalisedDCandLDPintimesseries.IalsothankPatrick
Dumont, Jean-François Caulier and Nicolas Sauger for commenting on
my applications of this methodology and Hugh Ward for teaching me
the basics of game theory in his first methods course at the 27th Essex
SummerSchool.
I thank the anonymous referee who commented on the original
manuscriptproposalacknowledgingthatthisbookaddressesanimpor-
tant research question and features well chosen cases. I hope the
book delivers on their expectations. Several country experts and party
scholars have commented on individual cases and provided additional
information notably Kenneth Carty, Ellis Krauss, Richard Katz, Judith
Bara, Paul Webb, David Farrell and Daniela Giannetti to name only a
few. Of course, any omissions and mistakes are strictly my own. Eric
Acker kindly kept me up to date on developments in Canadian poli-
tics and the Liberal Party. I am grateful to my commissioning editor
AndrewBairdatPalgraveforwhomthisvolumerepresentedoneofhis
firstprojectsandtoDevasenaVedamurthiatIntegraforseeingthebook
toproduction.
I am grateful to the friends and colleagues of the late Professor
W A Robson at the LSE for awarding me the 2003 William Robson
Memorial Prize to help me publish this book and other academic
papers.IthanktheEuropeanConsortiumforPoliticalResearch(ECPR)
for allowing me to organise and co-direct two workshops at the Joint
Sessions(ondominantpoliticalpartiesinGranadain2005andonintra-
party dissent in St. Gallen in 2011) and various panels and sections at
ECPR General Conferences, notably in Budapest in 2005 and Potsdam