Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself

335 Pages·2018·1.716 MB·English

by  Frances McCall Rosenbluth, Ian Shapiro

RESPONSIBLE PARTIES
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Responsible
Parties
Saving Democracy from Itself
FRANCES MCCALL ROSENBLUTH
AND IAN SHAPIRO
New Haven and London
Copyright © 2018 by Frances McCall Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro.
All rights reserved.
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ISBN 978-0-300-23275-2 (hardcover: alk. paper)
Excerpt from The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt. Copy-
right © 1951 by Hannah Arendt. Copyright © renewed 1979 by Mary
McCarthy West. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Miffl in Har-
court Publishing Company, and André Deutsch Ltd., London. All
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manence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
You cannot choose between party government and Parliamentary
government. I say you can have no Parliamentary government if
you have no party government; and, therefore, when gentlemen
denounce party government, they strike at that scheme of
government which, in my opinion, has made this country great,
and which, I hope, will keep it great.
benjamin disraeli, speech in the House of Commons,
August 30, 1848
Modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties. As a
matter of fact, the condition of the parties is the best possible
evidence of the nature of any regime.
e. e. schattschneider, Party Government (1942)
In a two-party system one party always represents the government
and actually runs the country, so that, temporarily, the party in
power becomes identical with the state. . . . Since the rule of each
party is limited in time, the opposition party exerts a control
whose effi ciency is strengthened by the certainty that it is the
ruler of tomorrow. . . . The multiparty system never allows any
one man or any one party to assume full responsibility, with the
natural consequence that no government, formed by party
alliances, ever feels fully responsible. . . . Since the rise of the party
systems it has been a matter of course to identify parties with
particular interests, economic or others, and all Continental
parties, not only these labor groups, have been very frank in
admitting this. . . . The Anglo-Saxon party, on the contrary,
founded on some “particular principle” for the service of the
“national interest” is itself the actual or future state of the country;
particular interests are represented in the party itself, as its right
and left wing, and held in check by the very necessities of
government.
hannah arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
one. Misdiagnosing Democracy’s Ills 1
two. The Means and Ends of Democratic Competition 26
three. Vulnerable Minorities 42
four. Big Strong Parties: Westminster 62
five. Big Weak Parties: The American Variant 95
six. Strong Parties in Small European Democracies 128
seven. The French Mix 147
eight. Of Labradoodles and Poodledors: Germany 161
nine. Wannabe Labradoodles: New Zealand, Italy,
Japan, and Mexico 178
ten. Presidentialism with Small Weak Parties:
Latin America 199
CONTENTS
eleven. Creeping Authoritarianism in Eastern
Europe 213
twelve. Ways Forward 229
Notes 251
Index 311
viii
Acknowledgments
This is a contrarian book, so we are more indebted than is
usual to colleagues, some of whom had to swallow hard, if not
bite their tongues, to help us improve it. They include Andrea
Aldrich, Dan Berliner, Nancy Bermeo, Robert Boatright,
Anthony Butler, John Carey, Royce Carroll, Gerhard Casper,
Allesandro Chiaramonte, Alexandra Cirone, Gary Cox, Olle
Folke, Michael Fotos, Andrew Geddis, Jane Gingrich, Michael
Graetz, Anna Grzymala-Busse, Jacob Hacker, Andy Hall, Peter
Hall, Jonathan Hopkin, Chris Howell, John Kane, Marko Klas-
nja, Sam Kortum, Francis Kramarz, Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson,
Paul Lagunes, Joseph LaPalombara, Frances Lee, Thomas
Leeper, Gottfried Ludewig, Iain Maclean, Monika Malepa, Isa-
bela Mares, David Mayhew, Wolfgang Merkel, Brett Meyer,
Nicoli Nattrass, Giulia Oskian, Rick Pildes, Carlo Prato, Doug
Rae, Johanna Rickne, David Rueda, Christian Salas, Jeremy
Seekings, Rogers Smith, Susan Stokes, Roy Summerfi eld, Peter
Swenson, Margit Tavits, Kathleen Thelen, Mariano Tommasi,
Nadia Urbinati, and an anonymous reader for Yale University
ix