Abstract
When democracy was first devised, there were no political parties. As noted in Chap. 1, the Greeks had quorums, conventions, votes and elections, but no party political structures as such. The latter emerged later on in Europe and the us, partly because the politicians were taking decisions by majority vote, (which admittedly the Greeks also used), and partly because of their chosen electoral systems. Indeed, in large part, the particular system determines the number of effective political parties.
This chapter reviews the historical development of democracy in Europe and America, with particular regard to electoral systems and the emergence of political parties. It also considers the disadvantages of overtly adversarial voting procedures, and refers to some of the tragic consequences.
From the Italian word, partitocrazia, government by political parties.
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Notes
- 1.
Prior to her tragic death in 1992, Petra Kelly was a leading figure in the German gp, Die Grünen. This term, “the anti-party party”, is not to be confused with Nikita Khrushchev’s phrase, “the anti-party group” which was a synonym for opposition. In 1957, the Soviet Presidium split into two, as so often happens, and the General Secretary sent the leaders of this faction off to Siberia. He was sent there himself a few years later, to run a cement factory. In like fashion, another anti-party clique emerged in China in 1976: the Gang of Four.
- 2.
In the hope that the congress would adopt a more consensual polity, the present author did an interview in Pravda (The Truth) on 6.2.89. In addition, he co-wrote Democracy without an Opposition in Moscow News, № 6/89; a more substantial article, Consensus, in Novy Mir, № 3/90; and a chapter in Pravo i Vlast (Power and the Law) (Bazileva and Emerson 1990: 279–93).
- 3.
On 26.12.1991, in the first round of Algeria’s trs election, the Front Islamique du Salut, fis, took 188 of the 231 seats declared; furthermore, of the 199 constituencies going to a second round, it was pretty obvious that the fis would take a large number and gain a large majority in the 430 member parliament. The High Council of State therefore cancelled the second round, and the West said hardly a word.
- 4.
The main instigator, it seems, was an Irishman, Desmond Dowdall, at the time Nauru’s Secretary for Justice. Alas, according to the Nauruan State Secretary, all the old cabinet records on this subject were destroyed a few years ago in a fire.
- 5.
In the wake of Gorbachev’s perestroika revolution, lots of Western politicians and their political scientists rushed over to Moscow to tell Mikhail Sergeyevich of all the delights and benefits of our two-party democracy, without realizing that the Russian word for “majoritarianism” is “bolshevism”, (App. C, C.1.2)
- 6.
This happened in Ireland in 1985 when, after failing to secure the leadership of Fianna Fáil, ff, Des O’Malley set up a new party, the Progressive Democrats.
- 7.
In 1924, just before the uk Oct. elections, a forged letter was published in the press suggesting that the Labour Party was being directed by the bolsheviks, not least by one Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev. Come polling day, Labour lost.
- 8.
The English and Welsh gp is one notable exception: the leader has to stand for re-election at least every 2 years. Likewise, the Irish Greens use a 5-year term.
- 9.
With a view to being its candidate, the author has been approached over the years by three separate ni political parties.
- 10.
A second exception is Winston Churchill’s defeat in the post wwii British general election of 1945; but maybe that was because he was already contemplating another war in Operation Unthinkable. (Aldrich 2001: 58–9)
- 11.
In early 2002, in what became the biggest corporate collapse in history, it was revealed that Enron Corporation not only subsidized both the us Democrats and Republicans, they also funded both the uk Labour and Tory Parties. (The Guardian, 30.1.2002)
- 12.
In 1997, the McCracken Report revealed that the Irish businessman, Ben Dunne, gave £1.3 million to the then Taoiseach, (pm), Charlie Haughey of ff , as well as some financial assistance to Michael Lowry of Fine Gael, fg .
- 13.
The Administration and Cost of Elections, ace, electoral knowledge network. http://aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/es/esy/esy_pg (Accessed 28 May 2010).
- 14.
The author was in Ukraine as an osce short-term observer twice in 2010, once in 2007, thrice in 2004, and as a long-term observer in 2006. In addition, he gave a lecture to the osce on inclusive voting procedures in Warsaw in 2009.
- 15.
Montenegro used closed pr-list, while the electorate in Slovenia opted for the Swiss model: voters ‘had as many votes as there were seats in their constituency and could vote either for a party list or cast preference votes for individual cndidates of one or more parties.’ (Rose and Munro 2003: 294) Sadly, this was changed in 1991 to closed list-pr, but revised to open list-pr in 2000.
- 16.
In January 1999, the author made a verbal submission to the National Working Group on qbs.
- 17.
In a written submission to the osce, the author again suggested qbs, having first visited Kosovo in July 1999.
In 2001, the author was an international trainer for the osce based in Prizren.
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Emerson, P. (2012). Party-ocracies. In: Defining Democracy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20904-8_3
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