Political Parties: Communities Built Around Values or Communities Built around Programmes

Abstract

A comparison between France and the US shows that political parties tend to behave as social communities comparable to trade unions or churches. Those communities are built around common habits, values, interests and programmes. But when it comes to successful coalition building, programmes and lead candidates remain decisive.

Introduction

What makes a political party successful in attracting and then keeping activists and voters? Is it values or programmes? This question returned in the US with the success of the values-based politics of George W. Bush: Bible Belt activists and Catholic voters, who usually lean towards the Democrats, joined the Republican Party because of Bush's strong support for conservative values and faith-based initiatives. The question has arisen in Europe with the issue of alliances between centre-right parties and populist parties: should such alliances be excluded because of incompatible values? Should such alliances be based on pragmatic agreements on programmes? Should such alliances be considered now more natural as centre-right voters and populists seem to increasingly share some common values in relation to the wish to defend the material and immaterial legacy of the past? (Reynié 2011).

The discussion here tries to provide food for thought on the basis of two distinct case studies: (a) the lessons derived by philosophers, sociologists and geographers from the experience of successive French political parties from 1945 up to the late 1990s; (b) the lessons derived by political scientists from recent developments in the US, a federal country with well-established political parties, whose political landscape has already been transformed by new media and communication technologies.

When we focus on similarities between the two different systems and the two different periods, we first discover that parties attract individuals and groups because of what they provide as social communities. We can then discuss the (residual) role of values and programmes in keeping those activists and voters together in the long run.

Political parties as communities

There is little doubt that political parties play a social role and are not just tools used by their leaders to gain access to legislative or executive mandates. One could argue that political parties can also be considered full-fledged societies or communities, albeit ephemeral ones.

Parties as communities on the ground: Yves Lacoste's reading of the French political map

Twenty years ago Yves Lacoste (1986) and his team studied the profound complexity of the French political map. Their empirical studies demonstrate that in a country where the political map changes more frequently than in the US, Great Britain and Germany, a certain geographic stability exists in the divide between left and right. A certain geographic stability also exists between Marxists and non-Marxists within the left, between Gaullists and Christian Democrats within the centre-right, even if the number of activists and voters gathered by those forces varies considerably over time.

Although they often have shorter lifespans, political parties bear similarities to other institutions that structure the ‘map of legitimacy’ and are also considered communities of the willing: churches, major NGOs, charities, trade unions and parent associations, most of which are represented as legitimate voices of ‘civil society’.

At local level, present-day political parties are often the successors of previous parties belonging to the same broad political family. Successful candidates and their affiliates (family and friends) often play an important role in the transition between old political parties and new ones. Basically, they stay whereas the party changes or merges with another to form a new entity. The force of personal loyalties and nostalgia for past political groupings should not be underestimated when assessing the local complexity of the French socialist left or centre-right. They contribute to explaining the internal divisions within each party at national and at constituency level.

Parties as communities of candidates and activists in France and the US

Political parties contribute to the social capital of their candidates as much as they build on it (Seiler 2003). At a different and almost separate level, they also contribute to the social capital of their regular or occasional activists. In party meetings at constituency level, during local or national campaigns, party activists meet other activists. They create among themselves all sorts of informal links that may affect their economic, social and personal lives. In many places established parties also function as economic networks bringing together those who have been elected, candidates-to-be and activists. Political parties may offer jobs or facilitate access to jobs in the public sector or the party apparatus. In some places being a member of a party is even a way to gain easier access to public procurements. Parties contribute to education, training and selection for the civil service. They act as editors and producers of content for the media.

The recruitment of new party members is often based on the social nature of the party-building process rather than on the attractiveness of slogans. Groups of friends or work colleagues often join a party together, as do members of the same trade union, student association or NGO. US researchers, attempting to fully understand the behaviour and political potential of party activists–-their input into programmes and their impact on voters–-concluded that a key element is to understand the connections between activists and their immediate social sphere (Stone 2010, 285–302).

The US experience also seems to show a rebound of interest in political parties through a type of grass-roots approach available on the Internet. Activists with new expectations appear and may bring a new sense of community to the realm of party politics. One may argue that the traditional networking function of parties is to some extent maintained even by ephemeral coalitions between digital activists. Interaction among activists is increased as they share information, agendas and contact details during periods of ‘netroots campaigning’ that are organised by parties or their support groups (Shea and Green 2010).

Parties as communities of voters: what brings them together?

To what extent can political parties be considered larger communities of voters, affiliates and friends beyond the core group of activists and candidates? In a functionalist approach, voters who support a specific party have some common interests, be they economic or symbolic. These common interests create among them a sense of community.

The victory of the party means they may benefit from more benign legislation or a more generous taxation system. One should not underestimate symbolic benefits and interests. Voters may indeed also try to achieve better recognition in society as a result of the election, through a mix of economic, social and symbolic measures. Seeing the newly elected leaders defending publicly one's own beliefs or simply being able to identify with these leaders may have as much importance as seeing one's immediate economic interests being taken care of. The functionalist approach explains some stability in voting in accordance with social groups and their respective long-term interests.

According to the French sociologist Raymond Boudon (2007), ¹ a kind of looser ‘rational community’ is built around the partisan proposals and projects put forward by party candidates. Voters gather around the more credible project and the most coherent set of principles, sometimes at the expense of their own interests. The way in which candidates propose to address issues and challenges may be as significant in attracting voters as are specific promises. When voters associate themselves with a party programme on the basis of rationality, they usually promote it within their own social network. They celebrate the party's victory as their own, and if the party is defeated, they share worries for the future with fellow voters. A feeling of reciprocity and togetherness is created among people likely to vote for the same candidate, the same proposals and the same narrative.

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Boudon, the author of The Origins of Values, describes the need for rationality on the part of citizens able to abstract themselves from their immediate interests and able to make a rational choice for the seemingly more coherent policy proposals in an electoral competition.

Beyond habit and the kind of affectio societatis that goes with the sense of community–-a sense of community stronger and more permanent in partisan core groups–-what does keep party candidates, activists and voters together over time? What is behind the dynamics of lasting partisan (self)-inclusion or (self)-exclusion? What do people expect or refuse to share when they join or quit a political party?

What keeps people together: values or programmes?

Since the Second World War, there have been two contrasting traditional visions in Western continental Europe.

For the parties inspired by the Leninist tradition, the radical programme of the party is the key to mobilising the masses. Affiliation has to be built around a common revolutionary project–-to destabilise the bourgeois regimes and the bourgeois state in order to establish a new socialist order. Those who refuse the dialectics and discipline of revolution under a central command have no place in the party. This is the iron rule made explicit, for instance, by Jean-Paul Sartre in Les Mains sales. The party exists only to support the revolutionary project and acts in a completely tactical and opportunistic way when it comes to making alliances and joining forces in order to win. ‘No one cares if the cat is black or white when it catches mice.’

For the parties inspired by Christian Democratic thinking, on the other hand, affiliation has to be built around a common set of values derived from tradition, the social doctrine of the church, modern philosophy and the interpretation of recent history. The French philosopher Georges Lavau (1958) tried to deconstruct this opposition between parties for which programmes are central and those that emphasise the fundamental importance of values.

He first noted the common points between the two traditions. Marxist leaders as well as Christian Democrat leaders have usually been eager to criticise the short-term thinking and the lack of ideological backbone of the other parties–-Liberals, Social Democrats, peasant parties–-that are, according to them, trying to offer a political agenda that would cater to a large, unexploited political demand. In the name of values or in the name of the revolutionary programme, there has been a common rejection of political marketing. European Marxists and Christian Democrats have also been critical of other political contexts where ideology is weaker and parties mainly represent traditional affiliates and interest groups. This has often been the Continental perception of the US party system.

Christian Democrats and Marxists, as well as many trade unionists with an ideological tradition going back to anarchism, also tend to consider the political party a necessity, an instrument, and even a difficult one. Party building is not a purpose in itself. For Marxists the purpose of the party is to end the party system of the bourgeois regime. For the Christian Democrats influenced by the tradition of the Christian philosopher Emmanuel Mounier, the party will never be fully adequate to assert absolute values and perform the ‘prophetic function’ which is the necessary complement of any political action based on ethics. Even more important than engaging in party politics is to testify to the truth in a complete refusal of any kind of relativism (Mounier 1949).

This may be why a larger number of people vocal on values–-socialist, humanistic, Christian, environmental–-finally get involved with NGOs, trade unions, leagues or ad-hoc movements rather than political parties, with the expectation of doing something other than the usual party politics. If they ultimately do engage in party politics, those groups are likely to put stronger emphasis on the function of the party as a platform from which to address public opinion. They may also prefer smaller parties unlikely to be the core of a successful coalition but populated with people sharing very similar views.

Values

Values, even when they play an important role, are usually just an element of party doctrine. The doctrine itself is usually borrowed by the party from philosophers, think tanks and spin doctors. Values serve as a narrative basis for the production of declarations, stories, papers, pamphlets and tweets by party leaders.

Only parties with Marxist roots also use a detailed doctrine of action, a praxis, to help justify their methods, structures and internal rules, even if it can largely be demonstrated that those methods, rules and structures owe more to power struggles and compromises among the leaders within the party than to any kind of rational standard based on doctrine.

The compass role played by a doctrine–-this large social, historical, geopolitical narrative that is familiar to leaders, activists and voters of a political party–-differs from the prophetic assertion of absolute values that Emmanuel Mounier held to be the necessary complement of political action.

In fact, according to Lavau, the doctrine is useful for performing the first role of a party in an open democracy, that is, to inform public opinion. The narrative, the doctrine of the party, provides those who take the floor in the party's name with a kind of meta-text. It helps create a branding, a political identity.

The doctrine is less useful and less often used to perform the second task of the party that aims to have the winning candidates in elections. Except in rare cases such as a clandestine revolutionary party or very small ideological parties functioning as ad hoc coalitions, doctrine usually does not really determine party positioning, functioning, recruitment and electoral strategy.

This is why, in many cases, doctrine is not even produced within the party and, according to Lavau, does not have to be.

A party cannot be only ideological, and even less only based on doctrine. It has to refine a doctrine that it accepts and takes as a compass. One may wish the party to have links with an ideological research centre, but there is no gain for the party to institutionalise those links and to consider them organic. The party should certainly have training classes and should devote itself to internal debates about doctrine. But I do believe it can have very high ambitions in this field … Creating a doctrine is largely a work of its own that requires solitude and a little ‘disengagement’ from the daily political fight … One requires party leaders to understand a doctrine, to explain it to the activists, to abstain from arrogance and cynicism when they work with people in charge of doctrine, but above all to be creative, to suggest, based on intuition and political experience, constant adjustments and changes. (Lavau 1958)

Internal and external competition shapes doctrine as well as programmes. In the US, it appears to be competition between party leaders–-along with constitutional and institutional opportunities and constraints–-which, much more than values, rational choice between projects or any doctrine of action, defines, first, party rules and then the choice that party elites present to the electorate as well as the incentives from which the voters will benefit if the candidates follow through on their campaign promises once in office (Aldrich and Grynaski 2010).

One may even wonder whether, as well as reducing the importance of centralised communication by authorised party spokespersons, the digital age has not brought about the end of a centralised and unique party doctrine. The reality seems to be much more decentralised: activists and bloggers close to an important party may be building their own stories, pamphlets and tweets, cherry picking from different available doctrines. What appears to be emerging as the new modus operandi is a constant interactive co-production both of doctrine and of information directed at the wider public by legitimate leaders and effective digital activists who are close to the party.

Efficient programmes

If the first task of a political party is to contribute to an informed public opinion, the second task, clearly, is to win elections and to seize power or a share of power. One notices, according to Lavau, that ahead of election periods, people are less interested in doctrine and the values behind doctrine than they are in proposals and programmes: ‘[a]head of elections, one has to propose simple, timely and workable things. One has to propose them without hatred, in a reasonable way, without fear of going into details about implementation: because voters are not fools and wish to know how one will do’ (Lavau 1958).

The reasonableness of the party project is even more important as parties have to appeal to very heterogeneous groups of voters. Parties can no longer rely on automatic support from certain constituencies–-industrial workers, for instance, who used to vote for the left. The election is not a period to express doctrine or develop a narrative. It is a match between competitors; voters expect their challenger to win.

This basic fact demands that parties build support among very different kinds of opinion leaders and voters who do not necessarily share the party's values or narrative on history and society. To succeed at that project means building alliances and accepting compromises, as well as leaving considerable manoeuvring room so that party candidates at every level can build coalitions.

According to Mark Brewer, contemporary US parties have one fundamental goal and that is to avoid asserting values. It is the construction of a coalition that enables them to win elections (Brewer 2009). Social groups (less affluent or more affluent, black or white, urban or small town) as well as religious blocs (devout or lapsed, Catholics or Evangelicals) are targets in this process, but they are not the cradle of party politics. Coalition building around a party's candidate, project and supporters retains high levels of risk and uncertainty.

An efficient partisan programme differs nonetheless from a patchwork dictated by the rules of political marketing in order to attract any kind of interest group possible. The mere juxtaposition of promises aimed at different opinion clusters usually lacks coherence and therefore credibility.

In countries used to the huge influence of lobbies, churches and interest groups, the defence of a common and coherent project in the common interest seems even to have a real added value. MacFarland's concept of neo-pluralism explains the mobilising of old and new political parties–-in reaction to the advocacy of policy networks, lobbying coalitions, patrons, social and religious movements. The rejection of programmes dictated by organised interests is stronger than any mutual recognition among voters that they share common values. The defence of common interests and even the defence of public space against the threat of private or community interests capturing the agenda would be one of the reasons for citizens’ engagement and renewed participation. Being against the capture of the common norm by ideological movements (be they green, feminist, pro-life, libertarian or gender neutral) or faith-based groups is a powerful driver for the re-emergence of a pluralistic political resistance (MacFarland 2004).

In the service of a common project for all, inconsistencies in praxis and projects are more difficult to overcome than differences over values, doctrine or overall narrative. Isolationists and interventionists cannot easily work together on a common project. People in favour of redistribution through targeted taxation and people against tax increases also cannot easily work together. Europhobes and European federalists, whatever their common respect for Christian or traditional values, will have a difficult time in bringing about any common project.

Difficulties and inconsistencies are usually more benign among people with different views on family, marriage and religion who can nonetheless work together on other issues and present a credible common project in which means and processes can be consistent with objectives and promises.

Conclusion

Values play some role in the development of party identity, especially in continental Europe where the Christian Democratic tradition has been stronger (Winock 2012). Everywhere, reference to values helps to build a party narrative and makes political communication easier. But when it comes to successful coalition building, programmes still play a decisive role. This is the hypothesis of Lavau about French political parties of the post-war period (Lavau 1958). It is confirmed by present empirical evidence in the US today (Maisel and Berry 2010). The communication age may strengthen the rule.

In a new geography of politics where centralised command over doctrine and campaigning is more and more difficult to achieve, it may be surprising to see political parties still trying to mobilise activists and voters around traditional religious or patriotic values, or even around new, supposedly less divisive values such as engagement and responsibility.

In election periods, coalition building remains obviously easier when candidates are left with room to manoeuvre and when programmes are not too heavily predetermined by values or a general narrative.

This has consequences for the balance one has to strike among activists, candidates and potential voters when deciding party strategy. For sociological reasons, activists are potentially able to enjoy a strong community of belief. Through social networks they may be able for a time to increase the attractiveness of the party for people sharing similar views and fears. But they are also very likely to have trouble putting together and defending a programme that will convince a silent, heterogeneous and demanding majority.