Mass Parties and Industrialised Societies

Abstract

While one quickly had to recognise many shortcomings in the Duverger theory of party, the distinction between mass parties and parties of ‘cadres’ or of ‘committees’ appeared to correspond to modern realities.¹ On the one hand, some parties are merely organisations of professional politicians, held together in order to fill elective posts: on the other, some parties bring within their fold hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who have no personal political aspirations but simply want to promote a cause and help others to gain political power. Moreover, the distinction did not only help to classify parties; it made it possible to relate parties more closely to the type of society in which they develop. It seemed realistic to claim that mass parties were characteristic of modern industrialised countries while parties of committees appeared to coincide with less developed societies. For a period, both types of political parties could co-exist in industrial countries: the growing mass parties were the new parties of the people, the Socialist parties; traditionalist parties remained of the committee type.