Bounded oligarchy: How and when factions constrain leaders in party position-taking

Abstract

This work investigates the process of position-taking, focussing on the factional bargaining within the party. Exploiting two recently built datasets that estimated the policy positions of Italian parties and factions from 1946 to 2010, we investigate if and to what extent factions bind the party leader in choosing the platform. We find confirmation for the idea that party positions are linked to factional preferences. Overall, the party works as a ‘bounded oligarchy’. Furthermore, the electoral payoff of party unity increases the impact of factional constraints when general elections approach. In line with the cartel party theory, however, autonomous leaders who are directly elected by a wider selectorate can get rid of factional ties choosing more moderate and vote-maximizing platforms.

Introduction

Following the development of the spatial theory of voting (Downs, 1957), a large branch of literature started to address the question of how parties set their positions. In a two-party competition along a single dimension, Downs' theory predicts the well-known result of convergence towards the median voter. This result, however, relies on strict assumptions that hardly ever occur in real politics (e.g., Grofman, 2004). Relaxing some of these assumptions leads to a very different equilibrium, with parties moving away from the median voter's ideal point. For instance, in the presence of such phenomena as party identification, voter abstention, or mass parties bound by their activists, the centripetal convergence no longer holds.

Nonetheless, recent developments in the theory of voting provide new models that foresee a centrifugal equilibrium, and they seem to find empirical confirmation (e.g., Adams et al., 2005). In a multiparty system parties are often bound by the preferences of their activists, factions, and members (Aldrich, 1983; Strøm, 1990; Ware, 1992). Therefore, to avoid loss of votes, they should diverge from the median voter in the direction of the rank-and-file. Vote-maximizing positions, however, tend to be more moderate when compared with those of party members.

The present paper addresses precisely the issue of how parties set their positions. Going beyond the assumption of the party as a unitary actor and focussing on intra-party politics, we assume that factions negotiate over party position according to the bargaining power of each subgroup. Furthermore, we assess how party organization affects this bargaining, showing that different internal rules might alter the equilibrium between factions and leaders.

Modelling party placement as the result of inter-factional competition, we will highlight how and under what circumstances factions affect the party, bounding the leader in the choice of the platform. In addition, our results will provide new insights about the linkage between party leaders, members, and activists. It will be shown that, overall, the leadership is strictly bound by party factions, particularly when the need to keep party unity is higher.

However, intra-party rules seem to affect this outcome. After the crisis of the mass party model, parties faced a decrease in membership. In an attempt to arrest such decline the new model of party, the cartel (Katz, 1997, 2001; Katz and Mair, 1995; Mair, 1997), experiments with new internal rules that increase the level of intra-party democracy. These rules provide a direct link between members and the leadership (e.g., increasing the inclusiveness of the party leader's selectorate: Kenig, unpublished). As many authors suggest, however, a direct link between leaders and the rank-and-file might result in a greater autonomy of the former in the face of activists and factions (Katz, 2001; Mair, 1994; Marsh, 1993). Weakening the ability of factions to bind the leadership, these changes in party structure and organization revive the debate over Michels' (1915) iron law of oligarchy. Intra-party direct democracy emerges as a way to defang minority factions (that usually retain more radical ideological positions), empowering the elite's attempt to build vote-maximizing party platforms, detached from factional preferences.

The present work compares the ideal points of factions with the overall party position, focussing on the Italian case, which is a suitable and theoretically promising context in which to study the impact of factions on intra-party equilibriums. Italy is in fact universally identified as a benchmark of ‘the politics of faction’ (Ceron, 2011; Zuckerman, 1979), and a large number of articles have investigated the impact of Italian factions on topics like portfolio allocation (Mershon, 2001) or the voting behaviour of members of parliament (Giannetti and Laver, 2009).

Moreover, we can take advantage of two recently built datasets that draw the policy positions of Italian political actors (i.e., parties and factions) from 1946 to 2010, measured by applying techniques of content analysis to the wide textual documentation existing on Italian political debates. The first dataset provides information about the positions of Italian parties, almost year by year, through the analysis of parliamentary speeches released during confidence votes (Curini and Ceron, forthcoming; Curini and Martelli, 2009). The second analyses motions presented during party congresses, overcoming a lack of data about factions.

Our results indicate that, overall, factions bargain over party platform following a kind of Gamson (1961) rule, such that party position will be closely related to the weighted mean of the factions' positions. Factions then affect the party proportionally to their strength (i.e., the share of votes gained during party congress). This pattern is enhanced when new general elections approach, as party unity, fostered by consensual bargaining, provides higher electoral payoffs (McGann, 2002; Snyder and Ting, 2002). On the contrary, when intra-party rules strengthen the leadership's autonomy and legitimacy in the face of organized activists (factions), the party leader is more free to express a moderate platform, according to its wishes (i.e., maximizing party votes or the likelihood of being in office).

In the second section we summarize the literature on party position-taking, comparing alternative arguments that will be analysed later. In the third section we describe the datasets employed to test our claims, showing also some measures of validity. In the fourth and fifth sections we discuss the results of our analysis and draw a conclusion.