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The Political Ideas of English Party Activists*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Richard Rose
Affiliation:
University of Manchester

Extract

If a democracy is to function successfully, the great mass of the population need instruments for communicating their views to political leaders. The chief channels for communication are parties and pressure groups. English politics provides much scope for study of these conduits, because both parties and pressure groups are highly organized and well articulated. Although the part played by party activists in policy formulation is only one small aspect of this network, the study of that part throws considerable light upon the interplay of parties and pressure groups, and challenges as well some prevailing notions about the policy demands of party activists.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1962

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References

1 Lowell, A. L., The Government of England (London, 1921 edition) Vol. I, pp. 578, 584Google Scholar. See also Ostrogorski, M., Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties (London, 1902), Vol. I, p. 161 ffGoogle Scholar; Garvin, J. L., The Life of Joseph Chamberlain (London, 1932), Vol. IGoogle Scholar, ch. 14; Churchill, W. S., Lord Randolph Churchill (London, 1906)Google Scholar, esp. chs. 6–8.

2 Final Report of the Committee on Party Organization (National Union, London, 1949), p. 27Google Scholar.

3 Barker, S., How the Labour Party Works (London, 1955), p. 6Google Scholar.

4 See McKenzie, R. T., British Political Parties (London, 1955)Google Scholar, esp. chs. 1, 10; Report of the Fifty-Ninth Annual Conference of the Labour Party (London, 1960), p. 159 ffGoogle Scholar, and Phillips', MorganMemorandum on the Constitution of the Labour Party (London, 1960)Google Scholar.

5 Party Democracy and Parliamentary Government,” Political Studies, Vol. 6 (1958), pp. 170–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Fienburgh, Wilfrid, then research secretary of the Labour Party, implicitly took this position in “Put Policy on the Agenda,” Fabian Journal, No. 6 (1952), pp. 25–7Google Scholar.

6 Political Parties (Dover edition, New York, 1959), p. 164 ffGoogle Scholar. McKenzie ignores this phenomenon.

7 Political Parties (London, 1954), p. 101 ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. Leiserson, A., Parties and Politics (New York, 1958), pp. 191, 274Google Scholar.

8 Bagehot, quoted in Nicolson, N., People and Parliament (London, 1958), p. 166Google Scholar; Lowell, A. L., Public Opinion and Popular Government (New York, 1914), p. 92Google Scholar; R. T. McKenzie, op. cit., pp. 196–7, p. 506. See also McKitterick, T. E. M., “The Membership of the [Labour] Party,” Political Quarterly, Vol. 31 (1960), p. 316 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 British MPs and their Local Parties: The Suez Case,” this Review, Vol. 54 (1960), p. 385Google Scholar. Epstein wrongly suggests that rank-and-file extremism strengthens the position of party leaders. This is because he generalizes from the extremist position of the leadership on Suez; the instance is, however, exceptional.

10 Op. cit., p. 169. His fear is not new. Cf. Ostrogorski, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 493 ff.

11 See S. Barker, op. cit., p. 7 ff; Party Organization (Conservative & Unionist Central Office, London, 1961), p. 23 ffGoogle Scholar; R. T. McKenzie, op. cit., pp. 231–58, 532–46.

12 Cf. reports of low participation by trade unionists in discussions of union policy, in Roberts, B. C., Trade Union Government and Administration in Great Britain (London, 1956), p. 95 ffGoogle Scholar; Harrison, M., Trade Unions and the Labour Party Since 1945 (London, 1960)Google Scholar, ch. 3.

13 Cf. Donnison, D. V. and Plowman, D. E. G., “The Functions of Local Labour Parties,” Political Studies, Vol. 2 (1954), p. 156 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Birch, A. H., Small-Town Politics (Oxford, 1959), p. 44 ff.Google Scholar

14 Resolutions dealing with the mechanics of party organization have been scored non-partisan because they show bureaucratic rather than ideological concerns. Interestingly, a number of resolutions ostensibly dealing with party principles are also non-ideological. They simply stress the need for unity on principle, or promoting principles, without any indication of which particular principles (if any) should be emphasized.

15 Quoted in MoKenzie, op. cit., p. 82. See also Balfour, Earl, Chapters of Autobiography (London, 1930), p. 158 ff.Google Scholar

16 Cf. Beer, S. H., “Pressure Groups and Parties in Britain,” this Review, Vol. 50 (1956), pp. 123Google Scholar.

17 For instance, census data cannot be related to parliamentary constituencies because of boundary differences.

18 E.g., SirJennings, Ivor, The Queen's Government (Harmondsworth, 1960), pp. 60–1Google Scholar.

19 On electoral swing and margins of victory, see Butler, D. E., The British General Election of 1955 (London, 1955), p. 202 ffGoogle Scholar; Butler, D. E. and Rose, Richard, The British General Election of 1959 (London, 1960), p. 236Google Scholar.

20 See especially Biffen, John, “The Constituency Leaders,” Crossbow, Vol. 4, No. 13 (1960), p. 30Google Scholar.

21 A. Leiserson, op. cit., is notable for the allowance he makes for diversity. See also Lane, Robert E., Political Life (Glencoe, 1959)Google Scholar, for much evidence on motives for political participation.

22 Some British politicians still regard local party organizations with the respect they received in the days of open voting and bribery. The Nuffield studies find no evidence to support this. See most recently Butler, D. E. and Rose, R., The British General Election of 1959 (London, 1960), pp. 143, 232 ff.Google Scholar

23 See especially Parties, Pressure Groups and the British Political Process,” Political Quarterly, Vol. 29. No. 1 (1958), p. 12 fGoogle Scholar; and The ‘Political Activists’ and Some Problems of ‘Inner Party’ Democracy in Britain” (mimeo, International Political Science Association, Paris, 1961), p. 5 ff.Google Scholar

24 Cf. Butler, D. E.The Paradox of Party DifferenceAmerican Behavioral Scientist, IV: 3 (1960), pp. 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where the concept of centers of party gravity is developed.

25 See D. E. Butler and R. Rose, op. cit., p. 244, and also p. 71. The opinion surveys regularly reported in the monthly Gallup Political Index (London) by the British Institute of Public Opinion, and by Mark Abrams, in Abrams, M. and Rose, R., Must Labour Lose? (Harmondsworth, 1960)Google Scholar also bear out the point that party sympathizers are divided into partisans, extremists, deviants and indifferents on almost all issues. Cf. also Finer, S. E., Berrington, H. and Bartholomew, D., Backbench Opinion in the House of Commons 1955–59 (London, 1961)Google Scholar.

26 D. E. Butler, op. cit., p. 5

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