Taxonomy of Political Parties

- Types of classifications:

-> uni-dimensional (using only one criterion and resulting usually in dichotomies)

-> multi-dimensional (using multiple criteria)

- Types of classifications:

-> functionalist (classifies parties on the basis of the specific, peculiar goal they pursue)

-> organizational (makes distinction taking into account the manner in which parties are
structured)

-> sociological (puts the emphasis on the aspect that parties represent the interests of
and are the outcome of certain social classes/ groups)

1) The functionalist classifications of political parties

1.a. Sigmund Neumann, “Modern Political Parties” (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1956)

-> “parties of individual representation” (represent the interests and demands of

a specific social group/ class)

-> “parties of social integration” (represent the interests of a wider community,

possessing a well-developed network of organizations and a veritable “partisan
community”; they provide various “services” to their members and they receive,
in exchange, “financial contributions and volunteered services of members
during electoral campaigns”)

-> “parties of total integration” (“have more ambitious goals of seizing power and
radically transforming societies, demanding the full commitment and
unquestioning obedience of members”)

1.b. Herbert Kitschelt, “The Logic of Party Formation” (Ithaca, New York: Cornell
University Press, 1989)

-> parties that put forward “the logic of electoral competition”

-> parties that emphasize “the logic of constituency representation” (e.g. the “left
libertarian” parties)

1.c. Max Weber, “Economy and Society”

-> “simple patronage parties” (functioning based on clientelar relations between

the leaders and the active members)

-> “ideological parties” (functioning and mobilizing people based on the same
vision of the world)

2) The organizational classifications of political parties

2.a. Ferdinand Müler-Rommel, “Small Parties in Western Europe. Comparative and
National Perspectives” (London: SAGE Publications, 1991)

-> small parties

-> big parties

2.b. Maurice Duverger, “Political Parties” (London: Meuthen, 1954): two-and-a-half-

category typology

-> “cadre” parties (“personnel parties”, “the caucus”) (small number of members,
usually led by individuals with high socioeconomic status, representing the
interests of middle or upper classes)

-> “mass” parties (“the branch”) (many and complex sub-organizations,

mobilizing broad segments of the electorate, usually those of the lower social
classes)

-> the “half category”: the Leninist “devotee” party (“too vague to constitute a
separate category”)

2.c. Herbert Kitschelt, “The Transformation of European Social Democracy” (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1994)

-> “centralist clubs”

-> “Leninist cadres”

-> “decentralized clubs”

-> “decentralized mass parties”

2.d. Angelo Panebianco, “Political Parties: Organization and Power” (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1988)

-> “the mass-bureaucratic parties”

-> “electoral-professional parties”

2.e. Maurice Duverger, “A Caucus and Branch, Cadre Parties and Mass Parties” (1963),
distinguishes between 3 partisan families: “the bourgeois parties” (today, conservative
and liberal parties), “the socialist parties” and an heteroclite type called “the communist
and the fascist parties”; by 1963, he make a final distinction between communist and
fascist parties (“la cellule” and “la milice”):

-> “the caucus” (“la comité”) (narrow character regarding organization and
membership aspects)

-> conservative (consisting of aristocrats, industrial magnates, bankers,

churchmen, etc.)

-> liberal (composed of trade people, writers, journalists, civil servants,

lawyers, etc.)
 -> “the branch” (“la section”) (the party of an assembly, with broad membership
and multi-layered structure)

-> “la cellule” (the communist model of “the branch”: local and professional base
party, with constant and permanent contacts between members, solidarity being
the dominant relation among adherents)

-> “la milice” (the fascist model of “the caucus”)

2.f. Max Weber, “Economy and Society” (pp.375-376)

-> “ephemeral parties”

-> “permanent parties”

2.g. Maurice Duverger, “Political Parties” uses the distinction between the unitary and
the federal state for the differentiation between:

-> “parties with direct structure” (the members forming at the same time the
“partisan community”)

-> “parties with indirect structure” (constituted as a union of social groups with
trade unions and corporations)

-> socialist parties

-> agrarian parties

-> catholic parties

2.h. Maurice Duverger, “Political Parties” using the criterion of the strength of the
structures of parties)

-> parties with thin structural links (“partis avec faible articulation”)

-> parties with strong structural links (“partis avec forte articulation”)

This results in another classification, provided also by Duverger:

-> decentralized parties

-> locally decentralized parties

-> federally decentralized parties (e.g. in Switzerland, the cantonal

parties)

-> ideologically decentralized parties (retaining, promoting a certain

autonomy regarding factions, tendencies within parties; e.g. the
Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks within RSDLP, the Russian Social-
Democratic Labor Party)

-> socially decentralized parties (separating the party into social,

corporate sections)
 -> centralized parties

-> autocratically centralized parties

-> democratically centralized parties

2.i. Maurice Duverger, “Political Parties” using the criterion of the sense of the
structures of parties)

-> “parties with horizontal links” (every two organisms within the party are on
the same foot, they are hierarchically equal)

-> “parties with vertical links” (one organism within the party is subordinated to
another, they are not hierarchically equal; e.g. the communist parties)

4) The “mixture” classification of political parties (neither functionalist, nor organizational, nor
sociological, but a combination of the three, or making no distinction between the three)

4.a. Otto Kirchheimer, “The Transformation of the Western European Party System” (in
Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weimer (eds.), “Political Parties and Political
Development”, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1966)

-> “bourgeois parties of individual representation”

-> “class-mass parties”

-> “denominational-mass parties”

-> “catch-all people`s parties”

4.b. Norberto Bobbio, “Dreapta şi stânga” (Bucureşti: Humanitas, 1999) uses the
ideological criterion

-> “left-wing” (“leftist”) parties

-> “right-wing” (“rightist”) parties

4.c. Kare Strom uses the rational choice theory as a criterion

-> “vote-seeking” parties

-> “office-seeking” parties

-> “policy-seeking” parties

4.d. Maurice Duverger, “Political Parties” uses the origins as a criterion

-> “parties with parliamentary origin” (generally linked to the interests of the
middle and upper strata)
 -> “parties with extra-parliamentary origin” (the Labor Party, the Scandinavian
agrarian parties, the parties of the religious groups: more centralized and
disciplined, representing the interests of the lower classes)

5) Multi-dimensional classifications

5.a. Stein Rokkan, “Party Systems and Voter Alignments”, then Daniel L. Seiler, “Les partis
politiques”, “Partidele politice din Europa” (Iaşi: Institutul European, 1999, transl.
Eugenia Zăinescu) use the concept of “cleavage” for classifying parties. “Cleavage” is
defined as a “bureaucratized and routinized conflict” and every revolution produces a
cleavage; each revolution produces 2 cleavages: one functional, one territorial

-> the religious revolution in the 16th century determined the cleavages: the
Church – the state (functional) and the center – the periphery (territorial); the 2
cleavages produced:

-> the clerical parties vs. the anti-clerical (lay, secular) parties

-> the centralist parties vs. the autonomist parties

-> the industrial revolution in the 18th-19th centuries determined the cleavages:
the owners – the workers (functional) and urban – rural (territorial); the 2
cleavages produced:

-> the bourgeois parties vs. the labor parties

-> the agrarian/ the green parties (cities and town did not organized
themselves in parties, as a response to this cleavage)

Taking into account the intensity of the cleavage, there is the distinction between:

-> the moderate parties (when the cleavage is attenuated)

-> the extremist parties (when the cleavage is sharpened)

A last cleavage is mentioned by Seiler: the state – the civil society, which determined the
distinction between:

-> the totalitarian parties

-> the anarchical (“auto-administered”) parties

5.b. Larry Diamond and Richard Gunther, “Political Parties and Democracy” (Baltimore,
Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) use the following criteria:

Criterion Classification

The varying electoral strategies - clearly programmatic or ideological parties

- pragmatic, unprincipled parties

Social representation - parties that are exclusively based on a
particular ethnic, religious, socioeconomic
group

- heterogeneous or promiscuously eclectic

parties

Principal objectives - parties that are intensely committed to

securing some specific social objective

- parties that merely want to win elections

Organizational capacities - organizationally thin parties

- large and complex parties

PLURALISTIC PROTO-HEGEMONIC

ELITE PARTIES Local Notable

Clientelistic

MASS-BASED PARTIES

IDEOLOGICAL/SOCIALIST Class-mass Leninist

IDEOLOGICAL/NATIONALIST Pluralistic Nationalist Ultranationalist

RELIGIOUS Denominational-mass Religious Fundamentalist

ETHNICITY-BASED Ethnic
PARTIES
Congress

ELECTORALIST PARTIES Catch-all

Programmatic

Personalistic

MOVEMENT PARTIES Left-Libertarian

Post-Industrial Extreme
Right