Party Government

THE SUCCESS or failure of any attempt to understand politi cal parties depends on whether or not the student knows what to look for and where to find it. There is doubtless an unlimited quantity of unimportant information about parties that might be assembled, arranged, and learned, but the promiscuous accumulation of facts about politics is likely to prove unprofitable. What, therefore, do we need to know o

about political parties in order to understand them? The following are the crucial points in the system:

1. A political party is an organized attempt to get control of the government. What then is the position of the parties in the government? Has a system of party government been established, or does the government merely tolerate the parties? What organs of government have been seized (and magnified) by the parties as the instruments of their con trol? How have powers been redistributed within the govern ment for party purposes? What is the position of public officials in the party?

2. The parties live in a highly competitive world. To what circumstances do they owe their supremacy and survival? What are the relations of the parties (as mobilizers of majorities) with pressure groups (the mobilizers of minorities)? Is it not strange that the parties tolerate the pressure groups? What are the relations of the parties and unorganized politi cal movements?

3- The major parties manage to maintain their supremacy over the minor parties. How do they do so? More specifi cally, what are the relations between the second major party and the first minor party? This relation will determine whether or not a two-party system or a multiparty system will result from party competition. How does it happen that the two-party system does not become a one-party system? Obviously the health of the second major party is one of the crucial factors in the system.

4. The internal processes of the parties have not generally received the attention they deserve in treatises on American politics. What sort of association is the party? What is meant by party "membership"? 5. The party is a process that has grown up about elec

tions. What is the effect of the special system of elections

found in the United States on the parties?

6. Most important of all is the distribution of power within the party organization. This leads directly to the whole subject of the relations between the central and local party organizations, doubtless the most significant datum concerning any party. More than any other factor the bal ance of these relations determines the nature of the system. A vital point in this connection is the relation among the local party machines in the same region, for this relation determines whether or not local machines remain local in character.