As both the Conservatives and Labour are confronted with ideological and organisational divisions that undermine their efficiency and jeopardise the foundations of the responsible party model, Caroline Close writes that understanding how (old and new) values, ideas and conception of democracy affect party members’ relationship to their party, within and beyond the legislative arena, is more important than ever

Close, Caroline

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By Democratic Audit UK 2016-7-29As both major parties struggle with internal divisions, it iscrucial to engage with different facets of party cohesiondemocraticaudit.com /2016/07/29/as-both-major-parties-struggle-with-internal-divisions-it-is-crucial-to-engage-with-different-facets-of-party-cohesion/As both the Conservatives and Labour are confronted with ideological and organisational divisions that underminetheir efficiency and jeopardise the foundations of the responsible party model, Caroline Close writes thatunderstanding how (old and new) values, ideas and conception of democracy affect party members’ relationship totheir party, within and beyond the legislative arena, is more important than ever.Credit: William Murphy CC BY-SA 2.0Divisions within the two main British parties have attracted considerable attention in recent months, although theyare not new. ‘Bremain/Brexit’ divisions within the Conservatives remind us of the polarization of Thatcher’s partyover Europe, followed by John Major’s failure to present a united party at the 1997 election as a result of this, whichcost the party one of its biggest defeats in the 20th century. Turmoil within the Labour party over Jeremy Corbyn’sleadership nomination has put into question the value of intra-party democracy, which was aimed at diluting oldLabour factional rivalries, but which seems to have created new lines of divisions, between the parliamentary elitesand the party’s extended grassroots. These present cases of divided parties call for a general discussion of partycohesion, from a normative, descriptive and analytical point of view, and based on comparative analysis.The cohesion of political parties is an important requisite for the good functioning of parliamentary democracies, astheorised by the Responsible Party Model. Party cohesion ensures government’s survival and ability to implementclear policies, while a divided party usually performs badly at elections. Ideological or programmatic cohesion is anessential condition for voters to hold their government accountable, and to make effective electoral choices. Indicesof parliamentary party voting cohesion within European parliamentary democracies usually indicate high levels ofunity. Yet, political parties have never been monolithic structures. Behind public appearances of unity, intra-partydecision-making processes (related for instance to policy development, organisational reforms etc.) usually involvevarious intra-party actors whose preferences and interests might diverge. Dissensions can be seen as a sign ofintra-party diversity, and the process of consensus building across these diverging views as a democratic ideal.Thus, from a normative perspective, both intra-party cohesion and dissension fulfil functional roles in parliamentarydemocracies, to the extent that dissensions are contained and do not threaten a party’s vote, policy, and office-seeking goals.1/4But what do we mean by party cohesion? Throughout the literature, party cohesion has been used to refer either toindividuals acting in a coherent way (e.g. MPs voting coherently on a policy proposal, party members agreeing onone leader), or to a force that binds these individuals together (e.g. party members’ loyalty to their leader, to theirparty organisation or to the party ideology, which might either overlap and reinforce each other, or conflict).Cohesion can be either of an ideological nature, such as members sharing similar policy positions, or built oncommon interests, such as party members supporting a leader that they deem efficient rather than because theyshare her/his ideas. The most studied form of cohesion is the voting cohesion of the parliamentary caucus[i]; but itcan be examined throughout the party, between different groups or branches: legislative caucus, central party staff,grassroots members, affiliated unions, local and regional party branches etc.A striking feature of current divisions in the British parties is that they appear within the party-in-public-office, andbetween the party elites and grassroots at the same time. In the Conservative case, party officials openly disagreedon the Brexit option; and, as highlighted by Tim Oliver, while a majority of Conservative MPs were backing theremain option, a majority of the party’s voters supported the exit option. In the Labour case, the nomination ofCorbyn first started with MPs supporting different candidates, and then revealed important discrepancies betweenthe party’s grassroots backing the radical left candidate, and the parliamentary caucus deeming him too radical tolead the party efficiently, and trying to overthrow him (see discussions here and here).A final line of questioning pertains to the factors affecting party cohesion, as cohesion varies across time, countriesand parties, but also across individuals. Figure 1 highlights country variations, by comparing two dimensions oflegislative cohesion: the frequency of disagreement between an MP and her/his party as stated by MPs, and theintended voting behaviour of the MP in case of such disagreement (loyalty to the party line versus loyalty to her/hisown opinion). The bars account for the proportion of MPs per party.Figure 1. Parliamentary party disagreement and loyalty: cross-country variationsData: PartiRep Comparative MP survey. The graph displays the attitudes of MPs elected in national assemblies in 15countries and 62 parties including at least 5 respondents (average response rate 19.5%).First, figure 1 suggests that the two dimensions of cohesion are linked: generally, parties with lower percentages ofMPs who often disagree have also higher scores in the variable measuring party loyalty. Second, although partycohesion is often seen as a central feature of European democracies, when examining what MPs think rather thanwhat they do, levels of cohesion show greater variations. MPs in Spain and Ireland show very cohesive attitudes,while those in Swiss, Italian, French and British parties tend to show more dissenting attitudes.Explanations for this and other forms of party cohesion can be contextual or socio-historical, can play at the macroinstitutional or individual level, and can pertain to sociological or rational processes. Party-level factors of cohesionhave been less often considered or merely used as control variables, although, I argue, they probably account forimportant variations in parties’ level of cohesion. These include party size, as arguably larger parties should be2/4more prone to divisions and factions, party age, with more institutionalised parties having higher levels of cohesion,as well as organisational statutory rules and procedures to screen MPs’ activities or to encourage party members’fidelity (e.g. special privileges, access to voting rights in intra-party procedures etc.). If several works haveconsidered the effect of candidate selection rules on MPs’ propensity to dissent (see, for example, here), the effect ofintra-party democracy broadly speaking on diverse forms of cohesion remains barely understood. This lack ofunderstanding may have misled the proponents of recent reforms of leadership selection processes that seem tocause so much trouble in the Labour party since the end of the Blair era.There is a final factor which should, in my opinion, attract more attention: the party’s family, which relates to both thegenetic and ideological components of a party, and allows testing the effect of party ideology beyond a simple left-right or policy issue approach. In a recent article, I examine the effect of party family on MPs’ propensity to remainloyal to their party in case of disagreement (see data above), and demonstrate the existence of a party family effectthat goes beyond a mere distinction between parties of the left and parties of the right. As illustrated by Figure 2,there seem to exist a fundamental opposition between two families (even after controlling for other of-cited factorsof legislative cohesion, as shown by the multivariate analysis presented in the article): the green family, in whichMPs tend to adopt a trustee style of representation, and the radical right family, where loyalty to the party (or partyleader?) seem to be highly valued. I explain these findings by the specific values carried out by these parties, whichare shared and embodied by their members, and which have percolated into specific organisational structures thatin turn may shape parliamentarians’ attitudes towards their party.Whereas both families emerged in the 1960s-1970s as a reaction to the failure of the modern representativesystem, they crystallised on two opposite sides of the New Politics cleavage or new cultural conflict. The greenproject promoted, at the individual-level, the values of self-fulfillment and self-affirmation. At the party organisationallevel, these values translated into the promotion and implementation of more participatory devices, which mighthave encouraged the expression of intra-party diversity. Radical right parties, to the contrary, re-affirmed the valuesof tradition, law and order, which seems to be translated in MPs’ high loyalty; and promoted authoritarian forms ofgovernment even within party organisations, which built around a charismatic leader.Figure 2. Boxplot – % Loyal MPs per party across party ideologies (N= 50 parties)3/4Data: PartiRep Comparative MP surveyObviously, New Politics values have percolated within other families, as illustrated by recent trends towards thedemocratisation of intra-party processes of decision-making, but also by some forms of ‘presidentialization ofpolitics’. In a time when the two central British parties are confronted with ideological and organisational divisionsthat undermine their efficiency as governing and opposition parties and jeopardise the foundations of theresponsible party model, understanding how (old and new) values, ideas and conception of democracy affect partymembers’ relationship to their party, within and beyond the legislative arena, appears crucial.[i] Incoming paper by the author entitled ‘Rethinking intra-party cohesion’, prepared for the Australian PSA AnnualConference, Sydney, 26-28 September 2016.__Note: this post is based on the author’s article Parliamentary party loyalty and party family: The missing link?available here. It represents the views of the author and not those of Democratic Audit or the LSE. Please read ourcomments policy before posting.__Caroline Close is a postdoctoral researcher at the Université libre de Bruxelles (Department of Political Science)conducting research on the causes of intra-party divisions (funded by the Belgian Funds for Scientific Research –FNRS).4/4

As both major parties struggle with internal divisions, it is crucial to engage with different facets of party cohesion

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