Types Of Party Organizations And Members In Comparative Perspective

This dissertation tries to answer the question:for political party, which type of organizational structure and size is more beneficial in the struggling for and maintain the regime? There are four paths in the studies of the forms of party structures: functionalism, histology, historicism and the approach of integration. These studies set different standards in classifying the forms of parties. But they all emphasized on existing parties, rather than paying attentions to the factors linking with the changes, namely alternation from initial forms of parties to the present ones. We all know that if the environment or the goal has changed, a party will transform its structure to adapt it. Therefore, this dissertation will fill this gap through a way of histology by Maurice Duverger. The hypothesis of this study is based on the assumption of rationalism in the economics. As an organization, a party seeks or consolidates the power gained sa the maximization of its interests. There are two essential elements in this hypothesis. The one is the initial form of the party, and the other is the penetration of the party to the state and society.Frist, the initial type has an important influence on the party’s organizational form. The initial type of party could be divided into two sub-types, i.e. the endogenous and exogenous parties. The endogenous party is always originated from the parliament and the status-quo, so it can get the resources from the states. Therefore, it does not need to abstract large numbers of people to provide manpower and materials. For the leaders of this kind of party, the fewer of the people in the party, the less political gifts they will pay, and the less constraint they will face after they grasp the state power. However, contrast to its exogenous counterpart, exogenous party has to recruit as many persons as possible to gain resources to survive. Hence, the endogenous party is always an elite party with a small number of members, and the exogenous one is usually mass party with a large size of membership. But recognition of the sub-types of endogenous or exogenous is not enough. Some themes still remain to be explored, for example, there are great differences within both endogenous and the exogenous parties.Therefore, we have to figure out the second element, namely the penetration of the party to the state and society. The penetration power reflects on the relationship between the party and the state. And it also reflects on the relation of party and society. In other words, we must consider the environment changes after the party have grasped the state power. This study will prove that the more the party wants to control the state and the society, the larger number of members and the more rigorous structure it will have.With the influence of the two elements, we classify the parties in four types. Each has its different number of members and organization form. In the following, we choose four examples for detailed analysis. There are the main parties of USA (i.e. Democratic Party and Republican Party), the labor Party of Britain, the People’s Action Party (PAP) in Singapore and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Democratic Party and Republican Party are endogenous ones who came from the Congress in 1790s. At the beginning, they were factions which were made up by aristocrats in the congress. Later, they became the national alliance, but with unrestricted structures. And this loose form sustains by now, which depends on the party’s initial endogenous form, the option of candidate by constituency in the primary election and anti-controlled by interest groups in public policy and affaires. In one words, the Democratic Party and Republican Party are representative ones of endogenous and elite parties. Unlike Democratic and Republican, the Labor Party was exogenous one who did not come from parliament. The formation of the Labor was the outcome of the workers’ movement. In this movement, Trade Union gave a great support to the Labor, with the wholly transformation of the members in Union to be Labor’s members. The supports included financial and human resources from the Union which could be used to guarantee the Labor’s triumph in seizing power in Britain. But, every coin has two sides. The supports from Union also make the large number of members and systematic structures meaningless.The People’s Action Party was born in the struggle with British colonists, so it is an exogenous party. In the founding period, the PAP had nothing special in recruiting members until the radicals were swarmed everywhere into the party. Hence, the leader of the PAP thought deeply of the institution of hierarchy of cadres and members. The PAP distinguishes the ’cadre’ from’member’, which makes up the resources that a large number of members can offer. The hierarchy of cadres and members and the large number pare-party in Singapore are two essential elements in PAP’s long-term governance. Speaking of the Chinese Communist Party, it is an exogenous party born in the war of anti-Japanese and civil war, so it had to seek abundant people to provide the resource which it survived for. For the state and society after revolution, the logic of party-state is implemented by the large number of party members and multi-level party organizations in government and society.