Increasingly the politics of industrialised democracies are based around a set of issues that do not directly relate to the traditional class-economic-materialist left-right cleavage, but which fit broadly into a postmaterialist cleavage, in that they are not concerned with the struggle for material security (as seen in conflicts over income, tax, state social support and so forth), but with issues relating to ethnic culture, gender discrimination, personal behaviour, policies on age, and so forth. This type of ‘new politics’ is characterised by identity, values, culture and psychology rather than social background. Instead of being understood by the polarities of left and right, the terms of liberal and conservative are more useful in deliniating differences. The increase in the significance of this cleavage, and the decline of other traditional social cleavages signals the decline of politics, as structured by social division. [Read more below]
New Zealand politics have always been influenced by the spatial cleavages in society. These are seen in two ways: regional cleavages and the urban-rural cleavage. It seems likely that the decline in the significance of class as a determinant of voting has meant that the geographical cleavage in particular has grown in relative importance in structuring party politics in New Zealand. [Read more below]
Nowadays political parties and third parties are inclined to see their relationships with each other as a hindrance to their operations. Such relationships reduce a party’s independence and are potentially seen negatively by the voting public. But because few deep relationships with third parties now exist, this means parties are less stable entities. They may enjoy increased autonomy, but correspondingly they sometimes lack the political coherence and ideological stability that they once possessed. Modern New Zealand political parties are thus less responsive to outside organisations but are more responsive to voters from across the social cleavages. This now contributes to an unstructured and confused political environment where voters often have trouble navigating the party system. [Read more below]
Part of the explanation for the disconnection between political parties and third parties such as interest groups or pressure groups can also be found in the rise of anti-interest group ideology in the 1980s and the subsequent marginalisation of groups representing various class interests. [Read more below]
New Zealand society is increasingly made up of atomised individuals who are disinclined to participate in public life and politics, and when they actually do participate, they do so more as individuals than as members of groups. Third parties from business groups, to trade unions, through to the Freemasons and the Countrywomen’s Institute – as well as environmental and socialist groups – have been in significant decline. This blog post details the decline of such societal organisations in NZ. [Read more below]
Nowadays many so-called third parties prefer not to associate themselves with a particular political party, but instead seek to develop relationships with government departments. And likewise, some political parties are developing closer relationships with particular government agencies. [Read more below]
While the formal and informal relationships between particular third parties and specific political parties have been declining, paradoxically, the overall political influence of third parties appear to be greater under MMP than under FPP – due to the greater number of parties now involved in the policymaking process. [Read more below].
Parallel to decline of the traditional relationships between New Zealand political parties and so-called ‘third parties’, the parties have actually been developing new relationships. It is apparent that many of the modern groups that are aligned to – or have relationships with – parties are actually elite-type organisations that do not represent significant social forces in society. These groups are established to provide a way around state political financing laws, provide intellectual resources, or simply supply legitimacy. They are an attempt to illustrate to voters that a particular party has links with civil society and therefore has support in the community. [Read more below]
Throughout the twentieth century it was commonplace for New Zealand’s political parties to be backed by various organised sections of New Zealand society (now often termed ‘third parties’). Parties parties were heavily anchored in societal organisations such as interest groups, community organisations and businesses. Towards the end of the century there was a blurring of this support, and these days societal organisations that might be expected to be on friendly terms with National can be found on good terms with Labour, and vice versa. But more than anything, such institutional-party relations have withered. [Read more below]
There’s no doubt that National’s latest announcement that it’s adopting Labour’s interest-free student loans is a policy U-turn. In fact it’s just one more chapter in a whole series of U-turns. National’s been ‘swallowing dead rats’ for the last few years on: KiwiSaver, Working for Families, industrial relations, Treaty claims, retention of the Maori Seats (in the short-term), anti-nuclear policy, non-market rents, the Cullen Superannuation Fund, four weeks annual leave, among others. Meanwhile, Labour and its partisan bloggers don’t know how to deal with National’s shift to the centre. [Read more below]
Further evidence that today’s party system doesn’t simply operate on a left-right continuum, but also on a liberal-conservative spectrum, is the issue of the drinking age. Roughly it seems that you have the socially liberal parties support a more open law on drinking (Greens and Act) and the socially conservative ones wanting to restrict drinking (NZ First, Maori Party, and Progressives), with the Labour, National and United Future parties split somewhat down the middle.
The recent increase in 'dirty fighting' in New Zealand parliamentary politics is quite bizarre when you consider the lack of real political differences between the parties involved. If they were arguing over significant issues of principles the public might be less disturbed.
This is also a similar conclusion to that of Tracy Watkins writing in the Dominion Post, who correctly points out that it's a puzzle as to why anyone would want to buy an election as the differences between the outcomes are so meagre: 'The divide between the Left and the Right in this country, as represented by the two big parties, is hardly a chasm. On fundamental policy and direction, the two parties have been largely in agreement over the last decade or so.'
Chris Trotter has joined the leftwing chorus in favour of state funding of political parties, but he bases this support on an analysis of party change in NZ that is very flawed. It is worth dealing with his points.
Is the Deputy Prime Minister the same “socialist” who used to argue in the 1980s for the necessity of party activists and MPs to stand up and be counted if their party was selling its soul? Huw Jarvis examines whether Jim Anderton still stands for the democratic principles he once fought for.
Over the last two decades Jim Anderton has been part of two different political parties that have shifted to the right and drifted away from their founding principles. In both situations the parliamentary wing in government has been behind the rightward trajectory while the party organisation has attempted to fight this transformation. However there is a crucial difference between the two parallel situations. In the 1980s Anderton argued in favour of the supremacy of the party organisation, and to that end he led a bitter fight against his parliamentary colleagues in the Labour Party, but in 2002 Anderton now leads the parliamentary wing of the Alliance in their battle to suppress the power and influence of the party.
This is a paper I gave to the Australasian Political Studies Association conference in Christchurch, 1998 Abstract: New Zealand parliamentary politics has, in recent years, entered a new political cycle characterised by party fragmentation, the dominance of personalities, and a focus on trivial issues. Volatility and fluidity are the order of the day. The parties themselves lack any real dynamism. Moreover they are characterised by a policy convergence and an ideological exhaustion - in the sense that there has been a tendency for all parties to not only move towards the centre of the political spectrum, but also to place less emphasis on their ideological component. Subsequently, the new cycle of party politics can be characterised as a “politics without policies”. More than ever before pragmatism and electoral calculations shape political culture and politics can no longer be understood by the traditional concepts such as left and right. This paper seeks to find explanations for this strange state of affairs. It posits that while the shift to MMP may have accelerated the disintegration of mainstream politics, a number of other interconnected influences have combined to bring about the current state of political parties. The most obvious one is that two decades of economic slump and social decay has undermined the possibility of any of the current parties being able to provide anything of substance. A further explanation for the present impasse of the parties can be found in the effect of the ending of the Cold War, which has unleashed a crisis of legitimacy for the political institutions of Western society. The increasing blandness of political parties can also, in part, be attributed to the suspension of collective conflict between workers and the employers and authorities in the 1990s. With class conflict suspended, the parties lack the class anchors that once provided parties with ideological stability and direction. Essentially then, this party political fragmentation and malaise reflects deeper socio-economic trends.
