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]
The erosion of the alignments with societal organisations is a good indicator of the strength of party links to particular social sectors. Combined with the decline in party membership numbers and the class dealignment of party-voter relations, the divorce between parties and societal organisations means that there is now little linkage between the political parties and their key constituencies. The public relations industry and their techniques of market research have filled the gap, becoming the bridge to civil society that is professional but often insubstantial and meaningless.
The disengagement between political parties and the organised interest groups represents yet another element of the breakdown of established ties between representative political organisations and their respective class bases. The decline of the class-oriented institutions that are traditionally aligned to New Zealand political parties has had the impact of reducing pressure on the parties to act in the interests of any particular class in society. Instead of appealing and responding to organised political forces that reflect classes, political parties now compete for the votes of middle New Zealand individually, guided more by market research politics. The result is that political parties have become even more afflicted by ideological erosion, and at the same time open more to either technocratic or office-seeking strategies.
The parties are more autonomous than ever and this has important practical and ideological implications for the party system. Political parties have become more remote from civil society. Not only are the relationships unravelling between parties and social constituencies in the electorate, and between parties and their potential members, but the parties also no longer have strong links with societal organisations that represent these groups. The erosion of traditional linkages between political parties and third parties is therefore creating more of a free market for influence, in which the numbers of unaligned groups searching for influence have multiplied. The political parties compete for their attention and the third parties compete for that of the political parties. Increasingly, third parties choose to work dispassionately with whoever is in government rather than form allegiances with any particular political party.
This series of blog posts has examined the nature of the changing links between parties and the organised social forces that exist in society. This topic has lacked investigation in New Zealand. As Jack Vowles has written: ‘The relationship between membership of single-issue groups and that of political parties is, like many other aspects of political sociology in New Zealand, under-researched’ (Vowles, 1998a: p.14). These blog posts have made a case for the importance of these organisational linkages, outlining the linkages of the parties, explaining why these linkages are eroding, and analysing the implications of this erosion.
In recent times it has become fashionable to decry the linkage between parties and societal organisations. The classic linkages between business and right-wing parties and between trade unions and left-wing parties has come to be seen as somewhat insidious. The endorsement of a party by an organised grouping has become negatively associated with self-interest and unseemly financial arrangements (See: Jackson, 1978, chapter seven; and Robinson, 1978). Also, many third parties take the point of view that they can enhance their members’ voices by avoiding narrow partisanship, and thus bring influence to bear on all parties, whether in government or not. By contrast, if an organisation is seen as being aligned to one party, then when that party is outside of government, the group is likely to be disadvantaged.
New Zealand’s newer political parties are mostly devoid of backing from organised social forces and this reinforces that they have started life as elite organisations. This series of posts on ‘third parties’ has attempted to highlight all the societal linkages and has found few of any significance. Rather than being the political expression or rallying points of any one particular organised group or segment in society, the new parties have been created from the top down – and often by politicians already in Parliament.
The roots of the old parties in society have withered, and the new parties have not been able to grow new ones. Instead, political parties appear to be little more than a collection of individual MPs assisted by cadre-type party organisations that use the mass media, state funds and party professionals to communicate with society. Rather than having distinct links with society and its interest groups, political parties are becoming more and more the representatives of New Zealand’s ‘political class’.
A good case can, however, be made to justify the party-institution linkages and alignments as necessary and complementary to the democratic functioning of the political system. Democratic theory, after all, suggests that in connecting the state with its citizens, political parties need to be properly rooted in society so they can effectively carry out the will of the people and so that the parliamentary institution represents all of society. One such way for the political parties to remain integrated in society is through their close working relationships with the many organised sections of society. The classical conception of party-based representative democracy regards political parties as helping link the state with society, and part of that linkage occurs through parties having formal and informal ties with societal organisations. These relationships also represent the fact that different parties have traditionally represented policies that are attractive to different sectors of society. Alignments with third parties formalise this – they allow parties to develop links with the societal organisations that represent their supporters.
Close relationships between parties and other organisations are also useful from the point of view of the societal organisations that naturally seek to influence those who seek to govern. These groups make a considered choice in aiding the election of politicians who then might work to secure legislation that benefits that group. Developing relationships with parties is an acknowledgment that collective action by like-minded citizens is often more effective than the actions of the individual. The relationship is also advantageous to the political party, as these social organisations not only provide important financial resources, but also legitimisation and political and policy guidance. In this sense they provide parties with political identity, which they transmit to their members and supporters. The societal groups also mobilise their supporters in elections. The alignment to social forces outside Parliament therefore affords some degree of ideological stability to the parties. This is evidenced by the current parties in Parliament, all of which have weak relationships with most social groups and are at the same time ideologically volatile. The instability of New Zealand party politics in recent years can therefore be viewed in the context of the relatively weak alliances and affiliations that the new political parties possess.