Party Types Organisation and Functions

West European Politics
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Party Types, Organisation and Functions
Giovanni Sartori
To cite this article: Giovanni Sartori (2005) Party Types, Organisation and Functions, West
European Politics, 28:1, 5-32, DOI: 10.1080/0140238042000334268
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Party Types, Organisation and Functions 5
Sartori, Giovanni (1970). ‘Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics’, American Political

Science Review, 64:4, 1033–53
Sartori, Giovanni (1976). Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis, Volume 1.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprinted as an ‘ECPR Classic’ in 2005.
Sartori, Giovanni (1994). Comparative Constitutional Engineering: An Inquiry into Structures,
Incentives and Outcomes. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Party Types, Organisation and

Functions
GIOVANNI SARTORI
Columbia University, New York
ABSTRACT This paper deals with the classification and functions of political parties. It
argues that the central concept involved in classifying parties is that of the
organisational network, which goes beyond the party itself to include the space that
the party occupies. Historical types and sequences of party organisation and
organisational development are then explored, as is the central concept of the ‘mass
party’. Finally, while many different functions can be ascribed to parties, the functions
which are central to the notion of party, and which are essentially irreplaceable, are
those of participation, electioneering and expression.
The Structural-Organisational Approach

The Classifications of Duverger
Party numbers are relevant for the analysis of party systems, but they tell
us nothing about party types. There are numerous kinds and varieties of
parties, and the query now is, how should we proceed in classifying
them? As Avery Leiserson (1958) puts it, parties can be observed as
organisational groups, as idea groups and as social groups. One may add
that parties are also ‘functional’ groups that can be classified according
to their functional patterns of performance. Furthermore, and in a
chronological sense primarily, we also have to account for the concrete
types, that is, for a historical typology of parties. However, here I shall
be concerned only with three criteria of classification: historical,
organisational and functional.
The reply to our initial question is, then, that parties can be
classified (without getting involved in too many intricacies) according
to their historical development, or to their structural characteristics, or
to their functional performance – with the understanding that the three
criteria are not mutually exclusive. The most obvious order of
6 Giovanni Sartori
presentation is to begin with the historical focus. On the other hand,

the study of parties has received its major thrust from Duverger’s
Political Parties (1954) and while Duverger’s pioneering work has
added little to the taxonomy of party systems, his typology of parties
has both given the lead and left a durable imprint in the profession.
Now, according to Duverger the most rewarding way of approaching
the problem is to study the anatomy of parties, that is, their
organisational structure. It will be expedient, therefore, to follow
Duverger’s lead and to begin by considering the structural-organisa-
tional criterion of classification.
There are many ways of focusing on organisational structure. The
focus of Duverger is on the nuclear structure of parties. The committee
party, the branch party, the cell party and the militia party are classified
and distinguished with reference to their basic organisational unit
(Duverger, 1954: 17–60). There is some question as to whether the
taxonomy of Duverger envisages three or four main types, because it is
unclear whether Duverger considers the militia party as a sub-type (this
depends on whether the cell and militia parties are aggregated in the
broader category of the totalitarian party). However that may be,
Duverger does describe four types of nuclear structure: the committee,
the branch (section in French), the cell, and the military or militia
structure. The committee-based parties roughly correspond to the middle
class liberal-democratic parties; the section-based, or branch, parties
roughly correspond to the socialist parties; and the cell and militia-based
parties are definitely identified, respectively, with the communist and the
nazi-fascist parties.
Duverger’s structural typology is a useful analytic tool and surely
provides a good starting point. Yet with the passing of time one becomes
less and less satisfied with the concrete equivalences suggested by Duverger.
The Italian Christian Democratic party is a committee-based party and yet
it can hardly be compared to the traditional bourgeois liberal-democratic
parties, because (despite Duverger’s opinion that the committee-based party
cannot be a mass party) it is also a mass party. The same holds good, to cite
another example, for the German Christian Democratic Union. On the
other hand, the developments which have occurred in Western communist
parties since the early 1950s point to a much looser correspondence between
the cell structure and the communist organisational type. In practice
Western communist parties have adapted themselves to electoral tactics as
well, and have somewhat combined the cell with the branch structure.
Likewise, it is evident that a fascist party need not be a militia type of party.
As a matter of fact, even the Italian Fascist Party of the 1930s was hardly a
militia in any precise sense of the term. The whole idea of the militia
structure overlooks the existence of a dual organisation, the party on the
one hand and the ‘private army’ (if it exists) on the other. Finally, the
committee category is too broad, and the difference between loose and tight
organisation to which Duverger calls attention is never adequately under-

pinned.
Other characteristics, drawn from other criteria, implement the organisa-
tional frame of reference. The major characteristic is provided by the diverse
solidarity ties of each type of party. In this connection Duverger
distinguishes between partis societaires, i.e., associational parties of the
loose Gesellschaft type; community-like parties of the Gemeinschaft type;
and devotee parties of the Bund type (Duverger 1954: 124–32). By
combining the organisational with the solidarity criteria, one can also
derive the distinction between cadre party, mass party and devotee party.
We may disregard, however, this latter tripartition, which represents by far
the less felicitous and more widely challenged classification. For one thing,
Duverger’s notion of mass party is far from being convincing, as we shall
see. It is also dubious whether the Bund, or devotee, category really belongs
to the same continuum as the Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft categories; and
this difficulty comes to the fore when the devotee party is juxtaposed to the
cadre and the mass party as a distinct type rather than as a possible sub-
type.
Whether we follow the fourfold classification based on the party’s nuclear
organisational unit, or the threefold classification based on the party’s
solidarity structure, there is no question that Duverger’s approach leads to a
number of penetrating insights, and that his structural-organisational
anatomy of parties points to one of the major criteria for establishing the
typology of parties. The trouble with Duverger is his theoretical untidiness,
his conspicuous lack of consistency, and particularly his tendency to deal
with too many problems in one blow, with no apparent perception of their
distinctiveness. On party systems he gets involved, from the outset, with the
problem of how they correlate with electoral techniques, without having first
singled out the systems (and this helps to explain the inadequacy of his
typology of party systems). On party types he mixes, among other things, a
historical typology and a merely analytical typology, sequences and mere
juxtapositions.
For instance, there is no doubt in Duverger’s mind that the Gesellschaft
and Gemeinschaft parties represent a sequence in that order, and that the
first type is superseded by the second, despite the fact that Tönnies (1940)
pointed, if anything, to the reverse trend, to the transformation from
community forms to associational forms of organisation. With reference to
the Bund or devotee type of party, Duverger does wonder whether this is a
distinct category, or whether it only points to a difference in salience. He
even recalls that the inventor of the Bund category, Schmalenbach, considers
the devotee category ephemeral and subject to the law of internal decline
(Duverger 1954: 127). But then he leaves us at that, maintains the devotee
party as a durable category, and drops the question that he had raised about
the previous two types, namely, whether there is an evolutionary pattern
also from the community-like party to the devotee party.
8 Giovanni Sartori
The picture is complicated further by the fact that Duverger provides, in

one stroke, both the type and the sociological interpretation, thereby
attempting premature correlations between the structure and the social
bases of parties. To be sure, he cannot be blamed for not having done what
the data did not permit him to do. He should be criticised, however, for
having failed to perceive the difference between problems of classification
and problems of covariance and, still worse, between correlations and causal
relations.
All in all, Duverger never really accomplishes the task of defining his
concepts and of singling out his categories. More often than not, the cart is
put before the horse. His typology is immediately qualified by his
correlations, and these are hastily interpreted, in turn, as causal relation-
ships. As a result, Duverger does not arrive at a sociology of parties – in
spite of his repeated contentions – and fails to complete the preliminary task
of pinning down whatever taxonomy he is proposing. Therefore, I shall have
to dwell, for the time being, on problems of definition and classification.
Before attempting correlations, and, even more, causal inferences, we need
to know exactly what correlates with what. In particular, in the next two
sections the preliminary task will be to disentangle the vertical from the
horizontal typology, and historical sequences from analytical juxtapositions.
Organisational Networks
The organisational focus need not be primarily concerned with the
organisational chart of the party itself along the lines suggested by
Duverger. Organisation is not only a matter of structural forms but also
of organisational density, of organisational pressure and coverage. From
this latter angle, the focus is on the power of penetration of a given party,
both in terms of intensity and reach. Correlatively, the central concept is no
longer structure, but becomes organisational network.
The organisational network of a party goes far beyond the party itself, for
it includes all the ‘space’ that a party is able to occupy de facto, and no
matter under which form, in whatever setting. How far can this Parteiraum,
this party space, be stretched? Very far indeed, if one is reminded of the
Austrian bipartisan proporz spoils system, of the case of Israel and of
present-day Italy. I shall not be concerned, however, with the constitutional
aspect and implications of ‘party occupancy’, spoken of, in Italy, as
partitocrazia (‘particracy’ or party tyranny), which consists of the de facto
concentration and displacement of the levers of power in the hands of the
party directorates. In terms of the organisational network the emphasis is
not on the exercise of power but rather on the techniques for extending and
entrenching a ‘power coverage’ at the grassroots level, by means of a nation-
wide, systematic spread.
There are various types of organisational networks. One is fittingly
described by speaking of ‘party colonisation’, and consists of occupying –
via party-nominated members – the existing key managerial positions of a

society in the economic sphere (banks, industries, etc.), in the mass media, in
the bureaucracy and, eventually, even in the military establishment. The
control of the labour movement is a special and particularly significant
aspect of the colonisation technique. Of course, trade unions do not fall
under party control merely because trade union officials happen to be party
members. The colonisation technique consists of delegating and placing
party officials in the arena of professional syndicalism. In this respect, a
successful seizure may lead to a dual organisation, to a Janus-faced
organisational network that at one end shows the overt ‘party face’ and, at
the other end, shows a disguised ‘labour face’.
This kind of organisational penetration does not necessarily presuppose a
devotee type of party, or a strong ideological goal orientation. It does
presuppose, however, a centralised and fairly strongly organised mass party
(that I shall call an ‘organisational mass party’). The difference between a
pure and simple spoils system and a system of party colonisation resides
precisely in the fact that in the latter case the party allocates spoils and
positions that remain under party control as part and parcel of an overall
system of organisational occupancy.
A distinct type of organisational network can be fittingly described as
party proliferation, and consists of creating a myriad of subsidiary,
collateral associations, most of which tend to display an apolitical facade.
This technique of penetration is largely based, in fact, on leisure facilities,
and covers the ground from sports clubs and centres of recreation to cultural
associations. This expansion does seem to require ‘believers’, however.
Unless a party is characterised by ideological proselytism, its capacity for
organisational proliferation is likely to remain limited. For the individual
rewards are relatively small, while proliferation requires a higher investment
of energies and enthusiasm than mere seizure.
The colonisation and proliferation techniques of organisational expansion
can be combined. The optimum organisational density requires, in fact, a
balanced coverage of both types. The coverage may become, in given areas,
so meticulous and thoroughgoing that an organisational network of this
type can be meaningfully compared to a system of irrigation. This is notably
the case of the so-called red regions, or red belts, controlled by the
communist parties in France and even more so in Italy. A situation is
created in which the party not only monopolises the local administration
and the trade unions, but also colonises some of the major capitalistic
managerial positions. As a result, the entire labour market and very
substantial portions of the economy are, respectively, under full control of,
or largely dependent upon, the party’s organisational network. On the other
hand, the collateral proliferation covers the recreational as well as the broad
cultural needs of the community. All in all, we are confronted with a
situation of organisational saturation that defies external penetration. In
other words, an organisational network may reach a threshold of density
10 Giovanni Sartori
beyond which an area becomes, for all practical purposes, organisationally

encapsulated and ideologically insulated.
The organisational approach has much to gain, then, by focusing on the
irrigation aspect of party occupancy, rather than merely on the structural
articulation of the party as such. At least, party colonisation and
proliferation are areas of inquiry that deserve more systematic exploration
than they have received so far.
Old and New Parties

Polar Types
Classifications establish what goes together with what – and what does
not. But an integral part of the question of what goes with what is, or
may be, when goes with when. In this latter connection we are reminded
of a vertical dimension, of a sequence of party growth and transforma-
tion, the implication being that we need a classification of party layers, so
to speak.
For one thing, much of our terminology derives, no matter how
inadvertently, from some kind of ‘historical type’ of party. This implies
that we cannot clarify our terminology without having reference to the
historical patterns from which it originates. In the second place, we are
confronted with interesting problems of sequence which need to be tackled if
political science is ever to become a predictive science. Finally, a vertical
classification helps us to avoid the fallacy of asynchronic comparisons.
The first problem is: what is the starting point? This is the same as asking,
when does the name party begin to be properly used? Given the fact that it is
difficult to find anything resembling present-day parties before the
nineteenth century, I submit that a party system properly called, or in our
meaning of the term, begins when the three following conditions have
developed: (i) when the political system reaches a certain degree of
complexity of division of labour and of structural differentiation; (ii) when
the principle and the practice of responsible government calls for some
institutionalised link of communication between governed and governors;
and (iii) when a sufficiently wide and articulate electorate makes itself felt,
thereby requiring some kind of tangible presence, or branch offices, at the
local level.
The first condition requires not only that political decisions are different
from other kinds of decisions, but that they also become relatively frequent
and weighty, for an infrequent or peripheral range of political decision-
making does not require specialised agencies. The second condition implies
that a flow of political communication becomes relevant to the operations of
the political system, and particularly that the expressive function becomes
institutionalised as a fundamental requirement of the system. The third
condition points to the need for what Ostrogorski (1902) called the ‘extra-
parliamentary organisation’ – to the fact that the members of parliament no

longer have the electorate in their pocket and have to respond to growing
participation with some kind of local constituency organisation, minimal as
it might be.
When these conditions evolve, the stone age of parties comes to an end.
That is to suggest that factions, secret societies, sects, aristocratic cliques,
political clubs, coalitions of notables, and the like, should be neatly
differentiated from parties by speaking of ‘pre-party’ groups. As for the
shades and the gradations of the process, the use of the word ‘notables’
often indicates the borderline. Notables no longer are, as a rule, local lords
and aristocrats, elected in their own right; notables have to engage in some
kind of electoral canvassing and have to be concerned with local ties and
interests. Yet the party era does not really begin as long as parties only exist
for the notables, as a mere facade; it begins when the party becomes a
stabilised group which the notables can no longer dissolve or abandon at
their pleasure, that is, when the notables begin to need the party no less than
the party needs the notables.
Coming to the properly called parties, the simple polar distinction
between old and new types of parties is not difficult to draw. But if there is
little disagreement about the substance of Western party development, one
finds a great deal of disagreement, and disorder, about terminology.
And matters of terminology affect matters of substance. For instance, if
one speaks, with reference to Neumann’s (1956) typology, of a party of
‘total integration’, one conveys the suggestion that totalitarian regimes
achieve integration, thereby implying that the difference between the party
of democratic integration on the one hand, and the party of total integration
on the other, is a difference of means rather than of end results. This is no
small concession. In the second place, and still more important, while the
recourse to two-way classifications is expedient, we seldom pay sufficient
attention to the fact that some dichotomies have a sequential value, but
other dichotomies have only an analytic value. The implication is that
pseudo-sequences are currently, albeit erroneously, presented as indicators
of a historical trend.
There is no question, for instance, that Neumann’s parties of ‘democratic
integration’ were born before the so-called parties of ‘total integration’.
However, should this distinction be retained (as Neumann suggested) as
indicating a sequence, that is, as pointing to an historical trend? Likewise,
‘governmental parties’ or Staatsparteien are older than ‘class war parties’ or
Klassenkampfparteien, and these labels are surely drawn from historical
patterns. It is very dubious, nevertheless, whether the distinction really has a
sequential or developmental implication. In a similar vein, Duverger calls
our attention to the sequence socie´te´, communaute´, ordre, that is, between
the Gesellschaft, Gemeinschaft and Bund types of party, and then leaves the
reader to speculate as to whether such a sequence has a predictive value.
Neumann (1956: 400) distinguishes also between ‘parties of patronage’ and
12 Giovanni Sartori
‘parties of principle’ and again there is no question that the parties of

principle were born after the parties of patronage. But patronage appears to
be a rather constant feature of politics; thus the parties of principle may
remain principled and ideologically uncontaminated and yet become
involved in patronage as soon as they are in a position to distribute spoils.
The upshot is that the ‘principled phase’ or the take-off stage of the
ideological parties has too short a duration to acquire historical significance,
while it varies and correlates nicely with the proximity to, and availability
of, resources.
A number of current dichotomies do not clearly indicate, then, whether
they characterise an older versus a more modern type of party in the sense
that the latter type is destined, in the long run, to overcome the former.
There are, on the other hand, dichotomies which unquestionably point to a
trend, to a sequence of historical growth and modernisation, such as the
following: (i) electoral versus organisational parties, and/or intermittent
versus permanent parties; (ii) parties of notables versus bureaucratic parties,
and/or parties of elite versus mass parties; (iii) parties of opinion versus
parties of platform.
The foregoing illustration is hardly exhaustive. It draws, however, from
the polar denominations, or from the oppositions, that do seem to detect,
and to spell out, those chronological distinctions which also have an
historical import. Let it be added that the expediency of dichotomous
presentations can hardly be questioned. Their limit lies, however, in their
nature of drastic simplifications, which may suggest, albeit erroneously, the
idea of a streamlined development. But before entering into this, there is a
critical notion that should be clarified from the outset, namely, the notion of
the mass party. Of all the aforementioned labels, ‘mass party’ is the most
recurrent one. And, surely, when we speak of the mass party we have in
mind a turning point. But what do we mean by this?
The Mass Party

In some respects most, if not all, the parties of an industrial society can be
called mass parties, while in other respects only some of these are mass
parties. In the first sense we implicitly make reference to a mass party age,
whereas in the second sense we are interested in singling out a specific type
of party. The first problem is, then, under what conditions a political society
enters the mass party stage.
The mass party age can be qualified, I suggest, by the following two
conditions: first, the appeal of parties to large masses and their ‘opening
up’ on the basis of achievement instead of ascription; second, the fact that
the electorate identifies itself with ‘abstract’ party images rather than with
concrete people. That is to say, the party becomes more real than
personalities or personages, at least in the sense that the party both
outlasts its leaders and binds them to its own logic of inertia. Additional
conditions are required, however, if one wishes to single out the mass
party as a specific type of party. Most authors seem to agree that a
quantitative element is involved: a mass party must have masses of people
behind it; that is, without large numbers there can be no mass party.
However, since large numbers require and pre-suppose a large organisa-
tional network, the implication is that the mass party is an ‘organisational
party’, a party which is characterised by an extensive organisational
structure. If parties are classified, following David Apter (1958), into four
groups – bureaucratic and durable, personal and fragile, bureaucratic and
fragile, personal and durable – then only the first, the bureaucratic and
durable type, surely qualifies as a mass party. On the other hand, it should
be stressed immediately that the organisational requirement can be skeletal,
and that it is not necessarily related to a sizeable and permanent
bureaucratic staffing.
Furthermore, the notion of mass party is easily associated with the notion
of ‘mass man’. Thus some authors more or less explicitly include in the
definition of the mass party a qualitative feature: the psychology of the mass
man – his loneliness, uprootedness, etc. – and the availability of a mass
society to mass manipulation and mobilisation. If so, a quality rather than a
quantity would qualify the mass party. Even if this path is not pursued
further, a somewhat qualitative attribute is retained whenever the notion of
mass party is restricted to the ‘proletarian’ parties. Duverger, for instance,
tends to use ‘masses’ as a synonym for working class. In fact, in his
formulation the mass parties are only the class parties, specifically the
working-class parties, and Duverger also makes it clear that the middle
class, or bourgeois parties cannot be mass parties. Now, this restriction can
be explained only on the basis of a hidden premise, namely that Duverger is
submitting the notion of mass party to a qualitative-sociological condition,
The premise is hidden since the requirements laid down by Duverger (1954:
63–71) are merely that, first, the mass party must have card-carrying
members, and, second, the ratio of members to voters must be high. If this
were all, however, the exclusion of parties such as the Italian and German
Christian Democratic parties remains not only unjustified, but utterly
inexplicable.
One may argue that Duverger – and the same applies to Neumann – is not
really defining the mass party as such, that is, as a general category, but only
the typical mass party. This would be additional reason, however, for taking
a fresh look into the matter. Let us therefore leave aside the typical and
focus instead on the type.
In the first place it is difficult to understand why the mass party should be
equated with a class-based party. Not only do powerful denominational
parties already exist, but they are also likely to grow and to spread in Latin
America and other areas as well. If these parties qualify under all the other
criteria, how is it that they can be ruled out on the grounds of being inter-
class parties? In the second place, the narrow identification of mass with
14 Giovanni Sartori
workers, and of the mass party with a working-class party, is even more
difficult to accept. On the one hand, this perspective is too narrow to
account for the ever growing numbers of white-collar workers – indeed ‘the
masses’ of the automated society. On the other hand, and awaiting the
advent of a post-proletarian society, why is it that a party such as the British
Conservative Party should not be considered a mass party? It should also be
pointed out, in this connection, that when the British parties became mass
parties, neither had an appreciable class configuration. At least at the outset,
roughly as many workers voted Conservative as middle classes voted on the
Liberal and Labour side. By and large, this remains true for the American
parties, which up to this day conspicuously lack class-consciousness and
display little stratum division.
The example of the American parties leads us to the third point.
Returning from the underlying assumptions to the explicit criteria set forth
by Duverger, if the mass party is necessarily a mass-membership party with
dues-paying followers, the conclusion follows that the American Republican
and Democratic parties are not mass parties; they are, according to
Duverger (1954: 65), cadre or Honoratioren parties. The exclusion sounds
paradoxical if one is reminded that American parties can be considered to be
the oldest mass parties, the first parties to have entered the mass stage and
the mass format. The question arises, then, whether both the implicit and
explicit criteria of Duverger are acceptable with regard to the very usefulness
of the notion of mass party. I find them unacceptable, for the reasons that
follow.
First, the difference between card-carrying parties and parties which are
not membership-oriented qualifies two different sub-types of the mass
party, not the mass party as such. The same applies to the other
difference emphasised by Duverger, namely that between parties of direct
and indirect membership (such as the British Labour Party, which draws
its membership almost automatically from the trade unions). Also, this
difference, important as it may be, does not affect the mass qualification
of a party.
Second, while the character of the mass man and the characteristics of the
mass society may help to qualify the notion of mass party, it does not appear
that the socio-psychological dimension is a necessary element of the
definition: the mass party can be defined without raising questions about the
‘mass condition’, the exposure to mass media, other-directedness, and the
like.
Third, while a substantial organisation appears to be a necessary
requirement, the mass party cannot be identified with one, and only one,
type of structure – for instance, the branch-based party, as Duverger seems
to imply. Supposing that a fascist party is not a closed elite party, and that it
adopts a populist appeal – such as the Peronist party in Argentina – why
should it be excluded from the mass party category? Likewise, whenever a
communist party operates in a competitive party market, its cell-based
structure does not detract from the fact that it exists as an open party which
may attract a mass following. Indeed, an adaptation to the more flexible,
undemanding and extrovert organisation required for electoral campaigns
would seem to be a logical development whenever a totalitarian party does
not operate in conditions of monopoly. At any rate, whatever else the
Italian, French and Finnish communist parties may be, why should they not
also be considered mass parties? On the other hand, the American example
suggests that mass parties can well develop on the basis of a skeletal
organisation; and this appears ever more likely the more electoral
campaigns rely on the impact of the mass media rather than on door-to-
door canvassing. In short, the mass party is compatible with diverse types of
organisational structure, and, from this angle, only the organisationless
party can be ruled out.
Finally, and correlatively, a mass party remains such no matter what its
internal hierarchical structure is; it can display either democratic or
authoritarian organisational patterns. Likewise the mass party can either
be ideological or pragmatic, a devotee party or a loose associational party.
The ideology is relevant in this matter only if it actually restricts the
‘openness’ of the mass party, only if it is an elitist ideology which reflects
itself in a limited and controlled policy of admission. This is not to say that
differences in the hierarchical structure, as well as those between the
ideological and the pragmatic orientation, are of small importance. It is only
to say that these differences do not affect the mass party category as such,
even though they become relevant when we come to distinguishing the sub-
types of the mass party.
In summary, we are left with the following characteristics: (i) openness
based on political achievement; (ii) the capacity for abstraction which makes
the party as such an object of stable identification; (iii) a relatively large
following; and (iv) an extensive but not necessarily intensive organisational
structure. Admittedly, these are still vague requirements. But they can be
pinned down by distinguishing the ‘electoral mass party’ from the ‘apparat
mass party’.
So far, and as far as the general notion is concerned, parties enter the
mass party stage under this condition: that the party is no longer a loose
coalition of local notables who can easily step out at any moment. In fact,
the mass party is not only more than a mere coalition, but also more than a
pure and simple confederation of notables. As long as the leaders count
more than the linkage, the real mass party does not materialise. The mass
party resides in the linkage, in the fact that the party is made of its
connecting network. The mass party may well remain loose and thus
resemble a federation. Still, its constituent units are no longer persons but
impersonal agencies; that is, the leaders are no longer above the party. This
is why the mass party represents a turning point.
One could go so far as to suggest that before the advent of the mass
parties it is proper to speak of ‘parties’ (as stabilised coalitions of leaders)
16 Giovanni Sartori
but not of the party ‘system’ (as being a structured system). In other words,
the real systemic properties come to the fore precisely when the political
system becomes structured by national mass parties; for it is only at this
stage that the society perceives the party structure as built-in, thereby
allowing the parties to become ‘parties of identification’. However that may
be, there is a chronological dislocation, a dećalage, between the rise of the
parties and their establishment qua system; and surely an atomised party
system characterised by endemic inner-party coalition instability is only a
pre-system.
Historical Framework and Sequences

Legislative, Electoral and Apparat Parties
We may now focus attention on the sequences. At the very least, we have to
account for three stages of party development, that is, we are confronted
with three historical types of party: first, the legislative-electoral party, or
the elite intermittent party; second, the electoral mass party; and third, the
organisational mass party, or the party of apparatus.
The legislative party, which is mainly concerned with organising support
in the legislative body, actually precedes the electoral party. However, it is
only when the former expands into the latter that we may properly speak of
party. The peculiar feature of the legislative-electoral party is, then, that it
becomes concerned with the business of collecting votes, even though it does
this in an intermittent fashion; for the electoral party remains dormant
during inter-election times. The legislative-electoral parties may thus be
defined as discontinuous electoral agencies, with no permanent organisa-
tion, which are legislation-oriented. They are internally created, created by
the ‘ins’, and their identity and appeal are mainly provided by a generic
belief system, by a general value orientation; that is, they are ‘parties of
opinion’. They usually coincided, although they do not necessarily coincide
any longer, with parties of notables or of personages. They may also be
called elite parties in the traditional meaning of the expression, in the
Honoratiorenparteien meaning. The legislative-electoral party is typically a
party of individual representation, whereas the mass party is typically a
party of group representation. It also represents the coalition or confedera-
tion stage of inner-party linkage, under the requirement that such coalitions
become stabilised and reflect an electoral rather than a mere parliamentary
party. A peculiar sub-type of the legislative-electoral party is the
‘particularistic’ party, which should not be confused with the single-interest
party.
The second stage involves the electoral mass parties, which appear after a
large expansion of the electorate. The suggestion has been put forward that
the extension of the suffrage points to a second-order explanation, the
primary explanation being the rise of industrial society. However, unless this
latter notion is stretched too far, the assertion is not supported by adequate
evidence (American parties became mass parties when the United States was
largely an agricultural society). It would be more precise to say, then, that
the underlying requirement for the rise of whatever type of mass party is the
spread of literacy, in the sense that the enfranchisement of illiterate and pre-
literate masses can only produce mass or mob phenomena activated by
charismatic personal leadership (quasi-mass party). The literacy require-
ment does not imply that the new citizens should have some knowledge or
information about politics. It only implies a capacity for abstraction. For, as
we already know, there can be a mass party in the proper sense of the word
only when ‘party’ becomes the symbol that replaces personalised loyalties to
local notables, or even to national personages. Therefore, while the mass
party presupposes enfranchisement, by itself a large expansion of the
electorate is by no means a sufficient condition for its rise as a party of
identification.
The electoral mass parties may either be a development of an internally
created party (as a result of the adaptation of former notables to the new
circumstances; e.g. Tories–Conservatives, or Whigs–Liberals in England), or
they may be externally created parties, that is, they may be created by the
peculiar variety of the ‘outs’ whom Max Weber called the ‘political
entrepreneur’. The electoral mass party builds party machines which are
election-oriented (the caucus type party) and replaces the haphazard
mobilisation of the electorate by systematic, although not necessarily
continuous, activity. They are elector-oriented, however, not membership-
oriented. The electoral mass party is no longer a party of elites, but neither is
it a party of professional politicians in the strict meaning of the term; for the
party leaders often have, or formerly had, an alternative profession, and
many leaders are not merely party careerists. In this sense, the typical
personnel of the electoral mass party may be called ‘semi-professional’.
Electoral mass parties are no longer parties of opinion; they are programme
or platform parties. A peculiar sub-type of the electoral mass party is the
single-interest party – the agrarian parties in Northern Europe – that should
not be confused with the class war party; the distinguishing trait of the
electoral mass party is that it is governing-oriented, that it is a Staatspartei.
The third stage involves organisational mass parties, or parties of
apparatus. These parties are permanently organised and thoroughly
bureaucratised with a comprehensive mass organisation. Their personnel
is largely professional politicians, that is, politicians who definitely live off
politics, who do not have and never have had an alternative private
profession, and who come strictly from a party career. The parties of
apparatus are concerned with a continuous mobilisation of the masses; they
are membership-oriented, not merely elector-oriented. More than that, they
are colonisation-oriented; the very logic of the apparat party leads it to
occupy for its own sake an ever growing ‘party space’ which is largely extra-
political. Party members are interested in electoral returns less as a means of
18 Giovanni Sartori
acquiring legislative seats than as a means of acquiring generalised key

positions and extending the party network in all spheres.
Since the organisational mass parties have been externally created by the
peculiar variety of the outs which may be called the ‘believer’, they are
typically ideological parties, Glaubensparteien. While the intensity of the
ideology may have decreased, they still remain parties of the doctrinaire, or
doctrine-based type; their ‘platform’ is more than a mere platform, in the
sense that their electoral programmes do not belong to the pragmatic
variety. The peculiar sub-type of the apparat party is the class party;
however, the denominational inter-class type is another possible sub-type. It
is only with reference to the first possibility, then, that the organisational
mass party was, or is, ‘class war-oriented’ more than governing-oriented.
The foregoing outline of the stages of party development does not imply,
to be sure, that the ‘older type’ no longer exists. In fact, the older and newer
types may well coexist. Most of the small parties all over the world are elite
parties which still belong to the legislative-electoral kind. But this
overlapping does not detract from the fact that the passing from the elite
intermittent party to the electoral mass party indicates an historical trend
which is apparently non-reversible in that it establishes some points of no
return. Thus, it is not only unlikely that the mass parties (either electoral or
organisational) will be superseded by the legislative-electoral parties, but it is
also likely that the organisational dimension of parties will grow rather than
diminish, that the professional party man is here to stay, that the party of
individual representation will remain a small party, and so forth.
Trends in Political Development

One sequence, then, is fairly definitely established: the passage from the
legislative-electoral party to some kind of mass party. The problem is
whether the relationship between the earlier and the new type of mass
party is really a sequential relationship. Can it be reasonably presumed
that the electoral mass party will necessarily be followed and superseded,
in the long run, by the organisational mass party? Unquestionably the
electoral mass party was born before the apparat mass party. Does this
also suggest that the party of apparatus will end up by supplanting the
older type of mass party? Before replying, attention must be called to the
fact that the Western area has followed, since the middle of the nineteenth
century, not one but two overall patterns of development: either the
gradual passing from the legislative-electoral party to the electoral mass
party, or a somewhat direct leap from the legislative-electoral party to the
apparat party.
This difference, in turn, calls our attention to a neglected distinction
concerning the historical sequence of party systems. While some party
systems have never undergone the experience of ‘party atomisation’, other
party systems have long been, and some still are, atomised. In the case of the
United States, Britain and the Scandinavian democracies, the extension of

the suffrage has been met by larger parties, that is, by the electoral mass
party; while in the case of Italy, France, Spain and South America, for
example, enfranchisement did not produce larger parties but more parties, in
the form of party atomisation. The following hypothesis may, then, carry
some weight: that whenever the elite parties have managed to respond to
enfranchisement by transforming themselves into electoral mass parties, the
latter have prevented the emergence of the party of apparatus. Conversely,
the apparat parties have materialised out of a situation of party atomisation
and, apparently, out of the inability of the elite kind of party to adapt to
universal suffrage and thereby to impede the emergence of an atomised
party system.
In any case, the point that has escaped Max Weber and most authors is
that we are not confronted with a streamlined sequence, but with two very
different lines of development. On the one hand, the polities that have
developed a pattern of moderate pluralism are those in which the electoral
mass party was formed at an early stage, usually in the nineteenth century.
On the other hand, the polities that have given way in their mature stage to
extreme pluralism are precisely the ones which have formerly been atomised
party systems, which have never developed the electoral mass party, and
which are currently dominated by the apparat type of party.
The conclusion seems to be, therefore, that the electoral mass party, on
the one hand, and the party of apparatus on the other, are alternative rather
than sequential solutions. As is suggested by Figure 1, the legislative-
electoral party of elites has either been superseded by the electoral mass
party or by the growth of the organisational mass party, depending on
whether the party system has ever been, previously, an atomised party
system. But there has hardly been any passing from the electoral mass party
to the organisational mass party.
The question remains whether the current developments in the Western
world may bring a sort of fusion between the electoral mass party, on the
one hand, and the apparat party on the other, at least in the sense suggested
by the ‘decline of ideology’ forecast that the ideological involvement of the
latter type is likely to diminish (Bell 1960). It can be granted that the heyday
of the European devotee party, both of the Gemeinschaft and Bund variety,
F IG U R E 1
W EST ER N T RENDS OF PA RTY DE VEL OPMENT
20 Giovanni Sartori
is over. Still, as Schmalenbach (1922) already pointed out, this may be a

matter of ‘degradation of energy’, a matter of saliency. Whether there is
more to it – as the end of ideology thesis suggests – remains a matter of
speculation which is largely decided by manipulating the definition of
ideology. The electoral and the apparat mass parties have approached one
another in the sense that some of their differences are no longer as clear-cut
as they were formerly. Yet it remains questionable whether a blend of the
two types is likely, that is, whether a new ‘synthetic’ party is in the making in
the foreseeable future. As the summary presented in Table 1 suggests, there
are differences other than ideological ones which keep the two types of mass
party apart, for the combination of the various characteristics of each type
produces very distinctive syndromes.
The differences outlined so far (and in Table 1) are neat because the focus
was on pure rather than mixed types. In reality, however, pure types are
only signposts, and it is clear that at any given time a number of parties will
be located somewhere in between the signposts, because they are in
transition from one post to another. Typologically speaking this means that
once the pure types have been established, intermediate types can, and
should, be inserted in the framework. The overall historical typology can
thus account for five stages of party development: (1) the legislative-electoral
party (preceded, eventually, by the merely legislative party); (2) the ‘quasi-
mass’ party, or the pre-mass type; (3) the electoral mass party (of the skeletal
variety); (4) the ‘semi-apparat’ party; (5) the apparat mass party (of the
bureaucratic variety). Types one, three and five are pure; types two and four
are mixed. To cite only two instances, the British Labour Party and the
Italian Christian Democratic Party will be found somewhere in between the
T ABL E 1
T HE H IS TOR IC A L FR AM E W ORK
Legislative-electoral Electoral mass Organisational

party party mass party
Pre-conditions pre-party groupings legislative-electoral atomised party system
(Antecedents) party
Orientation legislation oriented election oriented colonisation oriented
Approach personality based pragmatic doctrinaire
Originators notables political entrepreneurs believers
Origin internally created internally or externally externally created
Supporters clientèle electors members
Activity intermittent/feeble election-centred permanent mobilisation
Organisation minimal/informal medium/skeletal bureaucratic/large
Organisational committee type caucus-type apparat-type
structure
Leadership personages semi-professional bureaucratic/
professional
Appeal opinion party platform party ideological party
Typical sub-types particularistic party single interest party class party
electoral and the apparat mass party. But this does not imply that type four
is in the process of synthesising types three and five; it only points to an
additional possibility which attempts to account for the variants of the real
world. Whether it is expedient to make reference to a threefold or to a
fivefold typology is a matter of context.
A final comment is in order. It is self-evident that the historical
framework under consideration is derived from, and only applies to, the
Western area. It is equally clear that it would be premature to outline
sequences vis-à-vis the emerging party systems of the fluid polities which
have no past. The caution that follows by implication is that if one is not
alerted to the different historical ages that are involved, one can hardly
attempt meaningful comparisons between a development that has required
at least a century in the West, on the one hand, and, on the other, the bizarre
and extravagant mixtures of primitivism and modern artefacts that are to be
found in the developing world. In fact, inter-area comparisons are only too
easily exposed to the fallacy of being asynchronous comparisons. In this
connection the query ‘when goes with when?’ is indeed crucial, though often
overlooked.
Naturally a vertical typology of the Western stages of party development
can only settle the problem of how to deal with our own intra-area
comparisons. Still, it can also improve inter-area comparisons by reminding
us that we have to account for minuses, that we have to make subtractions.
For instance, when one says that parties are not factions, the statement
refers to a development that has occurred in the West in the last 150 years.
But somewhere and elsewhere some so-called parties are still little more than
factions, and should be considered for what they actually are: ‘party’ is an
unwarranted and premature addition. Likewise, the ‘mass parties’ of the
fairly developed and literate societies cannot be assimilated into the ‘mass
movement’ phenomena of the pre-literate societies. The masses may well be
there, but the ‘party’ as a distinct entity is not, and has to be subtracted.
A Functional Approach
Which Functions?
Parties have a history, and can thus be qualified in a historical perspective.
Parties are organisational groups, and hence can be distinguished according
to their structures and their organisational performance. Still, a major focus
is missing. In fact, parties perform a set of system-related functions, and are,
in this sense, functional groups. It follows that parties can also be classified
according to a functional criterion. It appears, moreover, that a functional
approach is particularly rewarding. While all parties perform system-related
functions, the interesting thing is that they do not all perform the same
functions. System-related functions may indeed vary to the same extent that
party systems are at variance.
22 Giovanni Sartori
The functional line of inquiry is, then, very promising. Furthermore,

social science in general is currently laying a great deal of emphasis on
‘structural-functional’ analysis (e.g., Almond and Coleman 1960). One is
bound to wonder, therefore, why the functional study of parties has been
largely neglected and has made so little progress. Possibly one explanation is
that the more we come to functional details (as is inevitable when we
descend from the overall social or political system to its sub-systems), the
more we become inhibited by value-fear, or by our value-complexes.
Functions, it has been said, ‘are not actually functions at all, but
standards for the proper functioning’ (Lowi 1963: 571). In a similar vein one
could argue that function is a shorthand for eu-function, and therefore a
disguised way of dealing with ‘good’ functions. If the charge was that
functions ‘function well’, the accusation would not withstand examination,
for it can be readily pointed out that functions can be dysfunctional. The
accusation is more insidious, however. The charge is, in fact, that a value
criterion interferes in the selection, in deciding what is, or is not, a function.
In Weber’s terminology, one could say that ‘function’ pre-supposes
Wertrationalität, an evaluative rationalisation. This is less readily apparent
at the level of abstraction at which we speak of ‘system maintenance’ or of
‘adaptation functions’ (though a revolutionary would still consider these
functions biased by a conservative value orientation). But a value
presupposition is more readily apparent when we come to analyse, at a
more concrete level, functions such as participation, mobilisation and the
like.
The retort could be that even though functionalism is exposed to
Wertrationalität, this does not imply that functional analysis cannot escape
evaluative rationalisations. Even so, the fact remains that there is one thing
that functionalism cannot escape, namely Weber’s Zweckrationalitat. There
is no question, that is, that functional analysis is teleological. In simpler
terms, functional analysis is an answer to the question ‘what for?’ and
applies to means–ends relationships. It is correct to say, therefore, that ‘the
functions of the party can be determined only by assessment of the
consequences of party activities’ [missing reference]. More precisely, the
functions of parties are here defined as patterns of system-related activities,
the consequences of which are assessed in system benefit terms, that is, by
determining whether an activity serves the purposes of the system, or merely
the purposes of the party itself.
Admittedly, my line of inquiry is both unsophisticated and exposed to
Wertrationalität. But it seems to me that a more cautious, and nebulous,
definition of function does not allow us to proceed at the level of specificity
at which the functional analysis of parties becomes meaningful and
rewarding. As to the lack of sophistication, my feeling is that sophistication
is premature as long as we hardly know what the functions of parties are.
For the plain fact is that the literature leaves us with a casual, asystematic
enumeration of functions which, far more often than not, are mentioned in
passing in a variety of ill-defined and overlapping meanings. A tentative

inventory of the functions that are more frequently attributed to parties, or
that I consider of major importance, would be the following: participation,
electioneering, integration, aggregation, conflict resolution, recruitment,
policy-making and expression.
Participation concerns the party as creator of a ‘practising electorate’.
Participation is more than mere participation in elections, however, it is
‘taking part’ in the active and willing sense of the expression. ‘True
participation’, as Neumann (1956: 409) puts it, ‘demands political
activation through free choice and decision.’ There is, then, a more
meaningful and specific sense of the term, in which to participate means to
intervene as an attentive and interested member of the political
community. In this sense, participation presupposes a willing agent, and
the process of the entry into politics of the ‘outs’ is understood as a
process of ‘voluntarisation’.
Electioneering concerns the party as activator of predispositions, as the
‘opinion-maker’ who proposes the issues, as the ‘organiser’ of allegiance and
support. In Lazarsfeld’s terminology, electioneering may have three aspects:
activation, reinforcement and conversion (Lazarsfeld et al. 1955). In any
case, in their electoral role parties are reference groups for the voters, and
their function is to enlist the electorate. Electioneering overlaps with
participation to the extent to which the latter term is reduced to mean
electoral participation – that a person votes. On the other hand,
electioneering lays the emphasis on influence from above, as against the
spontaneity of real participation, I mean, of voluntarisation. In a more
specific sense, then, electioneering highlights the party as influencer, whereas
participation highlights the party as subject to the voter’s influence. Let it be
added that I prefer, for the sake of clarity, electioneering to ‘electoral
mobilisation’, since we now speak of mobilisation systems with reference to
the political systems in which, at best, elections amount to plebiscitary
acclamations.
Integration involves, roughly, the party as the agency that performs a
‘cohesive’ function. According to Talcott Parsons’s well known four-
function scheme, integration is the function relating ‘particularism’ to
‘diffuseness’ (Parsons et al. 1953). This conceptualisation, however, is too
abstract for our purposes. It will be more useful to pin down the concept by
distinguishing three basic meanings: (i) national integration, which points to
the problem of nation-building, of creating a national identity and of
establishing legitimacy; (ii) political integration (aside from nation-building)
which may be conceived as consensus maintenance, or even as the nurturing
of consensus; and (iii) social integration, which is again quite a different
thing, and is related to the management of cleavages. These distinctions
suggest that it would be helpful to consider nation-building a distinct
problem (in which the processes of national integration, identity and
legitimacy are inextricably intertwined), and to confine the notion to the
24 Giovanni Sartori
second meaning, the cohesive and consensus maintenance purposes of

integration.
Aggregation involves the party as mediator, as ‘broker’ of interests (which
performs the interest articulation function), and even as moderator of
demands. The aggregative function reconciles diversity with harmony by
coordinating the private interests with the general interest, or by reconciling
uncalculated behaviour. The aggregative function is also recalled by such
terms as adjustment and compromise. While some authors tend to use it
interchangeably with integration, surely this latter concept is stronger than
aggregation, for the aggregative function is basically performed in terms of
brokerage. It provides reconciliation but not, as such, integration.
Conflict resolution, or, better, the management of conflict is not – with
reference to parties – a clearly distinguishable function but rather the
outcome both of the integrative and of the aggregative functions. We often
refer to the social level of conflict resolution as integration, and to the
political level of the management of conflict as the aggregative or
conciliation functions. However, conflict resolution can be maintained as
a distinct category both because of its synthetic connotation and because it
highlights the very essence of competitive politics.
Recruitment of political leadership concerns the party as ‘nominator’, as
‘ladder’, or as channel of vertical mobility.
Policy-making concerns the party as the political decision-making agency
par excellence, as an agency which plans and carries out a policy at the
governmental level. The expression ‘party government’ usually refers to this
function, to the party as the manager of the governmental business, as the
political operator.
Expression concerns the party as the agency which typically commu-
nicates the demands of the society to the state, as the basic link or connector
between a society and its government. The expressive function is usually
absorbed into the political communication function, but the latter category
denotes a two-way flow of communication, while the notion of expression
qualifies only the ascending flow. On the other hand, I would absorb into
the expressive function the representation of interests (to the extent and in
the manner in which it is performed by parties, as opposed to the way in
which it is performed by ad hoc interest groups). The expressive function is
clearly related to elections and to participation. Still, as is the case with
conflict resolution, it has a broader coverage than its component elements.
The expressive function is a continuous flow which outlasts electoral
intervals; moreover, it embraces both the inattentive and the actively
participant public.
The foregoing enumeration is highly selective. With due acknowl-
edgement to involuntary omissions, a number of exclusions are deliberate
and should be explained. For the moment I only wish to discuss the
functions performed by the Western or Western-like pluralistic parties. This
excludes both the functions of the party–state systems, and the functions
which typically reflect the experience of the emerging nations – notably the
‘modernisation’, ‘linkage’ and ‘legitimising’ functions. Modernisation and/
or development (owing to their vagueness the notions are also used as
synonyms) indicate a cumulative goal, or a cumulation of processes, that
bracket together a number of specific functions. Supposing that modernisa-
tion is considered the pre-eminent function of the non-Western parties, then
its Western equivalent would be ‘liberalisation’, or democratisation (for
Western parties have developed democracy, not modernity). Hence the
reason that liberalisation is not considered a function applies equally to
modernisation: both concepts point to very broad goals which are
susceptible to functional underpinning, but do not, per se, qualify a
function.
On similar grounds, linkage does not usefully determine a function unless
and until we specify electoral linkage, expressive linkage, recruitment
linkage, and the like. Even if we are content with defining linkage as a mere
‘opening of channels’, these channels should not only be specified, but they
should also reasonably be expected to remain open. If so, linkage has
already been accounted for by our list; if not, the notion is a regression into
vagueness. It can be conceded that vis-à-vis the volatile polities one cannot
avoid being vague; but this is precisely why we should avoid reversed
extrapolations, that is, feeding back shapelessness where structural
differentiation exists.
The same applies to the alleged legitimising function of the modernising
parties. There are many routes to legitimacy, and many of these routes fly,
as it were, over the heads of parties. In the Western experience the
legitimising function of parties is basically performed via free and recurrent
elections; hence it pertains to the electoral function and, derivatively, to
electoral recruitment. In what sense, then, do the parties, or quasi-parties, of
the emerging states produce legitimacy? Merely because they exist as labels?
Or because they bring people to the polls, encourage participation and
provide channels of recruitment? If so, legitimacy is not, per se, a function
but a consequence of the successful performance of other functions. This is
not, however, what authors usually mean with reference to the legitimising
function of the nation-building party. Reference is usually made, in fact, to
uni-party states. It is the ‘one party’, then, that takes on the function of
rallying consensus, and thereby legitimacy, in favour of the new regime. This
may well be the case, but this has nothing to do with a legitimising function
of ‘parties’ (in the plural).
As a matter of fact, it is very doubtful whether the Western pluralistic
party systems have ever played a major legitimising role, and it is also
dubious whether party pluralism ever does. Parties (in the plural) sustain
legitimacy rather than create it; they are instruments of an existing
legitimate order, rather than midwives of a regime in pursuit of legitimacy.
Therefore, the so-called legitimising function of parties only applies to the
‘one party’, and, possibly, this function does not characterise the
26 Giovanni Sartori
consolidated party–state systems either, but only the early phase of nation-
or regime-building. This obviously excludes a legitimising function of parties
from our list; it also suggests that an indiscriminate application of the notion
to all the one-party states may be another instance of the boomerang effect.
Returning to the functions performed by the Western, or Western-like,
party systems, a second set of exclusions follows from the preoccupation of
keeping the enumeration of the functions of parties at a roughly
homogeneous level of abstraction. I have listed, in fact, only the general
headings which belong to a middle range or medium level of abstraction.
This limitation excludes both the functions which belong to a lower, more
specific level of abstraction (e.g., succession) and, conversely, the functions
that pertain to a higher and more generic level of abstraction, notably
political communication and channelling. For the same reason I have left
out the functions that qualify the overall performance of political systems,
such as system maintenance (or equilibrium maintenance), adaptation,
conversion and the like. These categories are too broad for the sub-system
level of functional analysis.
Finally, a third set of exclusions can be justified on the grounds of
simplification, that is, of setting aside functions of more dubious or
comparatively minor relevance, such as the so-called ‘labelling function’, for
instance. At the outset, a party may be little else, or little more, than a name.
This is particularly true for the stage at which parties merely consist of
provisional alliances among groups of notables. Hence one can speak of a
labelling function with regard to the early legislative party, or even to the
extreme cases of party atomisation. If so, however, the labelling function is
entitled only to a provisional distinctiveness, and I wonder whether, in its
more regularised and stabilised patterning, it does not become part and
parcel of the electoral function.
The question may be raised as to why ‘occupancy’ is not considered a
function. Likewise, why do I neglect the functional role of ‘factionalism’?
The easiest way to reply would be that these functions are of relatively
minor importance. The more serious reply is, however, that occupancy and
factionalism are excluded by definition. If the functions of parties are
defined as patterns of system-related activities that serve the purposes of the
system, it follows that neither occupancy (or colonisation) nor factionalism
(in the narrow meaning) augment the system capabilities. Rather than
serving the system, occupancy and factionalism are dysfunctional to the
system.
Functional Priorities: Criteria

With due allowance to involuntary oversights we are thus left with a list of
eight functions which characterise the major role performances of the
Western-type pluralistic parties. The problem is to convert a haphazard
enumeration into a proper classification. A sheer inventory is only a starting
point. We need a classification of functions arranged according to some kind

of meaningful order, particularly an order of priorities. And here is the rub.
The objection may be that we cannot establish functional priorities
because, as Eldersveld puts it, ‘parties are merely a particular structural
response . . . to the needs of a social and political system in a particular
milieu’. But I wonder whether this conclusion is really consistent with
Eldersveld’s (1964: 2) premise, namely, that ‘parties came into existence to
perform certain critical functions for the system, and derived their basic
form in the process of implementing these functions’. The fact that party
systems adapt to the milieus in which they operate cannot support the view
that parties are merely a response. If this were all, we should not speak of a
party sub-system but, with Marx, of a party superstructure . However, we
speak of sub-system precisely because we believe that parties perform
functions for the system. System analysis would make little sense if we did
not assume that parties are an instrument which shapes the society with
some congruity to the needs and to the overall properties of the political
system.
We should not declare a problem insoluble whenever we are unable to
solve it. And I suggest that there are two criteria which enable us to
transform our enumeration into an orderly classification – provided that we
are not too ambitious and exacting. First, variability: some functions display
a relatively invariable importance, regardless of the type of party system,
whereas other functions have a variable import, and may even cease to exist
in passing from one party system to another. Second, replaceability: some
functions are, relatively speaking, unique in the sense that they cannot be
performed vicariously by agencies and instrumentalities other than parties,
whereas other functions are either largely shared or can be performed
otherwise.
The first question, then, is: which party functions owe their importance to
the setting and are to be considered, therefore, of typically variable salience?
For instance, the function of integration ranks low in some systems, either
because the party system is such that it is unable to produce integration – as
in the case of extreme pluralism – or because a society and a nation are
already as integrated as they can be. Also, the extent to which party systems
are able to perform the aggregative function is very different, depending on
the type of party system. Similarly, the function of policy-making has been
taken over by parties in some countries much more than in others: party
government is very meaningful in the United Kingdom, but hardly so in most
Latin American countries. All these functions may therefore be considered
secondary, in that they are not equally salient in all party systems.
Coming to the second criterion, the question is: which party functions are
typically shared and, therefore, replaceable? In addition to the policy-
making function (which can also be seen from this perspective), both conflict
resolution and recruitment typically belong to the replaceable functions.
Polities have dealt with conflict resolution, in the broad sense of the
28 Giovanni Sartori
expression, long before the advent of parties; and it should be remembered

that majority rule (or other rules of the kind), a system of law and
jurisdictional means have long been the primary methods for solving not
only private but also political conflicts. Likewise, the problem of recruiting
political leadership was handled, not always unsuccessfully, long before the
existence of parties, and surely it can be solved by following other paths.
We thus come to the final test: which functions are not replaceable? There
is an end to multifunctionality. While any one structure may perform
different functions, the reverse does not always hold true: there are functions
that cannot be performed by diverse structures. This is the case, I suggest, of
the functions of participation, electioneering and expression. At least, a one-
party or a no-party polity do not provide, in any meaningful sense, for
participation, elections and the expressive function. Conversely, we know of
no other way, aside from a party system structure, of having these functions
adequately performed.
We are thus left with three unique, non-replaceable functions. Are these
of equal importance? If the question is pressed in this direction, my
conclusion is that the expressive function has an ultimate priority; for
elections and participation are not ends in themselves, but the means for
making parties expressive agencies. I thus rejoin the initial thesis that
expression is the sine qua non for requiring a party system. At this point,
however, the argument can be better qualified.
Expression and Participation

The contention that the expressive function ranks first can be buttressed by
pointing to the non-replaceability of a party system on three counts: first, it
can speak for the entire political community; second, it allows a reliable
verification of consensus; and, third, it forces the reception of demands into
the machinery of government. This should be understood to mean that
without a party system a political system lacks the following capabilities:
first, channels for providing a broad and diffuse expressive coverage; second,
mechanisms for ensuring, via electoral and competitive testing, the
authenticity of expression; and, third, ways of ensuring the policy
implementation of demands.
It is immediately apparent that the first two qualifications pinpoint the
difference between parties and pressure groups, for the expressive role of the
latter is neither ‘generalised’ (pressure group demands only express the
interests or the views of the group itself) nor ‘verified’ in terms of electoral
testing. Thus a pressure group sub-system cannot be considered in any sense
a substitute for a party system; it does not really share in the kind of
expressive role played by a party system. On the other hand, the third
qualification points to a neglected, though vital, difference between the
expressive function and the political communication function. The latter
may only amount to providing information, whereas what is implied in the
notion of the expressive function of parties is that parties supplement sheer

communication with efficacy. This may make all the difference.
The focus on expression also makes us qualify better a number of other
functions. For instance, the question ‘what are parties for?’ often receives
this kind of blunt reply: parties exist for the sake of providing a government.
However, this answer is not only parochial (for it applies especially to two-
party systems) but it also plainly misses the point. Since any political system
provides for leadership, the relevant question is: what kind of leadership? If
we have the party as a recruiter, it is because we want ‘representative’
leadership, that is, because we are interested in a mechanism of recruitment
that fulfils the expressive function.
Supposing that parties do not secure representative leadership; supposing
that they are not utilised as a means of ‘expressive selection’; then why
should we have recourse to party recruitment? Surely the answer is not that
parties remain the best means of qualitative selection. Qualitatively
speaking, the party channel has often produced very poor leadership.
Therefore, if we no longer look for ‘responsible’ leaders who are an
‘expression’ of their electors, we can think of a number of better ways of
securing a political class that meets the qualitative standard.
Moreover, it is only with reference to the expressive function that we
neatly perceive the difference between the kind of responsive, if not
outward-directed, leadership which follows from party pluralism, as against
the kind of unresponsive, inner-directed leadership which is germane to the
party–state systems. Also the party in the singular recruits a government.
Hence, to say that parties in the plural do the same thing simply means that
we are missing the difference.
The same applies to the functions of participation and electioneering.
Elections and participation have become very loose words, relating to a
ceremonial aspect rather than to the substance of the matter. However,
no camouflage holds if we recall that elections and participation mean
one thing within the context of the expressive function, and quite another
thing if they are turned into plebiscitarian devices of manipulation and
control.
The participation that serves the purposes of a responsive political
system based on expressive mechanisms is not merely the amount of
‘taking part’ that consists of going to the polls. It is not even something
that can be ascertained merely by pointing to the fact that people vote.
In the specific meaning of the term – the meaning that applies to a
democratic context – participation presupposes the passage from passivity
to voluntarisation, that is, to an individual will that is stimulated to act
according to its own judgement. In this sense, participation is the very
opposite of mobilisation, for the former concept qualifies ‘self-motion’,
whereas the latter refers to somebody who is ‘put into motion’ and
manoeuvred from above. There is a world of difference between a
voluntary and a coercive way of getting people interested and active in
30 Giovanni Sartori
politics. And whenever participation is functionally related to the

expressive function, this difference cannot be missed.
In summary, while some party functions are secondary (i.e., may not be
performed) and other party functions are replaceable (i.e., may be
performed otherwise), there is one function which displays equal salience
in all party systems and which cannot be performed vicariously: allowing the
governed to express their demands freely and in such a way as to render
them effective within the very machinery of government.
To be sure, there may be polities in which the public is not articulate
enough to have something to express, or something worth expressing. But I
am unhappy with sentence such as: ‘in the modernizing systems . . . parties
are rarely limited to the more or less passive role of transmitting private
wants to the makers of public policies’ [missing reference]. The sentence is
meant to be neutral. It strikes me, however, as conveying to the reader a
counter-evaluation, or a de-evaluation. After all, the ‘passivity’ of the
expressive party is the activity (and hence the liberty) of the citizens! Surely,
the sentence was written in all innocence; but this is precisely why it can be
taken as an illustration of how the boomerang effect is liable to produce a
distorted perspective.
Granted that parties may have to take on the role of mobilising and
modernising entrepreneurs, the fact remains that mobilisation systems are
poor substitutes for what a representational system provides: they lack built-
in steering mechanisms capable of ensuring that they will not go off course.
Mobilisation for what? For the establishment of a Pharaonic system? If a
party is not receptive to public wants, how will it achieve the public good
that it claims to pursue? Not only is it dubious whether parties are really
suited to the role of modernising entrepreneurs, but to speak of their
expressive role as a ‘limitation’ is also to overlook the most important lesson
of politics: target attainment is an empty promise unless it is implemented by
corrective and controlling mechanisms.
Aggregative, Divisive and Mobilising Parties

Once party functions have been meaningfully ordered, the question is
whether we can derive from an analytic set of functions a concrete typology
of party types. Do parties differ by displaying distinctive patterns of
functional characteristics? From this angle the interesting functions are
precisely the ones that vary in relation to the context, that is, the more
variable functions, particularly those of aggregation, integration and
conflict resolution. The invariant functions, on the other hand, the ones
that are performed by all the pluralistic party systems, point to functional
uniformities and not to functional differences.
Take, for instance, Schattschneider’s (1942) account that in the United
States parties simplify alternatives, produce automatic majorities and play a
moderating role. It is immediately apparent that this is not what happens in
the multipolar polities. A more-than-five-party system neither simplifies the

alternatives nor produces automatic majorities; it does not perform a
moderating function either. It will suffice to recall that extreme pluralism
includes anti-system parties – and eventually class parties that are still ‘class
war’-oriented – and that in such systems extremism pays off.
In the more abstract language of the categories employed so far, this
means that when we pass from a bipolar to a multipolar polity the
integrative function is hardly performed at all, the aggregative function is
performed poorly, and more often than not the management of conflict is
left to means other than the party system. Roughly, indeed very roughly,
two opposite functional patterns can be singled out: the systems
characterised by integrative parties as against the systems characterised by
divisive parties. The first are reconciliation systems, the latter are not. These
are polar extremes, however, and a more flexible classification of functional
systemic patterns would be the following: (i) integrative party systems; (ii)
aggregative party systems; and (iii) divisive party systems.
It is clear that these are projections, and that I am now characterising
the party system according to the main functional features of its major
parties. In other terms, the party system is qualified by how its leading
parties functionally interact among themselves. Let it also be clear that the
labellings suggested above are only shorthand headings. A more precise
wording would indicate that the integrative pattern also includes the
successful performance of the aggregative function: the first type is
therefore actually integrative-aggregative. The second label only implies
that brokerage and the aggregative functions are more successfully
performed than the integrative one (otherwise the system would become,
in the long run, a two-party system). Hence a more precise denomination
would be aggregative semi-integrative. Finally, with particular reference to
the third type, it should be emphasised that the labels only indicate
prevalences. When a system is characterised by divisive parties, this does
not imply that brokerage and aggregation are non-existent; it only implies
a low standard of performance of the cohesive functions. Thus a more
precise denomination for the third systemic pattern would be divisive semi-
aggregative.
As can be easily inferred, the integrative party systems are likely to
correspond to the two-party systems; the aggregative party systems are more
likely to correlate with the case of moderate pluralism, and the divisive party
systems with the case of extreme pluralism. When there are only two parties,
they are catch-all, as Kirchheimer (1966) would have said, and the party
system would hardly function if it were divided by an unreconciled cleavage.
When there are three or four parties, the major parties are no longer catch-
all but they still catch much, and they will be interested in providing
aggregation whenever they cannot supply integration. When there are six,
seven or eight parties, most of them catch little, cleavages are the only secure
basis of electoral support, and votes may be gained more easily by tearing
32 Giovanni Sartori
the system apart (at the extremes and by exploiting conflict) than by
employing moderate tactics at the centre. We are then at the threshold where
parties revert to being ‘parts’, unrelated to the whole.
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West European Politics

ISSN: 0140-2382 (Print) 1743-9655 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fwep20

Party Types, Organisation and Functions

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Sartori, Giovanni (1970). ‘Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics’, American Political

Party Types, Organisation and

The Structural-Organisational Approach

presentation is to begin with the historical focus. On the other hand,

organisation to which Duverger calls attention is never adequately under-

The picture is complicated further by the fact that Duverger provides, in

via party-nominated members – the existing key managerial positions of a

beyond which an area becomes, for all practical purposes, organisationally

Old and New Parties

parliamentary organisation’ – to the fact that the members of parliament no

‘parties of principle’ and again there is no question that the parties of

The Mass Party

Historical Framework and Sequences

acquiring legislative seats than as a means of acquiring generalised key

Trends in Political Development

United States, Britain and the Scandinavian democracies, the extension of

is over. Still, as Schmalenbach (1922) already pointed out, this may be a

Legislative-electoral Electoral mass Organisational

The functional line of inquiry is, then, very promising. Furthermore,

passing in a variety of ill-deﬁned and overlapping meanings. A tentative

second meaning, the cohesive and consensus maintenance purposes of

Functional Priorities: Criteria

point. We need a classiﬁcation of functions arranged according to some kind

expression, long before the advent of parties; and it should be remembered

Expression and Participation

notion of the expressive function of parties is that parties supplement sheer

politics. And whenever participation is functionally related to the

Aggregative, Divisive and Mobilising Parties

the multipolar polities. A more-than-ﬁve-party system neither simpliﬁes the

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