European Journal of Political Research 37: 309–333, 2000.
© 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
309
Political parties in parliamentary democracies: Making
delegation and accountability work
WOLFGANG C. MÜLLER
University of Vienna, Austria
Abstract. In modern democracies political parties exist because (1) they reduce transaction
costs in the electoral, parliamentary and governmental arenas and (2) help overcome the dilemma
of collective action. In Western Europe political parties are the central mechanism
to make the constitutional chain of political delegation and accountability work in practice.
Party representatives in public office are ultimately the agents of the extra-parliamentary party
organization. In order to contain agency loss parties rely on party-internal mechanisms and the
institutionalisation of party rights in public rules and, in contrast to US parties, they apply the
full range of ex ante and ex post mechanisms. Generally, the role of party is weaker the further
down the chain of delegation.
Introduction
European democracies are not only parliamentary democracies but also party
democracies. This fact has been seen both as a problem and a solution to the
question of how democracy can be made to work in practice. Criticism was
particularly strong in the pre-World War II period. Then political parties were
victims of fundamental criticism by academic authors as well as politicians.
Some critics contrasted party democracy with an idealised version of democracy
based on individual representation. Others had a mythical “whole” –
the nation – as their normative reference point. They criticised parties for
dividing the nation and promoted non-democratic alternatives. Some of these
arguments have been revived every now and then in the post-1945 period and
new criticism has been added from a “participatory democracy” perspective
(e.g., Barber 1980). Nevertheless, the idea that political parties are essential
for practicing democracy in the modern state has become dominant.
There is considerable disagreement between the various strands of democratic
theory, however, on the precise role political parties should perform in
order to make democracy work (see Ware (1987) for an excellent overview).
In this article, I take an empirical perspective. I focus on the role of political
parties in the context of the delegation and accountability perspective which
is fully outlined in Strøm’s (2000) contribution to this special issue (see also
310 WOLFGANG C. MÜLLER
Mueller 1996: 17). Of course, an article can neither do justice to the enormous
organizational variation of European political parties nor to the considerable
institutional variation of parliamentary systems.
In this article I first place parties in the chain of delegation in parliamentary
systems. Next, employing transaction cost and collective action theory,
I discuss why rational actors turn to political party. In the fourth section I
discuss the role of extra-parliamentary party organizations. Then I briefly map
out the agency problems political parties face when placing their agents in
public office. The penultimate section is an inventory of party-internal mechanisms
and institutional features which can help to contain agency losses. The
conclusion sums up the main arguments of this article.
Political parties and the chain of delegation in parliamentary
democracies
Most constitutions in parliamentary democracies do not mention political
parties at all. Those which do mention political parties are deliberately vague
on their role in the political delegation process; while the existing “party
clauses” in constitutions hint at their presence in the political delegation process,
those constitutional clauses which describe the process in some detail
tend to ignore political parties. Nevertheless in practical politics two kinds of
delegation take place – one constitutional (to the governmental institutions)
and one political (to political parties). This is sketched in Figure 1.
The left and right sides of Figure 1 show the delegation process as outlined
in many constitutions. The middle introduces party or more precisely parties
and hence inter-party democracy. Party is central in all steps of the delegation
process in the plural. Each step of the delegation process is structured
by the interaction of political parties. In all steps of the delegation process
we find party competition and cooperation. Figure 1 sketches a two-party
coalition. (Note that the relations between government and opposition parties
could be visualised in a similar way. It would only require leaving out the
governmental institutions in the last three steps for one of the parties.)
Figure 1 can help us to discuss normative and empirical questions of the
parties’ place in the political delegation process. I begin by briefly summarising
the prevailing normative reflections. These are more relevant for the
empirical side of the question than deliberations by democratic theorists. To
begin with, the legitimacy of parties in Western constitutional systems varies
from step to step. Party intervention is most appreciated in the first step of
delegation, the one from voters to members of Parliament (MPs). Here the
mainstream of modern democratic theory argues that party intervention is
necessary to make elections meaningful.
POLITICAL PARTIES IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES 311
Party interference is generally considered less legitimate in the second
step, from MPs to Government. According to the constitutions, MPs enjoy a
free mandate. The interference of political parties hence is often seen as exercising
illegitimate power over MPs. Nevertheless the majority of democratic
theorists would argue for the need of parties in this step of the delegation
process. Without party programmes (if only in the loosest sense) and MPs
committed to these programmes, elections would not allow the voters to exercise
prospective influence over policy. Moreover, it is generally accepted
that parties are essential for making the democratic accountability of MPs
meaningful. This critically depends on the voters’ ability to observe the behaviour
of their representatives once they are elected. Cohesive political parties
make this a manageable job and thus reduce the moral hazard problem (i.e.,
enhance the principal’s ability to observe the agent’s behaviour).
In principle, the same should apply to the next step of the delegation
process, the one from government to individual ministers. When it comes
to government, however, party intervention is often considered less legitimate.
The concept of party government (Rose 1976; Katz 1986) is largely an
academic one which does not rally much public support behind it in its fullyfledged
version. After all, it should be the government of the nation, not of a
party. Government members are exposed to the public, they are personalities
in their own right, while parties often appear as anonymous machines.
Finally, party intervention into the delegation from ministers to civil servants
is simply considered illegitimate according to the dominant Weberian
view of bureaucracy. Civil servants should merely implement general rules
and they should do so impartially. From a normative point of view, there is no
room for party.
Figure 1 also provides an assessment of empirical regularities of party
intervention in the chain of delegation and accountability. As indicated by
the strength of the arrows, party is central in the first step of the political
delegation process. Elections are structured by political parties. Voters often
do not know their MPs. Even where they do, in Europe the personal vote
is weak compared to the party component. In the second step of the delegation
chain, governments are created, maintained and brought down by the
decisions of party leaders (Laver & Schofield 1990). While MPs are crucial
for the implementation of these decisions, they hardly make them in their
capacity as deputies. Single-party governments have a clear party agenda,
often summarised in electoral manifestos, and within coalition governments
the main lines of division are those between their party components. Despite
the overwhelming normative conviction in west European democracies that
party should not structure the final step in the delegation process, parties
312 WOLFGANG C. MÜLLER
Figure 1. Political parties in the delegation chain of parliamentary democracies: a realistic
assessment.
frequently impinge on this step by making partisan appointments which in
some cases (e.g., Belgium, Italy) add up to a fully-fledged patronage system.
The rationale for political parties
As mentioned above, normative theory is nowadays overwhelmingly positive
about political parties’ having a stake in democratic governance (Robertson
1976; Ware 1987). But what is the rationale for political parties intervening in
the process of popular representation from a positive point of view? Why do
rational individuals – voters, activists, candidates, MPs, cabinet members –
play the party game? Building on recent work in the rational choice tradition,1
the argument can be developed in analogy to the theory of the firm. The
general answer is that political parties reduce transaction costs and solve
collective action problems.
POLITICAL PARTIES IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES 313
Reduction of transaction costs
Political parties reduce transaction costs in politics, that is, the costs of using
the market mechanism, specifically in the pursuit of votes (in elections,
parliamentary votes). These are “search and information costs, bargaining
and decision costs, policing and enforcement costs” (Dahlman 1979: 148).
Internal organization replaces the market by hierarchy. This allows the owner
to “invoke fiat to resolve differences”. Moreover it allows “easier and more
complete access to the relevant information when dispute settling is needed”
(Williamson 1981: 559).
According to transaction costs logic, political parties have emerged where
individual politicians or short-term alliances would not produce satisfactory
solutions. In Europe parties have emerged to enhance work in the electoral,
parliamentary and governmental arenas. Indeed, the initial establishment
and/or shaping of the current form of these arenas has been a product of party
activities since the 19th century.
In the electoral arena party candidates take advantage of their party’s
“brand name” for reasons of information economisation and strategic voting.
The candidates’ party label allows voters to make more informed judgements
about how they will behave once elected (Kiewiet & McCubbins 1991: 39;
Wittman 1995: 10, 21; Lupia & McCubbins 1998; Jones & Hudson 1998:
184). Once national parties have become the vehicles of political competition
there is hardly a market left for individual candidates. Then voters vote for
parties (rather than individual candidates) because they do not want to waste
their votes. This argument hinges on both the superior electoral viability
of party and the dominance of party in the parliamentary arena. In parliament
members of the respective parties act cohesively to protect their “brand
name” and to maximise their chance of winning legislative battles (Cox &
McCubbins 1993). The same logic applies to the governmental arena.
This presentation leaves open some important questions. To begin with,
where are the boundaries of party? The theory of the firm sees the boundaries
of its subject “where the costs of organizing an extra transaction within the
firm are equal to the costs involved in carrying this tansaction in the open
market” (Coase 1988: 43). In a similar vein Aldrich (1995: 24) has stated:
“politicians turn to their political party – that is, use its powers, resources, and
institutional forms – when they believe doing so increases their prospects for
winning desired outcomes, and they turn from it if it does not”. If individual
politicians abandon their respective parties, interest groups, issue networks,
personal alliances, etc. could help them to achieve their electoral and legislative
goals. At a minimum, it would mean simply that politicians exercise
the formal powers which come with their public offices without caring about
their party’s preferences.
314 WOLFGANG C. MÜLLER
All this does not automatically lead to the political party being superior
to “spot market solutions”, i.e. the formation of ad-hoc alliances. In
business “the costs of organizing certain transactions within the firm may
be greater than the costs of carrying out the exchange transactions in the
open market” (Coase [1937] 1988: 45; Williamson 1975: 117–131; 1981:
556–562). Charles Perrow (1986: 24–31) claims that markets are generally
superior to hierarchy, because within firms contracts (between employers
and employees) still need to be written, opportunism still exists, internal
production involves a loss of flexibility, internal coordination has its costs,
and market-like mechanisms such as internal pricing and cost systems within
organizations are unreliable.
Whoever is right with respect to business transactions, the case seems
more straightforward in politics. To begin with, voters are interested in policy
or patronage. For them it only makes sense to vote for a party if it is likely to
make a difference in policy or patronage pay-offs. Political parties therefore
have to make credible commitments that they will deliver once elected. Part
and parcel of this commitment is their claim that they will indeed control the
remainder of the delegation chain after the initial step from voters to MPs. As
concerns work within parliament, forming winning alliances is costly. This
means that already formed ones will be stabilised (Cox & McCubbins 1994:
227). According to Aldrich (1995: 36) “it is likely that transaction costs for
parties are far less (. . . ) than those for forming new majorities for each piece
of legislation”.
However, in at least one respect, the analogy between political parties and
firms does not work well. As mentioned above, in firms the market is replaced
by hierarchy which in principle can be enforced easily. Politics is based on
hierarchy as far as concerns the constitutional chain of delegation. However,
political parties have remained largely outside this formal framework. While
they may adopt their internal rules and hierarchy, these are not directly backed
up by the formal authority of the state. The crucial question is how parties
can enforce their decisions on the holders of public office. I will address this
question in the following sections.
Political parties and the collective action problem
Since the path-breaking work of Olson (1965) it is widely recognized that
having a common interest under most circumstances is not a sufficient condition
for collective action. Rational individuals will not participate in collective
action or will contribute less than they ought to, although successful collective
action would benefit them (free-rider problem). Hence, why did rational individuals
succeed in forming political parties in the first place? While it is easy
to see that individual politicians are better off if they are backed by a party,
POLITICAL PARTIES IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES 315
it remains to be explained how parties come into existence. Although this is
not the central question of this article, which is concerned with a situation
in which parties do exist and hence already shape the strategies of individual
actors, this question should not be bypassed.
Aldrich (1995: 28), in his magisterial study of American parties, convincingly
argues that the formation of parties allow politicians “to win more
of what they seek to win, more often, and over a longer period”.2
His historic
account of party formation in the legislative and electoral arenas puts
party formation (with the chance of winning in the future) against losing
(now and also in the future). The few dozen members who made up the
first Congressional parties may already have constituted small (or privileged)
groups in Olson’s sense, which is to say that their personal interests sufficed
to make their individual contributions significant and made their contributions
individually rational. Nevertheless, Aldrich (1995: 78–82) places special
emphasis on the role of political entrepreneurs who take over the costs of organising
the party. These political entrepreneurs constitute the “critical mass”
(Marwell & Oliver 1993) required to get parties started. Political entrepreneurs
most critically contribute to solving the dilemma of collective action by
monitoring other party members in order to ensure that they indeed contribute
to the collective goal. Political entrepreneurs are compensated by a claim on
some of the expected payoffs from collective action, in particular attractive
leadership positions in public institutions (e.g., government office).3
Indeed,
party histories as a rule identify party founders (i.e., political entrepreneurs),
and they have almost always ended up in the most attractive public positions
the respective parties had to fill.
Before going into the details of the role political parties play in contemporary
politics, I will briefly consider two alternatives: ad hoc alliances of
individual politicians within the framework of formal political institutions
and parliamentary committees. In the parliamentary and governmental arenas
ad hoc alliances would mean vote trading. One of the problems with this
strategy is that in politics there is no underlying medium of exchange such as
money is in business. As a consequence “trading votes requires future reliance
and hence the opportunities for reneging” (Weingast & Marshall 1988: 158).
As game theory has proven, repeat play alone often is insufficient to maintain
these deals (Weingast & Marshall 1988: 142; Cox & McCubbins 1993: 99–
102). Rather institutional solutions are required which complement reputation
building and trigger strategies and “prevent the breakdown of cooperation at
precisely the circumstances under which these other strategies fail” (Weingast
& Marshall 1988: 142).
Weingast & Marshall’s (1988) classic treatment of the US Congress has
identified the committee system as the institutional device to protect le-
316 WOLFGANG C. MÜLLER
gislative bargains against opportunistic defection. In this perspective the
committees are assemblies of “preference outliers”. Congressional rules give
committees agenda power. This means that they have a monopoly on bringing
new legislation to the floor and hence can choose between new legislation and
the status quo. Proceeding from US history and the British present Weingast
& Marshall (1988) identify strong political parties as a potential alternative
for the institutional underpinning of legislative exchange. Strong parties are
those that control entry into competition for individual seats and the positions
of power within the legislature and which wield considerable influence over
legislative benefits (Weingast & Marshall 1988: 158–159). New research on
the US has systematically elaborated and lent weight to this perspective (Cox
& McCubbins 1993; Aldrich 1995).4
In the European context, no-one would seriously consider any alternative
to political parties as the most important political coordination mechanism.
They have set the stage since the First World War or even earlier. “Externally
created” political parties emerged as vehicles of social classes excluded from
the parliamentary arena by restrictive electoral law. “Internally created” political
parties emerged first – in a loose form – to reduce the transaction costs
of forming winning legislative alliances. Later they became tighter and also
organized outside parliament in order to meet the challenge of the “externally
created” political parties (Duverger 1959). In the contemporary context
political entrepreneurs enter a stage which is already set by the existence
of political parties as the main vehicles of political careers and coordination,
and, as Aldrich (1995: 24–25) has remarked, “their existence creates
incentives for their use”. Although occasionally political entrepreneurs try to
establish new political parties, the usual pattern is to join existing ones.
As mentioned above, political parties solve the collective action problem
by establishing an institutional arrangement – party organization – which
allows the monitoring of the other party members in order to ensure that
they indeed contribute to the collective goal. The most elaborate version of
this perspective is Cox & McCubbins’ theory of legislative parties. In order
to overcome the dilemma of collective action political parties have leaders
who (1) internalize the collective interest of the party and (2) monitor their
fellow partisans. Party leaders control selective incentives. Cooperating party
members get rewarded, while those whom the leaders deem to be “defecting”
are punished (Cox & McCubbins 1993: 91). Party leadership positions are
both attractive and elective. This means that there is internal competition for
these positions and that incumbents can be held accountable if they fail to
act in the collective interest. Although there may be disagreement about the
best team of party leaders, leadership will be stable (rather than challenged at
POLITICAL PARTIES IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES 317
each decision) “because some agreed-upon leadership team is better than no
agreed-upon leadership team” (Cox & McCubbins 1993: 135).
Cox & McCubbins have developed their theory for and applied it to the US
Congress. In this article I use it as a starting point to discuss the role of parties
in European parliamentary systems. Their characteristic chain of delegation
(Strøm 2000) and strong extra-parliamentary party organizations constitute
obvious differences, the consequences of which for political parties will be
highlighted in the subsequent sections.
Extra-parliamentary party organizations and the chain of delegation in
parliamentary democracies
Cox & McCubbins (1993, 1994) concentrate on the legislative party. It is
only through the Congress members’ considerations of constituency interests
that extraparliamentary factors come into play. Thus, their model of party
organizations comes close to Downs’ (1957: 25–26) teams of leaders.5
In contrast,
the typical European political party has a permanent extra-parliamentary
organization which typically parallels the organization of the state. Party activists,
who may be recruited from a more passive mass membership, elect
party officials. These staff the various party bodies. At the same time public
offices at all levels are filled with party representatives. These offices include
those of MPs and, if the party is in government, cabinet members. Thus a twotrack
system is established (Figure 2) with a party track and a constitutional
track. Three types of delegation take place: within the party organization,
within the constitutional chain, and between the party organization to the
party representatives in public office. This article concentrates on this last
type of delegation.
So far the relationship between the party organization and the party in public
office has remained underspecified. Indeed, the arrows indicating influence
between the party organization and the party in public office in Figure 2 point
in both directions. The question is: Where are the party leaders, i.e., those
who internalize the collective interest of the party and monitor the party’s
other office holders? In principle, these may be either the party officials in
party office or those in public office. Answering this question the one way or
the other would turn principals into agents and vice versa.
For the sake of simplicity my point of departure is a set of well-established
party models developed in the empirical literature. While the traditional cadre
party (or party of individual representation) came close to the US parties, the
mass integration party constitutes the most interesting contrast (Neumann
1956; Duverger 1959). This type of party was externally created (in the
late 19th century) and its extra-parliamentary layer has remained dominant.
318 WOLFGANG C. MÜLLER
Figure 2. Two party models and the chain of delegation.
Both the parliamentary party and the party team in government are only
instruments of the extra-parliamentary party, which is best exemplified by
parties with a class or denominational origin (Duverger 1959). Mass integration
parties transformed themselves into catch-all parties around the 1960s
(Kirchheimer 1966). More recent changes have been captured in the cartel
party and modern cadre party models (Katz & Mair 1995, 1996; Koole 1996).
What these three models have in common is that the extra-parliamentary party
organization is less important vis-à-vis party representatives in public office
than in the mass integration party.
As I have argued above, the main prize for the party leaders is the
most attractive public offices the party has to fill. Recent empirical work
on party-government relations indeed suggests that it is the leaders of the
extra-parliamentary party who occupy the most attractive government offices
which are available to their party (Blondel & Cotta 1996: 249–254; De Winter
1991). Exceptions to this rule occur mostly when the governments are considered
unstable and potentially short-lived, hence when government office is
not all that attractive. The leaders of opposition parties also occupy attractive
public offices, mostly in parliament.
POLITICAL PARTIES IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES 319
To be sure, there are two avenues to the leadership of the extraparliamentary
party organization – the party channel and the public office
channel. As a rule these channels are tied to each other, with individuals
working up both ladders simultaneously. However, occasionally politicians
do not advance equally on the party career track as in the public office track
or have a head start by being appointed to government office on the basis of
an extra-political career or closeness to the party leader. These appointments
are nevertheless party-dependent, as the incumbents remain accountable to
the party leaders. Even if public office holders of this type take over the
leadership of the extra-parliamentary party it is up to the party organization
to make this decision. European party organizations typically have a
formal party-internal selection mechanism which directly or indirectly also
involves the rank and file. A party will select those individuals as leaders
who are considered most likely to achieve the party’s collective goals. These
can either be policy, office, or votes (Strøm 1990; Müller & Strøm 1999). A
vote-seeking party, for instance, may be well advised to select a leader who
does not have the typical “party smell” and hence appeals to independent
voters. Nevertheless, leadership selection remains a party choice. To put this
discussion in a nutshell, despite the transformation of European parties in the
post-war period, party representatives in public office ultimately remain the
agents of the extra-parliamentary party organization.
How can the party’s will be enforced on its representatives running for
or in public office – candidates, MPs, cabinet members? Cox & McCubbins
(1994) have argued that US legislative parties can withhold electoral benefits
(the use of their brand name) and intra-legislative benefits (i.e., things that
increase the value of the seat) from those Members of Congress who are
not loyal to the party. In the European context the situation is more complex,
given the predominance of extra-parliamentary party organizations and
the parliamentary chain of delegation, including the executive. Parties can
exercise their influence over the holders of public office via party-internal
mechanisms and via the institutions and mechanisms of the parliamentary
chain of delegation. The latter form of party control can in principle take
two forms: (1) the institutionalization of party rights in public rules (such as
the constitution, the electoral law, and the parliamentary rules of procedure)
and (2) the party’s giving directions to public office holders who in turn use
their institutional prerogatives to make other public office holders behave
according to the party line. In this article I will concentrate on party-internal
mechanisms and on the institutionalization of party rights.6
Before doing so
in the penultimate section, I briefly address potential agency problems.
320 WOLFGANG C. MÜLLER
Figure 3. Shirking and sabotage.
Potential agency problems
Party membership of MPs and cabinet ministers is often assumed to rule out
conflicting interests between principals and agents, thus solving the agency
problem. Common party membership should indeed contain agency problems
compared to situations where agents are randomly chosen. Nevertheless,
there is reason to believe that party membership of the agents is not sufficient
to assume identity of interest. This is reflected, for instance, in the incompatability
rules regarding party and public office of the early workers’ movement,
which have been revived by the Greens in more recent decades. The fact that
these rules have now largely been abolished probably tells more about the
impracticability and unintended negative effects of these rules than about the
irrelevance of agency problems in political parties.
Agency problems result from conflicting interests and assymetric information.
According to Brehm & Gates (1997: 50) agents may either work in
the interest of their principal (no agency problem) or may engage in leisureshirking,
dissent-shirking, or sabotage. These problems will be discussed in
the remainder of this article with the help of Figure 3. It shows the range
of policy positions which can be found among the members and officials
of a political party in one policy dimension. Shirking and sabotage by public
office holders – in particular ministers – may affect the party’s ability to move
the policy status quo (sq) to its ideal position (p).
Leisure-shirking
Agents, here: party representatives in public office, may simply not do their
best for the principal. Rather than doing their paper work, MPs may prefer
to enjoy the pleasures of the capital. Likewise cabinet members can work
towards maximising the limelight and having “state dinners in interesting
and exotic places” (Laver & Schofield 1990: 40) rather than bringing home
policy gains. Cabinet members may also “go native”, that is, they may find
it more convenient to subscribe to the conventional wisdoms of their depart-
POLITICAL PARTIES IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES 321
ments rather than to work day and night to push through party goals against
a civil service displaying reluctant or even negative attitudes towards policy
change. In coalition governments or parliamentary negotiations, party agents
may settle with less than they could have extracted from their partners (m1),
giving their best as negotiators. In Figure 3, leisure-shirking agents would do
nothing or not much to move from sq to p, not because they like sq, but
because of the costs of pursuing policy change. In the worst case scenario,
inactive agents would not prevent other actors from moving policy in the
direction of m2.
Dissent-shirking
Political parties are not monolithic. On most policy dimensions and issues
they include a range of positions. To avoid agency loss, the party’s agents
(e.g., committee members, ministers) should represent its ideal position on
each policy dimension. Dissent-shirking means that party agents do not do
their best to achieve the party’s most preferred position because they themselves
have different preferences (Brehm & Gates 1997). A cabinet minister,
for instance, may prefer sq or m1 to p. This means either that the status
quo is preserved or that the party experiences an improvement over the status
quo, for instance by moving to m1, which, however, is not enough to satisfy
its ambitions. This conflict can also be one over time horizons rather than
substance. While the agent may move in the direction the principal wants
him or her to move, it may not be fast enough.
Political sabotage
While shirking leads to insufficient or no policies, political sabotage means
the production of negative outputs. Party representatives actively work against
the interest of their party. In Figure 3, such a case is illustrated by policy
position m2, which a minister may prefer and work towards. While still within
the range of ideal points represented within the party, for the party leadership
it is inferior not only to ideal position p but also to the status quo sq.
Party agents in government office may find this the best opportunity to
“correct” the party line. In their capacity as head of government departments
they enjoy enormous informational advantages vis-à-vis their party comrades.
This is their most important resource for doing sabotage to the goals of their
party (Brehm & Gates 1997: 19). Hidden information is particularly relevant
to the extent that party goals are not fixed once and forever but are a function
of parameters over which the executive members enjoy informational
advantages.7
322 WOLFGANG C. MÜLLER
Political sabotage is not confined to the governmental arena. In the
electoral arena the candidates’ ambition to win single-member districts or
preference votes may lead them to present their own sets of policies which
are popular among their specific target electorates but which are at odds with
the party’s general strategy. While the individual candidate may benefit from
this behaviour, it will make the party look unreliable and harm its electoral
prospects (Robertson 1976: 50–51; Kiewiet & McCubbins 1991: 43).
In the parliamentary arena MPs may sabotage their party through indiscipline.
The Third French Republic – the republic de députés – is the prototype
of frequent behaviour of this kind, which was also prevalent in the Fourth
French and "First" Italian Republics. By strategically abstaining or voting
against the party line, an MPs may achieve individual policy and career goals,
since if a government fell it would be replaced by a government of the same
parties (Hine 1993: 170–171). “Therefore killing one’s own government is
not (. . . ) giving the government away, but giving oneself a chance of entering
the cabinet”, as Sartori (1997: 111) puts it. Obviously the frequent use of
secret votes in parliament encourages this kind of political sabotage (Hine
1993: 190–193).
Containing agency losses: party mechanisms and institutional features
Argueably, the agency problems outlined in the previous section are the exception
rather than the rule in European party democracies. This may indeed
be true. However, it does not mean that political parties are immune against
agency loss. Rather it may indicate that European parties have developed
effective mechanisms to contain agency loss. Indeed, some institutional reforms
(such as the severe restrictions on the use of the secret vote in Italy in
1988) were deliberate attempts to solve agency problems. This section maps
out the most important party mechanisms and institutional features of parliamentary
democracies that contain agency losses. In so doing, I look at four
strategies principals (here, political parties) employ for this purpose (Kiewiet
& McCubbins 1991: 27–37). Two are ex ante (contract design; screening and
selection mechanisms) and two ex post (reporting requirements and monitoring;
institutional checks). In their study of US Congressonal parties, Kiewiet
& McCubbins (1991: 48) found contract design and reporting requirements
and monitoring not to be relevant. The situation is quite different in Europe.
In the remainder of this section I discuss the four strategies one by one.
In each case I follow the chain of delegation in parliamentary democracies
from voters via MPs, Prime Ministers or cabinets, and individual ministers to
civil servants. And in each case I look for party-internal mechanisms and the
institutionalization of party rights in public rules.
POLITICAL PARTIES IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES 323
Contract design
Parties intervene forcefully in the delegation from voters to MPs. Jones
& Hudson (1998) argue that political parties offer an “implicit contract”
between voters and politicians and thereby reduce the scope for opportunism
by politicians. While the interests of politicians are short lived, political
parties are enduring organizations (Aldrich 1995: 23) interested in maintaining
their reputation. In the words of Wittman (1995: 21) “other members of
the party have strong incentives to maintain the reputation of the party since
the brand name is valuable in attracting votes”.
But how can the party keep its deal with the voters? According to the
implicit contract (which may be formalised by party rules), MPs are obliged
to party discipline. “Party discipline helps curb the ‘excesses’ of politicians”
(Jones & Hudson 1998: 177–178). But how to enforce party discipline? First,
in most situations party discipline is a necessary condition for satisfying the
politicians’ career ambitions. These, in turn, may be progressive, static, or
discrete (Schlesinger 1991; Strøm 1997: 159). In the first two cases (i.e., if
MPs have the ambition to be returned to parliament for another term, or if they
aim at promotion within parliament, to the European Parliament, to executive
office, etc.), the party’s ability to withhold these offices is a powerful means
to make MPs follow the party line. There is no doubt that European political
parties are the gate-keepers to these desired offices.
What is less clear, however, is who controls party nomination for parliamentary
elections and hence what “party discipline” means in the final
consequence. In most parties the vast majority of candidates are nominated
by the constituency party organizations (Gallagher & Marsh 1988; Katz &
Mair 1992). If MPs are exposed to cross-pressures between local and national
party interests, they will presumably do what suits their career best.
Probably they will support local demands if they see that their renomination
otherwise would be jeopardised. If renomination seems safe, however, ambitious
MPs are likely to follow the national party’s line in order to enhance
their career chances in and beyond parliament. In contrast to renomination
as a parliamentary candidate, which appears on the agenda only infrequently,
party and parliamentary offices in many countries can be withdrawn at any
time (Damgaard 1995). Empirical studies show that sanctions are not imposed
mechanically (Piper 1991) or in a minority of cases only (Saalfeld 1995: 286–
308). Yet the very existence of these sanctions and the MPs’ knowledge that
they are indeed imposed at least occasionally help to contain agency loss.
The moral hazard problem tends to be not severe in the case of MPs
in parties with strong parliamentary representation. As to the former, their
behaviour in the electoral arena takes place before a large audience. This also
applies to much of their parliamentary activity. It is easy for the party leaders
324 WOLFGANG C. MÜLLER
to check whether MPs observe party discipline in the plenary meeting, as
well as in committees (Damgaard 1995). While probably more critical, the
problem of hidden information also remains within narrowly drawn bounds.
In large parties the informational advantage of individual MPs over other
party officials (other MPs, cabinet members, etc.) tends to be small, though it
can be considerable in smaller ones.
Political entrepreneurs have one main incentive to remain loyal to their
party: asset specifity. Once they have joined a party they are earmarked, that
is in order to maintain credibility they are constrained in only being able to
present the package of policies of the respective party (Jones & Hudson 1998:
184). To be sure, there are prominent individual exceptions (e.g., Winston
Churchill) as well as new parties which establish themselves as break-away
from other parties. Nevertheless, asset specificity tends to be greater in politics
than in economics – politicians tend to be “locked into” the transaction
(Williams 1981: 555).
Politicians’ party loyalty is most difficult to achieve if their ambition is
discrete, that is, they desire one particular public office – here that of MP
– for one term only. This situation has been discussed as the “last-period
problem” (e.g., Wittman 1995). It can be summarized as follows: Politicians
cannot transfer their reputation in the way a firm’s goodwill can be capitalized
and sold. Consequently, those who will not run again in the next election no
longer have the electoral incentive to live up to their promises. Voters anticipate
this and do not reelect politicians to their last term in office. Thus what
was planned to be the individual politician’s second-to-the-last term becomes
the last term, and so on. Thus the last-period problem makes the reputational
solution unravel all the way. As a consequence, individual reputation is an
insufficient means of linking MPs and voters.
Does the same logic apply if political parties replace voters as principals?
According to Wittman (1995: 20–21), the answer is ’no’: “the most important
role in overcoming the last-period problem is played by the long-lived party”.
First, the party has ideological inducements to make the incumbents’ behave
in their last terms. To the extent that politicians are policy-seekers, they want
“to uphold the party’s reputation so that the party’s candidates will continue
to win in the future” and implement their values. However, the policy-seeking
argument is not fully convincing. To be valid it would require the individual
politician’s policy preferences to be identical with those of the party (p in
Figure 3). Second, Wittman (1995: 21) introduces the idea of political heirs,
to whom politicians want to transfer their reputation and hence contine to
uphold the party reputation. While this may be true in many cases, frequently
the relations between incumbents and their potential successors (e.g., of the
young-man-in-a-hurry type) are strained and hence not likely to produce the
POLITICAL PARTIES IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES 325
required incentive structure. A further agument may be added: there may be
uncertainty on what will be the politician’s last term. This requires openended
careers, which are more likely in the USA (as exemplified by, e.g.,
Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms) than in Europe, where political parties
tend to have formally or – in most cases – informally fixed retirement ages.
Finally, to the extent that politicians are office-seekers, they may be
compensated by other means for not shirking in their last period, e.g., by
appointment to non-elective offices after their last term (Wittman 1995: 21).
Evidence from Costa Rica, a country with term limits, supports this idea
(Carey 1996). In particular, countries with a large public sector should have
enough attractive offices available. Although this condition is generally met
by European democracies, they differ substantially in the actual use of these
resources for compensating (former) politicians, with, for instance, Belgium
being much more “generous” than Scandinavian countries. In any case not all
parties have access to these resources.
A special case to maintain politicians’ loyalty during and beyond their
last term is the mass integration party, covering, with its auxillary organizations,
the whole life of its members, from cradle to grave (Neumann 1956;
Duverger 1959). Turning one’s back on this kind of party puts at risk one’s
whole “social existence”. Social relations may collapse with party membership
for two reasons: the deliberate exclusion of “traitors” from the party
community, or merely because the party had been the place to meet. While
the all-encompassing party is now history, elements of it have survived in
catch-all parties and beyond. The more parties lose these properties, the more
important the last-period problem becomes.
Thus far I have concentrated on the career incentives of MPs. To the extent
that MPs are policy-seekers, they will consider the fact that without party they
have virtually no influence in parliament unless their vote is pivotal (Cox &
McCubbins 1994; Wittman 1995: 21). In contrast, maintaining party discipline
allows them to win “more often” (Aldrich 1995: 28). This is because of
the norm of reciprocity, which means that the other MPs of their party will
also follow the party line and help them win in matters where the party’s
policy is (almost) identical to their own preferences.
The Prime Minister (or, in coalition governments, the party’s most important
cabinet member) is likely to be the party leader, i.e., the one who
has the prime responsibility for monitoring the other party officials. Thus the
constitutional agency relationship is turned around. While the MPs play a
role in holding the party leader accountable (i.e., making sure that he or she
indeed acts in the interest of the party), it is the party leader who delegates
specific tasks to the MPs and monitors how these are implemented.
326 WOLFGANG C. MÜLLER
When it comes to delegating to individual cabinet members, the party and
constitutional chain of delegation are united again. With individual cabinet
members there is a greater potential of agency loss than with individual MPs,
because the problems of hidden information and particularly hidden action
are more severe. It is much more difficult to observe whether they fulfill their
part of the contract. On the other hand, cabinet members are easier to punish
than MPs. In the worst case, the Prime Minister can simply dismiss them.
As pointed out above, the assumption made in the constitutions is that
the governments’ party composition does not lead to civil service agency
problems. If parties do not want to rely on the contract the civil servants have
with the state, they can offer special partisan “contracts”. These oblige civil
servants not just to be loyal to the law and the government of the day, but to
a specific political party. In other words, the civil servants’ oblige themselves
to work towards p in Figure 3. The party compensates these civil servants by
providing their job in the first place and/or helping them advance the career
ladder. However, the hidden information and hidden action problems remain.
Again a party of the mass integration type is the best safeguard against these
dangers. If the patronage strategy works, parties may nevertheless find themselves
in office with civil cervants who have a “contract” with a different
party. Loyalty to party may produce disloyal civil servants. A patronage
strategy is likely to advantage those parties which are in office frequently
and therefore can staff the permanent bureaucracy with their trustees.
The role of political parties below cabinet can also be institutionalized
by the establishment of genuine political appointees. The German beamtete
Staatssekretäre, who temporarily retire when the political leadership changes
hands, constitute an example. The strategy of providing the ministers with
large personal staffs is found more frequently in Western Europe than politically
accountable civil servants. However, country differences are vast with
respect to building party strongholds in the administration (Müller 2000).
I now turn to the direct institutionalization of party rights. Without giving
details, Duverger (1959: 198) mentions “constitutional provisions which,
in some countries, compel a parliamentary representative expelled from his
party to present himself again to the electorate”. Such provisions clearly
would be helpful for maintaining party discipline. In most countries, however,
parliamentary seats are tied exclusively to individuals. Democratic theorists
have occasionally suggested making continued party membership a condition
for maintaining a parliamentary seat. Accordingly, those who resign their
party membership or who get expelled would automatically lose their seat
(Kelsen 1929). These suggestions were echoed in German discussions in
the 1960s and 1970s (Müller 1974) without, however, being consequential.
The only country where party membership is given preference over the free
POLITICAL PARTIES IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES 327
mandate is India. Individual defectors automatically lose their seat. Only in
the case of party splits, that is when a party is abandoned by one-third of its
MPs, are these allowed to maintain their seat. These and similar proposals are
still in the arsenal of institutional engineers (Sartori 1997: 192).
The fact that automatic resignation is not available in most countries has
not stopped political parties searching for means which would allow them to
kick out MPs during their term. Duverger (1959: 198) mentions the device of
the blank resignation: “candidates are compelled to sign, before their election,
an undated letter of resignation; the party will fill in the blanks and forward
the resignation should the representative once elected ever prove insubordinate”.
This method has also been a long-standing practice in the major Austrian
parties (the so-called Verzichtserklärungen). However, Duverger (1959: 198–
199) is right that this is not (or no longer) an effective means. More important
is the social and frequently also economic punishment which often is at the
party’s disposal for “traitors” (Maderthaner & Müller 1996). MPs who are
party or trade union employees may lose their jobs. Those who work in the
public sector may find their further career jeopardized. And even those in the
private sector may find it more difficult to do business or to get access to
public services.
The role of party can also be institutionalized in public rules indirectly, by
framing the conditions of political competition in ways which systematically
favour political parties over individual candidates or loose electoral alliances
and which strengthen the party vis-à-vis its own members. Thus the electoral
law may contain a nationwide threshold in percent of valid votes, thus de facto
ruling out individual candidates. Likewise, closed-list PR systems preclude
candidates who have not been prioritised by their party from getting elected.
Political finance rules can stack the deck in favour of permanent parties and
concentrate resources in the hands of party leaders. Likewise, parliamentary
resources (finance and personnel) can be given to the parliamentary parties
rather than to individual MPs and the parliamentary rules of procedure can
systematically favour parliamentary parties over individual MPs.
Screening and selection mechanisms
Principals cannot observe their agents’ actual performance until after having
installed them. However, they can look for reliable signals of the potential
agents’ qualities and interests.
Potential parliamentary candidates often have to go through long periods
of apprenticeship before they can win their party’s nomination or move up
to “eligible” slots on the party list. In particular they serve in party and subnational
public offices before they are nominated as parliamentary candidates.
During this process parties check their moral qualifications and make sure
328 WOLFGANG C. MÜLLER
that they acquire a certain amount of political professionalism, for instance
learn to deliver a speech, argue in a discussion, understand their institutional
environment, etc. Parties also allow for the specialisation of candidates and
MPs. Both voters and parties are better off if MPs represent a wider spectrum
of expertise.8
The screening of cabinet ministers within parties is also a long-term process.
The service of potential ministers in the parliamentary party and/or
sub-national and party office provides the selectors with ample cues. Even
political “outsiders” recruited to cabinet office often have a record as party
experts and advisors. The requirement of party screening is institutionalised
in the UK and Ireland by the rule that a seat in parliament is a precondition
for appointment to the cabinet.
As concerns delegation within the cabinet screening and selection can only
relate to designating specific cross-departmental tasks, for instance, working
out an employment programme, to specific cabinet members. In most cases
discretion will be limited, because typically formal competences go together
with specific portfolios.
When it comes to making civil service appointments, it is mostly ministers
who act in behalf of their party. But there are exceptions. Back in the 1950s,
the major Austrian parties had special departments in their headquarters
which supervised and co-ordinated civil service recruitments. In Belgium,
the personal cabinets of the ministers are still staffed by the parties (rather
than the minister) (De Winter, Timmermans & Dumont 1997: 402).
Reporting requirements and monitoring
Parties may in order to avoid hidden action and hidden information, establish
procedures which require their agents to report relevant information and
actions they have taken. This strategy can have considerable costs since it
deflects time and attention away from tasks that agents would otherwise
be performing. It may also not be effective since “the agent has incentives
to shade things, to make reports that reflect favourably upon himself, or to
reveal information in some other strategic manner” (Kiewiet & McCubbins
1991: 32). Therefore principals typically also monitor their agents (“police
patrol” oversight) and are interested in receiving information from affected
third parties (“fire alarm” oversights) (McCubbins & Schwartz 1984). “Fire
alarms” are not costly to the principal, but they can be strategic and hence
misleading (Lupia & McCubbins 1994).
Reporting is a permanent feature of many parties. MPs regularly report
to their constituency organization. Ministers report to cabinet or, in coalition
governments, to the party team in government. They also report to the parliamentary
party and, less frequently, to the party executive committee and
POLITICAL PARTIES IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES 329
the party congress. Some of these reports may be little more than propaganda
and all will reflect favourably upon the respective agent. Nevertheless, some
of the audiences are well positioned to challenge the agents. They can do so
on the basis of their own monitoring (e.g., committee members, parliamentary
spokespersons) and what they learn from “fire alarms”. The available empirical
information suggests that parties, although generally falling short of text
book party government, indeed exercise a considerable amount of permanent
control over their cabinet members (De Winter 1993; Laver & Shepsle 1994;
Blondel & Cotta 1996). The party organization “on the ground” often functions
as a “fire alarm” concerning policy implementation and consequences.
These alarms have the advantage of being relatively reliable, since “people
with similar interests have little incentive to mislead each other” (Lupia &
McCubbins 1994: 108).
Institutional checks
Institutional checks are defined as follows: when authority has been delegated
to an agent, there is at least one other agent with the authority to veto or
to block the actions of that agent (Kiewiet & McCubbins 1991: 34). In the
context of this article it means that authority is divided or fragmented in the
party at large, for instance, in a triangular way between the parliamentary
party, the party team in government, and the party executive committee. Notwithstanding
the primacy of the extra-parliamentary party organization (see
above), this indeed seems to be the case in many parties. Crucial decisions
often originate from the party in government, but the parliamentary party
and the extra-parliamentary party leadership exercise veto power, at least in
the sense that no action is taken until the issue has been reconsidered and
an attempt has been made to hammer out a compromise. At lower levels
individual ministers, party committee members and occasionally also other
party representatives (e.g., sub-national public office holders) often function
as institutional checks.
Conclusion
In this article I have discussed how political parties intervene in the chain
of delegation in parliamentary democracies. Rational choice theories suggest
that political parties exist because (1) they reduce transaction costs in the
electoral, parliamentary and governmental arenas and (2) help overcome the
dilemma of collective action. The second purpose is met by the parties having
leaders who (1) internalise the party’s collective interest and (2) monitor the
other party members. Party leaders have selective incentives available, as Cox
330 WOLFGANG C. MÜLLER
& McCubbins (1993) have argued. They reward those party members who
cooperate and punished those who don’t.
On the basis of this article’s survey some general points can be made
about parties in the political delegation process in Western European parliamentary
democracies. Here, political parties are the central mechanism to
make the constitutional chain of political delegation and accountability work
in practice. European parties are clearly more relevant as political coordination
mechanisms than their counterparts in the USA, for which the theories
discussed in this article have been developed. In Europe party representatives
in public office in the last consequence have remained the agents of the extraparliamentary
party organization. In order to control the delegation chain
political parties rely on party-internal mechanisms and the institutionalisation
of party rights in public rules. They apply the full range of ex ante and ex post
mechanisms to contain agency loss. In contrast to the findings for the USA
(Kiewiet & McCubbins 1991), the ex ante mechanisms of contract design and
screening and selection are particularly important.
However, there are important differences between the various steps in the
delegation chain, between countries, and over time. Generally, the role of
party is weaker the further down the chain of delegation. Notwithstanding the
dramatic differences between electoral systems, political parties have been
very effective in building institutions that protect their control of elections.
Party control over MPs is also very high: government formation and maintenance,
legislation, and other parliamentary activities are overwhelmingly
party-structured. Parties also control the daily work of the executive, though
agency problems are certainly greater than with respect to MPs. Parties are
least able to control the final stage in the delegation chain – the behaviour
of civil servants. The fact that the role of political parties deteriorates the
more the delegation chain develops, reflects increasing informational asymmetries
and the relevance of normative constraints (i.e., what party influence
is considered legitimate or at least tolerable). There are also considerable
differences between parliamentary systems with respect to the parties’ control
of the delegation chain. There are systems which are, or at some time were,
fully-fledged partitocracies (Belgium, Italy, and Austria), systems in which
political parties play a central but not all-embracing role (e.g., Germany,
Norway), and systems in which parties are less enduring organizations than
vehicles tailor-made for the personal ambition of individual politicians, as has
been the case in the Fifth French Republic.
Finally, there are reasons to belief that there are also differences over time.
At the risk of oversimplification, parties have a less central role in the delegation
process than 20 years ago both in their legitimacy and effectiveness.
However, by and large the party-based mechanisms still work. While far from
POLITICAL PARTIES IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES 331
perfect, political parties can still be considered the most important means to
make delegation and accountability work in Western European parliamentary
systems.
Acknowledgements
I thank the journal’s reviewers, Torbjörn Bergman, Delia Meth-Cohn, and
particularly Kaare Strøm for helpful comments.
Notes
1. See Cox & McCubbins (1993), Aldrich (1995), Wittman (1995), Jones & Hudson (1998).
2. Laver (1997: 87) is more specific. According to his theoretical account, political entrepreneurs
have at least the following three incentives to form parties: (1) to control
sufficient skills and resources to submit realistic tenders for political service contracts in
the modern state, (2) to restrict competition (what in turn allows them to get the maximum
payoffs from these contracts), and (3) to gain strategic bargaining advantages which stem
from combining into larger groups.
3. See Laver (1997: 68–68) for a good general account of political entrepreneurs.
4. It has been questioned by Krehbiel (1993), who distinguishes party from preferences and
speaks of party influence on legislative behaviour of MPs only when they act in line with
their party but against their preferences.
5. Aldrich (1995: 163–193) has an interesting chapter introducing party activists which
echos Robertson’s (1976) theoretical considerations.
6. The means the parliamentary chain provides are discussed in the other articles of this
special issue.
7. An example would be a party which wants to maintain a certain level of military capacity,
but to concentrate government funds on other activities once this level is achieved.
8. It is doubtful that pre-parliamentary specialisation covering a broad range of subjects
could be achieved without national party organizations. Probably, homogeneous electoral
districts would select typical representatives (e.g., rural districts would send farmers)
while heterogeneous electoral districts would send generalists rather than specialist.
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Address for correspondence: Professor Wolfgang C. Müller, Department of Government,
University of Vienna, Hohenstaufengasse 9, A-1010 Vienna, Austria
Phone: +43 1 4277 38306; Fax: +43 1 4277 9383; E-mail: wolfgang.mueller@univie.ac.at