DIMENSIÓN: NORMAS DE CONVIVENCIA

The mere existence of a political party as an organizational structure is usually not sufficient for it to perform its functions, whether it intends (or is supposed to) to manage societal conflicts or aims to contribute to democratic consolidation. In order to become functionally meaningful, a political party needs to transform

95 _{Kiiza, Svåsand and Tabaro,}

Party Developments in the Run-Up to the 2006 Elections in Uganda. A Research Note, p.7.

from an organization into an institution, i.e. its procedures and activities must become routinized and durable over time.96 _{This process of}

institutionalization

has been defined in various ways, including “the process by which organizations and procedures acquire value and stability” and “the way the organization ‘solidifies’ (…) [and] becomes valuable in and of itself”.97 When focusing on the institutionalization of individual political parties, Randall and Svåsand’s definition captures not only structural-organizational but also attitudinal dimensions: “the process by which the party becomes established in terms both of integrated patterns of behaviour and of attitudes, or culture”.98

Randall and Svåsand’s comprehensive analytical framework draws from the work of four authors who have written about (party) institutionalization. Huntington defined the political institutionalization of any group or procedure, including political parties, on the basis of four criteria or scales: adaptability- rigidity, complexity-simplicity, autonomy-subordination, and coherence-disunity. The logic being that the more adaptable, complex, autonomous and coherent a party is, the more institutionalized it is. Conversely, the more rigid, simple, subordinated and less unified, the lower its level of institutionalization.99 Panebianco identified two measures for party institutionalization, including a party’s degree of autonomy in relation to its environment and its degree of ‘systemness’, which refers to the internal coherence of the party organization.100

96 _Peters,

Institutional Theory in Political Science. The ‘New Institutionalism’, p.29; See also

March and Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions. The Organizational Basis of Politics.

97 _Huntington,

Political Order in Changing Societies, p. 12; and Panebianco, Political Parties,

p.49 and p.53.

98 _{Randall and Svåsand, “Party Institutionalization in New Democracies”, p.12.} 99 _Huntington,

Political Order in Changing Societies, pp. 12-24.

100 _Panebianco,

Arguing that institutionalization does not solely concern the routinization of organizational aspects of a party, Levitsky argues that it is also important to look at ‘value infusion’, i.e. the extent to which a party becomes “infused with value beyond the technical requirement of the task in hand”.101 Finally, Janda draws attention to the external dimension of institutionalization, which refers to the societal perception of a party.102 After an in-depth comparison of these different conceptualizations, Randall and Svåsand propose a straightforward framework that outlines four central dimensions of party institutionalization covering the structural/attitudinal and the internal/external aspects of the process.103 Considering the importance of the concept of party institutionalization in this study, it is worth exploring Randall and Svåsand’s framework in greater detail.

Systemness is the structural-internal dimension of party institutionalization

and refers to the “scope, density and regularity of interactions that constitute the party as a structure”. It captures both Panebianco’s measure of systemness and Huntington’s criterion of complexity. Systemness is said to be influenced by the origins and subsequent growth of a party, the resources (including funding) available to it, the relationship between party leader and party organization, the degree of factionalism and the degree of clientelism.104 These factors have usually impacted party development in developing countries differently than in Western (European) contexts. In the absence of dues-paying members, for example, many political parties in developing countries have had to rely on

101 _{Levitsky, “Institutionalization and Peronism. The Concept, The Case and the Case for}

Unpacking the Concept”, p.79, quoting Selznick, Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation, p.17.

102 _Janda,

Political Parties: A Cross-National Survey.

103 _{Randall and Svåsand, “Party Institutionalization in New Democracies”, pp. 12-13.} 104 _{Randall and Svåsand, “Party Institutionalization in New Democracies”, pp.13 and 17.}

private or public sources of funding. Because of their incumbency and access to power, ruling parties have often relied on profitable links with business groups or used their clientelist networks for securing popular support during elections, or, indeed, used public resources directly. Opposition parties, however, usually lacked financial resources, unless they were able to secure the sponsorship of wealthy business men. The absence of a sustained and reliable source of income has negatively impacted on the organizational capacities of many political parties in the developing world, particularly in countries emerging from war as we shall see later.

The level of “freedom from interference in determining its own policies and strategies”, or decisional autonomy, is the second structural dimension of party

institutionalization. It is an external aspect insofar as it says something about a party’s strength and position vis-à-vis actors outside its own structures. This is a slight adaptation of the autonomy criterion by both Huntington and Panebianco in the sense that it is more responsive to different possible forms of interdependence between parties and other actors. The two aspects said to influence decisional autonomy are the existence of linkages between the party and other actors, such as the state or civil society groups, as well as the presence of so-called ‘sponsoring institutions’. Traditionally, the latter include trade unions, professional associations or other extra-parliamentary institutions from which parties can draw support. More recently these have included diaspora groups and transnational party networks. Nevertheless, in many countries in

Africa and Asia, the linkages between parties and other civil society actors often remain limited and weak.105

Value infusion, the third attitudinal-internal dimension, refers to “the extent

to which party actors and supporters (..) acquire an identification with and commitment to the party which transcend more instrumental or self-interested incentives for involvement”. In the context of developing countries it is usually not class that is the key issue of identification, but other issues such as ethnicity, region, religion and/or language. The degree to which supporters therefore can identify with a political party very much depends on whether that party is recognized as representative of a particular ethnicity, religion or language. In addition, value infusion is also influenced by a party’s ability to use clientelist practices as “party support would be conditional on the expectation of tangible benefits to the individual or community”.106

The fourth and final attitudinal-external dimension is reification. This refers

to “the extent to which a political party becomes installed in the popular ‘imaginary’ and as a factor shaping the behaviour of political actors”. This covers Janda’s notion of the importance of party’s external relations. The degree of reification is said to be shaped by whether a party is seen as having a certain (unique) place in a country’s history and symbolizes particular values; how well it can project its message, especially through effective use of the media; and its

105 _{Randall and Svåsand, “Party Institutionalization in New Democracies”, p.14 and pp.22-23.}

See also Grabendorff, “International Support for Democracy in Contemporary Latin America: The Role of the Party Internationals”; and Widner, “Political Parties and Civil Society Societies in Sub-Saharan Africa”.

longevity, i.e. its ability to survive over time.107 As with the other dimensions, these factors are assumed to play out differently in developing countries than in Western developed countries. Referring to the latter factor, longevity, this is generally a problem for most parties in the developing world. Although there are parties with a long history, the majority of political parties in Sub-Sahara Africa and Asia date from the period of decolonization in the 1950s and 1960s. Many did not even emerge until the ‘third wave of democratization’ of the 1980s and 1990s and are therefore only several decades old at the most. This short life span usually has a negative effect on how well parties ‘stick’ in the minds of people, and even whether they are considered a factor to reckon with by other more established institutions like the state and the military.

Randall and Svåsand’s model does seem to represent a clear step forward in comparison with the other measures of institutionalization offered in the party politics literature and has a number of advantages. The distinction between external and internal as well as structural and attitudinal dimensions, for example, not only helps to broaden the scope beyond the narrow view of a party as an isolated entity, but also provides a much-needed correction to the emphasis on organizational-structural aspects in the study of political parties. Also, because their model builds on and integrates other notions of party institutionalization put forward in the literature without trying to replace or discard them entirely, it allows the researcher to remain flexible in the exact application of the model depending on the particular theoretical interests or empirical circumstances. In addition, because of the clear distinction made between party and party system institutionalization at the outset of the

framework, it also removes any potential analytical confusions between the two (see also section 2.6 below). And finally, because Randall and Svåsand focus specifically on the situation in new democracies in ‘Third World’ contexts, the model is well-suited for the analysis of party development in post-war developing countries as well.

The only potential problem with the model lies in the empirical application of the two attitudinal dimensions, ‘value infusion’ and ‘reification’. These dimensions are not as straightforward to analyze or measure as the other two dimensions, and might by some perhaps be considered as effects rather than characteristics of party institutionalization.108 Nevertheless, the overall model

covers all the main aspects of the institutional strength of individual parties and is therefore a useful analytical tool for this research.