Democracies without Parties

Abstract

The belief that modern democracy is party democracy is widespread. However, the belief may be questioned. A number of small independent island states that subscribe to a high extent to democratic values, standards, and institutions manage without political parties. In all, six such cases exist, namely, Belau (Palau), the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, and Tuvalu. The analysis of these cases is guided by three general assumptions: (a) the impact of diminutive size on the existence and number of parties, (b) the corresponding impact of geographical noncontiguity, and (c) the impact of culturally defined resistances against party life and party rule. Comparisons with conditions in other small island states suggest that the assumptions are valid given that extreme values are entered into the analysis. Extreme smallness, an extremely archipelagic geography, and an intense cultural resistance all contribute to an absence of political parties in democracies.

Democracies in crisis

“…The data sources which are used in this study contain no information about the conditions ENPP and electoral disproportionality in the Marshall Islands or the condition electoral disproportionality in Mali. Therefore, I consulted additional sources such as Mozaffar (1997), Anckar and Anckar (2000), Mozaffar (2002), Lindberg (2005), Siaroff (2006) when I coded these three conditions. Deriving from the information in the additional sources results in Marshall Islands being coded to have a low level of ENPP and a high level of electoral disproportionality, and Mali being coded to have a high level of electoral disproportionality.…”

Small Polities: Tyrannized by Majorities?

“…However, whereas the first observation is correct, the second is not. There are indeed democracies without parties, and furthermore, these cases are to be found precisely within the microstate camp (Anckar & Anckar, 2000). This being the case, it becomes necessary to introduce a distinction between democracies with and without parties into the considerations.…”

On Some Methodological Approaches to Investigation of Political Parties / Keletas metodologinių požiūrių į politinių partijų tyrimus

“…The combination of these characteristics turns any created work into a starting point for further studies. The given research, on the one hand, relates to nearly a hundred-year old tradition of studying political parties, the appearance of which was caused by and became one of the first striking features of "the rebellion of the masses" 2 which, in its turn, was triggered by the industrial revolution with its ambivalent sociopsychological consequences and democracy system 3 . On the other hand, it does not fit in with both political science and a traditional ideographic strand in historical science, thus being rather an attempt at synthesising history and sociology, which characterises "a new historical science whose beginnings are usually associated with the journal Annals founded in 1929 by Bloch and Febvre" 4 .…”