61st Political Studies Association Annual Conference

Transforming Politics: New Synergies

19 - 21 April 2011

Novotel London West

Personal and personalized party

Notes on a theoretical framework

Giuliano Bobba (University of Turin)

giuliano.bobba@unito.it

Antonella Seddone (University of Cagliari)

asedd@tiscali.it

FIRST DRAFT

Please do not quote without authors’ permission

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In recent decades, the process of the personalization of politics has become

increasingly central in liberal democracies. Even the least attentive observer cannot

escape the new importance played by the leaders. In reference to this trend, the

literature emphasizes on the presidenzialization of politics, tracing evidences on

different levels: the executive power, political parties and electoral processes (Poguntke

and Webb, 2005). The growing strength of the executive power leads to a separation

and a deep gap from legislative assemblies, which results in a greater autonomy of the

governments from parliaments. Moreover, even within the electoral process, it is

possible to find other evidences. On the one hand, a progressive personalization of the

communicative strategies in mobilizing the electorate has pointed out. On the other

hand, some changes in the same direction are found even in the electoral rules, more

and more oriented toward a majority principle of legitimization of monocratic offices.

Furthermore, always on the electoral level, there is a change in the logic of the vote.

Citizens seem to be increasingly volatile and detached from ideological loyalty (Dalton,

1984). Finally, the political parties are concerned by an enhanced personalization that

affects its structures from an organizational perspective [considered as the centrality of

the leaders in defining the ideological goals of the party] but also from a strategic point

of view [such as the use of personalization as a resource in communication and

mobilization].

This paper focuses precisely on this point: the relationship between the process of

personalization and the development of political parties. Although the literature offers a

wide range of reflections, many aspects remain unexplored, firstly, because the

phenomenon has been studied mainly from specific points of view – political

communication, professionalization of the political crisis of political parties,

mobilization capacity – but without going so far as to trace the contours of the concept

of personalization in relation to the strategic and organizational parties‟ orientations.

Here we want to reflect on the theme of the personalization of political parties in an

attempt to offer a systematic theoretical notion by proposing a framework of

interpretation.

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1. The crisis and renewal of political parties

1.1 The evolution of parties in an historical and systemic perspective

The contexts within which parties operate and develop appears increasingly complex

and in some ways paradoxical. Despite the increasing feelings of antipartitism (Scarrow,

1996; Poguntke and Scarrow, 1996; Bardi, 1996, Dalton, 2004) and anti-politics

(Mastropaolo, 2000; 2005), which by the way testify to the crisis of representation,

parties reaffirm their centrality and demonstrate some degrees of resistance, in

particular, in the relationship which they maintain with the state (Katz and Mair, 1994,

2009).

The decline in levels of political participation is mediated by political parties. The

decline of active form of militancy or in the electoral turnout is a symptom of a deep

political disaffection with parties, the political organizations that, until a few years ago,

appeared to be irreplaceable in the articulation of political representation. Liberal

democracies have changed, societies are very different, and social cleavages (Lipset and

Rokkan, 1967; Bartolini and Mair, 1990), upon which the demand for political

representation were based are irreparably changed and variously articulated with respect

to the past. The collapse of ideological boundaries, the globalization and the economic

dimension of politics, the social change in a postmaterialist direction (Inglehart, 1998;

1988; 1984), on the one hand, have made parties less capable of taking, mediating and

proposing solutions for social demands with roots in supranational dynamics. On the

other hand, these changes have emancipated citizens from the constant reference to

political parties as interpreters of their instances. In this situation, the traditional socio-

political cleavages are no longer capable of structuring the ideological anchors of

citizens to political parties and therefore are no longer adequate to guide the strategies

and political mobilization of the parties (Pennings and Lane, 1998). The social and

political cleavages – which have been an essential key in the interpretation of the link

between political parties and supporters – are less relevant in guiding militants‟ attitudes

and parties‟ supporters, but more likely to respond to other mobilizing solicitations

(Blondel Thiébault et al., 2009).

Today, the ideal citizen, described by Dahl (1971), seems to be eclipsed. Some

interpretations see him taking refuge in private (Hirschman, 1995) or beeing locked up

in his individuality in a fluid society (Bauman, 1999; 2001; 2002). In this situation, the

traditional mobilizing strategies are less effective because citizens are impregnated by

postmaterialist values that do not support the identification of the class that promotes

participatory and militant attitude (Pizzorno, 1993; 1994). This situation leads to talk

about disaffected democracies (Pharr and Putnam, 2002), or indolent democracies or

post-democracies (Crouch, 2009). From an institutional point of view, there are similar

trends towards marginalization of the role of political parties in favour of other

resources of mobilization. In fact, if the personalization of politics has been classically

ingrained in the institutional arrangements of semi-presidential system, recently this

trend has become predominant even in parliamentary systems (McAllister, 2007; 1996).

Also electoral rules seem to go towards a personalized direction in which the parties are

increasingly taking the role of campaigning machines (Farrell and Webb, 2000), along

the lines of the original models of cadre or elite party. The tendency to prefer

majoritarian electoral systems, the growth of the use of direct voting in elections are a

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symptom of a change in the institutional framework in which political parties move.

The result is a strong emphasis on the role played by leaders. The overlap between the

institutional level and the partisan establishment produces a weakening of the

organizational structure according to a consequent strengthening of the legitimacy of

leaders. “While partified government means governing through parties (Katz, 1986, 42–

6), presidentialized government implies governing past parties” (Poguntke and Webb,

2005: 9).

There is another level of overlapping: between political parties and governments.

The crucial decisions in governing are taken by those who have been chosen in the

elections, but are selected among the ranks of the parties, the policies are processed

within the majority party in the case of a “monocolor” government, or in case of

coalition governments through negotiation between representatives of the party; finally

the most influential government officials (Prime Minister, in particular) are selected

within the parties, toward which candidates have to be responsible. The reasons of this

precise overlap between party‟s structures and party‟s government can be traced just in

the weakening of political parties. Parties, in order to contain a deficit of legitimacy,

redefine themselves in new organizational structure by finding new support from the

state and its financial contribution (Katz and Mair, 1993; 1995; 2009).

Just where the interdependent relationship between party and state seems to favor the

former, the dimension of patronage emerges (Blondel, 2002). The relation towards

supporters is no longer mediated by partisan organization but led by individualistic and

personal logic. The party – or its leader – has the power to allocate and distribute

assignments of government positions. Despite the appearance, this logic does not mean

a strengthening of the party but rather implies a foundation of personalization that goes

beyond the organization. The party becomes subordinate to a system of individual

political figures in government positions. It is particularly the leader, with the dual role

in government and party, who acquire a potential influence that puts significant pressure

on party decisions and government policies.

The main aspect of this political phase seems to be represented by the erosion of

voter loyalty towards political parties, the loss of function of party liaison between state

and society (Dalton, 2000; Dalton, McAllister and Wattemberg, 2000; Wattemberg,

2000). However, although the weakening of the link between parties and citizens is

clear, parties remain central in democratic life, as parliamentary and election

organizations. Regarding the first aspect, it has been documented that the parliamentary

groups behave in a cohesive manner with the decisions taken by their party or their

party‟s leaders, demonstrating a high degree of internal discipline (Bowler, 2000). In

addition, several studies have shown that parties in election campaigns have not lost

their force, but rather have enhanced their role, providing many resources to candidates,

and overall professionalizing communication and election techniques (Farrell and

Webb, 2000; Norris, 2000). Finally, despite the fact that personalization of politics

emphasizes the individual representatives that become more and more crucial in the

public arena, additional evidences concern the cognitive maps of the voters, which are

organized around the parties and their mutual positioning in the medium/long term

(Manin, 2010: 271). In other words: the candidates go, but the parties remain.

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In short, we observe two different trends: firstly, societies and individuals confirm a

sort of emancipation from political parties and their role as mediators of political

instances; secondly there is a gradual institutional reshaping that carries out a

leaderization of politics, recognizing leaders in a dual position of power both over the

party and over the government. Briefly said, there is neither an outright crisis nor their

termination, rather there is an organizational remodeling, in which the leaders have a

growing role and their influence is even more decisive.

1.2 The organizational change and its consequences

The crisis affecting political parties concern just a part of the functions that they have

traditionally fulfilled: the participation and socialization guaranteed by the mass parties

have ceased and seem to be surrogated by other mobilization strategies that go beyond a

structured and ongoing relationship with supporters.

Parties are no longer those hierarchical bureaucratic structures in which Michels

(1966) had understood the oligarchic tendencies. That phase, well described by

Duverger (1961) and Neumann (1956), has been exceeded and the organization of the

party become a system of technical experts who support the “prince” with their

communication skills (Panebianco, 1982; Calise, 2005; 2000). Mass parties‟ mobilizing

resources have been replaced by strategies similar to political and marketing techniques.

Parties offer a voter-consumer product. In a catch-all party (Kirchheimer, 1966), which

disregards the ideological characterizations and extends beyond organizational

boundaries, the political message is addressed to the entire electorate. Parties „sell‟ to

the electorate their policy proposals, their programs, their brand, but also they „sell‟

their leaders who represent a synthesis of this new organizational structure. In this logic,

the figure of the leader works as a cognitive shortcut that can make up for the

ideological strength that once held a strong cohesion within the party and allowed an

effective mobilization of the electorate.

It‟s important to underline that it is a mistake to think about personalization of

politics just as a recent trend. Ostrogorski (1911), Michels (1966) and Weber (1919) in

their analysis of politics and political parties, focused the attention on this issue.

Furthermore the relation between the masses of the charismatic personality has been a

subject which has interested political philosophy and political psychology from Le Bon

(2004) to Elias Canetti (1981). Political parties are born as personal structures. The

cadre or elite parties – thinking about the relationship that bound the elected

representatives and their voters – were supported by a resource of a personal nature: the

deference that was based on the individual and private characteristics of the politician.

The cadre or elite parties were mostly personal parties, emerged as organizational

structures in order to support the political activity of politicians who, taking advantage

of their personal resources of class and status, intended to represent particular interests

within the legislative assemblies.

Nevertheless, today the personalization has a different value. In mass parties, the

leader had a prominent role, but the dynamics of representation were achieved through

other channels: more closely related to the size of membership and to the identification

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within the party and its ideology. In the organizational revolution that affected political

parties, the decreased important of the party on the ground led to a reduction of the

linkage between party membership and their organization. The result has been a de

facto releasing of leaders and party‟s establishment from the yoke of controlling

members and the sharing of the tension between responsibility and responsiveness with

the whole electorate. Reduced ties of belonging between supporters and parties also

mean less attention toward accountability. The control exercised by members assumed

the dual value of resource and constraint. The weakening of the organizational linkage

between parties and members allow parties free to seek support even beyond the

traditional boundaries of elections. The ruling parties are free to pursue political

strategies that will guarantee their stay in power, even at the cost of a shift from the

primary purpose of the party and its ideological values.

In parallel, the personal resource has acquired a far greater significance – and

effectiveness- than the traditional mobilizing strategies based on belonging and

identification, producing a shift in the strategic centrality of party leaders and

candidates. Parties seem to have understood that the strategic potential of

personalization in elections is more direct and effective than the traditional rhetoric of

party membership and identification.

1.3 The three faces of the crisis: legitimacy, participation, organization

If we were to sum up the crisis of political parties, we could easily identify a trend

towards a withdrawal of the party from their traditional aims of integration and

mobilization (Raniolo, 2002; 2004). The weakening of the participatory dimension

induces parties to concentrate their priorities in a more strategic logic, emphasizing the

organizational dimension of the party in public office. The party must rearticulate their

communication strategies in order to mobilize a wider public. In order to do this, parties

will tend to address voters regardless of partisanship or ideological loyalty. Parties, in

their position in public office, have the opportunity to engage with a new segment of the

electorate, even if this would require reducing the ideological distance with their

political opponents. The mere vote of belonging and loyalty guaranteed by supporters,

who precisely identify themselves in the party structure, is no longer sufficient to ensure

the success of the party. This process leads parties to an ever greater emancipation from

the base of the faithful militants and supporters in order to pursue the electoral support

of the “median voters” (Downs, 1967). In other words, parties try to address their

political proposal to those voters less identified, less ideologically oriented in order to

catch more consensus, with the awareness of electoral loyalty of the voters belonging.

They try to maximize their electoral performance going beyond the traditional

constituency, searching votes from new supporters. This perspective encourages the

parties to be fewer and fewer mass-based organizations but increasingly electoralist

(Diamond, and Gunther, 2001) and candidate centered.

In our analysis, we identified three rifts between the society and the parties at the

origin of the requirement of new mobilizing strategies.

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The first face of the crisis that concerns political parties is placed on a political and

institutional level and directly affects the size of legitimacy. Although parties retain

their role in representing the interests and in mediating social questions, they are

increasingly delegitimized as those adapted to fulfill these tasks. The evidence in this

sense is derived from the widespread feelings of antipartitism and anti-politics. The

political response is a shift of the responsibility of government structures towards

individual personalities, creating a direct link of accountability that is independent from

political parties and their mediation. The cartel party is certainly a strategic solution to

the deficiency of funds and finances that affects parties without militants‟ material and

immaterial contributions. The final result is a modification in the rulers‟ constraints of

accountability to citizens, with deep effects on relation to responsiveness.

The second face concerns the size of mobilization and participation, testified once

again by a kind of self-sufficiency of the society that sets aside the role of parties in

interpreting and mediating social demands. The spread of the practice of deliberative

democracy, the compression of the role of elected assemblies are just a few symptoms

of political parties‟ difficulty to comprehend the needs of the society and take

responsibility in institutional settings. The reduction in membership (Bartolini and Mair,

1990; Scarrow, 1996a; Katz et al. 1992; Scarrow Webb and Farrell, 2000; Dalton and

Wattemberg, 2000) and in the electoral turnout is an evidence of disaffection, not only

on an ideological level, but also on an activist and participatory level. The theory of

dealigment (Dalton, 1984; 2004; Dalton et al., 2000) explains the loosening of party

political ties not only in terms of a qualitative assessment of the performance of the

parties themselves, but also as a product of deep social changes that characterize the

modernization, the post-modernization. The post-materialist values are transversal to the

traditional cleavages on which the parties have been located. And so, part of citizens,

with a more solid cultural foundation, shows a greater awareness and critical sense.

Citizens no longer identify with the traditional canons of ideological demarcation. An

emancipation from parties has been produced that requires a reversal in the perspective

of interpretation of political participation. Once, scholars gave a negative connotation to

the so-called apartisanship, because it referred to disinterested citizens, alienated, distant

and uninterested in politics. However Wattemberg and Dalton (2000) explained how

this explanation has been denied and dealignment, lack of militant activism, lower level

of ideological identification do not necessarily imply low education and low social

capital. On the contrary, there is a sort of cognitive mobilization: the interest in political

issues, even if the interest is very strong, it does not correspond to a militant attitude.

This means that the party within the modern (post-modern) Western societies is no

longer an effective indicator to assess the degree of political engagement of citizens that

has found alternative ways to meet their participatory attitude, regardless of party

mediation.

The third face of crisis concerns the organizational dimension of the party. The

processes of modernization, secularization, marketing and mediatization – that, with

varying degrees, involve all the contemporary Western democracies – have pushed the

parties to deal with a new way of “doing politics” as regard a deeply changed electorate.

The consequences of these changes have caused a crisis in the central office that has

reformulated the bonds of internal partisan loyalty, reducing the organizational

deployment and activities on the ground. But at the same time it has allowed the

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development of new strategies to respond to the growing distance – real and symbolic –

between party organizations and society. In particular, the use of professional

techniques of communication (Panebianco, 1982) and the emergence of leaders such as

key actors in the political debate has allowed the organization to replace the

mobilization on the ground by mediated and simplified forms of involvement.

The personalization of politics has been the answer that the parties have given to a

complex and articulated crisis. On the first front, the personalization of representation

and accountability linkages permit to bypass the role of political parties both in the

phase of learning about and gathering social issues as well as in the phase of their

interpretation. On the second front, the personalization of politics represents a cognitive

shortcut that can exceed ideological boundaries, overcoming the traditional sectoral

mobilization and making the most of marketing techniques declined toward a political

and electoral level. On the third front, finally, personalization intervene as a powerful

bonding agent on an organizational and internal level that makes up for traditional

organizational dynamics played by factions in bureaucratic mass parties.

In search of the lost link: personal and personalized party

In a slightly contradictory context – like the one above – the personalization of

politics, that in western democracies involves all parties varying degrees, appears to be

an adaptive response to the crisis in the relationship between parties and civil society

(Katz and Mair, 1992; 1994; 1995).

In highly mediatized systems, the need to restore this missing link has produced

significant results in terms of political leadership. It has encouraged, in fact, increasing

personalization by pushing politicians to carry out – via media – a new “direct”

relationship with citizens, that is more free from both partisan and journalistic

mediations.

To communicate with voters, candidates and representatives have had to learn to

compete with the media logic (Altheide and Snow, 1979) and this has radically changed

their way of “doing politics” (Mazzoleni, 1998: 120). At the same time, however, they

were precisely these features of the mediatization process that offered politicians the

opportunity to resume a “direct” contact with the citizen-voter.

Started in the phase characterized by the central role of television (Blumler and

Kavanagh, 1999), and the erosion f voters loyalty (Dalton, 2000), “personalization has

become a strategic resource that politicians use to bridge the gap created by partisan and

social dealignment [...]. This leads to profound changes both in establishing a new

relationship between candidate and voter, and in the new ways politicians try to manage

the consensus during their term in office” (Bobba, 2011: 23).

The Italian case – since the Second Republic – confirms these trends, but at the same

time suggests that to understand the evolution of political parties in depth, there should

be more analysis and several distinctions should be made, since personalization does not

involve each party in the same manner and with the same intensity. Compared with the

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experience of the First Republic, relevance of political personalities, both during

campaigning and governing, has grown under a double pressure: the first concerns the

process of mediatisation of politics (Mazzoleni, 2008a) and society (Mazzoleni, 2008b),

whose main event is the emergence and development of commercial television in the

eighties (Mancini, 2000: 87-91), while the second refers to the change of electoral law,

taken place in the mid-nineties, which attributes to candidates and representatives a new

central role on both national and local level (D'Alimonte and Bartolini, 1995, 2002;

D‟Alimonte and Chiaramonte 1993; 1995).

In a nutshell, we could say that: a) personalization process has involved all the

political parties, but – at least looking at the Italian political situation – b) the outcome

of this process is not homogeneous for all parties involved.

The hypothesis, that will be suggested and discussed, proposes to distinguish

between two models of party: the personal party and the personalized party1. These

two forms, which in Italy since 1994 have developed and influenced each other, are

both characterized by the centrality of political leaders and personalities. But they differ

in their organization and communication both internally and externally.

The internal organization was operationalized considering three subdimensions:

a) the degree of structuring of the party, studied in relation to a centralized

management or shared decision-making; the existence of intermediate bodies between

the top and the members; the democratic nature of these bodies; the presence of internal

pluralism.

b) the allocation of responsibilities between the leader and party organs, studied in

relation to the definition of “party line”, the method of selecting of candidates and the

political class.

c) the internal resources of the leaders and the members, studied in relation to the

cursus honorum of the political leader and to the type of fiduciary relationship between

members, the party and its leader.

The ways in which the party relates to the outside are analyzed by breaking down the

concept into four subdimensions:

a) the type of routine communication, studied in relation to the existence of one or

more official voices in communicating the party line and the harmony or dissonance of

these messages, compared to those of the party‟s leader.

b) the type of election campaign, studied in relation to the role of the leader and that

of the party.

c) the activities of the ancillary structures, studied in relation to the primary purposes

of their action, that is the connection of party with the interest groups and the electorate

1 The term "personal party" became famous by Calise (2000 and 2005) in relation to the experience of

Forza Italia party and more generally of Silvio Berlusconi. While using the same expression, we refer,

here, to a more general model that exceeds the experience of that single party and leader.

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d) the external resources of the party's leader, studied in relation to its relationship

with the electorate, the media system, pressure groups, etc.

Table 1. Personal and personalized party: a framework for analysis

Personal Personalized

Internal organization

Management Centralized in one person Shared

Intermediate bodies Scarcely developed and not

relevant

Decision centers for formulating the

party line

Internal pluralism Absent Present

Internal democracy Not provided By statute

Formulation of the party

line Leader Convention / Intermediate bodies

Criteria for nominations Defined by the leader Shared

Leader Resources Personal cursus honorum Political cursus honorum / Delegation

Member Resources Loyalty and trust in the leader Participation in the life of the party

External relations

Personal Personalized

Party line

communication

The leader holds the monopoly of

the party line The leader shares the party line with

other national or local leaders and

intermediate bodies provided. Type of communication Univocal or polycentric-harmonic Polycentric-harmonic or polycentric-

dissonant Election campaigns Overlap between party and leader Distinction between party and leader

Ancillary structures Linked to the leader

Aim to build support and

promotion for the leader

Linked to the party line

Aim to build support for the party and

the elaboration of specific issues Leader resources Personal

The leader is the party Political

The leader is the head of the party

By using these distinctions, it is possible to identify and define two archetypal

models:

- a personal party is primarily characterized by a highly centralized management of

the entire life of the party: all the most important decisions – from political program

formulation to recruitment of candidates – are, directly or indirectly, carried out by the

leader. Intermediary bodies of government are scarcely developed and, even when

formally provided by the party statute, they tend to have no power of decision, if not

functional to leader‟s guidelines. And this is because the personal party, by definition,

does not tolerate a contradiction between the leader and other party personalities:

pluralism and mechanisms for internal democracy are therefore not provided or reduced

to lowest terms. The main internal resource through which the party leader reaches its

leading position and from which it derives its authority within the party is his personal

cursus honorum: the personal characteristics of the party leader, resulting from its non-

political history, are considered the main part of his policy expertise. Not by chance the

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members of the party establish a relationship with the leader, which is based on loyalty

and trust in his regard and that often involves the cult of his persona. As regard to

relations with the outside world (journalists, public opinion, voters), the leader

embodies the very idea of the party: in certain ways, we may say that the leader is the

party. This implies that the leader holds the monopoly of the “party line” and that the

only type of communication possible is the univocal one (achieved by the leader in

person or through a spokesman), or the polycentric harmonic one (achieved by various

politicians, but coherent – if not identical – with the position expressed by the chief).

Ancillary structures are aimed at building support firstly for the leader and only

secondly for the party. And they are functional to the promotion of the political agenda

he has proposed.

- In many ways, a personalized party is the opposite of the model just described.

First, because it uses the personalization only as a tool for external communication, as a

cognitive shortcuts for interaction with their constituencies. While its internal

organization is based on the principles of power sharing, internal democracy and

pluralism. Elected by members and delegates, the leader represents the party, but he

cannot define the party line for himself, neither personally select candidates or decide

the recruitment criteria. In a personalized party, the authority of the leader, both inside

and outside the party, can be sustained by the personal characteristics of the politician.

However, these are not the essential elements for which he is selected, which are

instead: his political cursus honorum and especially the voters‟ and members‟

delegation of power to him. From a communicative point of view, the party appears

more vulnerable to internal short circuits/disagreements and public disputes, because of

its more complex and articulated organizational structure. The leader, in fact, does not

hold the monopoly of the “party line”, which is instead shared with the other national or

local leaders within the party. As in a personal party, this plurality of voices may

produce a polycentric and harmonic communication, although, actually, the

communication of personalized party is more often polycentric, but dissonant. The

ancillary structures are aimed at building support for the party and at the formulating the

program and the issues defined by the party.

The features described above refer to two ideal models for which the empirical

evidences could be obviously only partial. The personal party and the personalized party

should therefore be understood as two opposite poles of a hypothetical continuum,

within which the different parties are placed.

The comparison between the theoretical definition and the experiences of three

different Italian parties, Forza Italia, Alleanza Nazionale and Popolo della Libertà, will

enable the analysis to find a first empirical confirmation of this distinction, to correct

and clarify the theoretical framework and to evaluate the heuristic capacity of these two

models in relation to the broader debate on the changes of political parties in

contemporary western democracies.

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