Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties

by Moisei Ostrogorski, Seymour Martin Lipset

Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties, originally published in 1902, represented the first serious attempt to analyze the consequences of democratic suffrage by a comparative analysis of political systems. As such, Ostrogorski's two-volume study of the party system in Britain and the United States exerted profound influence on the subsequent writings of Max Weber and Robert Michels. A descriptive analyst of the party system in these two countries, Ostrogorski developed concepts and methods that an-ticipated by nearly half a century those later used by American and British political scientists.

The core of Ostrogorski's analysis is a detailed history of the rise of and changes within the party system in Britain and the United States, the first nations to introduce mass suffrage. While the emphasis of Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties is on the similar trends in the political parties of both countries, Ostrogorski also showed concern with the sources of differences between them. Seeking to explain these variations, he suggested a number of fundamental hypotheses about these two societies that con-tinue to be of relevance today. Lipset's substantial introduction places Os-trogorski's work within its historical context and assesses Ostrogorski's im-pact and influence on both his contemporaries and on later political scien-tists.

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1902

Reviews

[Charles Grapski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will venture to begin writing a review of this book and its companion volume. Although I am still submerged in writing about them in detail - in particular at this time Volume 1. But since I can come back and edit this later, I'll at least make an initial effort of getting some information down, even if it is only basic.

Moisei Ostrogorski's two volume work, initially published in 1903, was the first real study of political parties and party systems. Yet today very few actually read his work. I have to leave this here for the moment - but I will return to actually share something substantive.

But I am still having trouble trying to figure out which edition to put my comments in. I have several of the editions although I have payed the closest attention to the first edition. I wish there was a way to have comments that were viewable across editions, with the ability to filter down if there were comments specific to one particular edition that had substantial or significant changes. When I figure out how to approach this I will give this further effort and return to complete it.

I would urge people to read the books - although I admit - they are quite long and dense - and two volumes worth. The first, however, focuses on the the British parties and party system as it emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century while the second addresses the American parties and party system. With a little patience I think the reader will find that Ostrogorski's writing turns out to be far more intriguing than it appears at first sight.

Many years ago, when I began my first formal study of parties and party systems and their relationship to democracy - or, as I was seeking to demonstrate, their incompatibility with that form of government, I first picked up Ostrogorski. But I never got very far into his works before moving on to many others.

Not long ago I decided to get back to my work on this topic and committed to starting by delving deeply into Ostrogorski's works. Particularly since I knew that his view of parties and party systems ran entirely contrary to the dominant American Political Science paradigm that was established by the mid-20th century.

After many years of my own studies I had developed an understanding that also ran counter to the mainstream positive view of parties that sees them as essential to modern democracy. And I had discovered, on my own, a connection to the American model and a mid-Victorian model of the English Constitution, that of Walter Bagehot, that turned the American Constitution on its head and was anything but advocating for democracy. I also found, years before coming to that understanding, that the only person I had read who had understood what I was trying to articulate was John Stuart Mill - who "discovered" the solution to what he believed was necessary to make modern democracy, with a representative form of government, actually work. Finding that in the electoral method developed by Thomas Hare about mid-19th century.

I will get back to this, and fill in the details of this story, but what I had concluded a number of years ago - after studying at Bagehot's own university in London (which was founded with the support of Mill and a number of the Philosophical Radicals that had come together from a foundation with the philosophy of Jeremy Bentham (who's body he donated to the university - and sits in a "closet" in the Cloisters of the main building on the campus to this day, although his head, while still at the University, is now in a drawer in the Archeology building - having grown some strange "mold" over the years (having at times been stolen by UCL's rival down the road, King's College, and used as a football (the English kind). But again I am rambling ... What I had come to the conclusion about two decades ago was that key to understanding democracy and its problems in America (and in Britain) was to understand the intellectual rivalry and debate that took place between Bagehot and Mill in the second half of the 18th century - and what their solutions, antithetical to each other, with Bentham's being the path taken by American political scientists in the 20th century. I was working and putting this all together when some other affairs took me off course for a while.

But to my amazement what I found, having fully dived into Ostrogorski's massive volumes, is that his thought, at the very beginning of the study of the subject, almost paralleled mine directly and in many ways. This is one reason I am not really ready to complete this review ... because I have to get a firmer grip on how I am going to articulate the amazing parallels and overlaps in what Ostrogorski "discovered" at the dawn of the formal inquiry into the subject - which was all but rejected by those who came later - and what I had developed over a number of years of study both in the US and the UK. I have to be able to condense that down further before I can really do justice to writing a review of these two works that would be of interest to others and highly pertinent to understanding politics, and its problems, today.

So I will leave this as a rough draft and teaser at this point. Just to have something started here. And I will come back to it in a short time and make a serious effort at providing some insights into this work that might encourage others to actually take up the effort of reading him today - and reading him closely (and fully).

[he chow · Rating 5 out of 5]

中譯本最後尾聲的時候，連自由黨的領導人都搞錯，就挺妙的一個錯誤。