Party Linkage, Public Justification and Mixed Electoral Systems
| Author | Matteo Bonotti |
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720978339 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720978339
Political Studies
2022, Vol. 70(3) 586 –602
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321720978339
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Party Linkage, Public
Justification and Mixed
Electoral Systems
Matteo Bonotti
Abstract
In recent years, a number of political theorists have aimed to restore the central role of parties
in democratic life. These theorists have especially highlighted two key normative functions of
parties: linkage and public justification. In this article, I argue that these two functions are often in
tension. First, I illustrate how this tension manifests itself in liberal democracies. Second, I explain
that parties’ ability to fulfil each of the two functions is strongly affected by the electoral system
under which they operate: while first-past-the-post encourages party linkage but hinders public
justification, the opposite is true of proportional representation. Third, I argue that a mixed
electoral system can best guarantee the balance between parties’ linkage and justificatory functions.
Fourth, I suggest a number of proposals for party reforms that could help mixed electoral systems
to balance party linkage and public justification while preventing the re-emergence of the tension
between them within parties.
Keywords
partisanship, electoral design, party linkage, public justification, mixed electoral systems
Accepted: 12 November 2020
Introduction
In recent years, a number of political theorists have aimed to restore the central role of
parties in democratic life and to stress their positive contribution to the realization of key
democratic ideals (e.g. Bonotti, 2017; Bonotti and Bader, 2014; Invernizzi-Accetti and
Wolkenstein, 2017; Muirhead, 2014; Rosenblum, 2008; Weinstock, 2015; White and Ypi,
2016; Wolkenstein, 2016, 2019a, 2019b). This literature has partly developed as a
response to what is now widely known, in academic circles and beyond, as the ‘crisis’ of
political parties and party democracy (e.g. Daalder, 2002; Dalton and Wattenberg, 2002;
Politics and International Relations, School of Social Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Corresponding author:
Matteo Bonotti, Politics and International Relations, School of Social Sciences, Monash University,
Melbourne, VIC 3800, Australia.
Email: Matteo.Bonotti@monash.edu
978339PSX0010.1177/0032321720978339Political StudiesBonotti
research-article2020
Article
Bonotti 587
Delwit, 2011; Ignazi, 1996; Mair, 2013, 2014; Papadopoulos, 2013; Whiteley, 2010).
Central to this crisis are declining voter turnout; increasingly volatile elections; decline in
party identification; the mainstreamization of anti-system parties, such as (former) com-
munist parties and green parties; the increasing lack of programmatic differences between
parties, manifested, for example, in the rise of ‘catch-all’ parties (Kirchheimer, 1966); and
the ‘cartelization’ of parties (Katz and Mair, 1995) which, together with their increasing
state regulation, has led some commentators to equate parties to ‘public utilities’ (Van
Biezen, 2004). Furthermore, parties’ cartelization has also been accompanied by their
growing focus on ‘office-seeking’ (Mair, 2013: 88) and inability to provide a ‘linkage’
(Lawson, 1988) between citizens and the state. As Peter Mair pointed out a few years ago:
the functions that parties do perform, are seen to perform, and are expected to perform, have
changed from combining representative and governing roles to relying almost exclusively on a
governing role [e.g. candidate selection, recruitment, etc.]. This is the final passing of the
traditional mass party (Mair, 2013: 97).
In response to this alleged crisis of political parties and party democracy, political
theorists have especially highlighted the importance of two key normative functions of
parties. One is parties’ aforementioned linkage function which, according to some of
these scholars, could be restored by reforming existing parties, for example, by rendering
them more internally democratic (e.g. Invernizzi-Accetti and Wolkenstein, 2017;
Wolkenstein, 2016). The other is parties’ contribution to public justification, that is, the
process through which laws and policies are not merely implemented based on majoritar-
ian decisions but also justified to all those who will be subject to them (e.g. Bonotti, 2017;
White and Ypi, 2011).
In this article, I argue that these two key normative functions of parties are often in
tension. First, I illustrate how this tension manifests itself in liberal democracies. Second,
I explain that parties’ ability to fulfil each of the two functions is strongly affected by the
electoral system under which they operate. More specifically, while first-past-the-post
(FPTP) encourages party linkage but hinders public justification, the opposite is true of
proportional representation (PR). Third, I argue that a mixed electoral system (including
both an FPTP and a PR component) can best guarantee the balance between parties’ link-
age and justificatory functions. Fourth, and finally, I put forward a number of proposals
for party reforms that could help mixed electoral systems to balance party linkage and
public justification while preventing the tension between them from re-emerging within
political parties.
The Tension between Party Linkage and Partisan
Justification
As stressed in the Introduction, two specific aspects of partisanship and party politics
have been particularly highlighted in recent years by those scholars who have attempted
to rehabilitate parties in light of their long-standing crisis. The first concerns the afore-
mentioned ‘linkage’ function which, we have seen, the increasing cartelization of parties
has especially contributed to undermining. Scholars who have focused on this dimension
of partisanship have especially highlighted the need for reforms to render parties more
internally democratic, and therefore more open to citizens’ changing (but still very much
present) demands for political mobilization. The proposed reforms include both
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