Roberto Michels and the Study of Political Parties

British Journal of Political Science

Volumn 1, Issue 2, 1971, Pages 155-172

  Hands, Gordon ^a  

^a LANCASTER UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34247957644     PISSN: 00071234     EISSN: 14692112     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007123400009029     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, translated by E. and C. Paul, with an introduction by S. M. Lipset (New York: Free Press, 1962).
2. See e.g. S. M. Lipset, M. Trow and J. S. Coleman, Union Democracy (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1956); R. T. Mackenzie, British Political Parties (London: Mercury Books, 2nd ed. 1963); S. J. Eldersveld, Political Parties: A Behavioural Analysis (Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1964); G. N. Ostergaard and A. H. Halsey, Power in Co-operatives (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965).
3. See however: C. W. Cassinelli, ‘The Law of Oligarchy’, American Political Science Review, XLVII (1953), 773-84; J. D. May, ‘Democracy, Organisation, Michels’, American Political Science Review, ux (1965), 417-29; S. M. Lipset, introduction to Michels, op. cit; J. J. Linz, ‘Robert Michels’, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Macmillan, 1968); I. M. Zeitlin, Ideology and the Development of Social Theory (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1968), ch. 14.
4. S. Neumann. ‘Toward a Comparative Study of Political Parties’, in S. Neumann (ed.), Modern Political Parties (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), p. 406.
5. See e.g. C. E. Schorske, German Social Democracy 1905-1917 (New York: Wiley and Sons, 1955)-
6. See J. Joll, The Second International 1889-1914 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1955), p. 130; J. P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), i, p. 408, n. 1.
7. This element is particularly apparent in the Preface, and at the beginning of Part 6.
8. Michels, Political Parties, p. 354.
9. The phrase ‘the iron law of oligarchy’ seems to occur only once, in the title of Part 6, ch. 2.
10. Michels, Political Parties, pp. 105-6.
11. II Michels, Political Parties, p. 364.
12. Michels, Political Parties, pp. 73-7.
13. However, several writers concentrate on the Rousseau-ian sense. E.g.: ‘In Political Parties, Robert Michels laid down what has come to be the major political argument against Rousseau's concept of direct popular democracy’ (Lipset, intro. to Michels, Political Parties, p. 15). See also Ostergaard and Halsey, Power in Co-operatives, pp. 217 ff. Cassinelli's emphasis on the question of size might also be seen as implying the Rousseau-ian interpretation. See Cassinelli, ‘Law of Oligarchy’.
14. See the analysis of the term ‘oligarchy’ in Cassinelli, ‘Law of Oligarchy,’ pp. 777-80.
15. Michels, Political Parties, p. 364.
16. Michels,, Political Parties, pp. 64 ff.
17. See e.g. the evidence presented by H. A. Turner. The present-day union structure in this country is largely a result of the period of the New Unionism of the 1890s, and the developments resulting from this just before, during and after the First World War. Union growth in this period was predominantly due to the organising efforts of individual leaders like John Burns and Ben Tillett, and to amalgamations between their creations. Michels’ model only finds any real application in Turner's description of the earlier evolution of the cotton unions and the NUM. But it is interesting to note that it is precisely these unions that have retained their decentralised federal structure. H. A. Turner, Trade Union Growth, Structure and Policy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1962).
18. Michels, Political Parties, p. 206.
19. Michels, Political Parties, p. 213.
20. S. M. Lipset, Political Man (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, i960), ch. 12 (‘The Political Process in Trade Unions').
21. On this, and the general intellectual climate of the period see H. S. Hughes, Consciousness and Society (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1959).
22. On participation in trade unions see e.g.: R. L. Kahn and A. S. Tannenbaum, Participation in Local Unions (New York: Row Peterson, 1958); W. Spinrad, ‘Correlates of Trade Union Participation: A Summary of the Literature’, American Sociological Review, xxv (1960), 237-44. See also B. Barber, ‘Participation and Mass Apathy in Associations’, in A. W. Gouldner, Studies in Leadership (New York: Harper, 1950), pp. 477-504.
23. Michels, Political Parties, pp. 182, 186-7.
24. See e.g. J. A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (London: Unwin University Books, 1954.) Pt iv.
25. Michels, Political Parlies, p. 338.
26. Michels, Political Parties, p. 72.
27. ” See H. Gerth and C. W. Mills, From Max Weber (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), section vni.
28. This aspect of the theory of bureaucracy has been followed up by several writers. See e.g. R. K. Merton, ‘Bureaucratic Structure and Personality’, Social Forces, xvm (1940), 560-8; P. Selznick, ‘An Approach to a Theory of Bureaucracy; American Sociological Review, vni (i943) 47~54-See also A. W. Gouldner, ‘Metaphysical Pathos and the Theory of Bureaucracy’, American Political Science Review, XLIX (1955), 496-507.
29. Support for this interpretation can be found in the summary chart which Michels included in the first German edition. This was reprinted in the first English edition, but for some reason has been omitted from recent American editions. See Robert Michels, Political Parties, translated by E. and C. Paul (London: Jarrold and Sons, 1915).
30. Michels, Political Parties, p. 61.
31. See e.g. H. A. Clegg, A. J. Killick and R. Adams, Trade Union Officers (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1961), pp. 208-16.
32. Michels, Political Parties, pp. 189-90.
33. In this connection it is interesting to note the following comment of Nettl's: ‘It is meaningless to talk of the pre-1914 SPD which was Michels’ object of analysis, as bureaucratic in the formal sense, since its full-time paid staff in 1912 was less than a hundred against a membership of many tens of thousands, and against the four and a quarter million votes obtained in 1912.’ J. P. Nettl, Political Mobilisation (London: Faber, 1967), p. 341, note 2.
34. However see Clegg, Killick and Adams, Trade Union Officers. Taking the number of fulltime officers in a union as the criterion of bureaucracy, they suggest a long list of factors which may affect the ratio of officers to members, but to the question whether there is any underlying pattern they answer: ‘We suggest that the answer lies in the force of tradition and habit the long list of factors just set down determined the original differences between unions. As time passed, however, each union came to accepts its own ratio as the natural order of things and put up a strong resistance to change, even when altered circumstances warranted it’, p. 195.
35. Michels, Political Parlies, p. 70.
36. See also Weber's argument along these lines in his discussion of bureaucracy: Gerth and Mills, From Max Weber, p. 232.
37. See e.g. J. P. Mackintosh, The British Cabinet (London: Stevens and Sons, 1962), ch. 13; G. W. Jones, ‘The Prime Minister's Power’, Parliamentary Affiairs, XVIH (2) (1965), 167-85.
38. Michels, Political Parties, p. 73.
39. Michels, Political Parties, pp. 76-7.
40. Michels, Political Parties, p. 353.
41. See e.g. the evidence quoted by Lipset in his introduction to Michels, Political Parties, pp. 30-1.
42. Michels, Political Parties, p. 191.
43. See above, p. 156.
44. Michels, Political Parties, p. 334.
45. Michels, Political Parties, p. 351.
46. Michels, Political Parties, p. 335.
47. These points are touched on in G. McConnell, ‘The Spirit of Private Government’, American Political Science Review, 1.11(1958), 754-70. See also V. L. Allen, Power in Trade Unions (London: Longmans, 1954), pt 1. However neither McConnell nor Allen seems to me to have seen their full implication.
48. See Lipset et at. Union Democracy; Lipset, Political Man, ch. 12 (‘The Political Process in Trade Unions').
49. See e.g. J. Goldstein, The Government of British Trade Unions (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1952); J. D. Edelstein, ‘Democracy in a National Trade Union: the British AEU’, Industrial Relations, iv (3), (1965), pp. 105-25; J. D. Edelstein, ‘An Organisational Theory of Union Democracy’, American Sociological Review, xxxu (1967), 19-31.