Models of party institutionalization and problems of democratic consolidation

ABSTRACT

The theory of party institutionalization (PI) developed in classical party literature has been a crucial tool for analyzing political parties. This paper aims to introduce how alternative models have emerged in developing democracies, suggesting the main dimensions of PI (‘autonomy’ and ‘systemness’) are not always positively correlated like initially suggested. One of these coined the ‘trade-off’ model, represents a dilemma of leadership where one dimension needs to be traded off to enhance the other. This may occur in parties that have radically motivated activists. Strategic difficulties that it brings, affect ‘professionalization’ of parties and their survivability. The last model (the ‘non-democratic’ model) is an extreme version of the tade-off model and it occurs when ‘autonomy’ is maximized and ‘systemness’ is minimized – a phenomenon that occurs easier under dominant party systems. Last section of this paper focuses on a case study (Turkey) to illustrate these models using primary and secondary sources; theoretical works on parties, the Turkish party system, and empirical data relating to the Turkish case.