Some Reflections on the Sociological Character of Political Parties

Roberto Michels

American Political Science Review, 1927, vol. 21, issue 4, 753-772

Abstract: The political party, etymologically and logically, can embrace only a part of the citizenry, politically organized. The party is a fraction; it is pars pro toto. Let us endeavor briefly to analyze its causal origin and its behavior.According to Max Weber, the political party has a dual teleology. It is a spontaneous society of propaganda and of agitation seeking to acquire power, in order to procure thereby for its active militant adherents chances, ideal and material, for the realization either of objective aims or of personal advantages, or of both. Consequently, the general orientation of the political party, whether in its personal or impersonal aspect, is that of Machtstreben (striving to power).In the personal aspect, parties are often based on the protection accorded inferiors by a strong man. In the Prussian diet of 1855, which was composed of a large number of political groups, each was given the name of its leader.

Date: 1927
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