The Existential Threat: Varieties of Socialism and the Origins of Electoral Systems in Early Democracies

Abstract

The origins of electoral systems in early democracies have received a great deal of attention in recent years, as scholars seek to explain why at the time of suffrage expansion some countries adopted proportional representation (PR) while others chose single-member plurality (SMP). This paper offers a systematic explanation of the choice of electoral systems based on the “existential threat” posed by rising workers’ parties after suffrage expansion, that is, the extent to which these parties threatened the institutions of capitalism and liberal democracy. Original historical research offers important correctives to the dominant scholarly narrative, revealing that PR and SMP were both novel systems at the time, devised to replace the “mixed” systems that prevailed in the predemocratic period. Both, moreover, were seen as elite safeguards that, through different mechanisms, would protect right parties from the impact of suffrage expansion. Mid-range analysis of 18 historical cases reveals that the choice ultimately turned on the different strategic advantages and time horizons associated with the two systems as well as the existential threat presented by new workers’ parties.

Appendix

Measurements of the Existential Threat

The existential threat is understood to be a function of two variables: the electoral viability of workers’ parties and the extent of ideological radicalism they displayed. In this section, I offer a more detailed discussion of the measurements used for these indices.

Electoral Viability

The first indicator, “electoral viability” assesses whether or not an independent workers’ party had a permanent presence in the party system. In many cases, workers’ representatives contested elections as independents or under the auspices of one of the major right party before the formation of an independent workers’ party. These efforts, though often having a significant impact are not included in the measure of electoral viability as they would not in themselves indicate an existential threat. In fact, so long as workers’ representatives remained fragmented or relied on right parties, the latter could be confident of their continued dominance. Thus, electoral viability is measured with the rise of an independent worker’s party.¹⁰ Such parties are considered viable once they have contested three consecutive elections.

The only cases where workers’ parties did not meet this minimal threshold of viability were the USA and Canada. There, despite some notable electoral achievements, workers’ parties were unable to maintain representation at the national level. In the USA, independent working class mobilization began in the decades after suffrage expansion with Workingmen’s parties established in several states (Foner 1947). Despite the promising start, labor leaders ultimately failed to unite these disparate groups into a unified movement. By the 1890s, the labor movement had definitively moved away from direct political action (Lorwin 1972, p. 91). The Socialist Party of America would emerge at that time espousing a radical platform, but ultimately proved ineffective electorally. In Canada, labor was more successful in electing individual candidates. Representatives of labor consistently won elections beginning in the late nineteenth century. However, labor never consolidated its efforts to form a viable national party (McCormack 1970). The CLP was established in 1917 but disbanded after a few unsuccessful electoral campaigns. In both the USA and Canada, right parties would come to represent the interests of workers, maintaining the predemocratic status quo.

Ideological Radicalism

The second important indicator of existential threat—ideological radicalism—is decidedly more complicated to assess. In developing a measure of radicalism, I use a number of sources. I begin with Marks, Mbaye, and Kim’s examination of nineteenth-century socialist party radicalism (Marks et al. 2009). Using socialist party platforms, they score parties along four important dimensions of radicalism: (1) attitude towards the political system, (2) attitude towards the economic system, (3) methods sanctioned, and (4) number of dissenting factions. These measures are subjective in that they are based on party platforms rather than actual party behavior, but given that many of these parties were fairly new at the time, their espoused beliefs and goals were the only source of information available to their contemporaries. Therefore, subjective measures are useful in capturing how these parties were perceived and situating them in relation to one another (Table 2).

Table 2 Measures of ideological radicalism, 1900

Useful as these measures are, however, they do not in themselves indicate what is to be considered radical. For that, we need to consider the substantive positions reflected by the scores. In the category of political orientation, positions 3 and 4 indicate an antisystemic stance that “democracy is not legitimate” and thus clearly constitute radical positions. However, even position 2 that “democracy is legitimate but requires major reform” represents a radical departure from the status quo as the socialists could potentially use their political position to change the rules of the game to their advantage. Thus, I consider a score of 2 to be the cutoff for radicalism in this category. On economic orientation, similarly a score of 2 will be the cutoff score for radicalism. While challenging the legitimacy of capitalism (positions 3 and 4) clearly reflects a radical position, the threat of major reform with potentially major redistributive consequences as indicated by position 2 would also represent a radical departure from the status quo.

In the category of “methods,” Marks, Mbaye, and Kim consider a range of activities from lobbying and advocacy to violent insurrection. However, electoral competition, which is precisely the method that right parties were most concerned about and aimed to contain through electoral reform, scores low on the scale of radicalism (score of 1). To be sure, more radical methods such as strike activity and the threat of violence (positions 2, 3, and 4) were a great concern; however, the threat did not have to rise to that level for a party to be considered radical. Simply using elections as a method combined with the threat of major changes to the political and economic status quo would suffice for a party to be considered radical. For this reason, the cut-off for methods in this analysis will be a score of 1.

Thus as a starting point, a score of 2 on political and economic orientation, and 1 on methods, with no dissenting factions would be considered the minimum threshold for radicalism. According to this classification scheme, socialist parties in The UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland would be considered moderate and socialist parties in Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, the USA, Iceland, Denmark, France, Spain, and Italy would be considered radical.

For the most part, this would seem consistent with the broader literature. Most accounts place the British model of parties based in trade-unionism with a reformist agenda and strong tradition of cross-class cooperation on the more moderate end of the spectrum (Bartolini 2000, p. 70). The BLP embraced a vision of harmonious class relations which deviated significantly from the rigid socialist principles that guided its counterparts on the Continent (Hunt 1981, pp. 275–281; Hinton 1983, p. 33; Cole 1941, pp. 42–43). The moderate model was highly influential in Australia and New Zealand as well where workers’ parties similarly rejected the notion that revolutionary social transformation was necessary for progress (Burgmann 1985; Olssen 1990). The NZLP advanced a program of constitutionally grounded reform and remained committed to the political process as a means of improving the lives of workers (Olssen 1990, p. 616). Australian labor similarly embraced a doctrine of ‘Laborism’ as a positive alternative to socialism (Markey 1990, p. 595). Notably, Labor parties in all three cases accepted not only parliamentary democracy, but the capitalist system as well. These parties often faced more radical socialist challenges and sometimes experienced periods of radicalization themselves, but overall they maintained a commitment to achieving progress through the existing social order (Hinton 1983, p. 35; Stephens 1979, p. 143).

At the other end of the ideological spectrum was the German model of parties adhering to more orthodox Marxist principles emphasizing class conflict and the need for revolutionary social transformation (Bartolini 2000, pp. 72–73; Berman 1998, p. 66). Though there was a great deal of variation in this category, these were all cases where workers’ parties espoused a platform that posed an existential challenge to the prevailing capitalist democratic order. The SPD beginning with the Erfurt Congress in 1891 adopted a platform that emphasized the role of productive class conflict and endorsed revolutionary tactics to bring about social transformation (Bartolini 2000, pp. 72–73; Steenson 1991, pp. 70–72). The Erfurt program would influence workers’ parties throughout Europe, and though the German SPD may have been unique in the extent of its embrace of socialist doctrine, workers’ parties in several other cases also incorporated these principles at various levels of orthodoxy.

The closest in ideological orientation to the Germans were the Finnish and Austrian Social Democrats, who at times displayed greater radicalism than even the Germans (Marks et al. 2009, p. 633). In Finland, after an extended period of isolation from the international socialist movement, labor would have an abrupt introduction to Marxism in the wake of the Russian revolution of 1905. The Finnish Social Democratic Party would come to embrace one of the most radical doctrines of European socialist parties (Kirby 1990, pp. 525–526). The SPÖ also had a decidedly radical orientation. Its platform explicitly identified the “proletariat” as the object of its efforts to forge a class conscious movement, splitting with moderate forces that used more inclusive rhetoric such as “the oppressed people” or “toiling masses” (Steenson 1991, p. 186).

Elsewhere, workers’ parties adhered to Marxism in a less orthodox fashion, adopting a more conciliatory tone, but still maintaining a commitment to class conscious action and radical social transformation. In the Netherlands, the Social Democratic Workers’ Party established in 1894 modeled itself on the German SPD, from which it derived its party program as well as its organizational structure (Buiting 1990, p. 67). The Belgian Workers’ Party founded in 1885 also adopted a radical platform and under the leadership of Emile Vandervelde the party would utilize more revolutionary tactics (Strikwerda 1997, p. 109; Polasky 1992). The Danish Social Democratic Party similarly adopted a Marxian doctrine, though from the 1890s on it rejected militarism (Callesen 1990, p. 159). In SDPI, established in 1916, was in fact the first modern party to form. And in the absence of strong moderating influences, it would develop a radical platform espousing orthodox Marxian principles (Karlsson 2000, pp. 302–303).

For a number of other cases, in the early stages of working class mobilization, labor would maintain a relatively moderate orientation but would later come to embrace more radical doctrines. For the Swedish Social Democrats, radicals who had been in the minority for the first decades of the party’s existence acquired greater influence by the turn of the century and by 1908, a more orthodox Marxism had firmly taken root (Tingsten 1973; Bartolini 2000, p. 83). In Norway, the Socialist Labor Party (DNA) established in 1887, began contesting elections under the patronage of the Liberal party. But dissatisfaction with their subordinate position led to a radicalization of workers and the embrace of more orthodox socialist doctrine. This was marked in 1891 with the adoption of a new platform closely following the German SPD’s Erfurt Program (Terjesen 1990, pp. 115–116; Lafferty 1972). The PS, which looked to be moving in the direction of moderation also experienced a sustained period of radicalization prior to WWI which extended through the interwar years (Luebbert 1991, p. 98; Bartolini 2000, p. 85).¹¹

There are a number of cases, however, that due to conflicting ideological influences do not fit into this simple radicalism vs. reformism classification. This includes France, Italy, and Spain, where the strength of anarchist factions divided workers’ movements, resulting in a doctrine of revolutionary syndicalism, which many have identified as a separate ideological orientation altogether (Kergoat 1990, pp. 169–171; Seton-Watson 1967, pp. 157–158; Castillo 1990, pp. 227–228). In these three cases, the ideological divisions were so deep that in the early stages of working class mobilization separate workers’ parties successfully competed for the support of working class electors. In France, the movement was split between the radical socialism of Jules Guesde and the moderate social democratic perspective of Jean Jaurès (Steenson 1991, p. 137). The movement would later unite under the leadership of Jaurès to form the SFIO, but tensions between the two factions would persist. The Spanish labor movement was even more deeply divided, delaying the consolidation of the left until after the First World War. The PSOE maintained a relatively moderate position but was continuously confronted with radical challenges and extended periods of fragmentation (Meaker 1974, pp. 207–208). The PSI, from its inception in 1892 was a combined movement, bringing together disparate socialist and anarchist groups (Steenson 1991, p. 233). Throughout the first decade of the twentieth century, the PSI was able to maintain unity among these different groups and even seemed to be moving toward moderation. However, divisions within the movement over a number of issues, most notably Italy’s imperial policy, led to fragmentation and the greater radicalization of workers. By the First World War, the movement had turned more definitively towards radicalism (Seton-Watson 1967, pp. 264–271). In all three cases, the division would leave a lasting mark on the movement which, even during periods of greater unity, would maintain a mixed ideological program, combining elements of radicalism and reformism. Thus, for the purposes of this analysis, France, Spain, and Italy will be considered under a third category of revolutionary syndicalism.