Downloaded from were contemporaries of the initial emergence of parties; on the contrary, antiparty views persisted until early in the twentieth century, although many basic themes and underlying assumptions underwent changes When the competitive politics of partisan groups first became the subject of hostile commentary, little distinction was made between &dquo;party&dquo; and &dquo;faction.&dquo; The Founding Fathers were apt to use the terms interchangeably, referring to what was to them a single phenomenon. Thus Madison, in his strongly worded objections of Federalist No. 10, most often referred to &dquo;faction&dquo; and the &dquo;spirit of faction,&dquo; but occasionally also to &dquo;party,&dquo; and in some instances to &dquo;the spirit of party and faction.&dquo; Washington, while most often identifying party as the object of his warning, also alternately spoke of &dquo;party&dquo; and &dquo;faction.&dquo; Because these men and their contemporaries did not have two distinct &dquo;party&dquo; and &dquo;faction&dquo; forms of politics before them, they could and did use the two terms as synonyms.3As political parties emerged and developed into distinct forms of political organization, the notion of &dquo;party&dquo; has outgrown early attitudes of opprobrium. With the acceptability of the legitimacy of political parties has come more objective consideration of party politics; this can in no better way be underscored than in noting the status which the concept of &dquo;party system&dquo; has achieved, together with its various subclassifications, such as &dquo;two-party system,&dquo; &dquo;multi-party system,&dquo; &dquo;dominant-party system,&dquo; etc. We may point also to a parallel and more recent evolution in attitudes toward interest groups. Hostile reactions have widely attended public discussions of &dquo;pressure groups,&dquo; in the nineteenth century and much of the present century. There has been a widespread tendency in both Europe and America to question the propriety of such inherently &dquo;selfish&dquo; groups for the political order. In the words of Professor Eldersveld, &dquo;they were considered by scholars as well as muckrakers, as engaged in questionable techniques and pursuing questionable goals. They were not considered as sanctioned by the community nor as having a legitimate regime status.&dquo;¢ In recent decades, however, interest groups ibid., pp. 26-41.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract