IV. Party Government and Employment Policy

Abstract

The prediction that full employment will have a great political future is based on the fact that economic policies of this kind reach large segments of the public not previously accustomed to political action or only recently made aware of the potentialities of politics. Only the war itself has served to remind these relatively non-political people as urgently of the new importance of the government to every one as they are likely to be reminded by the establishment of the principle that public authority and public resources ought to be used to promote or produce sixty million jobs. What people do about the government depends on what they think the government is able to do. Therefore, the idea that the government is now able to protect people against the most dreaded of the manifestations of economic instability is almost certain to have a great impact on the political behavior of millions of people, many of whom have never before been drawn into the orbit of politics.Moreover, unless the millenium is here, it seems probable that a prolonged and disturbing controversy over employment policies is in the making. In fact, a major political conflict over these policies can probably be avoided only by the abandonment of the whole project, i.e., by conceding the argument that full employment is none of the business of the government. The friends of the new policies are, therefore, in the position of having to pray for stormy weather.

The Challenge to Party Government

“…This also serves to undermine the notion of party government. party is the only political organization in American public life which is in a position to make a claim, upon any reasonable grounds whatsoever, that it can measure up to the requirements of modern public policy….It alone submits its claims to the nation in a general election in which the stakes are a mandate from the people to govern the country" (Schattschneider 1945(Schattschneider : 1151. In US practice, however, these arguments tended to fall somewhat flat, with many of the early responses to the APSA report suggesting that it was oriented towards a British-style of cabinet government and majoritarian democracy, a system that was anathema to many American observers (see Kirkpatrick 1971).…”

Rationality of Irrationality

“…The role of political parties is not limited, certainly, to the representative function. The party government model emphasizes the institutional roles of political parties in mobilizing the majority of the electorate for the purpose of taking control of the government (Schattschneider 1945), formulating and carrying out policies once in office (Rose 1969), and recruiting government officials who are to be held responsible for their policies (Katz 1986). In addition, the particularistic party-competition model suggests that political parties compete not only by promising policies that benefit society at large (the programmatic party-competition model), but also by offering tangible benefits to selective groups in return for their electoral support (Häusermann, Picot, and Geering 2012).…”

“…Political parties perform functions other than aggregating, articulating, and representing voters' (or supporters') interests and preferences. For example, the party government model highlights the status and role of political parties as "the most potent form of democratic political organisation" to make a claim to govern a country (Schattschneider 1945(Schattschneider , 1151. They also recruit and furnish individuals who take government office positions.…”

Back to the Future

“…These were, of course, intertwined processes-as E. E. Schattschneider observed in 1946, "what people do about the government depends on what they think the government is able to do"-but La Guardia, in particular, remained committed to citizen empowerment even after his power to deliver resources faded. 7 In the book's third section, Williams revises the legacy of La Guardia's third term. The years between 1941 and 1945 are primarily remembered for the mayor's buffoonery as Director of the Office of Civilian Defense (a post he served concurrently), his general loss of self-control in public, and shaky city budgets that suggested inattentive management from a once proudly detail-oriented progressive.…”