The article broadly distinguishes two types of pluralism. There is the version which dwells on open competition between groups; there is also, however, a tradition of writing about and discussing closed group-departmental relations and sectorized policy-making. It is clearly this second strain that overlaps considerably with contemporary corporatist interest. It is suggested that it is worth reserving the term corporate pluralism for this model of segmented policymaking.
This model is more descriptive than explanatory and is less ordered and systematised than corporatism appears to be in current theoretical use. It is further argued that in use many writers impute to corporatism little more than corporate pluralism suggests — and that advocates of corporatism now use the term in a less ambitious an empirical manner. Neo-corporatism has spread like a disease through the footnotes of political science. This epidemic tells us more about the weakness of the population than the strength of the virus.
In particular this article seeks to disentangle neo-corporatism as developed. The paper, largely in this current form, was presented to the Department of Politics at Oslo in As a preliminary to the discussion of corporatist theory, one can note that there is no consensus in the camp. This problem is not unique to corporatism, but the attempts to claim their failure to agree with each other as a strength is unconvincing Lehmbruch b, There is self-acknowledged variation between the uses of various corporatist protagonists, but the inconsistencies are not admitted as weaknesses.
For example, Lehmbruch , 2 argues that the plurality of conceptualizations mirrors the high degree of interrelatedness of the 'pluri-dimensions' of the concept. Schmitter, equally optimistic, talks about 'productive confusion'.
The acerbic literary style of Schmitter would not be so generous in describing inconsistencies among his critics. Martin has drawn particular attention to the disunity of the corporatists on the question of the 'State'. Given that Schmitter had claimed that corporatism provided 'a different way of conceptualizing the role Of course pro-corporatists such as Grant , 13 also acknowledge the ambivalance of the state in the model does the state dominate the interests, or the interests the state?
But the differences between some self categorised corporatists may be more fundamental than between some of these corporatists and the pluralists they apparently scorn.
Corporatism then is not a single theory but a range of theories which are not self evidently unified or consistent and which have not been demonstrated by any proponent as compatible. The most influential, and often quoted, definition comes from Schmitter:. The definition is well cushioned with reservations, but he does claim detailed inquiry into the extent to which a given system of representation, limited in the number of component units, compulsory in membership, noncompetitive between compartmentalized sectors, etc.
One can then stress Schmitter's own emphasis. He explicity noted 'a specific concrete set of institutional practices'. His approach is intended to allow us to distinguish, by empirical inspection, corporatism from pluralism. But one can note that in practice regimes might be readier to allow effective representation to a limited number of units, with some disputed hierarchy of internal structure with quasi- compulsory membership, etc.
In other words the empirical examination is likely to be less rewarding, more difficult, than we were led to believe in While Schmitter confidently states the postulated components of corporatism 'can be easily assessed, if not immediately quantified' Schmitter b, 14 , such assessment is in fact very difficult.
Although Schmitter also suggested that 'corporatism' was an ideal type description or actually a constructed type , this reservation went back to discussion about empirical referents and empirical cases b, 45 , and he found the ideal type almost perfectly reproduced in Brazil and Portugal b, The main justification for the corporatist cause appears to be to offer a new theoretical paradigm to the study of pressure groups, lobbies, interest associations which had long been it is claimed an area of 'conceptual torpor and theoretical orthodoxy in the discipline of political science' Schmitter a, 5.
Elsewhere he put the goal as to give an explicit alternative to the paradigm of interest politics which has until now completely dominated the discipline of North American political science: pluralism Schmitter b, Were there any doubt about the function of the exercise he also suggested that the element of the corporatist definition constituted, 'a sort of paradigmatic revolution when juxtaposed to the long predominant pluralist way of describing and analysing the role of organised interests..!
Given the priority Schmitter accords to this purpose, there is a remarkable ambiguity in his presentation of the relationship between pluralist and corporatist ideas. One manifestation of the ambivalence about pluralism is his combination of claims that pluralism has 'completely dominated' North American political science and that, 'A considerable number and wide variety of scholars have discovered it to be deficient' b, This is a strange kind of dominance that is so widely rejected.
Having noted the considerable number and wide variety of scholars rejecting pluralism, Schmitter goes on to compress the American pluralist debate into six lines in the footnotes citing only Lowi, Kariel and McConnell. Given the intention to replace the pluralist model with a superior offering, one would have expected more elaborate connections between Schmitter's criticisms and the views of the considerable number of other critics.
The one author in the corporatist coalition who has gone into some detail on these matters is Anderson He concludes that his ideas as a corporatist are, in some ways, similar to Lowi's conception of juridical democracy Anderson , After his review of, and identification with, the existing American literature, Anderson is hardly in the paradigm revolution business.
Schmitter's attitude to pluralism seems generally hostile, but he does complicate interpretation by his acknowledgement that pluralism and corporatism share a number or basic assumptions, 'as would almost any realistic model of modern interest politics' b, These are:. Both pluralism and corporatism, according to Schmitter, accept and attempt to analyse growing structural differentiation and interest diversity.
But notwithstanding these basic similarities, they are as indicated above, at other times presented as radically different. Schmitter claims it has been 'rather convincingly' shown that Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Greece, Mexico, and Yugoslavia 'by and large' fit his corporatist definition b, For some cases it seems Schmitter is going some distance beyond the intention of the authors of the studies cited.
We know that the article, in its tail piece, turned attention from electoral politics to corporate pluralism, but that seems little enough reason to claim it as validating Schmitter's particular corporatist thesis.
A few phrases show that Rokkan's picture scarcely resembles identikit corporatism: 'a vast network of interest organisations' p. There is no clear cut evidence here of controlled emergence of groups, quantitative limitation, vertical stratification, etc. Schmitter's claim as to having shown a fit with his model is overambitious. Disturbing examples of intellectual imperialism are those where he claims that on the basis of authors such as Lowi, Beer, Dahrendorf, Presthus and Berger, the USA, Britain, West Germany, Canada, France can be seen as partly, if not in substantial portions, 'corporatized'.
This, in the extreme, is a case for citing the old saying 'Give a small boy a hammer and everything looks like a nail'. And while castigating the misuse of the pluralist paradigm he sees 'Something approaching the corporatist model in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, even the USSR itself b, On the one hand he complains that politics have been labelled pluralist, 'for no better reason that the mere existence of a multitude of organised interests', but when on the other hand he cavalierly labels countries as corporatist, he appears to be setting no superior example.
For a theory presented as empirically based, there are not a lot of data. For Schmitter to cite Sartori and complain about pluralism as a concept travelling too far, too easily, appears suicidal. Sartori complains that cases cannot be proved by transferring the same denomination from one context to another. He says this amounts to pure and simple terminological camouflage: things are declared alike by making them verbally identical.
What is at issue here is the form of argument used by Schmitter. He labels countries as corporatist, then he calls this purely verbal device 'a demonstration of broad structural identity which has After so 'proving' that these many parties are 'corporatist', Schmitter lists the characteristics of pluralism that accordingly do not apply:.
Two main comments need to be made. Firstly Schmitter suggests that these do not apply because the regimes are corporatist, whereas the criteria should determine the conclusion and not vice versa. Secondly, it is in fact at least an open question that policy making is now dominated by widely dispersed political resources.
Policy making in Western Europe seems more like Schmitter's pluralism than anything else — i. Not all the dimensions of his so-called pluralist model look useful, but arguably these are deficiencies peculiar to his rather exaggerated version of pluralism. Would, in fact, a pluralist be surprised at the developments attracting Schmitter's attention? And, indeed, would any pluralist recognise, and admit parentage for, the version of pluralism used by Schmitter?
The fault, if there is one, is not wholly Schmitter's; the pluralist literature perhaps differs between what it says and the impression it gives of what it is saying. So many commentators before Schmitter have said that pluralism, is about open access, equal resources, competition etc. Schmitter himself in Berger , states: 'the "pluralist" system will be both self-equilibrating and selflegitimating'.
However, who has established the origin of such claims in the primary literature? Dahl , Appendix A. If one looks at the primary literature — and here the discussion is restricted to E. Truman The Governmental Process, , and R. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory, — what does one find? For Herring, if we take them in historical precedence, we discover in the preface that in theory our government should strike a balance among these conflicting forces so as to promote the welfare of all.
In fact, he claims, some groups are placed more advantageously than others within our governmental structure and under our industrial system. The government draws its strength from the very elements it is supposed to regulate.
Its officials both elective and appointive are subjected to constant pressure from these powerful interests'. Herring continued 'Is the scope and development of our administrative service to be determined by the urging of special groups How can interests that are socially important but politically weak be given a place in the federal administration? Truman, in turn, does not assume that groups are, by definition, harmful but at the same time it is a preoccupation of his to limit the undesirable aspects of group action.
For example, he writes that we cannot hope to protect a governmental system from the results of group organisation unless we have an adequate understanding of the process of which they are a part p. Schmitter's apparent reluctance to accept the sheer multiplicity of interests. Truman repeatedly returns to complexity — the 'bewildering array of groups, multiple access points'.
Hugh Heclo wrote about, 'issue networks' precisely because he noted fragmentation in policy making structures — a tendency towards atomisation. One's instinct is that the corporatist theory is not just under-developed but that its basic features are not approximate to known circumstances. When, in McKenzie's term, the 'first guess' , is off the mark, refinement will not significantly improve its value.
It is quite possible that Schrnitter and others looking at Truman's chapter 'The Web of Relationships in Administrative Process' find that the examples have dated and that the lengthy discussion of group access, the description of administration implementation by groups, observation of a tendency to the 'inflexibility of the established web, and the tendencies to closed political processes', were nonetheless inadequately underlined.
But it is unhelpful to the development of the discipline to find these points totally ignored — and a unrealistic version of pluralism put up as a target.
Turning to Dahl, a superficial reading can give some basis for the Schmitter account. In A Preface to Democratic Theory University of Chicago Press, , Dahl had defined the 'normal' process, one in which there is a high probability that all active and legitimate groups in the population can make themselves heard effectively at some crucial stage in the process of decision.
A group excluded may nonetheless often gain entry p. This assumption of widespread effective influence is a basic pluralist tenet. Allard and Y. Helsinki: Westermarck Society. Lorch, Jasmin. Lowry, Cameron. Honolulu: East-West Centre. Maisrikrod, Surin. Malloy, James M.
Morck, Randall K. Morse, Richard M. New York: Harcourt Brace and World. Newton, Ronald C. Norton, Augustus R. Civil Society in the Middle East. New York: Brill. Park, Soyang. Pike, Frederick, and Thomas Stritch eds. Quadir, Fahimul. Rock, Michael T. Rodan, Garry. Schmitter, Philippe C. Schwartz, Frank J. Schwartz and S. Spires, Anthony J.
Stauffer, Robert B. Unger, Jonathan, and Anita Chan. Valiente, Celia. Vasu, Norman. Walker, J. Wiarda, Howard J. Armonk, NY: M. This is important because another key concept asks you to recognize that pluralism and corporatism are both systems of interest group representation. However, you need to know that the state retains more control over citizen input in a corporatist system than it does in a pluralist system because the existence of interest groups can only come through state approval!
We have discussed before that Mexico was once much more authoritarian and has been moving towards democratization. As a result, we see Mexico moving from state control of interest groups through corporatism, which allows little to no influence of the people, to a pluralist system that allows more autonomy and influence on government by the people of the country. These are the major steps of this movement:. Let's review what we have learned in this unit. The first part of the unit is focused on electoral systems.
At this juncture, you should be able to describe electoral systems and rules in each of the course countries. Remember that this is a comparative government course, so you need to be able to compare systems and rules.
You also need to be able to take what you have learned about systems and rules and explain how election rules serve different regime objectives regarding ballot access, election wins, and constituency accountability. In general, authoritarian regimes create election systems and rules to limit ballot access, control election wins, and often do not allow for much accountability to its constituencies.
Once we concluded our exploration of electoral systems, it was time to explore political parties which are a key part of election systems. Political parties organize candidates for the election system regardless of what that system looks like.
You need to be able to describe characteristics of political party systems and party membership among the course countries. Much like with elections, be ready to compare systems between course countries.
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