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Ostrogorski M I 1910 Democracy and the Party System in theUnited States. Macmillan, New York

Ranney A 1962 The Doctrine of Responsible Party Goernment.University of Illinois Press, Urbana, ILRanney A 1951 Toward a more responsible two-party system: A

commentary. American Political Science Reiew 45 (June):48899

Ranney A, Kendall W 1956 Democracy and the American PartySystem. Harcourt Brace, New York

Schattschneider E E 1942 Party Goernment. Farrar and Rine-hart, New York

Schattschneider E E 1948 The Struggle for Party Goernment.University of Maryland Press, College Park, MD

Turner J 1951 Responsible parties: A dissent from the floor.American Political Science Reiew XLV (March): 14352

Wilson W 1885 Congressional Goernment. Houghton Mifflin,Boston

Wilson W 1879 Cabinet government in the United States.International Reiew 7(August): 14663

Wilson W 1925 Committee or cabinet government? In: StannardBaker R, Dodd W E (eds.) The Public Papers of WoodrowWilson: College and State. Harper and Brothers, New York, I,pp. 95129

Wilson W Leaderless government. Public Papers I: 33659

A. Ranney

Party Systems

A party system is the system of interactions betweenpolitical parties that results from their mutual com-petition or cooperation (see Sartori 1976, p. 44). Forparty systems to exist there must therefore be morethan one party involved. One-party states do not haveparty systems. Beyond the requirement for a pluralityof parties, party systems can be said to exist only whenthese interactions between the parties are patterned,familiar, and reasonably predictable. A plurality ofparties is therefore a necessary but not sufficientcondition for the existence of a party system. Partiesthat exist alongside one another, but that do notinteract in any patterned or structured fashion, do notmake for a party system as such.

While it may seem difficult to conceive of situationsin which a plurality of parties exists without at the

same time embodying a set of patterned interactions,two types of limiting cases can be identified. The firstis where each of the parties involved exists in anentirely self-sufficient world, based on a closed elec-toral constituency, with neither its survival nor per-formance being in any way effected by the otherparties in the polity. Even in this limiting case,however, the absence of interactions at the electorallevel might well be accompanied by the need tointeractthrough competition or cooperationat theparliamentary or governmental level. Thus, while noelectoral party system would exist, it might well provepossible to speak of a party system in parliament. The

second type of limiting case is where a new multipartydemocracy is being established more or less from

scratch, such as in the wake of a democratic transition,and where neither the newparties themselves, nor theirinteractions, have stabilized sufficiently to allow theidentification of a distinct pattern. In these situations,a party system may be in the process of beingstructured or institutionalized but it cannot yet be saidto have definitely emerged. In their survey of partysystems in Latin America, Mainwaring and Scully(1995) adopt a similar distinction in specifying partysystems as either institutionalized or inchoate.Strictly speaking, however, an inchoate or non-institutionalized party system is a contradiction interms: to be a system is to be institutionalized.

1. Classifying Party Systems

Although scholars have paid relatively scant attentionto what defines a party system as such, tending insteadto assume the existence of a party system in all politieswhere there exists a plurality of parties, they havedevoted considerable effort to distinguishing betweendifferent types of party system. The most conventionaland frequently adopted approach to distinguishingparty systems is based simply on the number of partiesin competition, and the most common distinctioninvolved here, which goes back to Duverger (1954), isvery straightforwardthat between two-party sys-tems, on the one hand, and multiparty (i.e., more thantwo) systems, on the other. This particular classi-fication was also believed originally to reflect a morefundamental distinction between more or less stableand consensual democracies, such as the UnitedKingdom and the United States, which were seen astypical of the two-party variety, and more or lessunstable or conflictual democracies, such as FourthRepublic France, Italy, or Weimar Germany, whichwere seen as typical of the multiparty type. Althoughthis simple association of numerical categories ofparty system with levels of political stability andefficacy was later undermined by reference to a host ofsmaller democracies that were characterized by both amultiplicity of parties and a strong commitment toconsensual government, the core distinction between

two- and multi-party systems has continued to bewidely employed within the literature on comparativepolitics, although it is sometimes modified by takinginto account not only the sheer numbers of parties incompetition, but also their relative size. Thus, Blondel(1968), for example, uses the relative size of the partiesto distinguish four types of party system: two-partysystems, two-and-a-half-party systems, multipartysystems with a dominant party, and multiparty sys-tems without a dominant party.

The most substantial attempt to move away from aprimary reliance on the simple numbers of parties incompetition was that of Sartori (1976, pp. 117323),

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who combined counting the parties with a measure ofthe ideological distance that separated them. Sartoris

typology was the first that focused directly on theinteractions between the partiesthe mechanics ofthe systemand hence on the differential patterns ofcompetition and cooperation. Following this ap-proach, party systems could be classified according tothe number of parties in the system, in which there wasa distinction between systems with two parties, thosewith up to some five parties (limited pluralism) andthose with some six parties or more (extreme plural-ism); and according to the distance that separated theparties lying at either extreme of the ideologicalspectrum, which would either be small (moderate) orlarge (polarized). These two criteria were not whollyindependent of one another, however, in that Sartorialso showed that the format of the system, that is, the

number of parties, contained mechanical predis-positions, that is, it could help determine the ideo-logical distance, such that extreme pluralism couldlead to polarization. When combined, the two criteriaresulted in three principal types of party system: two-party systems, characterized by a limited format and asmall ideological distance (e.g., the UK); moderatepluralism, characterized by limited or extreme plural-ism and a relatively small ideological distance (e.g.,Denmark or the Netherlands); and polarized plural-ism, characterized by extreme pluralism and a largeideological distance (e.g., Weimar Germany, earlypostwar Italy, or pre-Pinochet Chile). Sartori alsonoted the existence of a predominant-party system,in which one particular party, such as, for example, theCongress party in India, or the old Unionist party inNorthern Ireland, consistently won a winning majorityof parliamentary seats.

2. Party Systems and Structures of Competition

At the core of any party system is the competition forexecutive office. It is this that structures the partysystem in the first place, and facilitates its institu-tionalization. Moreover, albeit often implicitly, thecompetition for executive office is also the mostimportant criterion employed in many of the various

classifications of party systems. Two-party systems,for example, are referred to as such not because thereonly two parties present themselves to the votersindeed, this is rarely if ever the casebut ratherbecause only two parties matter when it comes toforming a government, be this in a presidential or aparliamentary system. In two-and-a-halfor multipartysystems, by contrast, there are more than two partiesthat enjoy the potential access to executive office. Evenwithin the more complex classification developed bySartori, it is the competition for office that proves mostimportant. Sartoris moderate pluralism, for example,involves competition between alternative coalition

governments, whereas polarized pluralism involves apatterns in which a center party or parties is more or

less permanently in office, with one or more extremeparties being permanently excluded from government.

It follows from this that party systems might best beunderstood not only in terms of some all-embracingclassification, within which the question of the num-bers of parties in competition obviously plays animportant role, but also in terms of contrastingpatterns of government formation (Mair 1997, pp.199223). Three related criteria are important here.The first concerns the ways in which governmentsalternate with one another, where systems in whichthere is a regular process of wholesale alternation, inwhich incumbents are replaced wholly by formernonincumbents, may be separated from those in whichalternation is only partially complete. Systems in

which two alternative parties or coalitions alternatewith one another (the USA, the UK, Fifth RepublicFrance) may therefore be distinguished from those inwhich one or more parties leaves office, while anotherremains, albeit often with a new coalition partner(Belgium, the Netherlands). The second, relevantcriterion here is familiarity, where systems in whichgovernment is always contested by the same parties orsets of parties may be contrasted with those in whichpatterns of government formation prove more in-novative or promiscuous. In postwar Ireland, forexample,voters had long become accustomed to facinga choice at election time between, on the one side, thepowerful Fianna FaTil party, which always governedalone, or, on the other side, a coalition of all of thesmaller parties. Once Fianna FaTildecided to opt for acoalition strategy, however, in 1989, governmentformation became more innovative, and the formerlyfamiliar patterns broke down. The third criterioninvolves the degree of access to the governmentformation process, and the extent to which new partiescan hope to win a place in the executive. New partieshave always found it relatively easy to join innovativegovernment coalitions in the Netherlands, for ex-ample. In the UK, by contrast, no party other than theConservatives or Labour has gained access to govern-ment since 1945.

Putting these three criteria together enables partysystems to be ranged along a notional continuum

according to the degree to which the structure ofcompetition is open or closed. At one extreme lie thewholly closed systems, such as the UK or the US,where alternation in government is always wholesale,where government formation processes are whollyfamiliar, and where new or third parties are alwaysexcluded. At the other extreme, it is difficult to speakof a party system at all: there is no discernible patternin how governments alternate, the potential alter-natives themselves are unfamiliar and may never havegoverned before, and access to office is, in principle,open to all. To travel from this latter extreme to theother is therefore to witness the progressive closure of

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the structure of competition, which is simply anotherway of saying that systemness itself increases. Party

systems as systems are strongest and are most institu-tionalized when the structure of competition is closed.They are weakest, and more or less nonexistent, whenthis structure is wholly open.

To understand party systems in this way, and henceto treat the systemness of a party system, or its degreeof institutionalization, as a variable, also affords aninsight into the question of the persistence and changeof party systems. Strongly institutionalized partysystems will inevitably enjoy a bias towards per-sistence, not least because the parties at the core ofsuch systems will have a vested interest in maintainingthe existing structure of competition. It is for thisreason, for example, that Lipset and Rokkan (1967)could speak of the freezing of west European party

systems in the wake of full democratization in the1920s. Less institutionalized systems, on the otherhand, will prove more susceptible to change. Thisapproach also affords an insight into the relationshipbetween party systems and individual parties, for it isnot just the individual parties that together create theparty system, but also the party system that acts toreinforce the role and standing of the parties them-selves.

See also: Democracy; Dictatorship; Electoral Systems;Participation: Political; Party Identification; PartyResponsibility; Political Parties, History of

BibliographyBlondel J 1968 Party systems and patterns of government in

western democracies. Canadian Journal of Political Science 1:180203

Duverger M 1954 Political Parties: Their Organization andActiity in the Modern State. Methuen, London

Lipset S M, Rokkan S 1967 Cleavage structures, party systemsand voter alignments: An introduction. In: Lipset S M,Rokkan S (eds.) Party Systems and Voter Alignments. FreePress, New York

Mainwaring S, Scully T R 1995 Introduction: Party systems inLatin America. In: Mainwaring S, Scully T R (eds.) BuildingDemocratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America.Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA

Mair P 1997 Party System Change: Approaches and Inter-pretations. Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK

Sartori G 1976 Parties and Party Systems: A Framework forAnalysis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

Wolinetz S B, Brookfield U T (eds.) 1998 Party Systems.Ashgate, Aldershot, UK

P. Mair

Pastoralism in Anthropology

Pastoralism refers to a range of subsistence modesbased on specialized herding of domestic animals on

free range, and culturally dominated by values asso-ciated with such an economic adaptation. Examples

are the social formations based on small-stock ori-ented commercial meat production and long distancetrading in the Middle East, on reindeer herding andhunting in the subarctic regions or on the subsistence-oriented cattle and small-stock herding in East Africa.A common synonym to pastoralist is nomad. Sinceadjustment to animal needs necessitates as well asmakes possible a mobile adaptation, the whole pas-toral household or parts of the labor force may bepermanently or seasonally migrating. The extent ofmobility is however in fact highly variable, anddependence on herds a more significant factor thanmobility in itself, so that the term pastoralism ispreferable. It is useful to consider as pastoralistsmainly people for which livestock have a double

function as both a means for the production of utilitiessuch as foodstuff, wool, or skins, and as a form ofcapital with the potential of growth, primarily used forsuch production (Barth 1964, p. 70). This contraststhem to agro-pastoralists using their herds primarilyas an agricultural capital, for example, traditionalcultivators in East Africa who invest in cattle toexpand the households agricultural labor poolthrough bride-wealth and polygyny. Pastoralism islabor-intensive in the sense of requiringa largenumberof hands for different tasks, and thus also commonlycontrasted with, for example, ranching, where fencingmakes a much less extensive use of labor possible.

Within the limits of such definitions, pastoralismrefers to a wide range of very different situations,regions, and times. Milk-based economies built oncattle\small stock in East Africa and on camels\flocksin the Horn of Africa date 2,0003,000 years back.Pastoralists exploiting arid regions use species diversi-fication as a risk reducing strategy: different speciesare subject to different hazards, have supplementaryproduction patterns and require different labor. Con-temporary East African pastoralism is based on anemphasis on cow or camel milk production forsubsistence purposes, supplemented with small stockrearing to produce milk or meat for market sale orhousehold needs. In the present situation there is oftena change towards commercial production of smallstock for the meat market, although authorities often

encourage the sale of immature cattle to the livestockindustry. The basic division of labor in such societies isthat young men take care of mobile adult cattle andcamels out of lactation, allowing them to profit fromvaluable but distant pastures. Women, children, andelderly menlook after lactating dams and cows, calves,and small stock. These are often managed in a lessmobile fashion if conditions allow. In East Africancattle cultures, a careful attitude about the repro-ductive potential of the herd is a prime moral valuethat reflects on the fundamental worth of the pas-toralist as a human being and as a member of thecommunity. Reproductive capital could traditionally

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