Factions and Opinion Groups in European Mass Parties

Some Evidence from a Study of Italian Socialist Activists

Bibliographic Data

ID7728099
AuthorsAlan J Stern, Sidney Tarrow (0000-0001-7159-0026), Mary Frase Williams
Year1971
Volume3
Issue4
Pages529
Publication date1971-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4159 • E-ISSN: 2151-6227
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/421262
OpenAlexW2334227972
LanguageEN
Citations received5

There was time when American students of political parties could operate with the simple assumption that, in contrast to our own, European parties were cohesive, homogeneous, and disciplined. With the exception of few deviant, old-fashioned parties of notables, the assumption ran, the European mass party had effectively solved the problem of internal dissidence and could turn to the challenge of external competition with a punctilious ideological and principled rigidity.'l In contrast to parties in the United States, the problem of factions seemed to have been solved in Europe (1) because of the more streamlined and hierarchical organization of European mass parties, (2) because of their apparently higher degree of programmatic homogeneity, and (3) because of the greater institutional centralization of European political systems. The monolithic view of the European mass party outlined above ignores many of the historical cleavages within these parties, especially during the period between the two world wars.2 And, in recent years, this perspective seems particularly inappropriate as factions have not only flourished, but have buttressed themselves with the very tools of organization and propaganda that the mass parties once developed to insure

Media studies · Political economy · Political science · Popular opinion · Sociology · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Public Administration