REPRESENTATION IN CRISIS: THE CONSTITUTION, INTEREST GROUPS, AND POLITICAL PARTIES by David K. Ryden. Albany: New York, 1996. 309 pp. Paper $21.95. ISBN 0-7914-3058-8.

Reviewed by Drew Noble Lanier, Department of Political Science, University of Central Florida.
 

Ever since E.E. Schattschneider published PARTY GOVERNMENT (1942), there have been numerous scholarly publications written that espouse the responsible party thesis. David Ryden joins the group of scholars who argue that the American system of governance should return to the nostalgic days of strong parties, disciplined candidates who support the party line, and a party-in-the-electorate that possesses strong and undying party identification. Ryden, however, takes a slightly different perspective than have his predecessors. He argues that the United States Supreme Court’s decisions have greatly led to the decline in strength of the American political parties because the Court has unduly focused on individual political power and rights to the detriment of corporate associational rights that accrue to political parties as organizations. He essentially argues that the Court should fashion a theory of political representation that embraces political parties as vehicles that can bring together individual as well as collective voices. This review will first summarize Ryden’s argument, his evidence and a rather novel survey of practitioners inquiring as to the benefit of strong political parties in the American context. Then, this review will evaluate his work, and the use that college teachers may have for Ryden’s book.

Ryden argues that the Court’s decisions are critically important in influencing the operation of the American system of governance. He suggests that the Court, in its decision-making, has failed to espouse a coherent theory of representation that would guide the Court to make decisions that benefit political parties as indispensable institutions that are uniquely able to express individual policy preferences as well as accommodate the rights of sub-national groups. Ryden roundly criticizes the Court’s decision in BUCKLEY V. VALEO (1976) because it benefited the formation and operation of political action committees to the detriment of organized political parties. He suggests that the Court’s decision in BUCKLEY is emblematic of the tribunal’s failure to construct a theory that, on the one hand, balances the demands of the pluralistic characteristics of the American system while promoting individual associational rights. The Court has over time favored the individual over the interests of parties as institutions of representative democracy to the detriment of all within the nation.

In the initial chapters, Ryden outlines the concept of representation and what it means in different contexts. He discusses formal representation, descriptive representation, the representation that results from the relationship between the elected official and the voter, the activity in which the representative engages on behalf of the represented, as well as the dichotomy in character of individualist and collectivist modes of representation. He asserts that there should be intermediate representative structures that would serve to ameliorate the pluralist demands of the representative’s constituency and also to decrease the volume of extreme, polar positions that may be taken. Parties and party systems are structures that are uniquely qualified to accomplish all these goals.

However, Ryden argues that the Court has failed to fully appreciate the great value that parties bring to the stability and coherence of the American political system. Through its decisions, the Court has espoused a one-dimensional view that has favored expanded voting rights, redistricting and apportionment but, in doing so, it has announced the primacy of individual associational rights over all else, despite opportunities to bolster the rights of parties. Ryden states that the Court’s theory is mired in the concerns of the Progressive Era, which sought to reform the rampant abuses of party politics and to make the overall process more fair and responsive for all individuals by ensuring equal access to political power and political resources. Individual cannot be represented unless they join with others with shared policy views, in Ryden’s opinion. Hence, the Court’s focus on individual rights does not foster the representative relationship between constituents and their elected representatives.

Beginning in Chapter Three, Ryden traces the Court’s more recent efforts to establish group-based rights. He discusses in particular the spate of cases dealing with political gerrymandering, including BAKER V. CARR (1962) and more recently SHAW V. RENO (1993). However, Ryden charges that the Court’s decisions are short-sighted because they promote group rights at the cost of dividing the polity along racial or ethnic lines. He says that parties are able to advocate the interests of racial minorities while softening the often divisive effect of remedies based on race. For Ryden, the solution to this dilemma lies in solving the paradox of pluralism: reconciling the tradition of individual equality that underlies our liberal system with the representation afforded individuals who ban together and form some group. The most efficacious theory of representation would strengthen institutional structures that foster both of these two essential elements, without one dominating the other. They would be like two voices who sing harmoniously in a choir, each blending nicely with the others. A listener would not be able to hear one member’s voice over that of another.

Neopluralism has failed to accomplish this goal, Ryden argues, because some groups’ voices are heard more clearly than other groups’ voices. That is, some groups have larger influence in and on the political process than do other groups. This is contrary to a fair system of representation in which all groups have an equal opportunity to influence the outputs of the political system. This weakness of neopluralism points to the beneficial characteristics of party subsystems because of their unique abilities to reconcile individual and group demands in a equitable and relatively balanced fashion, and give voice to minority concerns that would otherwise be ignored because of the small number of people voicing those concerns. Interest groups mostly seek private goods: that is, those policies that benefit only their members. Parties, on the other hand, mostly seek public goods since their membership is much larger and more inclusive than that of interest groups.

Moreover, parties are good for government too in that they structure the operation of the policy-making process. Ryden points to the new Republican majority as an example of responsible party government. The Republicans in Congress are surprisingly cohesive, disciplined and policy-oriented. Thus, parties can serve to organize government. However, the Court’s decisions have failed to recognize this fundamental aspect of representation because they have failed to "rein in gerrymandering with regard to the parties" and specifically ignored "the parties’ institutional value in assuring principles and precepts at the center of democratic government" (p 131). Hence, the failure of the Court to adequately appreciate the value of the party’s representative role undermines the "accountability and responsiveness of government and threatens the very legitimacy of the state itself" (p. 137).

Ryden provides several examples of cases in which the Court has issued rulings that harm the interests of political parties. The Court’s decisions have allowed independents to vote in what otherwise would be closed primaries (TASHJIAN V. REPUBLICAN PARTY OF CONNECTICUT 1986). Several of the Court's decisions also struck down actions of political appointees to remove officials and replace them with fellow party members in an attempt to build the patronage opportunities of the party. However, the Court struck down a California statute that prohibited the party from endorsing candidates in primary elections (SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEE V. EU 1989). Hence, these decisions illustrate the Court’s indifference toward the institutional benefits that political parties bring to the American system of representative democracy: they serve to conjoin the individual right of political association while reconciling the organizational inequality that underlies neopluralism in the United States political culture.

To his credit, Ryden explains the value of parties within a political system. He explains that the Court should strive to fashion a framework of representation that will take account of the unique ability of parties to temper the individualistic aspect of liberalism grounded in rights and the inequality in influence of political groups that threaten to undermine the level of political efficacy that the electorate possesses. "The deterioration of the equipment of transforming diffused individual activity into meaningful political input has begotten an environment of alienation, distrust, and dissatisfaction" (p. 184). Thus, the legitimacy of the entire political system comes into question if parties themselves are not protected.

Ryden has written a cogent and accurate summary of the benefits of parties to the American political system, and he has analyzed the impact of the Court’s decisions on parties appropriately. He overstates his case, however. As part of his study, Ryden conducted a survey of practitioners, lawyers and political officials about the role and strength of American parties. "The results [of the survey] provided little by way of consensus regarding the parties’ capacity to function according to the party-based ideal... If anything, the results suggest some doubt as to whether the parties do in fact act according to the model" (p, 198). These results are not terribly surprising because his thesis fails to grasp a fundamental concept about American parties: they are institutions, as Leon Epstein (1986) writes, made in the American mold. The proponents of the responsible party model do not adequately appreciate that large influence on the structure, operation and strength of political parties in the United States. They implicitly point to the strong and disciplined parties of the United Kingdom as prime examples of what American parties should be, but can never be.

Also, Ryden argues that the Court should fashion a consistent, integrated, cohesive theory of representation that would protect and foster the unique benefits of the parties. Yet, Ryden underplays the structural limitations on the Court’s decisional process. Under Article III, it cannot actively pursue cases; it must be passive and allow individuals and organizations bring cases to itself. Accordingly, the best vehicle may not present itself to the Court just at the right time for the Court to exploit the case’s policy implications in its quest to set out a grand theory of representation. It makes policy in an incremental, fits-and-starts approach. Indeed, if one takes an originalist perspective, Madison warned against the dangers of parties in FEDERALIST NO. 10 (ROSSITER 1961) and, thus, the Court is perfectly consistent with the Constitution in not giving them special treatment because they are political parties and not some other type of political organization.

Nevertheless, Ryden’s treatment of political parties is useful to college teachers of many courses. Many teachers will find his treatment of interest groups and their influence in the political system informative. Similarly, instructors of courses dealing with political parties, Congress, and perhaps even political theory will find useful his discussion of representation (in all its forms) and political association illuminating. He takes what is often an arcane subject and discusses it clearly and straightforwardly. In addition, instructors of Constitutional Law courses may find this work to be a valuable addition to their teaching units on associational rights. Ryden takes pains to discuss the context of the cases and their impact on the development of the law. Thus, like any book written in the field recently, there is much to admire and much to question from Ryden’s work.
 

BAKER V. CARR. 1962. 369 U.S 186.

BUCKLEY V. VALEO. 1976. 424 U.S. 1.

Epstein, Leon D. 1986. POLITICAL PARTIES IN THE AMERICAN MOLD. Madison: University Of Wisconsin Press.

Rossiter, Clinton, Ed. 1961. THE FEDERALIST PAPERS. New York: Mentor.

SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEE V. EU. 1989. 489 U.S. 214.

Schattschneider, E.E. 1942. PARTY GOVERNMENT. New York: Rhinehart.

SHAW V. RENO. 1993. 125 L.ED. 2D 511.

TASHJIAN V. REPUBLICAN PARTY OF CONNECTICUT. 1986. 479 U.S. 208.