Political parties are not like companies
- A popular trope among political commentators is that political parties are like corporations and their leaders like CEOs.
- This analogy is misleading and leads to distorted ideas of how political parties function.
Differences
| Political party | Company |
|---|---|
| Characteristics: Have claimants and volunteers | Characteristics: Has employees |
| Purpose: to capture state power in service of some stated social agenda. | Purpose: operate in a narrowly defined and apolitical space selling goods and services. |
| Composition: some paid employees, positions which enable the people holding them to exercise political judgment. | Functions: Even if there is an element of political judgment in the functioning of the corporation, it is exercised at the top. |
| Functions: conveys value judgment about the trajectory of society itself and its consequent trade-offs is not part of a corporation’s role. | Entirely staffed by paid employees: performing well-defined roles with the reasonable |
What should a political party do
- Must manage trade-offs: between multiple conflicting interests, generate consensus, and then mobilise the electorate around its chosen narrative.
- No exclusion of claimants from participation: in the organization’s functioning though the influence of dissidents is often curtailed.
- Avoiding internal dissonance and conflict of interest: since political parties are in the business of opinion-making; can have a cascading effect on all aspects of the party’s operations from outreach to fundraising.
- Sorting out issues through ‘discipline’: as power is more informal and dynamic than in a corporation.
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Conclusion
- ‘Professionalisation’ of politics facilitates rampant party hopping by political functionaries in the manner of employees flitting across companies. This reduces the overall credibility of the political space.
- Ultimately, politics is a value-driven enterprise. We should seek competence and accountability from political functionaries, but the way forward is not through the corporatisation of our parties