9.2: Party Structure

In his 1942 book Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups, political scientist V. O. Key describes parties as having a three-part structure. Most prominent is the party-in-government, the party members who hold official government positions, including the president, vice president, members of Congress, governors, and other elected and appointed officials at different levels of government who affiliate with the party. By virtue of their official status, these members have formal legal powers to craft and implement the party’s desired policies. A party’s goal is to get as many of its members as possible into high-ranking or influential government positions to maximize its impact on policy.

The party-as-organization is the formal administrative structure of the party. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) serve these roles for the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively. Members of the party-as-organization work behind the scenes to support and promote the success of the party. Their duties include campaigning on behalf of candidates, coordinating communication strategies, crafting party platforms, managing party primaries and nominating conventions, and recruiting new party members.

The party-in-the-electorate is the share of the electorate that supports the party, the average citizens who either are registered party members or simply think of themselves as members. They play their most crucial role on Election Day, as the votes they cast have the power to propel the party’s candidates to victory. Because of their importance, both the party-in-government and the party-as-organization work hard to grow and maintain the party-in-the electorate by listening to what it has to say and trying to appeal to its policy interests.

One way to understand this tripartite party structure is by analogy to a professional sports team. The party-in-government is like the players on a team: they are the most famous and visible members of the party, the ones who actually go “on the field” to play a direct role in the policymaking process. The party-as-organization is akin to a team’s managers, coaches, trainers, and doctors: they are not as famous as the party-in-government and do their jobs mostly out of sight, but they are nonetheless instrumental in keeping the party-in-government organized and able to perform to its maximum potential. The party-in-the-electorate is similar to a team’s fans: they play no direct role in the party’s “on-field” success in policymaking, but without their votes and donations the party would not have the resources to field a competitive team, which gives the party a strong interest in keeping its supporters passionate and satisfied.

Each of these three parts is essential to the overall effectiveness of a party. A professional sports team could not long exist if it had coaches and fans but no players, or players and fans but no coaches, or players and coaches but no fans. The same is true of a party: if it had no members in government, or lacked an organizational structure, or had no support from the electorate, it would be unable to gain or maintain enough political power to further its policy agenda.

A professional sports team’s success is closely tied to how well its parts work together. If the players ignore the advice of the coaches, or if the coaches berate and mistreat the players, or if the players and coaches act dismissively toward the fans, or if the fans stop buying tickets or boo from the stands, the team’s competitiveness is undermined. Likewise, a party must maintain a certain level of cohesion among its parts in order to function as designed, lest its politicians and candidates stop cooperating, its organization stop assisting, or its supporters in the electorate stop voting or donating.