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Political Machine

Definition

Characteristics

A political machine is a non-ideological organization (can be formal or informal) that is more interested in procuring positions that principles, and providing the rewards of office for those who help run it. Some of the earliest influential literature concerning political machines comes from The American Political Science Review, where James C. Scott describes the conditions for a machine to be created as being elections to select leaders, near-universal adult voting rights, and competitive inter-party elections. Centralization of control over campaign funds, spoils, and patronage helps create strict political machine discipline. Other common characteristics of societies where machines formed are rapid social change, fragmented political power, ethnic fractionalization, and poverty. It was these elements that were evident in American society in the era of machine politics. Machines are most likely to be found in societies where voter mobilization provides high returns of investment of obtaining power within government. William Safire's political dictionary also emphasizes that the interests of the organization or boss are placed before the interest of the general public.

The phase in political development where countries are vulnerable to machine politics is when traditional vertical political ties are weakened due to significant socioeconomic change. Short-run material rewards are necessary to continue to form vertical ties in this transitional situation, and leaders compete for support with these tangible incentives. More electoral competition leads to more rewards being provided.

Function

According to Scott, the political machine relies on "particularistic, material rewards" to garner electoral support. This can include pork-barrel legislation, loans, jobs, and individual favors for persons and families. He argues that these rewards formed the strong links that were the nature of a political machine, and not charisma, ideology, or coercion. The existing links between political machine targets and patrons are weak, but there is often also weak horizontal class ties. Material rewards are able to create these political ties between patrons and voters. Machines use self-interest as their "political cement". Machine parties are distinguished by the dominance of these reward networks.

A succinct summary of how the authority of machine politics functions:

"A machine regime may thus be characterized as one in which traditional, charismatic, and coercive authority are less significant than distributive activity, and in which distributive activity is particularistic rather than collective" - James C. Scott.

In Corruption, Development, and Underdevelopment, Robin Theobald details the other rewards machines may use: contracts, release of government information for businesses to use profitably, and non-enforcement of building regulations or legal restrictions related to illicit activities like gambling or smuggling.

Political machines often operate under the realm of electoral clientelism. The two topics are closely related; political machines are parties or organizations that use strategies of electoral clientelism. Primary elections are generally more vulnerable to political machines as the organization leadership can use their "troops" to turn out the vote.

Gans-Morse, Mazzuca, and Nichter in the American Journal of Political Science described the five clientelism strategies that machines use and/or combine:

1. Vote buying
2. Turnout buying
3. Abstention buying
4. Double persuasion
5. Rewarding Loyalists

In this model, political machines adapt their use of these strategies based on aspects of their societies like compulsory voting, level of ballot secrecy, strength of political belief, ideological variance, and support of the machine itself. With a combination of these strategies, machines can maximize possibilities for both persuasion and mobilization with their resources available.

In The United States

The origins of machine politics in the United States come from the introduction of Jacksonian democracy in the 1830s. The expansion of suffrage to all white men led to the need to mobilize large masses of voters. The confusing nature of city administration and inefficiency created informal bargaining systems of patronage and favors, while the rapid urban population growth due to immigrants from eastern and southern Europe added more numbers to the masses of uneducated and poor voters. The environments of large cities like New York or Chicago were often hostile and alien, and immigrants were eager to welcome friendship and personal ties to patrons and machine politicians. Poorer voters in economic insecurity also had shorter time horizons which made the short-run benefits that political machines give more enticing.

The demise of the political machines in the United States is due to two factors, according to Theobald:

1. Various administrative reforms that centralized many of the jurisdictions and program which had been traditionally strictly under municipality rule.
2. Increased bureaucratic control over the distribution of public resources, including jobs thereby reducing considerably the potential for informal bargaining at the city level.

Economic growth, employment, education, and social mobility in America helped turn the poorly educated masses who were vulnerable to material inducements from political machines into informed citizens. The working classes began to convey their needs and interests through official channels like trade unions and interest groups. The value of material benefits also decreased as pension, health care benefits, and welfare were being provided by other organizations or through employment.

Other Examples

In Eastern Europe

Henry E. Hale in his book The New Russian Nationalism introduces the concept of "patronal presidentialism" where a strong executive power garners votes through established complex personal networks across the nation. While nationally there may be no political machine present, the regional political machines are collectively used for mobilization and electoral support. In his chapter on the mix of nationalism and political machines, Hale argues that Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to use political machine machines from post-Soviet Russia’s history like Iurii Luzhkov’s Moscow political machine, and more recent examples like Ramzan Kadyrov’s Chechnya machine and Mintimer Shaimiev’s Tatarstan machine.

In Latin America

"The Argentine Partido Justicialista (the Peronist Party, or PJ) is a well-known case of an electorally successful party machine, and scholars have repeatedly noted the salience of brokers (called punteros in Argentina) for the PJ political strategy and its political hegemony. "

In Mexico, the Institutional Revolutionary Party's long grip on power can be attributed to its vast system of patronage, teachers' unions, peasant farmers' associations, and other organizations that gave materialistic incentives to maintain the support of the poor.

Ghana's Convention People's Party (CPP) (1952-1960)

The CPP in Ghana during the 1950s was able to dominate the electoral competition due to its use of material rewards. The conditions in Ghana were vulnerable to machine politics: a significant urban migration of young voters who had just left their traditional village ties, economic growth thanks to a rise in the world price of cocoa, a centralized structure for distributing resources. The CPP had just gained control of patronage jobs and important decision-making ability as the British had begun to decolonize. Examples of patronage included the distribution of contacts, licenses, individual loans, pork-barrel grants, kickbacks to large forms, and creating new state firms for patronage purposes. Inducements were provided based on the particular needs of localities and regions that supported them. Roads were built through pro-CPP towns and not anti-CPP towns, and the public budget expanded rapidly so it could provide well-paid jobs to supporters.

The Indian National Congress (INC) Until 1969

The INC was founded in 1855, but upon the nation's independence in 1947, the INC turned to machine politics to maintain electoral majorities. It established state and local INC organizations to distribute material incentives to voters. Congress officials and party brokers assisted voters with administrative access instead of distributing resources, which were somewhat scarce and decentralized in India. Machine politics primarily occurred in rural areas in India, because they were the majority of voters, and were rewards for support were cheaper. Rural voters had simpler demands like pork-barrel grants, agricultural loans, wells, schools etc. Local machines were in charge of providing material benefits to Congress supporters through traditional feudal networks and ties. This dependence on social structure's firm roots gave the INC political machine stability.

The Liberal Democratic Party in Japan

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan was composed of personal support organizations for candidates, called koenkai. Voter mobilization took place through koenkai, which were often organizations that offered personal favors to its members.

The African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa

The ANC has its origins as a movement to end apartheid, and like other nationalist movements that turn into political parties, obtain the majority of the spoils of government such as jobs, state resources, and budget control. The ANC has been the dominant party since it first took control, and is a contemporary example of political machine operations. Its origins in national liberation continue to provide mobilization capacity, and it has resources to allocate positions and resources to those who continue to support the party's current role as a "party-state". The head of the party particularly has the opportunity to offer many jobs as patronage. Jacob Zuma's reign was associated with cronyism and corruption because of this ability.

Evaluation

Benefits of Political Machines

Studies of political machines in West Africa and India, show that the formation of political machines can compare to their American counterparts, as they served as a relatively democratic mechanism to incorporate large masses of poor, urban voters into the electorate. For dynamic environments with rapid social change, they can be beneficial for dissuading violence, increasing political legitimacy, and generating class co-operation.

The political machine has four sub groups who are beneficiaries of its actions:

1. Urban masses - voters form a personal relationship that can be more humanizing than the bureaucratic approach of weak institutions.
2. Businessmen - The political boss often provides privileges that government cannot legitimately grant. This may enhance administrative efficiency or create positive business-government links and a stable environment for profit maximization and economic expansion whereas these positive links otherwise may not exist.
3. Social mobility to minority groups - Political machines give new arrivals to the urban scene a channel for them to articulate needs, fostering social integration and mass participation.
4. Actors involved underground economy are allowed to prosper as political bosses turn a blind eye to their activities. This can lead to employment and economic growth.

Political machines can also help develop strong political parties when private wealth is too small to contribute. Examples Theobald provides are the PNR in Mexico, Republican People's Party in Turkey, INC in India, Democratic Republican Party in South Korea .

Negative Consequences:

• Loose coalitions of vested interests - oligarchic rule
• Machines encourage ballot-rigging, censorship
• Undermines democracy

In Susan Stokes' model of machine politics in Argentina, perverse accountability is defined as parties rewarding or punishing individual voters for their support. It is this perverse accountability generated by machines that undermines democracy, as governments are more incentivized to provide material rewards for electoral support than enact policies that benefit their poor constituents.

Article Evaluation

Political machine

A majority of the content in the article is relevant to the topic. Political machines are described in the context of clientelism and corruption, which is why I chose the article.

The article is fairly neutral, but operates on the consensus that "political machine" is a pejorative term. It does not discuss possible benefits of political machines, like increasing turnout among poorer economic classes that are prone to voter apathy, and only briefly describes voter enfranchisement. In the evaluation section, the article does not describe why historians have reconsidered political machines to be efficient.

The function section is underrepresented compared to the other sections. There isn't enough detail on how political machines function, how they are constructed and organized (actors involved beside the boss) and how they can vary in function, especially after the definition section describes political machines as having "strict organization". I found scholarly articles detailing the importance of churches, the press, business interests, and the "underworld" in American political machines. Political machines also provide a variety of services for voters, these are discussed very briefly.

The United States section is overrepresented. The introduction section details how machines exist in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Japan, but does not discuss them at all in the rest of the article. The examples of the United States political machines are lengthy, and the quotations regarding "bossism" are distracting. The There is a separate article on political bosses that these can be reserved for. This article creates the perception that the term political machine is reserved primarily for American context. After reading articles in class about the complexity behind political machines in Latin America, it is disappointing to see that only American machines are discussed. Scholarly articles about political machines also detail the strategies political machines can use: vote-buying, turnout-buying, abstention buying, double persuasion, and rewarding loyalists. These distinctions do not appear in the voting strategy section of the article.

The citations I checked were functional, and most of the facts are appropriately referenced.

The Talk page shows that this article belongs to three WikiProjects (Politics, Sociology, and Philosophy) and is rated Start-Class for all three projects.

The Talk page brings to light some of the missing information I thought of, especially in regards to our class. A comment states that it should not be a U.S specific article, and cites political machine examples in Brazil and Mexico. There is also a comment about how there is no discussion on modern political machines, as it is evident that political machines still exist around the world.

There is debate about whether the article is should use the term "political machine" as a pejorative term.

I would be interested to hear a description of the people/bosses who tended to create the political machines in U.S. history. The legacy of political machines, particularly in the cities they affected, would also be an interesting section, it is clear that money is still an essential part of American politics and there are 21st century examples of actions being committed similar to the actions committed by 20th century political machines.

More information on the difference between rural and urban political machines would be very relevant. In general, I find this article to be incomplete and missing information, and the debate and critical comments on the Talk page correspond to my opinion.