Workshop from 5-8 January 2004 to determine

“India's Liberal Political Strategy: 2004 and beyond”

from Party Building in a New Nation: The Indian National Congress by Myron Weiner. University of Chicago Press. 1967.

From Chapter 1

Political Organization and Political Development

How important political organization is in the process of political development has been much discussed by scholars of development. Samuel Huntington speaks of the need for a modernizing system to develop the "capacity to assimilate into the system the social forces which result from modernization." (Samuel P. Huntington, "The Political Modernization of Traditional Monarchies," (Mimeographed), p. 8. Huntington develops the theme of political development as 'institutuionalization" in his article "Political Development and Political Decay," World XVII (April, 1965).) Lucian Pye, in a similar vein, notes that "political development is related to an increased ability to organize associations of people and to manage complex structures." (Lueian W. Pye, Aspects of Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown, and Pant, 1966), p. 100: This theme is also discussed in his Politics, Personality, and Nation Building (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962). Through the writings of many scholars of the development process runs this persistent theme: the need for human organization for the achievement of goals which individuals, by themselves, are unable to achieve.

The readiness of individuals to work together in an organized fashion for common purposes and to behave in a fashion conducive to the achievement of these common purposes is an essential behavioral pattern of complex modern societies. (This discussion draws from my article "Political Integration and Political Development," The Annals (March, 1965), 52-64.)Modern societies have all encountered organizational revolutions - in many respects as essential and as revolutionary as the technological revolution which has made the modern world…

This is not to suggest that all modern systems contain the same types of organizations or that the citizens of all modern societies have an equal propensity to organize or, for that matter, that the more organized society is the more developed it is. Far from it. If de Tocqueville was right in saying that Americans have a greater tendency to associate together than other peoples, that does not make American society more developed than other societies - although, incidentally, there may be a relationship between American organizational capacities and the high performance of the American economy. There may, however, be a minimum threshold for associating together insofar as political development is concerned that is passed when there are organized structures to which individuals can and do go in order to attempt to deal with shared social problems.

The consequences of an organizational lag as an impediment to development are quite apparent. The inability of many political leaders to maintain internal party and government unity in many new nations has resulted in the collapse of parliamentary government and the establishment of military dictatorships. Further, the much vaunted organizational skill of the military has often failed in many new nations. In Ceylon a planned military coup collapsed when several of the conspirators spoke of their plans so openly that even a disorganized civilian government had time to take action; in many Latin American countries, as in Vietnam, the military has proved as incapable of maintaining cohesive authority as their civilian predecessors.

The capacity - or lack of capacity - to organize with one's fellows may be a general quality of societies. A society with a high organizational capacity appears to be competent at creating industrial organizations, bureaucracies, political parties, universities, and the like. Germany, Japan, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain come quickly to mind. In contrast, one is struck by a generalized incompetence in many new nations where organizational breakdowns seem to be greater bottlenecks to economic growth than breakdowns in machinery. In some new countries technological innovations, such as industrial plants, railways, and telegraph and postal systems, have expanded more rapidly than the human capacities to make the technologies work, with the result that mail is lost, the transport system does not function with any regularity, industrial managers cannot implement their decisions, and government administrative -regulations impede, rather than facilitate, the management of public sector plants.

… Indeed, political organization often precedes, and may be an important factor in whether or not there is, large scale economic change. Moreover, just as the presence of entrepreneurial talents in a traditional society is a key element in whether or not economic growth occurs, so the presence of organizational talents may be an important element in whether or not there emerges a leadership with the capacity to run a political party, an interest association, or a government.

Although modern societies certainly have more individuals with organizational skills than do traditional societies, among traditional societies there is variance in the capacity to produce individuals with organizational skills. (For an analysis of the attitudes which inhibit organized activity, see Edward Banfield, The Moral Basis o f a Backward Society (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1958). Though Banfield's study is confined to a single village in Italy, it raises the general problem of analyzing the capacities of a people to organize for common purposes.)

… By contemporary American or Western standards, Indians are not especially skillful at organization, though compared to many other developing societies they would probably rank high. India has a substantial number of trade unions, cooperatives, castes, religious and tribal organizations, and literary societies, and a considerable number of political parties.( For a description of voluntary associations in India, see my Politics o f Scarcity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).) One often gets the impression that while Indians can organize readily, the organizations which they create are torn by internal factional disputes and thus are often unable to carry out the functions for which they were created. Many Indians would be among the first to describe themselves and the organizations which they create as ineffectual.

.. A successful party organization operating in an open competitive environment must be able to: (1) recruit and train its personnel, thereby perpetuating itself as an organization; (2) win support (goodwill, money, votes) from the population or substantial parts thereof; and (3) maintain internal cohesion. If the party is unable to recruit personnel, then it has no durability and its life span is no greater than that of its members. If the party is unable to win support from a substantial portion of the population, one would hardly describe it as successful in a competitive system.

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