Political machine
The examples and perspective in this deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (March 2023) |
In the politics of representative democracies, a political machine is a party organization that recruits its members by the use of tangible incentives (such as money or political jobs) and that is characterized by a high degree of leadership control over member activity. The machine's power is based on the ability of the boss or group to get out the vote for their candidates on election day.
While these elements are common to most political parties and organizations, they are essential to political machines, which rely on hierarchy and rewards for political power, often enforced by a strong party whip structure. Machines sometimes have a political boss, typically rely on patronage, the spoils system, "behind-the-scenes" control, and longstanding political ties within the structure of a representative democracy. Machines typically are organized on a permanent basis instead of a single election or event. The term "machine" usually is used by its reform-minded enemies in a pejorative sense.[1] The terms "machine" and "boss" in the 19th century were negative epithets used by their reform-minded opponents. However in the 20th century these became standard terms for scholars and analysts who sometimes emphasized their positive contributions.[2]
Definition
The Encyclopædia Britannica defines "political machine" as "a party organization, headed by a single boss or small autocratic group, that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of a city, county, or state".[1] William Safire, in his Safire's Political Dictionary, defines "machine politics" as "the election of officials and the passage of legislation through the power of an organization created for political action".[3] He notes that the term is generally considered pejorative, often implying corruption.
Hierarchy and discipline are hallmarks of political machines. "It generally means strict organization", according to Safire.
Political patronage, while often associated with political machines, is not essential to the definition for either Safire or Britannica.[3]
Function
A political machine is a party organization that recruits its members by the use of tangible incentives—money, political jobs—and that is characterized by a high degree of leadership control over member activity.
Political machines started as
In the history of United States of America
The term "political machine" dates back to the 19th century in the United States, where such organizations have existed in some municipalities and states since the 18th century.[6]
In the late 19th century, large cities in the United States—
This system of political control—known as "
An army led by a council seldom conquers: It must have a commander-in-chief, who settles disputes, decides in emergencies, inspires fear or attachment. The head of the Ring is such a commander. He dispenses places, rewards the loyal, punishes the mutinous, concocts schemes, negotiates treaties. He generally avoids publicity, preferring the substance to the pomp of power, and is all the more dangerous because he sits, like a spider, hidden in the midst of his web. He is a Boss.[11]
When asked if he was a boss, James Pendergast said simply,
I've been called a boss. All there is to it is having friends, doing things for people, and then later on they'll do things for you ... You can't coerce people into doing things for you—you can't make them vote for you. I never coerced anybody in my life. Wherever you see a man bulldozing anybody he don't last long.[7]
Theodore Roosevelt, before he became president in 1901, was deeply involved in New York City politics. He explains how the machine worked:
The organization of a party in our city is really much like that of an army. There is one great central boss, assisted by some trusted and able lieutenants; these communicate with the different district bosses, whom they alternately bully and assist. The district boss in turn has a number of half-subordinates, half-allies, under him; these latter choose the captains of the election districts, etc., and come into contact with the common heelers.[12]
Voting strategy
Many machines formed in cities to serve immigrants to the U.S. in the late 19th century who viewed machines as a vehicle for political
The corruption of urban politics in the United States was denounced by private citizens. They achieved national and state civil-service reform and worked to replace local patronage systems with civil service. By Theodore Roosevelt's time, the Progressive Era mobilized millions of private citizens to vote against the machines.[15]
1930s to 1970s
In the 1930s,
A local political machine in Tennessee in the 1930s and 1940s was forcibly removed in what was known as the 1946 Battle of Athens.
Smaller communities such as Parma, Ohio, in the post–Cold War era under Prosecutor Bill Mason's "Good Old Boys" and especially communities in the Deep South, where small-town machine politics are relatively common, also feature what might be classified as political machines, although these organizations do not have the power and influence of the larger boss networks listed in this article. For example, the "Cracker Party" was a Democratic Party political machine that dominated city politics in Augusta, Georgia, for over half of the 20th century.[17][18][19][20] Political machines also thrive on Native American reservations, where tribal sovereignty is used as a shield against federal and state laws against the practice.[21]
In the 1960s and 1970s,
In Japan
Japan's
Japanese political factional leaders are expected to distribute mochidai (literally snack-money) funds to help subordinates win elections. For the annual end-year gift in 1989, LDP Party Headquarters gave $200,000 to every member of the Diet. Supporters collect benefits such as money payments distributed by politicians to voters in weddings, funerals, New year parties among other events, and ignore their patrons' wrongdoings in exchange. Political ties are held together by marriages between the families of elite politicians.[25] Nisei, second generation political families, have grown increasingly numerous in Japanese politics, due to a combination of name-recognition, business contacts and financial resources, and the role of personal political machines.[26]
Evaluation
The phrase is considered derogatory "because it suggests that the interest of the organization are placed before those of the general public", according to Safire. Machines are criticized as undemocratic and inevitably encouraging corruption.[3]
Since the 1960s, some historians have reevaluated political machines, considering them corrupt but efficient. Machines were undemocratic but responsive. They were also able to contain the spending demands of special interests. In Mayors and Money, a comparison of municipal government in Chicago and New York,
In his mid-2016 article "How American Politics Went Insane" in The Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch argued that the political machines of the past had flaws but provided better governance than the alternatives. He wrote that political machines created positive incentives for politicians to work together and compromise – as opposed to pursuing "naked self-interest" the whole time.[27]
See also
- Clientelism
- Cronyism
- New Deal coalition, United States 1930s–1960s
- Cook County Democratic Party, Chicago
- The Byrd Organization, Virginia
- E. H. Crump, Memphis, Tennessee
- Tammany Hall, Manhattan
- Huey Long, Louisiana
- George W. Plunkitt, New York
- Particracy
References
- ^ a b "political machine". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved December 6, 2008.
- ^ Alan Lessoff and James J. Connolly, "From political insult to political theory: The boss, the machine, and the pluralist city." Journal of Policy History 25.2 (2013): 139–172.
- ^ ISBN 9780394502618.
- ^ Glazer, Nathan; Monyhan, Daniel Patrick (1963). "The Irish". Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians and Irish of New York. The MIT Press. p. 226.
Ed Flynn ran the Bronx from 1922 until his death in 1953.
- American Government. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
- ^ "The managers of the political 'machine' controlled the convention system by the use of patronage, and controlled popular discontent by the convention system", stated Edward Wilson, "The Political Crisis in the United States", The Nineteenth century and after: a monthly review 1.2 (1877): 198–220.
- ^ ISBN 978-0618184163.
- JSTOR 2763406.
The political machine is in fact an attempt to maintain, inside the formal administrative organization of the city, the control of a primary group.
- S2CID 154119413.
When the spoils element is predominant in a political organization, it is called a political machine.
- ISBN 0-201-62463-X.
- ^ "Urban Political Machines", Digital History, archived from the original on 2008-08-21
- ^ Theodore Roosevelt (1897). The Works of Theodore Roosevelt: American ideals. Collier. pp. 132–33.
- ISBN 9780520910621.
- ^ Ari A. Hoogenboom, "An Analysis of Civil Service Reformers". Historian 23#1 (1960): 54–78.
- .
- ^ a b Political Machines, University of Colorado, Boulder, archived from the original on 2009-12-08, retrieved 2012-02-18
- ^ "Newspapers helped end long rule of corrupt Cracker Party". The Augusta Chronicle. August 29, 2010.
- ^ "Picture Story: William Morris". The Augusta Chronicle. Archived from the original on February 12, 2005. Retrieved March 11, 2007.
- ^ Cashin, Edward J. (2007-02-19). "Cites & Counties: Augusta". The New Georgia Encyclopedia.
- ^ "Picture Story: Roy V. Harris". The Augusta Chronicle. Archived from the original on March 24, 2005. Retrieved March 11, 2007.
- ^ Fink, James (September 26, 2016). "Gates overtakes Snyder in Seneca nation vote". Business First. Retrieved September 26, 2016.
- ISBN 0078609801.
- ^ Editorial Research Reports, vol. 1, Congressional Quarterly, 1973
- ^ STEVEN R. REED, ETHAN SCHEINER and MICHAEL F. THIES (2012). "The End of LDP Dominance and the Rise of Party-Oriented Politics in Japan". The Journal of Japanese Studies. 38 (2): 353–376.
- ISBN 978-1315290317.
- ^ Cesare M. Scartozzi (February 9, 2017). "Hereditary Politics in Japan: A Family Business". The Diplomat.
- ^ Jonathan Rauch (June 2016). "How American Politics Went Insane". The Atlantic. Retrieved January 31, 2018.
Further reading
- Clifford, Thomas P (1975). The Political Machine: An American Institution. Vantage Press. ISBN 0-533-01374-7.
- Gosnell, Harold Foote (1968). Machine Politics: Chicago Model. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-30492-2.
- Gosnell, Harold F; Merriam, Charles E (2007). Boss Platt and His New York Machine: A Study of the Political Leadership of Thomas C. Platt, Theodore Roosevelt and Others. Lightning Source Inc. ISBN 978-1-4325-8850-2.
- Kurland, Gerald (1972). Political Machine: What It Is, How It Works. Story House Corp. ISBN 0-686-07238-3.
- Matlin, John S. "Political Party Machines of the 1920s and 1930s: Tom Pendergast and the Kansas City Democratic machine." (PhD Dissertation, University of Birmingham, UK, 2009) online; Bibliography on pp 277–92.
- Mushkat, Jerome (1971). Tammany; the Evolution of a Political Machine, 1789–1865. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0-8156-0079-8.
- Sachs, Paul Martin (1974). The Donegal Mafia: An Irish Political Machine. University of California. ISBN 0-300-02020-1.
- Schlesinger, Jacob M. (1999). Shadow Shoguns: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Postwar Political Machine. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-3457-7.
- Tuckel, P.; Maisel, R. (2008). "Nativity Status and Voter Turnout in Early Twentieth-Century Urban United States". Historical Methods. 41 (2): 99–107. S2CID 144416429.