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Political Parties as Interest Groups

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Originally published in SSRN

Explanations of the role of political parties within political processes abound. Most of these explanations describe parties as a type of intermediary, in that they stand between voters and candidates and facilitate matching between the two. Parties lubricate the political process within these explanations. While we don’t dispute that parties perform intermediary services, we explain that political parties also operate as interest groups, thereby pushing political processes and agendas in particular directions.

Explanations of the role of political parties within political processes abound. Most of these explanations describe parties as a type of intermediary, in that they stand between voters and candidates and facilitate matching between the two. Parties lubricate the political process within these explanations. While we don’t dispute that parties perform intermediary services, we explain that political parties also operate as interest groups, thereby pushing political processes and agendas in particular directions. We do this by incorporating insights from Pareto’s (1935) analysis of competition among elites for power and Hayek’s (1937) analysis of fragmented and distributed knowledge.