Control without Opposition

Jerzy J. Wjatr and Adam Przeworski

In all organizations but especially in the States, the problem of government
is twofold. From the point of view of the government, the problem is to
secure acquiescence from the governed; from the point of view of the
governed, the problem is to make the government take account, not only
of its own interests, but also of the interests of those over whom it has
power. If either of these problems is completely solved, the other does not
arise; if neither is solved, there is revolution. But as a rule a compromise
solution is reached. (Bertrand Russell, Power. A New Social Analysis,
London, 1957, pp. 197-8.)

The historical development of western civilization has produced

several patterns of political opposition deeply rooted and relatively
well established in the political systems. This opposition is usually
identified with the control of the governed over the government : it is
maintained that opposition is at the same time a sufficient and a
necessary condition for the existence of such control. Opposition, as
the term is commonly used, has the following characteristics: (a) it is
political; (b) it is institutionalized in the form of a party or parties;
and (c) it is often said that it is also responsible, i.e., it does not
extend to obstruction of the governments actions. In order to define
more precisely the relationship between opposition and control, we
must ask two questions of a more specific nature: (i) is opposition a
sufficient condition for effective control? And (ii) is it a condition
sine qua non for any kind of political control? In spite of some
ideological assertions, it seems clear that the answers to both questions
are negative. Since the problem of opposition in the two- and multiparty systems is discussed elsewhere, we shall focus here on those
mechanisms of control which present an alternative to opposition as
institutionalized in the party system.
The development of institutionalized opposition in the Western
countries is a historical, regional phenomenon. This pattern of opposition has not been successfully repeated in other parts of the world.
Neither the socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Asia nor the
majority of the so-termed developing nations have had a successful
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experience with political opposition similar to that known in Western

Europe and North America. Is this a proof that the new nations have
not learned the lesson offered to them by the older nations, for
example by the United States ?1 Or is it the result of a diabolic conspiracy which deprives Western-type democracy of its position outside the economically developed region of the world? Since both
explanations seem somewhat naive, we are inclined to seek the explanation of this phenomenon in the economic and social conditions
prevailing in the non-Western world. Four hypotheses on the emergence of one-party systems in the under-developedcountriesaremost
often put forward :
(i) multi-party systems are associated with high levels of economic
development2;
(ii) multi-party systems are said to slow down the process of economic development3;
(iii) multi-party systems cannot function effectively when the
country is not integrated ethnically and linguistically4;
(iv) multi-party systems cannot function effectively if they are
alien to the cultural traditions of a nation.5
The extent to which these hypotheses have been confirmed varies
and is still not sufficient. Przeworski has demonstrated that the correlations between the type of party system and the level of economic
development, as well as between the party system and the rates of
economic development are non-linear.6 Nevertheless, it can be
assumed that a minimum level of economic growth must be achieved
before a country can successfully develop a pluralistic party system.
It can also be expected that the absolute level of economic development does not provide a sufficient explanation of the type of party
S. M. Lipset, The First New Nation, New York, 1963.
S.M. Lipset, Political Man, New York, 1960. J. S. Coleman in G.A. Almond
and J. S. Coleman, eds., Politics ofthe Developing Areas, Princeton, 1960.
3 UNESCO, Rapport de la Reunion dExperts sur les Conditions Sociales de la
Croissance Gconomique, 1963, pp. 31ff. Walter Galenson, ed., Labor and Economic
Development, New York, 1959, p. 16. Robert Heilbroner, Future as History, New
York, 1959,p. 35. Maurice Duverger, La Dictature, Milan, 1960, p. 104.
4 Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation, Cambridge, Mass., 1960, pp. 329-30.
S.M. Lipset, The First New Nation, p. I I. W.H. Wriggins, Impediments to Unity
in New Nations: the Case of Ceylon, APSR, 55, 1961.
5 R.F. Gray, Political Parties in New African Nations, and the comment by
Lucy Mair, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 5, 1963; Rupert Emerson,
From Empire to Nation, pp. 284K
6 Adam Przeworski, Party System and Economic Developmmt, unpublishedPh.D.
dissertation, Northwestern University, 1965.
1 For example,

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CONTROL WITHOUT OPPOSITION

system existing in a given society; other factors, especially the

stability of the socio-economic conditions, should also be taken into
account.
The degree of ethnic and political integration of a society is an
important determinant of control. It should be noted that not every
kind of pluralism is functional for this purpose, at least not when
pluralism means disintegration. A political system must exist if
control is to be exercised within this system. This is often not the
case in those countries in which pluralism is still pre-modern. This
is true, for example, in such multi-party systems as those of the
Congo, Nigeria or Sudan where the parties are organized on tribal
bases. When no authoritative decisions are considered binding, it is
difficult to speak about control over the government.
Whatever the reason, it is clear that opposition is a phenomenon
limited to a minority of political systems. We are concerned here
with the possibilities for effective control in those systems where the
opposition is not institutionalized in the form of parties and, therefore, we shall focus our attention on those channels of control
existing in systems other than the multi-party system. These systems
can be gouped into three categories based on their respective party
systems7 :
(a) mono-party systems,
(b) hegemonic party systems,
(c) dominant party systems.
The dominant party systems constitute a borderline case between
opposition and non-opposition systems since in some cases the
potential of the smaller parties is sufficiently large to constitute a
mechanism of control. However, in general such systems conform to
the description by Blanksten:
a single political party holds an effective monopoly of public power and
controls access to government offices. In some one-party systems, this may
be provided by law, in which case other political parties are considered
illegal or subversive;in another type of one-party system, other parties may
7 For the concept of dominant party system see Maurice Duverger, Les Partis
Politiques, Paris, 195 I and Sociologie des partis politiques, in George Gurvitch,
ed., Traite de Sociologie, Vol. 2, Paris, 1960.Also G. I. Blanksten, The Politics of
Latin America, in Almond and Coleman, em., Politics of the Developing Areas. For
the concept of hegemonic party system see Jerzy J. Wjatr, *One-party Systems
The Concept and Issue for Comparative Studies, in E. Allardt and Y . Linunen,
eds., Cleavages, Ideologies and Party Systeins, Helsinki, 1964.

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GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION

exist legally but, for reasons largely unrelated to legal questions or government coercion, find themselves unable to challengeeffectively the dominant
partys hold on public power.*
However, the typologies based exclusively on the form of a party
system are clearly one-sided. Taking into account the nature and the
ideology of the ruling party and the relationship between the party
and the society, we may introduce another typology of political systems without opposition. As an illustration we may distinguish here
such systems as the revolutionary movement-regime described by
Tucker,g the conservative authoritarian regimes of which Spain may
be a good example,lO and oligarchical regimes existing in many underdeveloped countries, especially in those Latin American countries
where the process of development has been very slow.
The case of totalitarianism should be considered separately. The
use of the word totalitarian to describe one clearly defined and well
stabilized political regime obscures both the basic ideological and
socio-economic differences among various totalitarian regimes and
the fact that totalitarian phenomena appear in various political systems, under various conditions, etc. But if we use the term to describe
an ideal type, we may then analyse totalitarian tendencies and/or
elements in various regimes. In this sense it is possible to identify
totalitarianism with the disappearance of all kinds of political pluralism. So defined, totalitarianism occurs either as a result of rapid
revolutionary changes or as a result of conservative, or even counterrevolutionary attempts to stop these changes. It may result from the
unchecked power of the state and/or party machinery, or from mass
political hysteria. The cases of revolutionary and of fascist totalitarianism are well documented and usually treated as typical. The
authors who point to the existence of a democratictotalitarianismare
less numerous but they are concerned with an important sociopolitical tendency to liquidate dissent by the pressure of conformity
and political hysteria.
We have pointed out the variety of totalitarian tendencies because
they are relevant to the present subject. Control over the government
Op. cit., p. 479.
R. C. Tucker, Towardsa Comparative Politics of Movement-Regimes,APSR,
~5,1961.
10 JuanJ. Linz, An Authoritarian Regime: Spain,in E. Allardt and Y. Littunen,
eds., Cleavages, Ideologies and Party Systems.
11 Barrington Moore, Jr., Political Power aiid Social Theory, Cambridge, Mass.,
8

1958.

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is not possible if the system is completely monolithic. On the other

hand, any elements of pluralism imply, by their very existence, a basis
for some kind of control over those who hold power. The problem of
control is a quantitative one : since absolutely monolithic systems are
a nightmare rather than a reality, we should attempt to identify not
the mere fact of the existence of control but its nature and degree.
Control may have at least two meanings. In the legal sense of the
word, control means the legal power to supervise the controlled
domain, to delegate power and withdraw such a delegation, to make
final decisions in controversial issues, etc. . In this sense of the
concept we can speak of judicial control of the constitutional nature
of political decisions, civilian control over the military, central government control over local authorities. Such forms of control do exist in
some countries where institutionalized opposition does not exist, but
they do not constitute the main and politically most important aspect
of control. In the political sense, by control we mean the possibility
of influencing those who hold power in such a way that they take into
account the interests of groups exerting this control. Thus control is
a very general notion. It must remain general because the actual forms
of control in various systems are greatly differentiated. Nevertheless,
one aspect should be made clear. Control means an actual and not
only a formal possibility of exercising influence. Those who control
may sometimes be unsuccessful. But if they are never successful it
means that control has ceased to exist. The test of political control
must be sought in the actual functioning of the political system, not in
the laws.
Since, as was said above, one-party systems generally arise in the
less developed countries, we can make some observations concerning
the matters to which control extends in these countries. The concept
of control should not be considered merely in political categories but
should be placed in the concrete socio-economic setting in which it
occurs. It seems that in the underdeveloped countries, control is
basically limited to the issues of allocation of the scarce resources to
the various politically significant sectors of the population and to the
issues connected with the projected pace and character of change.
Having defined control in terms of political (but not only party)
pluralism and pressures exercized by the ruled on the rulers, we
should distinguish two basic channels of pressure to be found in the
political systems considered here. The first channel includes pressures
and influences exerted within the ruling party, the second those
exercized outside this party.

..

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Control within the party

The role of the ruling party in regimes in which it does not face an
opposition is twofold. On the one hand, the ruling party acts as the
centre of power and in this character it bears the responsibility for
the functioningof the entire system, and comprehensivelyrepresentsthe
national interests. On the other hand, in some systems, simultaneously
with the general interests, the ruling party represents some interests
of particular groups and social strata. Either they exclude some groups
from the comprehensive coalition or they feel more responsible for
the interests of some groups within the coalition than of other groups.
The dominant and the hegemonic parties are the most comprehensive: they perceive themselves to be the representatives of the entire
nation and assume in their official ideology a basic harmony of interests of the entire nation. The broad range of such a coalition results in
the situation in which the party is both a representation of some
sectors of the population and the forum where interests of various
groups are balanced against each other. The revolutionary monoparty systems in their early stages are usually less comprehensive:
official ideology assumes a basic struggle against the reactionary
forces, and the criteria for inclusion in the coalition are distinctly
narrower than in the former systems. Finally, the oligarchical systems
have the narrowest social support. However, no party is so parochial
that it represents only one group of interests. The empirical question
is to find to what extent and in what fashion the various interests are
expressed and balanced within the party.
In posing these questions we challenge a simplified view of the
nature of the ruling parties in the regimes under discussion. Those
who accept the extreme version of the division between those in
power and those out of power see the ruling party as an apparatus
through which the collective interests of the power elite are expressed
and realized. If this were true, the problem of control would be
limited only to the question of how far those in positions of authority
would submit themselves to the influences of the social group to
which they belong. But the problem is much more complex. The
group interests of those who hold power certainly influence the decisions they make but the interests of other groups significantly
influence those decisions. Moreover, those who actually hold power
very often consider themselves as merely representative of the
broader groups of the population or, eventually, the entire population. There is no convincing argument that such a feeling is solely a
false pretension: on the contrary, the inner differences within the
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ruling groups do not represent their own interests only and the
empirical data seem to indicate that they are subject to pressure from
various outside groups. In this sense, the interests of the stratum of
professional politicians should be considered as being only a part of
those different interests which are expressed within and through the
party. The party itself strives to combine in its ideology the traditional liaison with a given part of society with the attempt to serve as
a representation of the interests of all, or nearly all, segments of the
population. In the case of the communist parties, this is the antinomy
between their role as worlrers parties and their role as representatives
of the socialist society as a whole. This is the way in which the
Yugoslav Communist programme perceives this dual function:
The Communist Party of Yugoslavia always faithfully served working class
interests and aspirations which themselves correspond to the objective
interests of all other sections of the working people of Yugoslavia. The
league of Yugoslav Communists has been, and continues to be under
present conditions, the representative of the interests and aspirations ofthe
working class and all other working people in Yugoslavia.12
For the majority of the movement-regimes in the developing
countries the problem does not exist on the level of ideology: the
ruling parties act officially as representative of all the people. However, to the extent to which the societies are differentiated, the same
problem of balancing conflicting interests also appears in those
parties.
For political scientists the most interesting is the problem of open
expression of interests. The extent and the forms in which interests
are openly expressed vary. Where factionalism exists and is officially
accepted, it functions as a substitute for the multi-party system,
although the factions are less free to appeal for outside support.
Where factionalism is banned, groups, tendencies or cliques may
operate at various levels of the political systems. Indirectly, they may
also represent the interests of various groups located outside the
party. To use an example, we may recall the history of pro-peasant
opposition within many communist parties in the period of rapid
collectivization.
Thus the controversial problem is not whether such differences and
divisions within the party exist, but whether they may be sufficiently
strong to exercise effective control. Does the expression presuppose
control? In the long term, the answer is affirmative. Those who hold
12 The Programme of the League of Yu~oslavCommunists. Adopted by the VIII
Congress held from 22 to 26 April 1958. Belgrade, 1958, p. 239.

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power may not respond immediately to various kinds of criticism but

such criticism, supported by electoral pressure inside the party, influences decision-making. 1 3 In extreme cases, we observe drastic
changes in policy under the influence of rank and file members, or
more specifically under the influence of the middle levels of the party
hierarchy, as in Poland in 1956.
The control exercized within the party constitutes at the same time
a control of the state administration. The ruling party is nearly
identical with the government and comprises within its ranks a great
proportion (often a majority) of those who hold public power. However, in a much greater proportion, the party also includes persons
who occupy subordinate positions in the administration. Thus the
articulation within the party constitutes an instrument for control of
the government when, within the party, the political and professional
interests and opinions diverge. The influence of the rank and file on
the party leadership constitutes indirectly a kind of control over the
functioning of the state administration at various levels.
Control outside the party

When political participation becomes widespread, popular control

over the administration may assume two basic directions, depending
upon the intensity of articulation through the various channels of the
political system. Assuming that a political system which has a high
degree of mobilization comprises a set of vertically organized social
and political organizations with a mass membership and that these
organizations interact horizontally at various territorial and administrative levels of the political system, we can examine the direction of
integration of interests, their articulation and aggregation. Traditionally, we are inclined to think of a political system as one in which the
government is under the pressure of parties and interest groups which
transmit vertically the interests articulated at the lower levels of the
political system. However, it seems that such a model of a political
system, which puts the emphasis on vertically rooted pressure groups
organized around the government, corresponds only to those societies
which either have a low degree of political participation or are
permeated with class and functional conflicts. In the countries where
participation is high and in which there are no basic conflicts of
1 3 Cases of party elections in which former office-holders or officially supported
candidates were defeated are not infrequent in Poland and Yugoslavia. The rotation system, recently introduced in the latter country may intensify this phenomenon but it is still too early to anticipate its consequences.

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interests among the various groups of the population, the integration

of interests is much more likely to occur horizontally at each separate
level and independently of the structure of political organizations. In
such a situation, opposition and control aredecentralized : competition
takes place at each level of the political system but it is not integrated
nationally along the vertical lines of political organizations, whether
these be parties or other political and social institutions. The recent
election which took place in Poland in May 1965 provides an illustration of such a competition. According to the speech of the First
Secretary of the Polish United Workers Party, Wladyslaw Gomulka,
seven per cent of the candidates to the Village Councils were rejected
at the pre-electoral meetings. These candidates were replaced by
persons who were put forward during these meetings. However,
the structure of party membership of the rejected candidates and
those who were added was nearly identical. Control and competition
was independent from the party structure.
Interests are often integrated horizontally at the local level. This
is particularly true when a local community decides to compete with
other communities for the allocation of investment in their territory.
Narojek describes the mechanism of articulation of such interests :

. . . a common front of a local community is formed. Proper supra-local

authorities which are competent to decide a given matter are constantly
visited by local delegations or population representatives. All channels of
influence are used: through the PZPR (Polish United Workers Party) and
other parties, through poviat and voivodship authorities, through former
citizens of the town who are at present persons of influence in higher level
authorities, etc. 14
The horizontal expression of interests finds its stronger expression in
the factories. Although some socio-economic differences between the
managerial and the engineering staff, on the one hand, and the
workers, on the other hand, do exist, both groups are economically
motivated to have an optimal plan. The basic economic incentives
depend upon the fulfilment of the plan, and this concerns all employees regardless of their position in the factory. Thus, to an extent,
in those countries where the basic industries are socially owned, the
interests of all the employees of a factory are identical. On the other
hand, the massive participation is organized in the form of Workers
Self-Government. The Conferences of Workers Self-Government
14 Winicjusz Narojek, The Structure of Local Power, in K. Ostrowski and
A. Przeworski, eds., Local Political System in Poland, Institute of Philosophy and
Sociology, P.A.N., Warsaw, 1965, mimeographed.

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exist in 9,426 factories and involve participation of 21g,o25 persons.

The most important decisions taken at the level of an enterprise those concerning the plan - are discussed in the factories with nearly
universal participation, at least passive, of ail the workers.*
Integration of interests within a local political system or within a
factory merits special attention. It evidences important channels of
control and an important dimension of competition in those countries
where control is not institutionalized in the form of nationally
organized opposition.
However, in every political system some interests are expressed and
transmitted vertically through the political and social organizations.
In so far as control is exercised through such vertical national organizations, we can speak of interest groups and their control over the
government. However, the role of specialized groups of interests must
be re-examined in those countries in which the ruling party is a broad
national coalition oriented toward rapid economic development and
assuming a harmony of interest of the entire nation. In the multiparty systems, particularly those of the highly developed countries,
interest groups are synonymous with pressure groups, i.e. groups
operating outside the immediate scope of the government and attempting to exert pressure on the government to accommodatethe interests
they represent. In the one-party systems, interest groups are located
within, not outside, the government. Their functions are twofold. On
the one hand, these groups articulate the interests which they represent, functioning to that extent as pressure groups. The contents of
the demands vary, obviously, with the nature of the interests represented, but in general these demands concern specific issues of economic, social and cultural policies and are based on the consensus
regarding the ideological and political bases of these policies. On the
other hand, the specialized groups perform the mobilizing and educating functions. They mobilize the social initiative in seeking the
reserves which could be used for a more rapid economic development.
And they are an instrument of political education - translating to the
represented groups the general issues of national policies.16
The minor parties functioning in the dominant and hegemonic one15 K. Ostrowski and A. Przeworski, Trade Unions and Economic Planning in
Poland, Polish Studies in Political Science, I. 1965.In press.
16 For example, in Mexico virtually all types of firms are required to belong to
one or another trade organizationwhich represents that trade to the governmentand
thmugh which the government can make its policy known to the industry. Robert
Edminster, Mexico, in A. Pepelasis, L. Mears, I. Adelman, eds., Economic Dmeloptnent, New York, 1961.

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party systems provide illustrations of the functioning of such specialized groups of interest. The minor parties in the dominant systems
do not constitute alternatives to the major party. They function as
interest groups. According to Kothari, the role of the minor parties in
India is :
constantly to pressurize, criticize, censure and influence it [the dominant
party] by influencing opinion and interests inside the margin [of consensus]
and, above all, exert a latent threat that if the ruling group strays too far
from the balance of effective public opinion, and if the factional system
within it is not mobilized to restore the balance, it will be displaced from
power by opposition groups.17
On the national level, the position of dominant parties is so stable that
the opposition cannot hope for success in the foreseeable future.
However, on the local levels the situation may be very different, as
evidenced by the Indian experience.
In the hegemonic party system the parties forming the coalition
accept the domination of one party, for example, communist parties
in the socialist countries.18 But in those countries where the ruling
party is hegemonic (as opposed to being the only one) the existence
of a coalition helps to exert influence or pressure on the ruling party.
The allied parties do not compete for power but present their candidates jointly with the hegemonic party. They do not challenge its
leadership in those fields which are vital for the state. But they are
officially recognized as representatives of selected sectors of the
population such as the peasants, craftsmen, etc. . . . and they are
consulted whenever a decision concerns issues of vital interest for the
groups they are supposed to represent. Occasionally the minor
parties exert pressure on the hegemonic party with regard to policies
outside their scope of representation. However, since there is no
competition for power, the pressures are exercized through delicate
negotiations and bargaining rather than public debate. As a result, the
public is not aware of the role of the minor parties and their political
potential is low since they do not have a popular appeal. But on the
17 Rajni Kothari, The Congress System in India, Asian Sumey, 4, 1964,
p. 1162.
1 8 In Poland, United Peasant and Democratic Parties; in Bulgaria, Peasant
Union; in Czechoslovakia, Peasant Party, Slovak Rebirth Party, and Slovak Freedom Party. In addition some of these countries have political organizations which
formally are not parties but which jointly with other parties and organizations
participate in elections, publish newspapers, etc. In Poland, for example, there are
three political organizations of Catholics differing in political philosophy, tactics,
and affiliations.

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GOVEKNMENI AND OlPOSlTION

other hand, this type of bargaining provides the minor parties with a
powerful trumpet in any negotiation : the hegemonic party would
treat an open conflict as a collapse of the coalition and would, therefore, try to avoid it even at the cost of far-reaching compromise. In
general, little is still known about the role of the minor parties in the
hegemonic party systems and any generalization would still be
premature.
Among the other groups of interests which can be expected to exert
some control over the government, the bureaucracy, the trade unions,
the army, mass media and universities usually enter the hegemonic
coalition. Since research concerning the pressure and the mobilizing
functions of these groups is still very scarce, a detailed analysis of the
functioning of these groups is premature at this point.
Special attention should be devoted to the problem of elections as
they occur in the one-party system. We have indicated above that
elections do involve some competition on the local level. However, it
seems that the very function of elections is different in the one-party
systems and in multi-party systems. Elections serve as an occasion for
expressing demands and for a review of the basic policies of the
government. Thus, particularly in so far as the elections to the
national bodies are concerned, their basic role is that of a referendum
rather than of competition between parties. The meaning of elections
for Soviet society has been described as follows :
It should be borne in mind that the Soviet people traditionally regard
polling not only as an act of election of specific persons to a representative
organ, but also as an act of appraisal of the Soviet Governments activity
for the past period and of launching a programme for the future. Having
several candidates in one constituency would mean an artificial scattering
of the votes and would run counter to this tradition.19

Both the Yugoslav and the Polish electoral systems allow for several
candidates running for the same
Electoral research conducted
in Poland21 has emphasized the semi-plebiscitary aspect of the
19 V. Kotok, The Soviet Representative System, Progress Publishers, Moscow, no
date, p. 37.
20 See Dragan Godic, April Elections, Review, Yugoslav Monthly Magazine,
March 1965; F. W. Neal, Titoism in Action, The Reforms in Yugoslavia after I949;
Berkeley, 1958; Z.A. Pelczynski, Poland I957, in David Butler, Elections Abroad,
London, 1959.
21 Jeny J. Wjatr, Niektore problemy opinii priblicznej w swietle wyborow 1957 i
1958, Warsaw, 1959 and Elections and Voting Behavior in Poland in Austin
Ranney, ed., Essays on the Behavioral Study of Politics, Urbana, 1962.

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elections. While elections serve as an important instrument for popular participation, they also constitute a channel of expression and
articulation of attitudes toward the government and its policies.
Therefore, the frequency of voting, the proportion of votes cast for
the lists of the Front for National Unity, and the extent to which
people voted for the candidates on the list were studied as indicators
of public attitudes toward the government. These studies evidenced
the importance of the electoral process as one of the channels of
political control.
Other channels may also exist and should be studied. It should be
observed in general that knowledge concerning the process of articulation and control in the one-party systems is still greatly limited. The
present paper attempts to provide some guide-lines for the study of
political control in the countries which do not have institutionalized
opposition. Since a systematic analysis of these phenomena is not yet
possible, the tentative character of this paper should be strongly
emphasized.