¹ Michels, Robert, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, translated by E., and Paul, C., with an introduction by S. M. Lipset (New York: Free Press, 1962).Google Scholar

² See e.g. Lipset, S. M., Trow, M. and Coleman, J. S., Union Democracy (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1956);Google ScholarMackenzie, R. T., British Political Parties (London: Mercury Books, 2nd ed. 1963)Google Scholar; Eldersveld, S. J., Political Parties: A Behavioural Analysis (Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1964)Google Scholar; Ostergaard, G. N. and Halsey, A. H., Power in Co-operatives (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965).Google Scholar

³ See however: Cassinelli, C. W., ‘The Law of Oligarchy’, American Political Science Review, xlvii (1953), 773–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; May, J. D., ‘Democracy, Organisation, Michels’, American Political Science Review, LIX (1965), 417–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; S. M. Lipset, introduction to Michels, op. cit; Linz, J. J., ‘Robert Michels’, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Macmillan, 1968)Google Scholar; Zeitlin, I. M., Ideology and the Development of Social Theory (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1968), ch. 14.Google Scholar

⁴ Neumann, S.. ‘Toward a Comparative Study of Political Parties’, in Neumann, S. (ed.), Modern Political Parties (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), p. 406.Google Scholar

⁵ See e.g. Schorske, C. E., German Social Democracy 1905–1917 (New York: Wiley and Sons, 1955).Google Scholar

⁶ See Joll, J., The Second International 1889–1914 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1955), p. 130;Google ScholarNettl, J. P., Rosa Luxemburg (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), i, p. 408, n. 1.Google Scholar

⁷ This element is particularly apparent in the Preface, and at the beginning of Part 6.

⁸ Michels, , Political Parties, p. 354.Google Scholar

⁹ The phrase ‘the iron law of oligarchy’ seems to occur only once, in the title of Part 6, ch. 2.

¹⁰ Michels, , Political Parties, pp. 105–6.Google Scholar

¹¹ Michels, , Political Parties, p. 364.Google Scholar

¹² May, however, achieves an ingeniously, though tortuously, paradoxical interpretation, according to which Michels sees democracy and organization as fundamentally compatible, largely by taking Michels to be equating ‘democracy’ and ‘socialism’ throughout. That such an interpretation is untenable can be seen quite clearly, I think, by considering Michels’ arguments about representation, the stability of leadership, etc. See May, ‘Democracy, Organisation, Michels’.

¹³ If a more explicit formulation of the third sense is required, the following might be suggested: a system of government may be described as democratic if it provides (structural) mechanisms which ensure that the policies pursued by the government are in accordance with the wishes of the citizens. This would obviously need considerable clarification, but the problems involved are not, I think, insuperable.

¹⁴ Michels, , Political Parties, pp. 73–7.Google Scholar

¹⁵ However, several writers concentrate on the Rousseau-ian sense. E.g.: ‘In Political Parties, Robert Michels… laid down what has come to be the major political argument against Rousseau's concept of direct popular democracy…’ (Lipset, , intro. to Michels, , Political Parties, p. 15Google Scholar). See also Ostergaard, and Halsey, , Power in Co-operatives, pp. 217 ff.Google Scholar Cassinelli's emphasis on the question of size might also be seen as implying the Rousseau-ian interpretation. See Cassinelli, ‘Law of Oligarchy’.

¹⁶ See the analysis of the term ‘oligarchy’ in Cassinelli, , ‘Law of Oligarchy,’ pp. 777–80.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Michels, , Political Parties, p. 364.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Michels, , Political Parties, pp. 64 ff.Google Scholar

¹⁹ See e.g. the evidence presented by H. A. Turner. The present-day union structure in this country is largely a result of the period of the New Unionism of the 1890s, and the developments resulting from this just before, during and after the First World War. Union growth in this period was predominantly due to the organising efforts of individual leaders like John Burns and Ben Tillett, and to amalgamations between their creations. Michels' model only finds any real application in Turner's description of the earlier evolution of the cotton unions and the NUM. But it is interesting to note that it is precisely these unions that have retained their decentralised federal structure. Turner, H. A., Trade Union Growth, Structure and Policy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1962).Google Scholar

²⁰ Michels, , Political Parties, p. 206.Google Scholar

²¹ Michels, , Political Parties, p. 213.Google Scholar

²² Lipset, S. M., Political Man (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960), ch. 12 (‘The Political Process in Trade Unions’).Google Scholar

²³ On this, and the general intellectual climate of the period see Hughes, H. S., Consciousness and Society (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1959).Google Scholar

²⁴ On participation in trade unions see e.g.: Kahn, R. L. and Tannenbaum, A. S., Participation in Local Unions (New York: Row Peterson, 1958)Google Scholar; Spinrad, W., ‘Correlates of Trade Union Participation: A Summary of the Literature’, American Sociological Review, xxv (1960), 237–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Barber, B., ‘Participation and Mass Apathy in Associations’, in Gouldner, A. W., Studies in Leadership (New York: Harper, 1950), pp. 477–504.Google Scholar

²⁵ Michels, , Political Parties, pp. 182, 186–7.Google Scholar

²⁶ See e.g. Schumpeter, J. A., Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (London: Unwin University Books, 1954.) Pt iv.Google Scholar

²⁷ Michels, , Political Parlies, p. 338.Google Scholar

²⁸ Michels, , Political Parties, p. 72.Google Scholar

²⁹ See Gerth, H. and Mills, C. W., From Max Weber (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), section VIII.Google Scholar

³⁰ This aspect of the theory of bureaucracy has been followed up by several writers. See e.g. Merton, R. K., ‘Bureaucratic Structure and Personality’, Social Forces, XVIII (1940), 560–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Selznick, P., ‘An Approach to a Theory of Bureaucracy; American Sociological Review, VIII (1943), 47–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Gouldner, A. W., ‘Metaphysical Pathos and the Theory of Bureaucracy’, American Political Science Review, XLIX (1955), 496–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³¹ Support for this interpretation can be found in the summary chart which Michels included in the first German edition. This was reprinted in the first English edition, but for some reason has been omitted from recent American editions. See Michels, Robert, Political Parties, translated by , E. and Paul, C. (London: Jarrold and Sons, 1915).Google Scholar

³² Michels, , Political Parties, p. 61.Google Scholar

³³ See e.g. Clegg, H. A., Killick, A. J. and Adams, R., Trade Union Officers (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1961), pp. 208–16.Google Scholar

³⁴ Michels, , Political Parties, pp. 189–90.Google Scholar

³⁵ In this connection it is interesting to note the following comment of Nettl's: ‘It is meaningless to talk of the pre-1914 SPD which was Michels’ object of analysis, as bureaucratic in the formal sense, since its full-time paid staff in 1912 was less than a hundred against a membership of many tens of thousands, and against the four and a quarter million votes obtained in 1912.’ Nettl, J. P., Political Mobilisation (London: Faber, 1967), p. 341, note 2.Google Scholar

³⁶ However see Clegg, Killick and Adams, Trade Union Officers. Taking the number of fulltime officers in a union as the criterion of bureaucracy, they suggest a long list of factors which may affect the ratio of officers to members, but to the question whether there is any underlying pattern they answer: ‘We suggest that the answer lies in the force of tradition and habit… the long list of factors just set down determined the original differences between unions. As time passed, however, each union came to accepts its own ratio as the natural order of things and put up a strong resistance to change, even when altered circumstances warranted it’, p. 195.

³⁷ Michels, , Political Parties, p. 70.Google Scholar

³⁸ See also Weber's argument along these lines in his discussion of bureaucracy: Gerth, and Mills, , From Max Weber, p. 232.Google Scholar

³⁹ See e.g. Mackintosh, J. P., The British Cabinet (London: Stevens and Sons, 1962), ch. 13;Google ScholarJones, G. W., ‘The Prime Minister's Power’, Parliamentary Affiairs, XVIII (2) (1965), 167–85.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Michels, , Political Parties, p. 73.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Michels, , Political Parties, pp. 76–7.Google Scholar

⁴² Michels, , Political Parties, p. 353.Google Scholar

⁴³ See e.g. the evidence quoted by Lipset in his introduction to Michels, , Political Parties, pp. 30–1.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Michels, , Political Parties, p. 191.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ See above, p. 156.

⁴⁶ Michels, , Political Parties, p. 334.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Michels, , Political Parties, p. 351.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Michels, , Political Parties, p. 335.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ These points are touched on in McConnell, G., ‘The Spirit of Private Government’, American Political Science Review, lii (1958), 754–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Allen, V. L., Power in Trade Unions (London: Longmans, 1954), pt 1.Google Scholar However neither McConnell nor Allen seems to me to have seen their full implication.

⁵⁰ See Lipset et at. Union Democracy; Lipset, Political Man, ch. 12 (‘The Political Process in Trade Unions’).

⁵¹ See e.g. Goldstein, J., The Government of British Trade Unions (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1952)Google Scholar; Edelstein, J. D., ‘Democracy in a National Trade Union: the British AEU’, Industrial Relations, iv (3), (1965), pp. 105–25Google Scholar; Edelstein, J. D., ‘An Organisational Theory of Union Democracy’, American Sociological Review, xxxii (1967), 19–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar