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Leadership and Conflict Within the Febrerista Party of Paraguay*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Paul H. Lewis
Paul H. Lewis*
Affiliation:
Department of Government, Louisiana State University
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Extract

Roberto Michels, writing in 1915, said about political parties:

Every party organization represents an oligarchical power grounded upon a democratic basis. We find everywhere electors and elected. Also we find everywhere that the power of the elected leaders over the electing masses is almost unlimited.

This, in a nutshell, expresses his now famous “iron law of oligarchy”— the assertion that every party organization must sooner or later become dominated by a small elite of leaders who will use their power to perpetuate themselves, and will succeed in doing so even in the face of widespread opposition from the rank and file.

Michels is supported in this view by a more contemporary student of political parties, Maurice Duverger, who says that: “The leadership of parties tends naturally to assume an oligarchic form. A veritable 'ruling class’ comes into being that is more or less closed; it is an ‘inner circle’ into which it is difficult to penetrate.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 1967 , pp. 283 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1967

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Footnotes

*

This study is based on field research in Latin America, February-November, 1964, supported by a Fulbright research grant. During this time scores of Paraguayan exiles were interviewed and Paraguay was visited.

A shorter version of this paper was read at the Thirteenth Annual meeting of the Southeastern Conference on Latin American Studies at the University of Miami, March 18-19, 1966.

References

1 Michels, Robert, Political Parties (New York: Dover Publications, 1959), p. 401.Google Scholar

2 Duverger, Maurice, Political Parties (New York: John Wiley—Science Editions, 1963), p. 151.Google Scholar

3 Eldersveld, Samuel J., Political Parties: A Behavioral Analysis (New York: Rand McNally, 1964).Google Scholar

4 Lasswell, Harold and Kaplan, Abraham, Power and Society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950).Google Scholar

5 The institutionalist list was taken from a list of executive committee members elected by the 1962 convention (institutionalist). The List 17 Febrero list was taken from two manifestos signed by leaders of various jebrerista factions who agreed to unite behind a single opposition candidate.

6 In all fairness to the present febrerista leadership it must be mentioned that the 1966 National Executive Committee shows a liberalizing trend at work in the party. Out of twenty-five seats, only eight went to first promotion men. Also, of the five key posts only three (president, first vice president and secretary-general) went to first promotion men. Finally, a partial reconciliation was achieved with former List 17 Febrero leaders, some of whom are represented on the new executive. However, no real large-scale renewal of leadership was achieved and many rebels appear to have been lost to the party forever.

7 Concentración Revolucionaria Febrerista, Construyendo el febrerismo (Buenos Aires: CRF, 1951), p. 85.Google Scholar

8 Michels, Political Parties, p. 401.

9 Ibid., p. 406.