NDP Must Return to Grassroots Organizing
By Gregory D. Morrow

In his classic study Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (New York: Free Press, [1911] 1962) [Note: 891kb PDF] Robert Michels argues that “organization is the weapon of the weak in the struggle with the strong” but also that “organization is … the source from which the conservative currents flow over the plain of democracy, occasioning there disastrous floods and rendering the plain unrecognizable.” ([1911] 1962, pp. 61-62; or pp. 19-20 in above PDF). In other words, any attempt to achieve social/political change will ultimately result in a form of organization that mimicks the very institutional structure it hopes to change. The logic, as summarized by Elisabeth Clemens in her 1993 article “Organizational Repertoires and Institutional Change: Women’s Groups and the Transformation of U.S. Politics, 1890-1920,” [The American Journal of Sociology, (98):3, pp. 755-98] [Note: 2.4mb PDF] is as follows:

1) hierarchical, centralized bureaucracies are the most effective form of organization;
2) consequently, existing political parties and institutions have adopted this form of organization;
3) in the course of pursuing their ends, oppositional parties will adopt the same organizational form for strategic reasons, even at the expense of their ideological commitments;
4) therefore, [this] will lead oppositional parties to become like established political groups, precluding the possibility of meaningful political change. (Clemens, 1993, p. 768)

This is precisely the paradox in which Canada’s New Democratic Party finds itself. A party whose origins are clearly tied to a populist and grassroots social movement has come to mimick the organizational structure of Canada’s two major parties — a centralized, bureaucratic and hierarchical structure that is viewed as the most effective means of organizing political action.

And this NDP centralization of policy and organization has not been without its successes when the Party finds itself with the balance of power in minority governments - a position that the NDP has enjoyed on a few occasions in its 40-year history. But Michels’ thesis illustrates the paradox faced by social movements such as the one that created the CCF-NDP.

In particular, he contends that by competing in elections, oppositional parties that are organized centrally would be drawn toward the political center and, thereby, moderate their radical goals. And if such actions don’t yield positive electoral results, he suggests that a party would subsequently adopt strategies that emphasize ideological purity or solidary rather than electoral advantage (1962, pp. 334-5). As Elisabeth Clemens explains, for a centrally organized revolutionary party, “the requirements of training cadres may well outweigh the advantages of a large membership” (1993, p. 766).

The NDP clearly suffers from this unfortunate paradox — a party of social change whose electoral results have never quite matched their high expectations (or popular support), which subsequently leads to a period of soul-searching in which the party seeks to differentiate itself further from its closest ideological rival, the Liberals. This cycle repeats more or less consistently following each election.

I would argue that this period of self-reflection would be more fruitful if, instead of it re-evaluating policy positions, the NDP re-evaluated the organizational structure through which party policy and campaign strategies are formulated. In a nutshell, I would argue that because the NDP has co-opted the hierarchical organizational structure of bureaucratic and centralized institutions (those used by the very political and corporate elites they hope to supplant), it has become not more, but less, effective at mobilizing its supporters. This leads inevitably to electoral disappointment.

To be sure, the NDP suffers from the injustices of an electoral system that necessitates concentrations of support over broad-based support, and surely the NDP must continue to fight for electoral reform to redress how votes are translated into seats. Yet the NDP executive must also re-examine its own institutional structure and ask itself whether a more decentralized, regional, issue-targeted and bottom-up organization wouldn’t be more effective at electing members to fight for progressive values. In other words, the current top-down structure — where policies are set by a central executive (and voted upon by the chosen few delegates who are allowed to attend the party convention) — represents a significant departure from the grassroots movement that gave birth to the Party.

Through a careful study of women’s groups in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries, Clemens demonstrates the effectiveness of women organizers in achieving social change precisely not by adopting a centralized hierarchical organizational structure but by drawing upon a multiplicity (a repertoire) of strategies that mobilized support around specific issues. The progressive movement of today could learn much from the women’s movement of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. Clemens argues convincingly that “the chosen model of collective action shapes alliances with other groups and relations with political institutions.” (p. 771). For the NDP to offer Canadians a real alternative in Canadian politics, they must strive to return to a grassroots bottom-up form of organization.

I suggested in an October 5, 2005 article that the NDP adopt a “charrette” process to develop party policies - a process that has been pioneered in the urban planning field but has vast potential for arriving at solutions to broader issues of public policy. Feel free to read that article:

http://democraticspace.com/blog/2005/10/ndp-strategy-part-iii-develop-party-policies-from-the-grassroots/

This charrette process of policy formation and political organization would go a long way towards raising the profile of the NDP in local communities and illustrating to the population that a vote for the NDP is a vote for real change. Of course, this will necessitate a reversal of years of technocratic public policy analysis that has been characterized by “modern” methods. But it is necessary in order to engage citizens in crafting solutions to problems of the day. Increasing political participation cannot be limited to increasing the voter turnout at election time. It must strive to engage citizens between elections as well. One point of clarification: given that most voters (about 60-65%) cast their ballot on the basis of the party, rather than by party leader (20-25%) or local candidate (15-20%), it is important to recognize that the fate of local candidates is in large measure tied to the fate of the national campaign. The charrette process to which I refer is not meant primarily to address local issues (even though at its roots it is a local process), but rather what I am suggesting is adapting the charrette model to engage citizens in the formation of federal NDP policy - the full range of national issues from healthcare, to the environment, taxes, education, foreign policy, etc.

The recent defection and subsequent cabinet appointment of Liberal David Emerson to the Conservative cabinet (perverting the democratic will of constituents of Vancouver-Kingsway) and the appointment of the unelected Michael Fortier as Minister of Public Works (the department synonymous with the Sponsorship scandal) illustrates the undemocratic nature of the bureaucratic and centralized organizational structure of Canada’s elites.

If the NDP is to differentiate itself from the other main parties, it will not be on the basis of policy; rather, it will be on the way that policies and strategies are formed. In this, the NDP has the power to control its destiny. A return to grassroots through a charrette process of policy formation and political organization will send a message of real change, creating a platform that is not only for the people, but crafted by the people. Heeding the warning that Michels issued a century ago, and learning from the experiences that Clemens outlines from the women’s movement, the NDP’s best chances are in returning to grassroots organizing. It is through de-centralized, regional, and issue-specific organization, not through centralized, hierarchical and bureaucratic organization that progressive organizations such as the NDP can become, as Michels suggested, “the weapon of the weak in the struggle with the strong”.

Note: the two PDFs linked to this page (Michels and Clemens) are under copyright. By downloading them, you agree not to distribute or reproduce them in any form.