Social Structure And Party System: The Evolution Of The Major Political Party System In India Alone

As a unique type of multi-party system, the predominant party system has always been the emphases of the comparative party research. The change taken place in those states with predominant party system provided new task and space for the study of party system.In India, the predominant party system of the Indian Congress party from independence has always been thought to help to the compromise and conformity of multi-cleavages. In some extent, the Congress system was the important factor of maintenance of Indian as a united nation. From the 1990s, the Congress system collapsed. The plurality and locality of party competition didn't bring Indian political system on split in the post-Congress era. After a short-time party allies reformation and political turbulence, Indian party system is in the transition of multi-party system dominated by two strong parties. According to analyzing the evolvement of Indian predominant party system, this dissertation studies the influence of social structures on parties competition and explores the relations between social structures and the party system.The dissertation includes five parts. In the first chapter, the author introduces two methods in party system research and focuses the angle of view on the social structures according to Indian experiences. On the base of studing Indian social cleavage structures, this chapter explores the influence of cleavage structures on party system. That is the party are the reaction of the cleavage on politics and always representing some cleavage. In more than fifty years after indepence, Indian social structures has changed a lot, the party system has change from a predominant party system to a identical mulit-party competition pattern as well as.The second chapter studies the dilemma of the predominant party system in a splited-social through analyzing the evolvement of Congress system. The decline of the Congress resulted from the failure of organizational building, breakage of negotiatory tradition and deficiency of governance efficiency. But the primary reason was in the Indian social cleavage structures. The Congress came into being as a party with its social bases in the local but the national cleavage structures.The social bases of the Congress differ in different Pradesh: some castes, classes and races vote for it in one distrct (for example, Utter Pradesh) but are against it in another(for example, Kerala). After 1980s, the modes and results of political mobilization and political participation have changed with the political development in modernization. The social cleavage structures didn't tend to be conformity but became political polarization. The identity on the cleavage structures became the basement of parties more and more. The Congress didn't please the supports both in the left and right and maintain the predominant status through the catch-all policy.The third chapter analyzes the change of federal party competition pattem in the course of decline of Congress system. The main analyzing objects are the Janata and the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP). From the 1980s, a wave of of Hindusim revival rised in Indian. Because of the retreatism of Congress government on secularism, Hindu nationalism achieved acceptance and legitamcy. As the result of the social psychology change, an ideology characterized by Hindutva formed in Indian. The Hindu nationalism of BJP is the reaction of the change of social psychology in 1980s. The Congress didn't developed Indian from an undeveloped society with religion split to a developed, secular nation. It didn't achieved the success of nation-state building. The conflict between different religions, castes and nations made the untied Indian society in apprence face the dangerous split. The Hindu nationalism came from ancient tradition and indigenous character has been attached importance. So, the rising of BJP is the outcome of change of social structures. The other parties in politics didn't offer a new path for Indian, so they can't replace the status of the Congress. The BJP is the only real competitor in the post-Congress era.The fourth chapter studies the influence of local political parties on the predominant party system. The development of local parites were related with the conflict of interest and structural change. The new force developed in the Green Revolution, diversification of castes, religious renaissance led the forming of local parties and party systems. With the decline of Congress system and national parties in the Lok Sabha, the local parties in federal hung parliament became the important force in Indian politics. First, the local parties changed the power structure in parliament and affected the stabilization of the coalition cabinet. Second, the local parties made Indian party system localization, and which will change the centre-local relationship in the future.The last chapter analyzes the trend of party system after the end of predominant party system. Indian party system is in the transition of multi-party system dominated by two strong parties. The Congress and BJP are two polars and numerous local parties are the important forces that can't be ignored. In the transition of party system, the consensus and conflict in party politics were reflected in political system. Because the religions, castes, classes cleavage structures and so on were overlapped and crossed, each actor in the party competition can't form a majority on it own. Parties must compromise and ally with the others. After the mid-1990s, the competition out-of-order between parties tended to be steady and cooperated. With the appearence of mulit-party system, Indian politics comes back to order.According to the research of Indian predominant party system, some conclusions can be inferred in this dissertation.The frist, in the social structures with multi-cleavage, the predominant party system can't be maintained if the cleavage structures tends to be polarization but not consensus in politics.The second, the evolvement of party competition structures after the end of predominant party system are determined by the characters of social cleavage structures. (1) If the cleavage structures are overlapped and crossed, the actors in the parties competition can form new alliances and bring new and steady party system. (2) If the social cleavage structures can provide a mechanism of producing different party systems in the central and local level, which will reduce the pressure of institutional evolvement on the stability of political system. There are advantages of forming new orders in the process.