Ziblatt, Daniel. 2017. Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy
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Ziblatt, Daniel. 2017. Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xv + 433 pp., 27.74 C, ISBN (Paperback), ISBN 978-0-521-17299-8 Zdravko Veljanov
Published online: 6 October 2020 © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature 2020
How much is democracy worth? Can we put a cost on it? Daniel Ziblatt in his book assiduously investigates the democratization efforts (1848–1950) in Western Europe. At the core of his study is found unlikely protagonist, the conservative party (representatives of the old elites and ancien régime), i.e. the group that stood the most to lose from democracy. In his comprehensive study, he unravels two patterns of democratization: settled and unsettled. This new variable (strong conservative party organization) complements previous studies on democratization that focused on socioeconomic factors and reinforces the argument of counter-majoritarian institutions and elite pact importance. Considering this setup, Ziblatt departs on his journey to argue for the importance of strong organizational capacities of conservative parties during democratic inception. Starting from the mid-19th century in a period of significant electoral reforms around Western Europe, the traditional landed elites were faced with a dilemma: they could either continue with electoral manipulation and collusion or instigate party building and challenge the emerging progressives electorally (33–37). With this in mind and taking into consideration the two pathways to democratization, Ziblatt presents two paradigmatic cases: (i) successful party building—the Conservative Party in Britain, and (ii) failed party institutionalization—the Conservative Party in Germany. The first study (chapters 3–5) delves deep into the case of the British Conservative Party. Instead of focusing on a single point in time when democratic transition or breakdown occurred, Ziblatt suggests that we trace overtime the democratization causes and changes (chapter 3). In Britain, it took two phases to secure the Conservatives’ support for democratization. In the first phase (before 1874) the main focus Z. Veljanov () Central European University, Vienna, Austria E-Mail: [email protected]
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within the party was on developing a party-building strategy (67–82). The second phase (after 1880) built on this solid foundation and deployed its social networks through the increasingly centralized party organization (82–104). A turning point represents the 1884 Reform Act, which offers us the puzzle of why the Conservatives dominated the upcoming years, despite enlarged and landless electorate? Through a series of quantitative and qualitative studies, Ziblatt shows how quintessential the organizational foundation of the party has been. Their hierarchical and centralized organization could rely on its social networks (Primrose League) to reach the local electorate (chapter 4). Nevertheless, a single breakthrough does not guarantee consolidation and to investigate what make
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