within parties and patron–client relationships produce a distinctive image for
Third World parties.
A successful party thus has to contain centrifugal forces and contend with
factors that encourage factionalism and undermine party unity, such as caste
or communalism in India (Bjorkman and Mathur, 1996). Another such
factor is the electoral system, as the case of Uruguay demonstrates
(Morgenstern, 2001). Clientelism is only likely to decline in significance
when parties form along ideological lines, mobilizing political support on
the basis of horizontal rather than vertical linkages (e.g. class rather than
kinship). The significance of clientelism in politics is also reduced by the
bureaucratic allocation of public services on the basis of legal entitlements.
The development of a universalistic political culture and institutions of civil
society through which citizens can pursue their individual rights and
entitlements also provide alternatives to clientelism (Roniger, 1994b).
Conclusion
The question of survival of party government and representative politics
leads on to considerations of political stability and democratization. The
‘problem’ of political instability is primarily seen in terms of the demise of
party politics, especially of the competitive type. Not surprisingly the atten-
tion that has been paid to political instability in the Third World has focused
particularly on the supplantment, usually by the military, of a civilian form
of government based on a system of parties. Military intervention, political
stability and the process of democratization are the subjects of later chapters.
Political Parties and Party Systems 155