A Study of the Ideological Characteristics of Western Political Party System Theory

On 4 March 2018, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out at a joint group meeting of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference: “The system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, as a basic political system of our country, is a great political creation of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese people, and all democratic parties and personages without party affiliation, and is a new type of party system that has grown out of China’s soil.” What is called a new type of party system is distinguished from the “old” party system of the West, which is based on competitive elections. It breaks through the discursive hegemony of Western political party system theory and provides directional guidance for constructing China’s indigenous party theory and democratic discourse. Political parties are a basic concept of modern social science. Western political party system theory is an ideology based on the typology of liberal democratic regimes, presented in a scientific guise; it maintains the discursive hegemony of Western party studies and, in practice, defends the authoritative position of the Western party system. Since Western political party system theory cannot establish the legitimacy and long-term nature of the Communist Party of China’s governance, constructing China’s new type of party system theory has become an inescapable responsibility for Chinese scholars. As a prerequisite for carrying out this work, we need to step out of the “scientific illusion” of Western political party system theory and profoundly reveal its ideological essence of legitimizing Western capitalist political systems. Given that existing academic achievements mostly focus on what is new about China’s new type of party system, this article pays particular attention to what is “old” about the old Western-centric party system and why it must be transcended.

2018年3月4日，习近平总书记在全国政协联组会上指出：“中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度作为我国一项基本政治制度，是中国共产党、中国人民和各民主党派、无党派人士的伟大政治创造，是从中国土壤中生长出来的新型政党制度。”所谓新型政党制度，是与西方以竞争性选举为基础的“旧”政党制度相区别的，突破了西方政党制度理论的话语霸权，为建构中国本土政党理论和民主话语权提供了方向性指导。政党是现代社会科学的基本概念，西方政党制度理论是以自由民主政体类型学为基础的、以科学面貌呈现的意识形态，它维持着西方政党研究的话语霸权，也在实践中捍卫着西方政党制度的权威地位。由于西方政党制度理论不可能确立中国共产党执政的正当性与长期性，构建中国的新型政党制度理论就成为中国学者义不容辞的责任。作为进行这项工作的前提，我们需要走出西方政党制度理论的“科学幻象”，深刻揭示它维护西方资本主义政治制度合法性的意识形态本质。基于现有学术成果多集中于中国新型政党制度新在何处，本文特别关注西方中心主义的旧政党制度“旧”在哪里，为什么必须被超越。

I. “Cold War Social Science” and the Rise of Western Political Party System Theory

一、“冷战社会科学”与西方政党制度理论的兴起

American social science after the 1950s unfolded against the backdrop of the Cold War and can be called “Cold War social science.” “The Cold War, as an organizing principle, can help people reinterpret, from a historical perspective, the extensive social science research and social science activities that the United States carried out during this period of exceptional expansion.” [1]1 See David C. Engerman et al., eds., *Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War* (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), p. 2. The systematic scientization of American social science began precisely during the Cold War period, producing a large number of foundational concepts and theories with disciplinary paradigmatic significance. However, “in an era when the social sciences gained unparalleled prestige and unprecedented autonomy, they never came close to escaping the gravitational pull of the state and society. On the contrary, their enterprise was shaped by the same forces that allowed them entry into the corridors of power.” [2]2 See Immanuel Wallerstein et al., *Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences* (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 28. American social science in this period was essentially an ideology presented in a scientific guise.

20世纪50年代后的美国社会科学是在冷战的大背景下展开的，可称为“冷战社会科学”。“冷战作为一项组织原则，可以帮助人们从历史性的视角重新解释美国在这一异常扩张期所开展的广泛的社会科学研究与社会科学活动”。美国社会科学的系统性科学化就开始于冷战时期，产生了大量具有学科范式意义的基础概念和理论。然而，“在社会科学获得无与伦比的声望和前所未有自主权的时代，它们从未接近于摆脱国家和社会的引力。相反，它们的事业是由允许它们进入权力走廊的同一股力量塑造的”。这一时期的美国社会科学本质上是一种以科学面貌呈现的意识形态。

Thomas Kuhn pointed out that the hallmark of the birth of a science is the establishment of a research paradigm. For the social sciences, the establishment of a research paradigm and the generation of discursive hegemony are the same process. When discursive hegemony has a significant correlation with regime legitimacy, it becomes a country’s soft power and core interest. For this reason, the generation of research paradigms in the social sciences is not, like the natural sciences, purely the result of the natural evolution and accumulation of knowledge; it has a strong historical contingency and political purposefulness, being the result of interactive collusion between knowledge communities and political power subjects or economic interest subjects. During the Cold War, although American social science formed a large number of stable research paradigms, because of the certainty of its research orientation—anti-communism—it possessed a very strong ideological character. American political science in particular, “written from a uniquely American point of view,” [3]3 See Bernard Crick, *The American Science of Politics: Its Origins and Conditions* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), p. xv. “attached to its nation,” [4]4 See Crick, *The American Science of Politics*, p. xv. whose “unacknowledged pillar and ideal is ‘America,’” [5]5 See Crick, *The American Science of Politics*, p. xv. had as its research purpose the universalization and legitimization of various American political institutions, thereby establishing the authoritative position and model character of the American political system within the typology of regimes.

托马斯·库恩指出，科学诞生的标志是研究范式的确立。对于社会科学而言，研究范式的确立与话语霸权的生成是同一过程，当话语霸权与政权合法性具有极大相关性时，它就成为一个国家的软实力与核心利益所在。正因为如此，社会科学研究范式的生成并不像自然科学那样纯粹是知识自然演进积累的结果，它具有很强的历史情境性和政治目的性，是知识共同体与政治权力主体或经济利益主体互动共谋的结果。在冷战时期，美国社会科学虽然形成了大量稳定的研究范式，但由于其研究指向的确定性——反共，因而具有极强的意识形态特征。尤其是美国的政治科学，它“以特有的美国观点而书”，“附属于它的国家”，“其不被承认的支柱和理想就是‘美国’”，它的研究目的是将美国各种政治制度普世化、合法化，进而确立美国政治制度在政体类型学中的权威地位和样板特性。

David B. Truman, a representative of American behavioralist political science, once frankly admitted that serious study of the problem of political institutions inevitably calls for reconceptualization and a new discourse system for inter-institutional comparison. In fact, ever since the Social Science Research Council approved the establishment of the Committee on Comparative Politics more than a decade ago, this reconceptualization of political institution research had been placed on the agenda. [6]6 See David B. Truman, “Disillusion and Regeneration: The Quest for a Discipline,” *American Political Science Review* 59, no. 4 (1965): 865-873. Truman’s words very clearly present the research objective of American political science during the Cold War: through reconceptualization, to seek a unified research framework, thereby establishing America’s discursive hegemony in the field of political institution research.

美国行为主义政治学代表人物杜鲁门曾经坦率地承认，对政治制度这一问题的认真研究必然会诉诸概念重塑（reconceptionalization），以及制度间比较的新的话语体系。事实上，自从十几年前美国社会科学研究理事会（Social Science Research Council）批准设立比较政治学委员会（Committee on Comparative Politics）之日起，这种政治制度研究的概念重塑就提上日程了。杜鲁门的话非常清晰地呈现了冷战期间美国政治科学的研究目标：通过概念重塑，寻求统一研究框架，以此确立美国在政治制度研究领域的话语霸权。

During the Cold War, a key link in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union was competition over political systems, and the legitimacy of political systems revolved around democracy—the “universal religion” of the era of mass politics. Democracy was originally a banner held high by the socialist movement and socialist countries; the core value upheld by capitalism was not democracy but liberty. Because the 20th century entered the era of mass democracy, democracy became a core mass value that could only be supported, not opposed. Under these conditions, whichever political system was defined as a democratic system gained the upper hand in political system competition. In this sense, “how to decide to conceptualize an idea becomes a profound political, normative, and ideological problem,” [7]7 See David Collier, Fernando Daniel Hidalgo, and Andra Olivia Maciuceanu, “Essentially Contested Concepts: Debates and Applications,” *Journal of Political Ideologies* 11, no. 3 (2006): 211-246. and “all theories about essentially contested concepts involve normative and political power relations and positions.” [8]8 See Collier, Hidalgo, and Maciuceanu, “Essentially Contested Concepts,” p. 212. The American political science community had a high degree of self-awareness about this; they step by step, in a planned manner, integrated contested concepts with their own system. One of the most important achievements was the construction of a political party system theory premised on competitive elections, i.e., party competition. This political party system theory tightly bound the Western party system together with the democratic system, attempting to exclude non-competitive party systems from democratic systems. This theoretical self-awareness based on political self-awareness was the direct driving force behind the sudden and rapid development of Western political party system theory in the mid-20th century. On the surface, the development of political party system theory seemed to be the result of natural evolution; in reality, it was a carefully orchestrated conceptual political act, aimed at touting the democratic nature of the Western party system and characterizing the one-party system of the Soviet model as an anti-democratic autocratic dictatorship.

在冷战期间，美苏之间竞争的一个关键环节就是政治制度竞争，而政治制度的合法性又是围绕着大众政治时代的“普世性宗教”——民主——而展开的。民主本来是社会主义运动和社会主义国家高举的旗帜，资本主义坚持的主体价值观不是民主，而是自由。由于20世纪进入了大众民主时代，民主成为只能支持不能反对的大众核心价值观，在这个条件下，谁的政治制度被定义为民主制度，谁就在政治制度竞争中占得了先机。在这个意义上，“如何决定概念化一个理念便成了一个深刻的政治、规范和意识形态问题”，“所有关于本质上可争议的概念的理论都牵涉到规范和政治权力关系与立场”。美国政治学界对此具有高度自觉性，他们一步步有计划地将争议性概念与自身制度一体化，其中最重要的成果之一，就是构建了以竞争性选举即党争为前提的政党制度理论。这一政党制度理论将西方政党制度与民主制度紧紧绑定在一起，试图把非竞争性政党制度排斥在民主制度之外。这种政治自觉基础上的理论自觉，是西方政党制度理论在20世纪中叶突然出现迅猛发展的直接推动力。表面上看，政党制度理论发展似乎是自然演变的结果，实际上是一场精心策划的概念政治行为，是为了标榜西方政党制度的民主性，将苏联模式的一党制国家定性为反民主的专制独裁国家。

Political parties are the organizational mechanism of modern society and the modern state generated in the process of Western modernization. Since their birth, they have been fraught with controversy. In particular, most influential modern and contemporary Western politicians and scholars have regarded them as derivative products of political factions that hinder community unity and trigger social撕裂 [social tearing], as a dispersive force that must be institutionally constrained to realize the public interest. For example, in the eyes of America’s founding father, George Washington, political parties were always “bad things” that needed to be curbed or even prohibited. In the famous Federalist No. 10, James Madison explicitly regarded factional struggle as a scourge, arguing that factions “inflame them with mutual animosity, and render them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.” [9]9 See James Madison, *Federalist No. 10*. Precisely because political parties were not seen as a necessity for the survival of the political community, nor did they gain value recognition at the level of political philosophy, almost all theorists “have, with an overwhelming tendency, neglected this subject.” [10]10 See E. E. Schattschneider, *Party Government* (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1942), p. 4. Francis Lieber’s 1853 work *Civil Liberty and Self-Government* used only a page and a half to discuss political parties; Joseph Alden’s *The Science of Government in Connection with American Institutions* had only one footnote concerning political parties; the most renowned American philosopher of the late 19th century, John W. Burgess, in his 1890 *Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law*, contained no content on political parties at all. [11]11 See Schattschneider, *Party Government*, p. 4. For this reason, E. E. Schattschneider once said: “For a century the parties slept in the dark corners of the intellectual world, unhonored and unsung. Scholars and publishers have expounded everything—democracy, sovereignty, law, constitution, suffrage, representation, liberty, etc.—but there was no room for the parties in all this… The parties thus became the orphans of political philosophy.” [12]12 See Schattschneider, *Party Government*, p. 4.

政党是西方现代化过程中生成的现代社会与现代国家的组织机制。它从诞生以来就饱受争议，尤其是西方近现代影响力较大的政治家和学者多数将其看作妨碍共同体团结、引发社会撕裂的政治派别衍生品，是为了实现公共利益必须进行制度约束的弥散性力量。例如，在美国建国之父华盛顿眼中，政党一直是需要遏制甚至禁止发展的“坏东西”。麦迪逊在著名的《联邦党人文集》第10篇中，更是明确将党争视为祸害，认为党争“煽动他们彼此仇恨，使他们更有意于触怒和压迫对方，而无意为公益而合作”。正因为政党没有被看作政治共同体存续的必需品，也没有在政治哲学层面获得价值认同，因此几乎所有理论家“都以压倒一切的倾向对这个主题弃之不顾”弗兰西斯·列伯1853年出版的《公民自由与自治》仅用一页半纸来讨论政党，约瑟夫·艾尔顿的《美国制度下的政府科学》仅有一条附注涉及政党，19世纪末最负盛名的美国哲学家柏吉斯在1890年出版的《政治科学与比较宪法》中完全没有涉及政党的内容。为此，谢茨施耐德曾说：“政党在一个世纪的大部分时间里都安睡于知识世界的黑暗角落而无人问津。学者和出版商阐释了所有的东西——民主、主权、法律、宪法、选举权、代表、自由等——但是这一切竟无政党的容身之地……政党就这样成为政治哲学的弃子。”

Sensitive to the widespread neglect of the study of political parties, E. E. Schattschneider stepped forward to vindicate the importance of parties. He linked democratic institutions with party politics, claiming that “modern democracy is a by-product of party competition,” that parties are “a process established for elections,” that “the voter’s autonomy lies in his power of free choice,” and that “democracy is not founded within parties, but between parties.” By establishing a correlation between democracy and party competition, it can be said that Schattschneider found an infallible method for raising the level of attention paid to the study of party systems. However, Schattschneider’s work was published in 1942, when the United States and the Soviet Union were in a wartime alliance, Soviet democracy was praised by American political science circles, and Stalin was described as an uncle-like figure close to the people. Since anti-communism was not the primary need, naturally no one had sufficient political acumen to uncover the “unique contribution” of Schattschneider’s *Party Government*; the theory of responsible party government on which he placed high hopes did not spark a boom in party research either. Parties remained on the margins of political science research. Even after Maurice Duverger published *Political Parties* in 1951, the renowned party theorist Giovanni Sartori still believed that his own motivation for writing stemmed from a sense of the general theoretical poverty in party studies.

有感于对政党研究的普遍忽视，谢茨施耐德挺身而出，为政党的重要性正名。他将民主制度与政党政治挂钩，声称“现代民主是政党竞争的副产品”，政党是“为选举而建立起来的过程”，“选民的自主权在于其自由选择的权力中”，“民主不是建立在政党之中，而是建立在政党之间”。通过在民主与政党竞争之间建立相关性，可以说谢茨施耐德找到了提高政党制度研究关注度的不二法门。但谢茨施耐德的著作发表于1942年，当时美苏处于战时联盟状态，苏联民主受到美国政治学界的赞扬，斯大林也被描述为亲民大叔的形象。由于反共不是第一需要，自然没有人有足够的政治敏锐性去发掘谢茨施耐德《政党政府》一书的“独特贡献”，他寄予厚望的责任政党政府理论也没有掀起政党研究的热潮，政党仍然处于政治学研究的边缘地带，甚至在莫里斯·迪韦尔热1951年出版了《政党概论》一书之后，著名政党理论家萨托利还认为自己的创作初衷是有感于政党研究的一般性理论匮乏。

However, the onset of the Cold War changed the fate of party studies, which had been neglected. The construction of liberal democratic theory moved the study of parties and party systems from the periphery to the center of Western political discourse and theory. Liberal democratic theory relied on the procedural definition of democracy proposed by Joseph Schumpeter. In this definition, a competitive electoral system based on a multi-party system was regarded as the primary essence of democracy. By hitching a ride on democracy’s coattails, parties gradually gained increasing praise in the political context of Western democratic constitutionalism. At the same time, constructing a theory of party systems compatible with liberal democratic theory became an urgent academic task for Western theoretical circles. Driven by this task, research on party system theory ushered in a flourishing spring.

然而，冷战的开始改变了政党研究备受冷落的命运，自由民主理论的构建使政党与政党制度研究从西方政治话语与理论的边缘走向了中心。自由民主理论依托于熊彼特提出的程序性民主定义，在这一定义中，以多党制为基础的竞争性选举制度被看作民主的第一要义。由于搭上了民主的顺风车，政党逐渐在西方民主宪政的政治语境中获得了越来越多的褒奖意味，与此同时，构建一套与自由民主理论相契合的政党制度理论也成为西方理论界迫切需要完成的学术任务，在这项任务激励下政党制度理论研究迎来了蓬勃发展的春天。

II. Western Political Party System Theory and the Hegemony of Liberal Democratic Discourse

二、西方政党制度理论与自由民主话语霸权

After the 1950s, research on Western political party systems entered a golden age, with various theories of party systems emerging in rapid succession. On the surface, party system theory appears open and diverse, but all these theories take party competitiveness as their meta-standard. The first to systematically use the concept of “party system” was Duverger. In his representative work *Political Parties*, he regarded the party system as the result of multi-party interaction: “Except for one-party states, every country has several parties coexisting; the form and mode of their coexistence define the party system of a particular country.” In his representative work *Parties and Party Systems*, Sartori stated that “only political systems characterized by the interaction of parties, and thus by a system of such interaction, should be called party systems.” Sartori also specifically explained why a party system must be competitive. He argued that a party system must be “characterized by subsystem autonomy,” requiring “the recognition of differences and the institutionalization of opposition.” “‘One-party systems’ do not exist and cannot be so called, because in such cases what is actually referred to is a ‘state system,’ where the party’s role is to serve the purposes of the state rather than social purposes.” In Sartori’s view, only parties that serve society can constitute a “party system”: “It can be said that society shapes the party system, but it cannot be said that society shapes the party-state system.” From this society-centered perspective, Western party system theory is premised on pluralism and competitiveness. They can accept that communist parties use the word “party” and acknowledge that communist parties are parties, but they believe that the communist “party-state system” absolutely cannot constitute a party system. The consequence of this conception of party systems is that any model of party system that does not conform to competitive electoral parties lacks procedural legitimacy in Western party system discourse. Non-competitive parties can only become a “normal” organizational mechanism of a modern state by transforming into competitive electoral parties. Even into the 21st century, Western party system research has still not broken free from the conceptual shackles that a party system is a tool for competitive elections. In *The Handbook of Party Politics*, edited by Richard S. Katz and William Crotty, the party system is directly defined as a system formed by “parties competing with each other for elective office and control of government.” One of the most authoritative party researchers in contemporary Western academia, Peter Mair, also regards competition as the meta-standard of party systems, emphasizing that the core of any party system is competition for executive office; it is precisely for the needs of competition that people in practice form parties and promote their institutionalization.

20世纪50年代后，西方政党制度（政党体制）研究进入了全盛时期，各种政党制度理论蜂拥而出。表面上看，政党制度理论呈现出种类繁多的开放性特征，但这些理论都以政党竞争性为元标准。第一次系统运用政党制度这一概念的是迪维尔热，他在代表作《政党》一书中将政党制度视为多党互动的结果，“除了一党制国家外，每个国家都有几个政党共存，它们共存的形式和模式定义了特定国家的政党制度”。萨托利在其代表作《政党与政党体制》中表示，“只有以政党相互作用、并从而以这种相互作用的体系为特征的政治体制才应被称为政党体制”。萨托利还特别解释了政党制度必须具有竞争性的原因。他认为，政党体制必须以“次体系自治为特征”，需要“承认分歧并使反对势力制度化”。“‘一党体制’并不存在，并且不能这样称呼，因为在这种情况下实际所指的是‘国家体制’，政党在其中的作用是服务于国家的目的而不是社会目的”。在萨托利看来，只有服务于社会的政党才能构成“政党体制”，“可以说是社会塑造了政党体制，但是不能说社会塑造了党国体制”。在这种社会中心主义的视野下，西方政党制度理论是以多元主义和竞争性为前提的。他们可以接受共产党用政党这个词，承认共产党是政党，但认为共产党的“党国体制”绝对不能构成一种政党制度。这种政党制度观念导致的结果是，任何不符合竞争性选举党的政党制度模式在西方政党制度话语中都不具有程序合法性，非竞争性政党只有转变为竞争性选举党才能成为一个“正常的”现代国家的组织机制。直到21世纪，西方政党制度研究仍然没有跳出政党制度是竞争性选举的工具这一观念桎梏。在理查德·S.卡茨和威廉·克罗蒂编著的《政党政治手册》中，政党制度直接被定义为“政党为了选任职位和控制政府而展开的相互竞争形成”的制度。当今西方学术界最具权威性的政党研究者之一彼得·梅尔，也将竞争视为政党制度的元标准，强调任何政党制度的核心都是对行政职位的竞争，正是为了竞争需要，人们在实践中组建了政党，并促进了其制度化。

The reason Western party system theory insists on the standard of pluralistic competition is that it is not a scientific theory conducting empirical research on existing party systems in the world, but an ideology bound up with the hegemonic discourse of liberal democracy. As long as the definition of Western-style democracy remains unchanged, and as long as the socialist system is still seen as a threat to the capitalist system, Western party system theory cannot recognize the legitimacy of non-competitive party systems. In *The German Ideology*, Marx and Engels, based on historical materialism, regarded ideology as the conceptual form of the superstructure, pointing out that it serves the interests of the ruling class that occupies a dominant position in the economic base. To whitewash their own particular interests, the ruling class must be able to “present their interest as the common interest of all members of society,” thereby “giving their ideas the form of universality and representing them as the only rational, universally valid ones.” Western party system theory is precisely the product of an ideological counteroffensive launched by the bourgeoisie in the face of the rising momentum of socialism, after the credibility of capitalism was damaged by the Great Depression. It bears the mission of universalizing and monopolizing the Western party system.

西方政党制度理论之所以坚持多元竞争的标准，是因为它不是一种对世界现存政党制度进行经验研究的科学理论，而是与自由民主话语霸权绑定在一起的意识形态。只要西式民主的定义不变，只要社会主义制度还被看作资本主义制度的威胁，西方政党制度理论就不可能承认非竞争性政党制度的正当性。在《德意志意识形态》中，马克思恩格斯依据唯物史观，将意识形态看作上层建筑的观念形态，指出它服务于在经济基础中占有支配地位的统治阶级的利益。统治阶级为了粉饰自身的特殊利益，必须有能力“把自己的利益说成是社会全体成员的共同利益”，从而“赋予自己的思想以普遍性的形式，把它们描绘成唯一合乎理性的、有普遍意义的思想”。西方政党制度理论就是在资本主义信誉因大萧条而受挫之后，资产阶级面对社会主义上升的势头而展开的意识形态反击战的产物，承担着将西方政党制度普世化、唯一化的使命。

Beginning in the mid-19th century, although capitalism was on the rise, the discursive advantage of the bourgeoisie was gradually lost under the rise of various socialist forces, especially the profound critique of Marxism. That is to say, under conditions of proletarian class consciousness, the bourgeoisie’s ability to describe its own class interests as universal interests was severely inadequate. From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the Cold War, the core issues of social science were set by left-wing discourse. Scholars debated the merits and demerits, the superiority and inferiority, of socialism versus capitalism. From this topic, analytical perspectives such as imperialism, colonialism, and democracy were extended, each directly questioning the legitimacy of capitalism. As Schumpeter noted, the value rationalism developed by the bourgeoisie in the process of opposing feudalism created “a critical mental structure” that, “after having destroyed the moral authority of so many other institutions, turned against its own; the bourgeois found to his amazement that the rationalist attitude did not stop at the credentials of kings and popes but went on to attack private property and the whole scheme of bourgeois values.” The expansion of value rationality meant that “the bourgeois fortress thus became politically defenseless.” Democrats and socialists used the slogans of “freedom,” “equality,” and “popular sovereignty” that the bourgeoisie had raised in opposing feudalism to criticize the capitalist system itself. Criticism from this realm of values is difficult to quell through responses of value rationality. To reverse this passive ideological situation, Schumpeter clearly realized: “Just as men were not in a mood to ask for a certificate of utility from kings and dukes and popes in the expectation of a satisfactory answer, so capitalism stands before a judge who carries a death sentence in his pocket. Whatever defense counsel may say, they are only prepared to convey the verdict; the only way the defendant can possibly win is to change the indictment.”

从19世纪中叶开始，虽然资本主义处于上升势头，但是资产阶级的话语优势在各种社会主义力量崛起尤其是马克思主义的深刻批判之下逐渐丧失，也就是说，在无产阶级觉悟的情况下，资产阶级把自身阶级利益描述为普遍利益的能力严重不足。从19世纪末到冷战之初，社会科学的核心议题是被左翼话语设定的，学者们围绕着社会主义与资本主义孰是孰非、孰优孰劣展开辩论，在此话题下又延伸出帝国主义、殖民主义、民主主义等分析视角，每个视角都直接质问资本主义的合法性。正如熊彼特所言，资产阶级在反封建过程中发展出来的价值理性主义创造了“一种批判的心理结构”，“这个结构在毁坏许许多多其他制度的道德权威之后，最后掉过头来反对它自己；资产阶级人士惊异地发现，理性主义态度在得到国王和教皇信任状后没有停步，而是继续攻击私有资产和资产阶级价值的整个体制”，价值理性的扩张使“资产阶级堡垒于是变得在政治上没有防御能力”。民主主义者和社会主义者用资产阶级在反封建过程中提出的“自由”“平等”“人民主权”等口号，反过来批判资本主义制度本身，这种来自价值领域的批判很难通过价值理性的回应得以平息。要想转变这种意识形态被动挨打的局面，熊彼特清醒地意识到：“正如人们从不怀着可能接到满意答复的公正心态向国王、大公和教皇要求功利证书一样，资本主义站在口袋里装着死刑判决书的法官面前受审。不管法官可能听到什么样的辩护词，他们只准备传达这个判决；被告有可能取得胜利的唯一办法是改变起诉书。”

How could the indictment be changed? Only by turning capitalism from the defendant into the plaintiff. According to the prevailing discourse in the social sciences at the time, the U.S.-Soviet struggle was a contest between two paths of modernization and two institutional models — capitalism and socialism. In this contest, capitalism not only had no chance of winning but also stood on the opposite side of human evolutionary history, destined to be replaced by socialism. The only point of contention was whether the mode of replacement would be revolutionary or reformist. This scientific historical self-confidence meant that “Soviet communism increasingly came to be seen as the mortal enemy of Americanism, because it articulated itself as an alternative modernity, and moreover as a path by which poor and oppressed nations could change the status quo without having to replicate the American model.” [19]19 Original source: a quotation from an unspecified work, likely referring to the ideological confrontation between Americanism and Soviet communism.

如何改变起诉书呢？只能是把资本主义从被告变成原告。按照当时社会科学界的流行话语，美苏之争是资本主义与社会主义两种现代化道路和制度模式之争，在这场争论中，资本主义不仅毫无胜算，并且站在人类进化史的对立面，终将被社会主义取代，唯一存在争议的是资本主义被取代的方式是革命式还是改良式。这种基于科学的历史自信，使“苏维埃共产主义越来越被认为是美国精神（Americanism）的死敌，因为它把自己阐述为一种替代性的现代性，而且还是一种贫穷和被压迫的民族借以在不必复制美国模式的情况下改变现状的道路”。

As the Soviet Union’s power grew and the number of socialist countries increased, this historical self-confidence increasingly manifested as a real historical trend. Consequently, the United States felt a profound threat from communism and the Soviet model to its national security and way of life, generating an unprecedented sense of fear. Amplified and exploited by the government and media, this fear quickly transformed anti-communism in the United States from a mere attitude into an ideology guiding policy. In the words of Sidney Lens, by the 1940s, “anti-communism was no longer a posture but a credo.” [20]20 Sidney Lens (1912–1986), American labor activist and writer. However, in the historical context of the time, opposing communism was no easy task. Unless the United States demonized communism, it was absolutely impossible to win a war against communism under conditions of a crisis of capitalist credibility. In 1949, a U.S. congressional subcommittee submitted a report after visiting the Far East, stating that it was insufficient for the United States merely to propose “containing communism by military means”; the United States needed to reaffirm its democratic principles. In 1955, Theodore Repplier, then chairman of The Advertising Council, reiterated the importance of democratic discourse when meeting with Eisenhower, stating that to win the Cold War, the United States must propagate and export ideas more attractive than communism. The idea he referred to was liberal democracy.

随着苏联实力的增长和社会主义国家的增多，这种历史自信越来越呈现为一种真实的历史趋势，因此美国深切地感受到了共产主义和苏联模式对美国国家安全和生活方式的巨大威胁，从而产生了前所未有的恐惧感。经过政府和媒体的渲染与利用，这种恐惧感在美国很快使反共主义由一种观念和态度转化为指导政策的意识形态用西德尼·伦斯的话来说，到20世纪40年代，“反共主义不再是一种姿态，而是一种信经（credo）”。然而，在当时的历史情境下，反共并不是一件容易的事，除非美国把共产主义妖魔化，否则绝不可能在资本主义信誉危机的条件下打赢一场针对共产主义的战争。1949年，美国国会一个小组委员会在访问远东后提交了一份报告，报告声称，美国仅仅提出“通过军事手段来‘遏制共产主义’”是不够的，美国需要重申美国的民主原则。1955年，时任“宣传委员会”（The Advertising Council）主席雷普利尔在会见艾森豪威尔时重申了民主话语权的重要性，表示美国要想赢得冷战，必须宣传和输出比共产主义更有吸引力的观念。他所说的这种理念就是自由民主（liberal democracy）。

Thus, liberal democracy became a trump card for the United States in the Cold War struggle against the socialist camp, a crucial step in changing the indictment. The construction of liberal democratic discourse was a systematic project. The first problem to solve was: how to define democracy so that it could be used by capitalism and decoupled from socialism. After all, from the 19th century onward, the banner of democracy had been held high by socialists, while bourgeois propaganda had mainly championed liberty. Giovanni Sartori, one of the chief architects of liberal democratic theory, frankly admitted that liberalism was initially opposed to democracy, but after the emergence of socialism, liberalism completed its annexation of democracy.

于是，自由民主成了美国在冷战中对抗社会主义阵营的一张王牌，成了改变起诉书的关键步骤。自由民主话语建构是一项系统工程，首先要解决的问题是，如何定义民主，才能让民主为资本主义所用，与社会主义脱钩。毕竟从19世纪开始，民主的旗帜一直被社会主义者高高举起，资产阶级宣传标榜的主要是自由。自由民主理论的首席设计师之一萨托利就坦言，自由主义一开始是与民主主义对立的，然而在社会主义出现后，自由主义就完成了对民主的兼并。

The first step in liberalism’s annexation of democracy was to establish a definition of democracy closely tied to liberty and to make this definition a theoretical consensus with paradigmatic significance in the discipline. Before the liberal democratic paradigm emerged, the study of democracy was in what Thomas Kuhn called the pre-scientific stage. In this pre-scientific stage, scholars had no common concepts or theories of democracy and frequently debated; there could be as many concepts and theories of democracy as there were researchers of democracy. Among so many concepts of democracy, how could one be selected for use by the United States? The criterion was very simple and clear: “If the definition of this term is to be analyzed according to our meaning… it must be capable of unambiguous application to the distribution range of those countries we consider should be classified together, distinguishing them from those we consider should not be so classified.” [21]21 Original source: a quotation from an unspecified work on democratic theory. A definition that no Western country could satisfy was meaningless; equally, a definition that could apply both to Western countries and to one-party states was also meaningless.

自由主义兼并民主的第一步是先确定一个与自由紧密相关的民主定义，并且让这一定义成为具有学科范式意义的理论共识。在自由民主范式产生之前，民主研究处于库恩所说的前科学阶段。在前科学阶段，学者们对于民主没有共通性概念和理论，并且经常发生争论，有多少民主研究者，就可能有多少种民主概念和民主理论。在如此多的民主概念中，如何拣选一个概念为美国所用呢？标准非常简单明确：“如果要使这个术语的定义能根据我们的意思来分析……它必须能毫不含糊地应用于我们认为应该归入一类的，与那些我们认为不应该归入这一类的国家相区别的那些国家的分布范围之内。”一个设置的标准没有西方国家能够满足的定义是没有意义的，同样，一个既能应用于西方国家、又能适合于一党制国家的民主定义也是没有意义的。

Which definition of democracy could exactly match the institutional characteristics of the West while precisely excluding one-party states? Joseph Schumpeter’s conception of democracy as “competitive elections,” due to its superficial consistency with the actual structures of the two main postwar liberal democratic states (Britain and the United States), was quickly regarded as the most realistic embodiment of democratic institutions. Schumpeter’s definition of democracy treated multi-party competitive elections as the core element of democracy, holding that “democracy is a political method” and that “the democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote.” [22]22 Joseph A. Schumpeter, *Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy* (1942). “The principle of democracy therefore merely means that the reins of government should be handed to those who command more support than any of the competing individuals or groups.” [23]23 Ibid. Once Schumpeter’s definition of democracy was established as the paradigm of liberal democratic theory, democracy was equated with party competition. This definition not only succeeded in turning capitalism from defendant into plaintiff — the struggle between capitalism and socialism became a struggle between liberal democracy and totalitarianism, with socialism branded as anti-democratic — but also changed the long-neglected fate of party system theory in the eyes of theorists. The competitive party system was labeled democratic and became a new darling of academia. Western party systems and democracy were linked by a bond “which we dare not sever.” [24]24 Original source: a quotation from an unspecified work on party systems. From then on, party system theory was constructed along the paths of party typology and criteria for democratic evaluation, to the point where Sartori declared that “democracy in its actual operation is mainly a party system.” [25]25 Giovanni Sartori, *Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis* (1976).

哪个民主定义能够正好符合西方的制度特征，又恰好把一党制国家排除在外呢？熊彼特的“竞争性选举”民主观由于与战后两个最主要的自由主义民主制国家（英国和美国）的实际结构之间具有表面的一致性，很快就被看作民主制度的最现实主义的体现。熊彼特的民主定义把多党竞争性选举看作民主的核心要素，认为“民主是一种政治方法”，“民主方法就是那种为作出政治决定而实行的制度安排，在这种安排中，某些人通过争取人民选票取得作决定的权力”。“民主政治的原则因此仅仅意味着，政府的执政权应交给那些比任何竞选的个人或集团获得更多支持的人。”熊彼特的民主定义被确立为自由民主理论范式之后，民主就被等同于党争。这个定义不仅成功地把资本主义从被告变成原告——资本主义与社会主义之争变成了自由民主与极权主义之争，社会主义被扣上了一顶反民主的帽子，也改变了政党制度研究长期被理论家忽视的命运。竞争性政党制度被贴上了民主标签，成为学界新宠，西方政党制度与民主以一条纽带相连，“这条纽带是我们不敢割断的”。政党制度理论从此就沿着政党类型学和民主评估标准的路径进行构建，以致萨托利宣称“民主制度在实际运转中主要是一种政党制度”。

As early as 1942, E. E. Schattschneider keenly pointed out that political party systems had been neglected by political theorists because they were considered irrelevant to democracy. At that time, both anti-democratic theorists and pro-democracy theorists accepted the definition of democracy as popular sovereignty, believing that “it is illogical to derive the process of modern political parties from the traditional concept of popular sovereignty.” [26]26 E. E. Schattschneider, *Party Government* (1942). Understanding democracy as popular sovereignty meant that “the definition of democracy had nothing to do with the actual operation of democratic government… parties were excluded from the discussion… The very habitat of parties lies precisely in the zone between popular sovereignty and government… The only way to discover parties is to revise these definitions of democracy.” [27]27 Ibid. “Parties created democracy, and more precisely, modern democracy is a byproduct of party competition.” [28]28 Ibid. Although not out of the same theoretical concern, also in 1942, Schumpeter echoed Schattschneider’s appeal. In that year’s publication of *Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy*, Schumpeter completed a revision of the concept of democracy, detaching democracy from the classical model of popular sovereignty and equating democracy with party competition. Moreover, Schumpeter frankly admitted that one direct purpose of revising the definition of democracy was to provide an “effective standard” for “distinguishing democratic governments from non-democratic governments.” [29]29 Schumpeter, *Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy*. In his view, the “classical” doctrine of democracy based on “popular sovereignty” allowed democratic models different from Western “representative democracy” — namely, the socialist democratic model aimed at economic equality — to “equally or better conform to the will and welfare of the people.” [30]30 Ibid. His proposal of the concept of party-competition democracy was premised precisely on a critique of the “classical” doctrine of democracy based on “popular sovereignty,” which undoubtedly concealed a deeper motive of contending with socialist countries for the discursive power over “democracy.”

早在1942年，谢茨施耐德就敏锐地指出，政党制度被政治理论家忽视的原因是人们认为它与民主不相关。在当时，无论是反民主的理论家还是支持民主的理论家，他们认可的民主定义都是人民主权，认为“从人民主权的传统观念中推导出现代政党的过程是不合逻辑的”。将民主理解为人民主权，使“民主定义与政府的民主制度运行毫无关系……政党就被排除在讨论之外了……在人民主权和政府之间的地带，恰恰是政党的栖息地……发现政党的唯一途径就是修订这些民主的定义”。“政党创造了民主，更确切地说，现代民主是政党竞争的副产品。”管不是出于相同的理论关怀，但同样是在1942年，熊彼特呼应了谢茨施耐德的诉求。在该年度出版的《资本主义、社会主义与民主》中，熊彼特完成了对民主概念的修正，使民主脱离了人民主权这一古典民主模式，在民主与政党竞争之间画了等号。并且，熊彼特坦言，他修正民主定义的一个直接目的就是为“辨别民主政府和非民主政府”提供一个“有效的标准”。在他看来，以“人民主权”为基础的“古典民主”学说，使与西方“代议制民主”不同的民主模式即以经济平等为目标的社会主义民主模式“能同样或更好地符合人民的意志和幸福”，而他提出党争民主的概念，正是以批判以“人民主权”为基础的“古典民主”学说为前提的，其中无疑隐藏着与社会主义国家争夺“民主”话语权的深层动机。

The degree to which a theory is realized depends on the degree to which it is needed in reality. By the Cold War period, the “painstaking efforts” of Schumpeter and Schattschneider were finally grasped by their colleagues engaged in “Cold War social science.” Taking up their mission, these scholars completed the monopoly of democratic discourse by Western democratic systems and party systems. One of the most outstanding representatives, Sartori, did not hesitate to shed the guise of neutrality that Western scholars habitually claim, and asserted with certainty: “Democracy is Western-style democracy”; “‘democracy’ is merely an abbreviation for ‘liberal democracy.’” Since liberal democracy is closely linked to party competition, from then on, Western political party system theory also bore the “burden of democracy,” unwilling to recognize the legitimacy of non-Western party systems. In the eyes of Western scholars, the examination of non-Western democratic party systems, such as China’s, has only the significance of democratic genesis and transition studies, lacking practical and theoretical value. Their greatest interest is merely in predicting how China’s party system will sustain itself, when it will transform, and ultimately collapse. In this sense, Western political party system theory is an ideology; it maintains the discursive hegemony of Western party studies and, in practice, defends the authoritative position of Western party systems.

理论的实现程度取决于现实需要的程度。到了冷战时期，熊彼特和谢茨施耐德的“苦心”终于被从事“冷战社会科学”的同仁心领神会，他们接过两人的使命，完成了西方民主制度和政党制度对民主话语的垄断。其中最优秀的代表之一萨托利不惜脱下西方学者习惯性标榜中立的伪装，笃定地宣称：“民主就是西方式的民主”“‘民主’不过是‘自由主义民主’的简写”。由于自由民主与党争紧密相连，从那以后，西方政党制度理论也背上了“民主的负担”，不愿承认非西方政党制度的合法性。在西方学者眼中，对中国等非西方民主政党制度的考察只具有民主发生学和转型学的意义，不具有实践性与理论性的价值，他们最大的兴趣不过是预测中国政党制度如何维持、何时瓦解并最终崩溃。在这个意义上，西方政党制度理论是一种意识形态，它维持着西方政党研究的话语霸权，也在实践中捍卫着西方政党制度的权威地位。

III. Western Political Party System Theory under the Norm of Competition

三、竞争性规范下的西方政党制度理论

Because Western political party system theory is a product of the Cold War and an ideology that upholds the discursive hegemony of Western party systems, its theoretical construction exhibits a stable characteristic that takes the practice of Western party systems as the standard. This characteristic is “competitiveness.” Western political party system theory has constructed a seemingly structurally complete and detailed theoretical system around the definition of party systems, the typology of party systems, the etiology of party systems, and the transition of party systems. However, this theoretical system consistently adheres to the Western-centric principle of “competitiveness.” The “definitional study” of party systems refuses to recognize the conceptual validity of non-competitive party systems; the “etiological study” of party systems has never systematically studied the historical genesis of non-Western party systems; the “typological study” of party systems excludes non-competitive parties from party counts; and the “transitional study” of party systems even regards Western party systems as the democratic model and the ultimate reform coordinate for non-competitive parties. These theoretical paradigms based on “competitiveness,” even by the standards of non-Marxist Western sociology of knowledge, possess a high degree of ideological character. For example, *The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Science* defines “ideology” as “a form of expression of beliefs and viewpoints with symbolic significance, which, through methods of representing, understanding, and evaluating the real world, forms, mobilizes, guides, organizes, and justifies certain patterns or modes of behavior, while negating all other patterns or modes of behavior.” Given that the second part of this article has already used considerable space to elaborate on the competitive characteristics of the definitional study of Western party systems, the following will conduct a systematic analysis of two other important components of Western political system theory—the typology of party systems and the etiology of party systems—to see how these Western political party system theories use “competitiveness” as the standard to negate non-competitive party system models.

因为西方政党制度理论是冷战的产物，是一种维护西方政党制度话语霸权的意识形态，所以它的理论构建就呈现出一种以西方政党制度实践为标准的稳定特性，这个特性就是“竞争性”。西方政党制度理论围绕着政党制度定义学、政党制度类型学、政党制度成因学和政党制度转型学构建了一套看似结构完整、内容详尽的政党制度理论体系，但是，这套理论体系始终遵循着西方中心主义的“竞争性”原则。政党制度“定义学”拒绝承认非竞争性政党制度的概念性，政党制度“成因学”始终没有系统研究过非西方政党制度的历史生成，政党制度“类型学”将非竞争性政党排除在政党计数之外，政党制度“转型学”更是将西方政党制度视为民主典范和非竞争性政党的最终改革坐标。这些以“竞争性”为基础的理论范式，即使按照非马克思主义的西方知识社会学的标准，也具有高度的意识形态特征。例如，《布莱克维尔政治学百科全书》对“意识形态”的定义就是“具有符号意义的信仰和观点的表达形式，它以表现、理解和评价现实世界的方法来形成、动员、指导、组织和证明一定的行为模式或方式，并否定其他一切行为模式或方式”。鉴于本文第二部分已经用大量篇幅阐释了西方政党制度定义学的竞争性特征，以下将对西方政治制度理论的其他两个重要组成部分——政党制度类型学、政党制度成因学——展开系统分析，看这些西方政党制度理论是如何以“竞争性”为标准来否定非竞争性政党制度模式的。

1. The Typology of Western Party Systems

1.西方政党制度类型学

The typology of party systems is, besides the definitional study, the most influential area of research within Western political party system theory. After directly defining a party system as “the institution formed by parties competing with each other for elective office and control of government,” Western typologies of party systems generally classify existing party systems based on the number of parties. Based on the principle of “competitiveness,” the typology of Western party systems determines the count of parties by the standard of having the capacity to participate in elections and obtain a certain number of effective seats in parliament.

政党制度类型学是西方政党制度理论中除定义学之外影响最为广泛的研究领域。在将政党制度直接定义为“政党为了选任职位和控制政府而展开的相互竞争形成的制度之后，西方政党制度类型学普遍依据政党数量对现有政党制度进行了分类。基于以“竞争性”为基础的原则，西方政党制度类型学对政党数量的认定是以有能力参与竞选并在议会获得一定数量的有效席位为标准的。

As a pioneer in the typology of party systems, Duverger was the first, in his work, to classify party systems into one-party systems, two-party systems, and multi-party systems based on the number of competing parties, initiating the practice of using the number of parties as the basis for classifying party systems. Blondel inherited Duverger’s classification method and developed it. Based on the classification by number of parties, he introduced the analytical perspective of the relative strength of parties. Using the vote shares of parties in parliamentary elections from 1945 to 1966, he divided party systems into four types: two-party systems, two-and-a-half-party systems, multi-party systems with a dominant party, and multi-party systems without a dominant party.

作为政党制度类型学的研究先驱，迪维尔热最早在其著作中根据竞争中的政党数量将政党制度分为一党制、两党制和多党制，开启了以政党数量作为政党制度分类基础的先河。布隆代尔继承了迪维尔热的分类方法，并进行了发展，在依据政党数量分类的基础上引入了政党相对实力的分析视角，利用1945—1966年政党在议会选举中的得票率将政党制度分为四种类型，分别是两党制、两个半党制、存在一个支配性政党的多党制和不存在支配性政党的多党制。

After the method of classifying party systems by the number and strength of parties was widely adopted, based on the principle of competitiveness, Robert Dahl, in reviewing the opposition party models of Western democracies, classified party systems into four types according to differences in government formation and the mode of interaction with opposition parties, as well as differences in the competitive strategies of opposition parties: strictly competitive (UK), cooperative-competitive (USA, France, Italy), coalescent-competitive (Austria and wartime UK), and fully coalescent (Colombia). Robert Dahl’s classification scheme further highlighted the competitiveness of parties. This scheme indicates that two-party and multi-party systems do not need to be distinguished from simple counting hypotheses or standard-type hypotheses; the competitive and coalescent-competitive classification methods combine party systems that might otherwise be divided into two-party and multi-party systems. After Robert Dahl, Stein Rokkan further refined the classification method for multi-party systems based on the patterns of alliance and confrontation among major parties during elections. Taking smaller countries as his research objects, he distinguished three different party systems: the first is the 1 vs. 1+1 model, where competition is primarily between two major parties, occasionally allying with a third party, as in Austria and Ireland; the second is the 1 vs. 3–4 model, where one large party confronts a coalition of three or four small parties, represented by Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, also known as the “Scandinavian model”; the third is the 1 vs. 1 vs. 2–3 model, where three or more parties of balanced strength compete, also known as “balanced multi-partyism.”

通过政党数量和实力对政党制度进行分类的方法被普遍采纳之后，基于竞争性原则，罗伯特·达尔在回顾西方民主国家的反对党模式时，根据政府组建和反对党互动方式的不同，按照反对党竞争战略的差异将政党制度划分为四种类型：严格竞争式（英国）、合作竞争式（美国、法国和意大利）、联合竞争式（奥地利和战时英国）和完全联合式（哥伦比亚）。罗伯特·达尔的分类方案更加突出了政党的竞争性。这一方案表明，两党制和多党制不需要区别于简单计数假设或者标准类型假设，竞争式及联合竞争式的分类法把可能分成两党制和多党制的政党体制结合了起来。在罗伯特·达尔之后，斯坦·罗坎根据主要政党竞选时的联合与对抗方式进一步细化了多党制的分类方法。他将较小国家作为研究对象，区分了三种不同的政党制度：第一种是主要由两个政党进行竞争，偶尔与第三党结盟的1对1+1模式，如奥地利和爱尔兰；第二种是一个大党对抗三个或四个小党联盟的1对3—4模式，以挪威、瑞典、丹麦为代表，又称“斯堪的纳维亚模式”；第三种是三个或三个以上力量平衡的政党之间竞争的1对1对2—3模式，又称为“平衡多党制”。

Within the typology of Western party systems, the most influential is the classification standard proposed by Sartori in his book *Parties and Party Systems*. Sartori argued that classifying parties into one-party, two-party, and multi-party competitive systems is too simplistic and crude to explain the real differences between party systems. He specifically proposed “relevance” to determine which parties should be considered and which can be ignored when classifying party systems. He first excluded the “party-state system” of communist countries from the field of political system research, asserting that communist countries have no genuine party system. Then, he clarified the rules for the strength of parties influencing the political system, arguing that a party’s strength is primarily its electoral strength, which can also be called “seat strength.” Based on a party’s “seat strength,” Sartori believed that, under multi-party conditions, there are two rules for determining whether a party should be counted: first, parties with governing relevance in the arena of forming governing coalitions must be considered; second, parties in the opposition, whose movement left or right on the ideological spectrum can change the competitive direction of the governing party through centripetal or centrifugal shifts, must also be considered. These two rules mean that smaller parties, if they have the potential to join a governing coalition (coalition potential)—that is, in many cases, being a necessary coalition partner for forming a viable governing coalition—or have “blackmail potential”—that is, the party’s existence can affect the competitive strategies of parties with coalition potential—should be counted as having governing relevance, while parties that have never had influence on coalition seats are not relevant. Finally, according to his criteria for party influence, Sartori divided party systems into seven types: one-party systems, hegemonic party systems, predominant party systems (one party consistently maintains a majority in elections), two-party systems, limited multi-party systems (3–5 parties), extreme multi-party systems (6–8 parties), and atomized systems (more than 8 parties).

在西方政党制度类型学中，影响力最大的是萨托利在《政党与政党体制》一书中提出的分类标准。萨托利认为，将政党分为一党、两党、多党竞争制度过于简单粗糙，不能解释政党制度之间的真实差异。他特别提出了“相关性”，以此决定对政党制度进行分类时哪些政党应该被考虑在内，哪些政党可以忽略不计。他首先将共产党国家的“党国体制”排斥在政治制度研究领域之外，认为共产党国家没有真正意义上的政党制度。然后，他明确了影响政治制度的政党实力规则，认为一个政党的实力首先是其选举实力，也可以称为“席位实力”。根据政党的“席位实力”，萨托利认为，在多党条件下决定一个政党是否应该被计数的规则有两点：第一点，那些在形成执政联盟舞台上有执政相关性的政党必须重视；第二点，那些在反对党位置上，其在意识形态光谱上向左或向右移动、通过决定向心或者离心的转变能够改变执政党竞争方向的政党也必须重视。这两条规则意味着，较小的政党，如果它具有加入执政联盟的潜力（coalition potential），即在很多情况下是组建一个可行的执政联盟必需的联盟伙伴，或者破坏联盟的“勒索潜力”（blackmail potential），即政党的存在能影响到有联盟潜力的政党的竞争策略，就应该被计入有执政相关性的政党，而那些对联盟席位从来没有影响力的政党就不具有相关性。最后，萨托利按照他的政党影响力标准，将政党制度分为七种类型：一党制、霸权党制、主导党制（一党在选举中始终保持多数）、两党制、有限多党制（3—5个）、极端多党制（6—8个）和粉碎型体制（8个以上）。

After Sartori, few have proposed new methods for classifying party systems. A relatively innovative attempt was Peter Mair’s effort to use competition for government as a new method of party system classification. He pointed out that under a party system where competition for government exhibits a closed character, parties alternate in power as a whole, and the parties entering government are often limited to a few. The typical examples of a closed competitive structure are the United Kingdom and Japan. Distinct from the closed competitive structure is the open competitive model, represented by the Netherlands and Denmark. The open competitive model makes it easier for new parties to enter the governing coalition, and with the emergence of new parties, the governing methods of the parties also tend to show innovation.

在萨托利之后，很少有人提出新的政党制度分类方法，较有创新性的是彼得·梅尔曾尝试将争夺政府作为政党制度分类的新方法。他指出，在对政府争夺呈现封闭性特征的政党体制下，政党之间处于整体轮替状态，进入政府的政党往往局限于少数几个党，封闭型竞争结构的典型是英国、日本。与封闭型竞争结构相区别的是开放型竞争模式，以荷兰和丹麦为代表，开放型竞争模式容易出现新政党进入执政联盟，随着新政党的出现，政党的执政方式也会表现出创新性。

2. The Etiology of Western Political Party Systems

2.西方政党制度成因学

The etiology of party systems, as the name suggests, is the theory that explores the reasons for the formation of party systems. Since the definition of Western party systems has already positioned the party system within the competitive Western party model, when exploring the causes of party systems, the research focus of Western scholars is limited to uncovering the reasons why different countries form different forms of party competition. They have never objectively analyzed the historical roots and rational basis for the emergence of non-competitive party systems, such as the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. They believe that non-competitive party systems only have value for the study of transition and no significance for the study of etiology. Regarding the reasons why competitive parties form different institutional models, Western scholars have mainly proposed two research approaches: institutionalism and sociological analysis.

政党制度成因学，顾名思义，就是探讨政党制度形成原因的理论。由于西方政党制度的定义已经将政党制度定位于竞争性的西方政党模式，因此在探讨政党制度的成因时，西方学者的研究关注点也就局限于挖掘不同国家形成不同政党竞争形态的原因，对于非竞争性政党制度，如中国共产党领导的多党合作与政治协商制度，他们从来没有从客观的角度去分析过其产生的历史根源与合理依据。他们认为，非竞争性政党制度只具有转型学研究的价值，没有任何成因学探讨的意义。关于竞争性政党形成不同制度模式的原因，西方学者主要提出了制度主义与社会学分析两种研究路径。

The most influential institutionalist analysis case in the etiology of party systems is the classic “Duverger’s Law.” In his groundbreaking book *Political Parties*, Duverger first explored the impact of electoral systems on party systems, pioneering the study of the causes of political systems from an institutionalist perspective. Duverger’s basic view is that there is a mutual influence between electoral systems and party systems, with the electoral system being the independent variable and the party system the dependent variable. In terms of specific causal relationships, the simple-majority single-ballot system leads to a two-party system, which is called “Duverger’s Law”; proportional representation tends to lead to a multi-party system, and the two-ballot absolute majority system tends to form multiple parties with political alliances among them, which are called “Duverger’s hypotheses.” In addition, the institutionalist research approach has also focused on the relationship between presidential systems, parliamentary systems, and party systems, arguing that the winner-takes-all characteristic of presidential elections curbs the proliferation of small parties, makes multi-party systems more inclined toward cooperation, and that presidential systems are also conducive to the formation of a stable two-party system.

政党制度成因学最有影响力的制度主义分析案例是被奉为经典的“迪维尔热定律”。迪维尔热在他具有开拓性的《政党》一书中首次探讨了选举制度对政党制度的影响，开启了从制度主义视角研究政治制度成因的先河。迪维尔热的基本观点是：选举制度与政党制度之间存在相互影响关系，其中选举制度是自变量，政党制度是因变量。从具体因果关系来说，简单多数选举制导致两党制，这被称作“迪维尔热定律”；比例代表制倾向于导致多党制，两轮绝对多数决定制倾向于形成多个彼此之间存在政治联盟关系的政党，这被称作“迪维尔热假设”。除此之外，制度主义研究路径还关注了总统制和议会制与政党制度的关系，认为总统制在总统选举时赢者通吃的特性遏制了小党的激增，使多党制政党之间更倾向于选择合作，总统制也有利于稳定两党制的形成。

The sociological analysis of the etiology of party systems is represented by the research of Lipset and Rokkan. In 1967, Lipset and Rokkan edited the collection *Party Systems and Voter Alignments*, and the lengthy opening essay co-authored by the two editors had a significant impact. In this essay, Lipset and Rokkan proposed the social cleavage theory to explain the causes of party systems. This theory holds that modern party systems are the product of social conflicts that have occurred over several centuries in the West, and that different structures of social cleavage are the root causes of different party systems. “Social cleavage” originates from divisions among different social groups; class, status, religion, ethnicity, etc., constitute the reasons for social cleavage in different countries, different societies, and different periods. When society splits into different groups, groups with shared interests and value identification form a collective consciousness and desire to unite like-minded members through organization. In the gradual process of universal suffrage becoming widespread, political parties became an effective channel for different interest groups to express preferences and realize interests, with different parties developing into spokespersons for different social groups within the government. Lipset and Rokkan pointed out that in the process of the formation of Western nation-states proceeding in tandem with the Industrial Revolution, four lines of cleavage emerged: center-periphery, church-state, rural-urban, and capital-labor. The disagreements and conflicts along these four lines of cleavage, as well as the differences in the number and nature of the social fissures created by these conflicts, are the fundamental reasons for the formation of different types of party systems in Europe. How conflicts are resolved, the outcome of each resolution in terms of victory and defeat, and the results of interactions among political elites all influence party alliances and electoral rules. When a party gains an advantage in early voter alliances and secures a dominant position in parliament, it has the opportunity to formulate electoral rules favorable to itself, thereby squeezing the space for the survival and development of its competitors. In this process, different parties strive to maintain their representation of different groups, binding themselves to fixed interests within the social structure. When this binding is “locked in,” the party system emerges.

政党制度成因论的社会学分析以李普塞特和罗坎的研究为代表。1967年，李普塞特和罗坎主编了论文集《政治制度与选民结盟》，两位编者合写的开篇长文产生了重大影响。在该论文中，李普塞特和罗坎提出了解释政党制度成因的社会分裂理论。这个理论认为，现代政党制度是西方几个世纪发生的社会冲突的产物，社会分裂的不同结构是不同政党制度产生的根源。“社会分裂”源于社会不同群体之间的分裂，阶级、身份、宗教、种族等构成了不同国家、不同社会、不同时期社会分裂的原因。当社会分裂成不同的群体时，具有相同利益和价值认同的群体就形成了集体意识，就会渴望通过组织的形式将同道成员联合起来。在普选权逐步普及的过程中，政党就成了代表不同利益群体表达偏好和实现利益的有效途径，不同的政党发展为不同社会群体在政府中的代言人。李普塞特和罗坎指出，在西方民族国家形成与工业革命齐头并进的过程中出现了四条分野线，分别是中心-边缘、教会-国家、农村-城市和资本-劳工。这四条分野线之间的分歧和冲突，以及这些冲突制造的社会裂隙数量和性质差异，是欧洲不同类型政党制度形成的根本原因。冲突如何解决，每次解决的胜负情况，政治精英之间的互动结果，都会对政党结盟和选举规则产生影响。当某个政党在前期与选民联盟中占据了优势，获得了议会主导权，就有机会制定对本党有利的选举制度，以此挤压竞争对手的生存与发展空间。在这个过程中，不同政党竭力维持对不同群体的代表权，将自身与社会结构的固定利益进行捆绑，当捆绑被“锁定”，政党制度就产生了。

Lipset and Rokkan’s theory is clearly different from institutionalism. They explain based on sociology, treating institutions as dependent variables, arguing that institutions are the result, not the cause, of the interaction of social forces, thereby negating the significant influence of specific institutional structures on party systems. Subsequently, many scholars have followed the method of using social cleavage theory to analyze party systems, further demonstrating the relationship between the type of party system and the nature and number of social cleavages, forming views such as “using the number of social cleavages to predict the number of relevant parties” and “the more structural cleavages in a society, the greater the number of parties.” However, no matter how much the sociological research method focuses on the impact of the social structure itself on party systems, it has not devoted effort to explaining why developing countries have formed party systems different from competitive elections, nor can it recognize the necessity of non-competitive party systems for late-developing modernizing countries to concentrate authority to complete nation-building and modernization tasks.

李普塞特和罗坎的理论明显不同于制度主义。他们基于社会学进行解释，把制度看作因变量，认为制度是社会力量互动的结果而不是原因，这就否定了特定制度结构对政党制度的重要影响。其后，很多学者沿用了用社会分裂理论分析政党制度的方法，进一步论证了政党制度类型与社会分裂性质与数量之间的关系，形成了“用社会分裂数量去预测相关政党数量”“一个社会中的结构性分裂越多，政党数量就越多”等观点。然而，无论社会学研究方法如何关注社会结构本身对政党制度的影响，它都没有倾注力量去解释为何发展中国家会形成不同于竞争性选举的政党制度，更无法认可非竞争性政党制度对于后发现代化国家集中权威完成国家建设与现代化任务的必要性。

4. Conclusion

四、结语

Through a systematic analysis of the Cold War roots of Western political party system theory, its connection with the hegemonic discourse of liberal democracy, and the resulting normative research path that takes competitiveness as the fundamental characteristic of party systems, this paper fully demonstrates that Western political party system theory is not a so-called value-neutral scientific theory, but an ideology that maintains the legitimacy of Western capitalist political systems. In the research perspective of Western scholars, the party system is a tool of competitive elections attached to the liberal democratic system. Non-competitive party systems are directly defined by them as anti-democratic systems. China’s system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation has also been consistently regarded as a representative of the “party-state system” and “one-party system.” The fact that multiple political parties have existed since the founding of New China has been completely ignored, because the multiple parties in China are in a cooperative relationship, not a competitive one. The Western determination of the number of parties is entirely premised on competitiveness: “any group, no matter how loosely organized, that contests government office under a particular label can be called a political party.” Parties without competitive relationships are excluded from the counting of party systems. If one relies on Western political party system theory, it is simply impossible to understand the functionality, rationality, and superiority of China’s party system, because Western political party system theory is an “old” theory that serves the interests of the bourgeoisie and is premised on competition. It is built on the basis of social differentiation, using competitiveness to undermine integration, in order to prevent the people from forming an overall interest, and even more to prevent a political party representing the overall interests of the people from coming to power and threatening the rule of the bourgeoisie.

本文通过系统分析西方政党制度理论产生的冷战根源、与自由民主话语霸权的关联性以及由此产生的将竞争性作为政党制度根本特性的规范性研究路径，充分证明了西方政党制度理论不是所谓价值中立的科学理论，而是一种维护西方资本主义政治制度合法性的意识形态。在西方学者的研究视野中，政党制度是依附于自由民主制度之上的竞争性选举的工具。非竞争性政党制度直接被其定义为反民主的制度，中国的多党合作与政治协商制度也一直被视为“党国体制”和“一党制”的代表，新中国成立以来一直存在多个政党的事实被完全无视了，因为中国的多个政党之间是合作关系，而不是竞争关系。西方对于政党数量的确定完全是以竞争性为前提的，“任何群体，无论它的组织多么松散，只要它在一个特定的标签下参加竞选政府公职，就可以被称作政党”，没有竞争关系的政党被排除在政党制度计数之外。如果依据西方政党制度理论，就根本无法理解中国政党制度的功能性、合理性与优越性，因为西方政党制度理论是一种服务于资产阶级利益的、以竞争为前提的“旧”理论，它建立于社会分化的基础之上，用竞争性去瓦解整合性，以防范人民形成整体利益，更防止代表人民整体利益的政党上台执政，威胁到资产阶级的统治。

To understand Western political party systems, we must proceed from the methodology of Marxist historical materialism and grasp that the ultimate causes of all social changes and political transformations are to be sought in changes in the mode of production and exchange. Social being determines social consciousness. As a political superstructure, the Western political party system is established on the economic base of capitalist private ownership of the means of production and serves the goal of maximizing capital interests. Under the conditions of the capitalist economic base, contradictions between different classes and groups are irreconcilable, exhibiting characteristics of competition and fragmentation. Therefore, the bourgeois state requires a social-centrist competitive conception of democracy and uses political parties as instruments to realize liberal democracy, distancing itself from and evading the class nature of parties. Only by deeply understanding the “old” in the Western political party system—understanding that it is attached to the bourgeois conception of the state, democracy, and political parties, and is an ideology representing bourgeois interests—can we develop a stronger theoretical consciousness to construct China’s own party theory, safeguard China’s discursive power in the field of party research, understand the superiority and progressiveness of China’s new type of political party system, and understand that China’s new type of political party system is established on the Marxist conception of the state and democracy. It “is a product of integrating Marxist party theory with China’s actual conditions, and can genuinely, broadly, and enduringly represent and realize the fundamental interests of the broadest majority of the people and the fundamental interests of all ethnic groups and all walks of life across the country,” and “is a major contribution to human political civilization.”

理解西方政党制度，我们要从马克思主义唯物史观的方法论出发，明白一切社会变迁和政治变革的终极原因都应当到生产方式和交换方式的变更中去寻找。社会存在决定社会意识，西方政党制度作为政治上层建筑，建立于资本主义生产资料私有制的经济基础之上，服务于资本利益最大化的目标。在资本主义经济基础的条件下，不同阶级和集团之间的矛盾具有不可调和性，呈现出竞争性和分裂性的特征，因此，资产阶级国家需要一种社会中心主义的竞争性民主观，并将政党作为实现自由民主的工具，远离、回避政党的阶级本质。只有对西方政党制度的“旧”有深刻理解，理解它依附于资产阶级的国家观、民主观和政党观，是一种代表资产阶级利益的意识形态，我们才能有更强大的理论自觉去构建中国自己的政党理论，维护中国在政党研究领域的话语权，理解中国新型政党制度的优越性和进步性，理解中国新型政党制度建立于马克思主义的国家观和民主观之上，“是马克思主义政党理论同中国实际相结合的产物，能够真实、广泛、持久代表和实现最广大人民根本利益、全国各族各界根本利益”，“是对人类政治文明的重大贡献”。

(Author’s bio: Zhang Fei’an, Associate Professor at the School of Marxism Studies, Renmin University of China, and Researcher at the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Ideological and Political Theory Courses.)

（作者简介：张飞岸，中国人民大学马克思主义学院副教授，北京高校思想政治理论课高精尖创新中心研究员）

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心