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Political Parties and the War1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

John M. Mathews
John M. Mathews
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Extract

The pathology of political parties is illustrated under especially illuminating circumstances during time of war. The internal political conditions of every important nation are influenced to some extent by its external relations. War on a world-wide scale is the external relation which has the most profound influence upon the internal political conditions of every participating nation. This influence varies in different cases, depending upon the proximity of the particular nation to the scene of the conflict, the extent of its participation, the relative danger of invasion by its enemies, the character of the internal governmental organization, the length of the conflict, and other factors. In normal times, it has been found by experience in nations operating under the two-party system that oscillations in the fortunes of the two principal parties occur with a surprising degree of regularity. This see-saw of party politics may have an injurious effect upon the continuity and constructiveness of the nation's foreign policy even in normal times; its continuation in time of war when the nation's fate may be hanging in the balance would be a serious, if not intolerable, danger. One effect of war upon the party system, therefore, is to bring about, at least for a time, a relatively greater stability of party control, if not complete quiescence of partisanship, either through coalition or through cessation of party opposition, or both.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , May 1919 , pp. 213 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1919

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Footnotes

1

This is an expansion of an article with the same title which is to appear in the new edition of the Encyclopedia Americana. In the preparation of this article, the author has derived much assistance from J. A. Fairlie's “British War Cabinets,” Michigan Law Review, Vol. XVI, May, 1918.

References

2 Dicey, A. V., in The Nineteenth Century, January, 1919.Google Scholar

3 It is a noteworthy fact that, both in Great Britain and in the United States, the party in power at the outbreak of the war was the party which had stood more strongly against state interference with individual liberty than its principal opponent, but that, in both cases, the successful prosecution of the war necessitated the abandonment of this time-honored policy.

4 Michels, Robert, Political Parties, p. 393.Google Scholar The chapter of this book on “Political Parties in War Time,” though brief, is a philosophical and illuminating discussion of the subject.

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