@article{2017:erbentraut:oligarchie,
title = {Oligarchie, Demokratie, Anarchie – Drei Idealmodelle vormärzlicher Parteiorganisation},
year = {2017},
note = {How were political parties in the political philosophy of the German
pre-March (“Vormärz”) 1815 till 1848 perceived? A revision of
some long-standing prejudices in favor of a more benign view on the
pre-March concept of political parties is necessary . In fact a modern
and elaborate theory and sociology of political parties is already to
be found at the eve of the 1848 German revolution . Although among the
relevant academic literature, early German party theorists in general
were accused of having interpreted parties first and foremost as loose
associations of ideologically like-minded persons
(“Gesinnungsgemeinschaften”) being unable or unwilling to tolerate
real political groups . In fact an understanding of parties as
political organization competing for power already was a central
element of the pre-March concept of party . The general insight into
the organizational character of political parties has led the
theorists, in a second step of analysis, to deal more closely with the
preferred model of party organization . If the ideas of the internal
structure of parties, which were circulating at the time, were to be
bundled together, one can already speak of three ideal models of party
organization: oligarchy, democracy and anarchy . The findings are
based on a broad analysis of more than 250 contemporary German text
sources originating from 1815 to 1848 .},
journal = {ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen},
pages = {691--711},
author = {Erbentraut, Philipp},
volume = {48},
number = {3}
}