Parties, Power and Outcomes: Factors in Political Party Goal Attainment in France, Germany and Austria.

Political parties seek power in order to accomplish their goals. Raw electoral power is commonly used as an indicator of political party power. However, such a distinction fails to capture the complexity of how parties move from setting goals to achieving them. Scholars such as William Riker (Riker 1962) and Michael Leiserson (Leiserson 1968) view political parties as power-seekers, yet power for them is not limited to electoral results or votes but extends to the overall picture of parties holding positions of influence both in the foreground of representative government but also importantly in the background as strategists, advisors, agency chiefs, and other appointed positions. Parties and their members often work to occupy a variety of positions that may appear less than prominent as they work behind the scenes at building their social capital and enabling their policy agenda. Even though scholars have traditionally presented policy-seeking as a supplementary goal to office or vote-seeking (Axelrod 1970; Lijphart 1984; Luebbert 1986), this paper suggests that policy and outcomes are frequently the focus of parties as they realize that back channels can provide the ability to accomplish policy goals. This paper examines the role of power and positioning as parties work toward goal attainment. It considers both intra-party competition and cooperation as parties work toward their desired policy outcomes. It argues that effective parties are critically aware of their relationship to other parties in their party system as they craft their platform and strategy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]