Page 71 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Political Context of Media Systems

controlling broadcasting when they are in power, knowing that they will
someday again be in opposition and would prefer not to have their rivals
in control.

INDIVIDUAL VS. ORGANIZED PLURALISM;
LIBERALISM VS. CORPORATISM
OneofthedimensionsofLijphart’sdistinctionbetweenmajoritarianand
consensus rule has to do with the political role of interest groups. “The
typical interest group system of majoritarian democracy,” he notes, “is
a competitive and uncoordinated pluralism of independent groups, in
contrast with the coordinated and compromise-oriented system of cor-
poratism that is typical of the consensus model” (1999: 171). We would
connect this distinction to a broader contrast between systems in which
political representation is conceived and organized in terms of the rela-
tion between governing institutions and individual citizens, along with a
multiplicity of competing “special interests”– which we will call individ-
ualized pluralism – and those in which organized social groups are more
central to the political process – which we will call organized pluralism.
Organized pluralist systems are characterized by strongly institution-
alized social groups representing different segments of the population,
whichoftenplayacentralroleinmediatingtheirmembers’relationswith
thewidersocietyandmaybeformallyintegratedintotheprocessofmak-
ing public policy. A classic example of organized pluralism would be the
“pillarized” system that prevailed in the Netherlands through the early
to middle twentieth century, in which the different subcommunities –
Protestant, Catholic, Socialist, and Liberal – developed their own edu-
cational, cultural, social, and political institutions – ranging from sports
clubs to trade unions and political parties. The Catholic and Commu-
nist subcultures in Italy similarly developed dense webs of organiza-
tional structures, on which individuals depended, to a large extent, for
everything from leisure activities and cultural life to jobs and govern-
ment services. In cases where these organized subcommunities struc-
ture most aspects of social life, and social institutions are separated by
subcommunity – as was true in the Netherlands before the 1960s –
this is referred to in the comparative politics literature as segmented
pluralism.
The formal integration of social groups into the political process is
what is known as corporatism. As Katzenstein (1985: 32) has argued, the
smaller states of Europe, particularly Scandinavia, the Low countries,

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