ABSTRACT
A multiparty system and even democracy in general are more often than not explained as resulting from the division of society into groups or classes with differing and conflicting interests, which are politically articulated and “aggregated” by parties (Almond and Powell 1966), whereas democracy in general provides for a rational compromise. Far from denying this explanation it can be submitted that there is a deeper reason for, or meaning of, the rise and development of a multiparty system. Social cleavages and conflicting interests have existed through ages, long before the emergence of a multiparty system and democracy, at least in their modem forms. The rise and development of the competitive multiparty system as a major component of modem democracy appears to be ultimately brought about and conditioned by certain basic functional requirements of the modem society, i.e., of the industrial society. The major one among them can be defined as the need for recurrent and timely modifications and adjustments of government policies in accordance with continued alterations in the changing society; these modifications and adjustments, in their turn, provide for development and change. Obviously, changes in government policies are most likely to be effected through change in political leadership of the state or at least through the mounting public pressure on it. This is expressed in an old British adage: “The Whig will do nothing unless pressed.” It is exactly the competitive multiparty system and political democracy in general that provides for changes of political leadership or at least exerts organized public pressure on it; thus, timely and orderly changes in public policies are effected as a matter of course. Meanwhile the democratic organization of society and the multiparty system as its major component also provide safeguards against voluntarist government policies; these safeguards are obviously as much a requirement of modem society as the recurrent changes themselves. Thus it can be said that democracy and the competitive multiparty system are the major vehicles for the development of modem society.
