TO SURVIVE DE GAULLE
35
jority-seeking, “catch-all parties” (to borrow Otto Kirchheimer’s phrase)
which now dominate the political scene in Germany as well as in Great
Britain and the United States.'73 First, like them it eschews sectarianism and
actively seeks ever wider popular majorities. It draws support from a wide
spectrum, excluding no important segment of French society. Although the
extended Gauilist electorate is less representative of the entire population
than the restricted electorate, in comparative terms the 45 percent of French
workers who voted for de Gaulle on December 19, 1965, is at least 10
ρerςent more than either the Conservative Party or the Christian Demo-
cratic Union usually wins from the British and German working classes.174
Second, it deplores dogmatic ideology and seeks such goals as national
independence and economic prosperity in pragmatic fashion. As Stanley
HofTman has observed, the Gaullist notion of grandeur is too unspecific to
form the base for a coherent ideology.'77, As the object of a fundamental and
continuing quest, it is Gaullism’s functional equivalent to the British Labour
Party’s commitment to greater social equality. The nationalist appeal, which
excludes no one, is well suited to unify large segments of the population.
Third, again like the catchall parties, the UDR accepts the framework
of the existing social and political order; indeed, as the Democratic Union
for the Republic, its interests are closely tied to the fate of existing political
institutions. Fourth, its primary function tends to be to support (if not to
nominate) national political leaders.
The UDR appears to depart from the catchall party type in two important
ways. First, the skeptical attitude toward parties and interest groups which
Gaullist leaders inherit from their mentor tends to inhibit the open, bar-
gaining style of politics common in catchall parties. Organized interest
groups are denied the access which they enjoy in most catchall parties.17"
With respect to the oligarchical character of its internal organization, and
to the meager influence which it allows its backbenchers, the UDR is not
radically different from the major parties in Great Britain and West Ger-
many.177 And yet it would seem that the Gaullist style is not one which
allows the kind of frequent consultation, discussion, and bargaining which
soften party oligarchy in Britain.
Like government parties everywhere, the UDR acts as a transmission
belt between governors and governed; yet it tends to be a one-way com-
munication, serving to inform and organize the electorate in support of gov-
ernment policies more than to express and digest demands from below. Al-
though the evidence is still spotty, it appears likely that the oligarchical
nature of the policy-making process in Gauliist France was one of the
causes of those violent anti-Gaullist sentiments expressed by students and
workers in May and June, 1968. Dc Gaulle's mid-crisis vision of a “so-
ciety of participation” clearly would require major adjustments in the Gaul-