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A political machine (or simply machine) is a disciplined political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters (usually campaign workers), who receive rewards for their efforts. Although these elements are common to most political parties and organizations, they are essential to political machines, which rely on hierarchy and rewards for political power. Machines sometimes have a political boss

Political boss

A boss, in political science, is a person who wields de facto power over a particular political region or constituency. Bosses may dictate voting patterns, control appointments, and wield considerable influence in other political processes....
, often rely on patronage

Patronage

Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege and often financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors....
, the spoils system

Spoils system

In the politics of the United States, a spoils system is an informal practice where a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its voters as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party—as opposed to a system of awarding offices on the basis of some measure of merit...
, "behind-the-scenes" control, and longstanding political ties within the structure of a representative democracy

Representative democracy

File:Electoral democracies.pngRepresentative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of Election individuals representing the people, as opposed to either autocracy or direct democracy....
. Machines typically are organized on a permanent basis instead of for a single election or event. The term may have a pejorative sense referring to corrupt political machines.

Although the term "political machine" dates back to the 19th century in the United States, where such organizations have existed in some municipalities and states since the 18th century, similar machines have been described in Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages ? particularly Spanish language and Portuguese language, and variably French language ? are primarily spoken....
, where the system has been called (under the name clientelism

Clientelism

Clientelism refers to a form of social organization common in many developing regions characterized by "patron-client" relationships. In such places, relatively powerful and rich "patrons" promise to provide relatively powerless and poor "clients" with jobs, protection, infrastructure, and other benefits in exchange for votes and other forms...
 or political clientelism), especially in rural areas, and also in some African states and other emerging democracies, like postcommunist Eastern European countries. Japan's Liberal Democratic Party

Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)

The , frequently abbreviated to LDP or , is a centre right, Conservatism political party and the largest party in Japan and one of the most consistently successful political parties in the democratic world....
 is often cited as another political machine, maintaining power in suburb

Suburb

Suburbs are commonly defined as the residential areas which surround the central area of the urban area of a town or city. In the United States, suburbs have a prevalence of usually detached single-family homes.....
an and rural

Rural

Rural areas are large and isolated areas of a country, often with low populations. Today, 75 percent of the United States' inhabitants live in suburban and urban areas, but cities occupy only 2 percent of the country....
 areas through its control of farm bureaus and road construction agencies. In Japan, the word jiban (literally "base" or "foundation") is the word used for political machine, In the ancient Roman Republic

Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the phase of the Ancient Rome characterized by a republican form of government; a period which began with the overthrow of the Roman Roman Kingdom, c....
, a similar patronage system existed.

 

Definition

Encyclopaedia Britannica defines "political machine" as, "in U.S. politics, a party organization, headed by a single boss or small autocratic group, that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of a city, county, or state." William Safire

William Safire

William L. Safire is an United States author, semi-retired columnist, and former journalist and President of the United States speechwriter.He is perhaps best known as a long-time print syndication political columnist for The New York Times and a regular contributor to "On Language" in the New York Times Magazine, a column on popul...
, in his Safire's Political Dictionary, defines "machine politics" as "the election of officials and the passage of legislation through the power of an organization created for political action."

Hierarchy and discipline are hallmarks of political machines. "It generally means strict organization", according to Safire. He quoted Edward Flynn, a Bronx County Democratic leader who ran the borough from 1922 until his death in 1953, wrote "[...] the so-called 'independent' voter is foolish to assume that a political machine is run solely on good will, or patronage. For it is not only a machine; it is an army. And in any organization as in any army, there must be discipline."

Political patronage, while often associated with political machines, is not essential to the definition for either Safire or Britannica.

The phrase is considered derogatory "because it suggests that the interest of the organization are placed before those of the general public", according to Safire. Machines are criticized as undemocratic and inevitably encouraging corruption.

 

Function

The key to the political machine is often an accusation of patronage: holding public office implies the ability to do favors (and also the ability to profit from political corruption

Political corruption

Political corruption is the use of governmental powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption....
). Political machines generally are accused of steering away from issue-based politics, favoring a quid pro quo (something for something) with certain aspects of a barter economy or gift economy

Gift economy

In the social sciences, a gift economy is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards ....
: the patron or "boss

Political boss

A boss, in political science, is a person who wields de facto power over a particular political region or constituency. Bosses may dictate voting patterns, control appointments, and wield considerable influence in other political processes....
" (not necessarily one individual person) does favors for the constituents, who then vote as they are told to. Sometimes this system of favors is supplemented by threats of violence or harassment toward those who attempt to step outside of it.

Political machines in the United States

Larger cities in the United States— Boston, Chicago 

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents...., Cleveland, Kansas City

Kansas City

Kansas City may refer to:* Kansas City Metropolitan Area, metropolitan area surrounding Kansas City, Missouri includes territory in both Missouri and Kansas....
, New York City

New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
, Philadelphia, St. Louis, etc. — were accused of using political machines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During this time "cities experienced rapid growth under inefficient government." Each city's machine lived under a hierarchical system with a "boss" who held the allegiance of local business leaders, elected officials and their appointees, and who knew the proverbial buttons to push to get things done. Benefits and problems both resulted from the rule of political machines.

Lord Bryce describes these political bosses saying:

When asked if he was a boss, James Pendergast

James Pendergast

James Francis Pendergast was a Democratic politician who was to be the first political boss of Kansas City, Missouri. He was the elder brother of Thomas J....
 said simply,

Many machines formed in cities to serve immigrants

Immigration

While the movement of people has thought throughout history at various levels, modern immigration tourism are considered non-immigrants . Immigration that violates the immigration laws of the destination country is termed illegal immigration or undocumented immigration....
 to the U.S. in the late 19th century who viewed machines as a vehicle for political enfranchisement. Additionally, many immigrants unfamiliar with the sense of civic duty that was part of American republicanism

Republicanism

Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by other means than hereditary, often elections....
 traded votes for power. Machine staffers helped win elections by turning out large numbers of voters on election day.

Civic-minded citizens, such as the Anthony Alatzas, denounced the corruption of the political machines. They achieved national civil-service reform and worked to replace local patronage systems with civil service. By Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt , also known as T.R., and to the public as Teddy, was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States....
's time, the Progressive Era

Progressive Era

The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of reform which lasted from the 1890s to the 1920's.Responding to the changes brought about by industrialization,...
 mobilized millions of civic minded citizens to fight the machines. In the 1930s, James A. Farley was the chief dispenser of the Democratic Party's patronage system through the Postal Department

United States Post Office Department

The Post Office Department is the former name of the United States Postal Service when it was a United States Cabinet department. It was headed by the United States Postmaster General....
 and the Works Progress Administration

Works Progress Administration

The Works Progress Administration was the largest New Deal agency, employing millions of people and affecting almost every locality in the United States, especially rural and western mountain populations.... (WPA) which eventually nationalized many of the job benefits machines provided. The New Deal

New Deal

The New Deal was the name that United States President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to a sequence of central economic planning and economic stimulus programs he initiated between 1933 and 1938 with the goal of giving aid to the unemployed, reform of business and financial practices, and recovery of the Economy of the Unite...
 allowed machines to recruit for the WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps

Civilian Conservation Corps

File:CCC constructing road.gifThe Civilian Conservation Corps was a public work relief program for unemployed men, focused on natural resource conservation from 1933 to 1942....
 (CCC), making Farley's machine the most powerful, all patronage was screened through Farley including Presidential appointments. The New Deal

New Deal

The New Deal was the name that United States President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to a sequence of central economic planning and economic stimulus programs he initiated between 1933 and 1938 with the goal of giving aid to the unemployed, reform of business and financial practices, and recovery of the Economy of the Unite...
 machine fell apart after James A. Farley left the administration over the third term in 1940. Those agencies were abolished in 1943 and the machines suddenly lost much of their patronage. In any case the poor immigrants who benefited under James A. Farley's National machine had become assimilated and prosperous and no longer needed the informal or extralegal aides provided by machines. In the 1940s most of the big city machines collapsed, with the notable exception of the Chicago machine

Cook County Democratic Organization

The Cook County Democratic Organization is one of the most powerful political machines in American history. Commonly called the "Chicago Democratic machine", the organization has dominated Chicago politics since the 1930s....
. A local political machine in Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States United States. In 1796, it became the sixteenth state to join the United States....
 was forcibly removed in what was known as the Battle of Athens.

Machines are often said to have drawn their strength from, and served as a power base for, ethnic immigrant populations. In truth it was primarily Irish immigrants who benefited from the Machine system, which reached its pinnacle under James A. Farley during Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , often referred to by his initials FDR, was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States....
's New Deal

New Deal

The New Deal was the name that United States President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to a sequence of central economic planning and economic stimulus programs he initiated between 1933 and 1938 with the goal of giving aid to the unemployed, reform of business and financial practices, and recovery of the Economy of the Unite...
 administration. Also, even among the Irish, help for new immigrants declined over time. It was in the party machines' interests to only maintain a minimally winning amount of support. Once they were in the majority and could count on a win, there was less need to recruit new members, as this only meant a thinner spread of the patronage rewards to be spread among the party members. As such, later-arriving immigrants, such as Jews, Italians, and other immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, rarely saw any reward from the machine system. At the same time, most of political machines' staunchest opponents were members of the established class (nativist Protestants).

Since the 1960s, some historians have reevaluated political machines, considering them corrupt but also efficient. Machines were undemocratic, but at least responsive. They were corrupt, but they were also able to contain the spending demands of special interests. In Mayors and Money, a comparison of municipal government in Chicago and New York, Ester R. Fuchs credited the Chicago Democratic Machine with giving Mayor Richard J. Daley

Richard J. Daley

Richard Joseph Daley served for 21 years as the undisputed Democratic Political boss of Chicago and is considered by historians to be the "last of the big city bosses." He played a major role in the History of the United States Democratic Party, especially with his support of John F....
 the political power to deny labor union contracts that the city could not afford and to make the state government assume burdensome costs like welfare

Welfare (financial aid)

Welfare is financial assistance paid to people by governments. Some welfare is general, while specific and can only be invoked under certain circumstances, such as a scholarship....
 and courts. Describing New York, Fuchs wrote, "New York got reform, but it never got good government." At the same time, as Dennis R. Judd and Todd Swanstrom point out in City Politics, this view often coincided with a lack of period alternatives. They go on to point out that this is a falsehood, since there are certainly examples of reform oriented, anti-machine leaders during this time.

Smaller communities as Parma, Ohio

Parma, Ohio

Parma is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Ohio, United States and the largest suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. As of the United States Census 2000, the city had a total population of 85,655....
 in the post-Cold War Era under Prosecutor Bill Mason's "Good Old Boys" and especially communities in the Deep South, where small-town machine politics are relatively common also feature what might be classified as political machines, although these organizations do not have the power and influence of the larger boss networks listed in this article. For example, the “Cracker Party” was a Democratic Party political machine that dominated city politics in Augusta, Georgia for over half of the 20th century.