This article discusses what the major influences on Robert Michels were in writing his book, Political Parties. I seek to move beyond the most commonly recognized sources, such as Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto, Max Weber and Gustave Le Bon. Although Michels was not concerned with providing clear definitions of his major theoretical concepts, I attempt to reveal the essence of his reasoning, presenting the major conceptions and influences in this book and emphasizing the changes that were made from the first edition in 1911 to the second, in 1925. For these purposes, I study the 989 explanatory notes appearing in this second edition (in addition to the main text) that are revealing of the author's reasoning as well as his theoretical and empirical sources. In addition to discussing the sources that inspired the book, I also provide a genetic analysis of the work, considering some biographical information on the period prior to the book's publication and the interval between the two editions. I look at other things Michel wrote in order to get a grasp on how his thought was transformed. Finally, I point to both fragilities and contributions of his work and argue that the key to understanding his life and work resides in capturing the tense disjunctions he establishes between realism and utopia, and separating Michels the militant from Michels the political analyst.
Robert Michels; Political Parties; Iron Law of Oligarchy; Organization; Biography