(Redirected from Political parties)
A 'political party' is a
political organization that seeks to attain
political power within a
government, usually by participating in electoral campaigns. Parties often espouse a certain
ideology and vision, but may also represent a coalition among disparate interests.
In countries that have a
parliament, political parties that have seats in parliament form a
parliamentary party that consists of all their
members of parliament. In
parliamentary systems of government most political parties will also have an elected leader who, if the party is elected by absolute majority, or with a relative majority within the coalition where tradition is thus, becomes
head of government. In
presidential systems, the president may be elected as a representative of the party; however, in many nations the president is forced to relinquish connections with the party upon the assumption of office as head of state. In certain electoral situations a
coalition government may be formed from members of more than one party. This is more common after
elections using
proportional representation rather than a "
first past the post" system. boo.
Types of political parties
Political scientists have developed concepts of different ideal types of political parties in order to better compare them with each other.
Scholars have distinguished between five families of political parties:
elite-based parties, mass-based parties, ethnicity based parties, electoralist parties and movement parties. In turn, each of these types includes different sub-types of political parties. The electoralist party, for example, can be subdivided into three subtypes, the personalistic, the catch-all and the programmatic party. According to this model, the
Republican Party in the United States is considered an electoralist - programmatic party, while the
Democratic Party is seen as an electoralist - catch-all party.
Nonpartisan, single-party, two-party, and multi-party politics
In a
nonpartisan system, no official political parties exist, or the law does not permit political parties. In nonpartisan elections, each candidate is eligible for office on her or his own merits. In nonpartisan legislatures, there are no typically formal party alignments within the legislature. The administration of
George Washington and the first few sessions of the
US Congress were nonpartisan. The
unicameral legislature of
Nebraska is the only state government body that is nonpartisan in the United States today. Many city and county governments are nonpartisan. Nonpartisan elections and modes of governance also exist outside of state institutions, an important model of which is found in the practice of
Baha'i administration.
[1] Unless there are legal prohibitions against political parties, factions within nonpartisan systems often evolve into political parties.
In
single-party systems, only one political party is legally allowed to hold effective power. Although minor parties may sometimes be allowed, they are legally required to accept the leadership of the dominant party. This party may not always be identical to the government, although sometimes positions within the party may in fact be more important than positions within the government.
Communist states such as
China are some of the examples.
In
dominant-party systems, opposition parties are allowed, and there may be even a deeply established democratic tradition, but other parties are widely considered to have no real chance of gaining power. Sometimes, political, social and economic circumstances, and public opinion are the reason for others parties' failure. Sometimes, typically in countries with less of an established democratic tradition, it is possible the dominant party will remain in power by using
patronage and sometimes by
voting fraud. In the latter case, the definition between Dominant and single-party system becomes rather blurred. Examples of dominant party systems include the
People's Action Party in
Singapore and the
African National Congress in
South Africa. Also, one party dominant systems existed in
Mexico with the
Institutional Revolutionary Party until the 1990s, and in the southern
United States with the
Democratic Party from the
1880s until the
1970s.
Two-party systems are states such as the
United States and
Jamaica in which there are two political parties dominant to such an extent that electoral success under the banner of any other party is extremely difficult. One
right wing coalition party and one
left wing coalition party is the most common ideological breakdown in such a system but in two-party states political parties are traditionally
catch all parties which are ideologically broad and inclusive. A majority voting election system usually leads to a two-party system. This relationship between the voting system used and the two-party system was described by
Maurice Duverger and is known as
Duverger's Law.
[2]
A poster for the European Parliament election 2004 in Italy, showing party lists
systems are systems in which there are multiple parties.
In nations such as
Canada and the
United Kingdom, there may be two strong parties, with a third party that is electorally successful. The party may frequently come in second place in elections and pose a threat to the other two parties, but has still never formally held government. However in times of
minority governments, their support is often necessary to either support or defeat a government which means it can have considerable influence under optimal circumstances.
In some rare cases, such as in
Finland, the nation may have an active three-party system, in which all three parties routinely hold top office. It is very rare for a country to have more than three parties who are all equally successful, and all have an equal chance of independently forming government.
More commonly, in cases where there are numerous parties, no one party often has a chance of gaining power, and parties must work with each other to form
coalition governments. This has been an emerging trend in the politics of the
Republic of Ireland.
In general, in countries that use
proportional representation, a multi-party system is likely.
Parties and directions
Political parties are often considered on a political spectrum. One typical spectrum has the Left and the Right. The meaning of the terms "Left" and "Right" differ greatly in different place and period of history. See
Left-Right politics.
As a general rule, left-wing parties support greater redistribution of wealth, higher government spending,
social liberalism and greater intervention in the economy. Many left-wing parties formerly supported
socialism as an economic policy. By contrast right-wing parties are often more socially conservative and favour less redistribution of wealth. Since the 1980s many right-wing parties have embraced
economic liberalism.
Centrist parties often adopt a collection of policies that defy easy placing on the political spectrum. Far right parties are usually extremely authoritarian on social issues and interventionist on economic ones, while far left parties almost invariably endorse
socialist or
communist platforms of some sort.
Many parties will have (formal or informal)
factions within them that have differing views on policy direction.
Party funding
Political parties are funded by contributions from their membership and by individuals and organizations which share their political ideas or who stand to benefit from their activities. Political parties and
factions, especially those in government, are
lobbied vigorously by organizations, businesses and special interest groups such as
trades unions. Money and gifts to a party, or its members, may be offered as incentives. In the United Kingdom, it has been alleged that
peerages have been awarded to contributors to party funds, the benefactors becoming members of the
Upper House of Parliament and thus being in a position to participate in the legislative process. Famously,
Lloyd George was found to have been selling peerages and to prevent such corruption in future, Parliament passed the
Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 into law. Thus the outright sale of peerages and similar honours became a
criminal act, however some benefactors are alleged to have attempted to circumvent this by cloaking their contributions as loans, giving rise to the '
Cash for Peerages' scandal. Such activities have given rise to demands that the scale of donations should be capped. As the costs of electioneering escalate, so the demands made on party funds increases. In the UK some politicians are advocating that parties should be funded by the
State; a proposition that promises to give rise to interesting debate. Along with the increased scrutiny of donations there has been a long term contraction in party memberships in a number of western democracies which itself places more strains on funding. For example in the United Kingdom and Australia membership of the two main parties in
2006 is less than an 1/8 of what it was in 1950, despite significant increases in population over that period. In Ireland, elected representatives of the
Sinn Féin party take only the average industrial wage from their salary as a representative, while the rest goes into the party budget. Other incomes they may have are not taken into account. Elected representatives of the
Socialist Party (Ireland) take only the average industrial wage out of their entire earnings.
Some nations, such as
Australia, give political parties public funding for advertising purposes during election periods.
Colors and emblems for parties
: ''Main article: see
political colour and
List of political party symbols''
Generally speaking, over the world, political parties associate themselves with colors, primarily for identification, especially for voter recognition during
elections.
Red usually signifies
leftist,
communist or
socialist parties.
Conservative parties generally use
blue or
black. Recently in the
United States, this trend has been reversed, with red being associated with the conservative
Republican Party and blue with the liberal
Democratic Party.
Pink sometimes signifies moderate
socialist.
Yellow is often used for
liberalism.
Green is the color for
green parties,
Islamist parties and
Irish nationalist and
republican parties in Northern Ireland.
Orange is sometimes a color of nationalism, such as in
The Netherlands or with
Ulster Loyalists in
Northern Ireland; it is also a color of reform such as in
Ukraine. In the past,
Purple was considered the color of
royalty (like white), but today it is sometimes used for feminist parties. "Purple Party" is also used as an academic hypothetical of an undefined party, as a centralist party in the United States (because purple is created from mixing the main partys' colours of red and blue) and as a highly idealistic "peace and love" party
[1]-- in a similar vein to a Green Party, perhaps.
Black is generally associated with
fascist parties, going back to
Mussolini's blackshirts, but also with
Anarchism. Similarly,
brown is often associated with the
Nazism going back to the
Nazi Party's
brownshirt security guards.
Color associations are useful for mnemonics when
voter
illiteracy is significant. Another case where they are used is when it is not desirable to make rigorous links to parties, particularly when
coalitions and s are formed between political parties and other organizations, for example:
Red Tory, "Purple" (Red-Blue) alliances,
Red-green alliances,
Blue-green alliances,
Pan-green coalitions, and
Pan-blue coalitions.
The
emblem of socialist parties is often a red
rose held in a fist. Communist parties often use a
hammer, a
sickle, or
both.
Symbols can be very important when the
electorate is overall illiterate. In the
Kenyan constitutional referendum, 2005, supporters of the constitution used the
banana as their symbol, while the "no" used an
orange.
Party Strengths
International organizations of political parties
During the
19th and
20th century, many national political parties organized themselves into international organizations along similar policy lines. Notable examples are the
International Workingmen's Association (also called the First International), the
Socialist International (also called the Second International), the
Communist International (also called the Third International), and the
Fourth International, as organizations of
working class parties, or the
Liberal International (yellow), and the
International Democrat Union (blue).
Worldwide green parties have recently established the
Global Greens. The Socialist International, the Liberal International, and the
International Democrat Union are all based in
London.
References
1. Abizadeh 2005.
2. Duverger 1954.
Bibliography
★ Abizadeh, Arash. 2005.
"Democratic Elections without Campaigns? Normative Foundations of National Baha'i Elections." ''World Order'' Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 7-49.
★ Duverger, Maurice. 1954. ''Political Parties''. London: Methuen.
★ Gunther, Richard and Larry Diamond. 2003. "Species of Political Parties: A New Typology," ''Party Politics'', Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 167-199.
★ Neumann, Sigmund (ed.). 1956. ''Modern Political Parties''. IL: University of Chicago Press.
★ Sutherland, Keith. 2004. ''The Party's Over''. Imprint Academic. ISBN 0-907845-51-7
★ Ware, Alan. 1987. ''Citizens, Parties and the State: A Reappraisal.'' Princeton University Press.
See also
★
List of politics-related topics
★
List of political parties
★
Party class
★
Particracy (a political regime dominated by one or more parties)
★
Political faction (both pre- and within a modern party)
★
The Party (politics)
★
Duvergerian equilibrium
★
Political colour
★
List of political party symbols
External links
★
U.S. Party Platforms from 1840-2004 at The American Presidency Project: UC Santa Barbara
★
Political resources on the net
★
Leftist political parties of the world
★
Political Identity Quiz
★
Liberals Vs Conservatives Non partisan community where both sides of the fence may enter into debate.
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