Parties and Party Systems

1. Parties and Party Systems Week 7-9

2. Early 19th century, first emerged in the US: Federalist Party • Political Party: A group of people that is organized for the purpose of winning government power, by electoral or other means. • A mobilizing tool • Duverger’s definition: A political party is not a community but a collection of communities, a union of small groups dispersed throughout the country and linked by coordinating institutions.

3. Types of the Party • There are different party forms as follows: • - Cadre Parties, Mass Parties and Catch-All Parties • - Representative and Integrative Parties • -Constitutional and Revolutionary Parties • - Left Wing and Right Wing Parties

4. Types of the Party • A Cadre Party is the party of notables which dominated by an informal group of leaders who saw little point in building up a mass organization. • Communist Party in the SU, the Nazi Party in Germany and the Fascist Party in Italy

5. Types of the Party • A mass party underlines the importance of broadening membership and constructing a wide electoral base. • German Social Democratic Party and Labor Party in UK

6. Types of the Party • The Catch-All Party responds to a mobilized political system in which governing has become more technical and in which electoral communication takes place through the mass media. • They seek electoral support wherever they can find it, their purpose is to govern rather than to represent.

7. Types of the Party • Representation Party’s main function is securing votes. • Integrative Parties adopt a proactive strategy and they want to mobilize, educate and inspire the masses. • Constitutional Parties operate within the framework of rules and constrains. • Revolutionary Parties aim to seize power and overthrow the existing political structure.

8. Types of the Party • Left Wing Parties support change. • Right Wing Parties support continuity.

9. Function of Parties • 1- Representation • 2- Elite Formation and Recruitment • 3- Goal Formulation • 4- Interest Articulation and Aggregation • 5- Socialization and Mobilization • 6- Organization of Government

10. Party Systems • Duverger classified party systems as follows: • - One-party System • - Two-party System • - Multi-party System • In modern politics, the party systems are as follows: • - One-party Systems • -Two-party Systems • -Dominant-party Systems • -Multi-party Systems

11. One-party System • A single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a type of party systemgovernment in which a single political party forms the government and no other parties are permitted to run candidates for election.

12. One-party System In state socialist regimes ruling communist parties have directed and controlled all the institutions and aspects of society. • They have strict ideological discipline and also have highly structured internal organizations. • A central device through which communist parties control the state, economy and society, and ensure the subordination of lower organs to higher ones, is the nomenklatura system. • The second type of one-party system is associated with anticolonial nationalism and state consolidation in the developing world. In this system, the ruling party developed out of an independence movement that proclaimed the overriding need for nation-building and economic development.

13. Two-party System • A two-party system is a system where two majorpolitical parties dominate voting in nearly all elections at every level of government and, as a result, all or nearly all elected offices are members of one of the two major parties.

14. Two-party System • In its classical form, a two-party system can be identified by three criteria: • Although a number of minor parties may exist, only two parties enjoy sufficient electoral and legislative strength to have a realistic prospect of winning government power. • The larger party is able to rule alone the other provides the opposition • Power alternates between these parties, both are electable, the opposition serving as a government in the wings.

15. Two-party System • Its key advantage is that it makes possible a system of party government, characterized by stability, choice and accountability. • The two major parties are able to offer the electorate a straightforward choice between rival programmes and alternative governments. • Two-party systems have also been praised for delivering strong but accountable government based on relentless competition between the governing and opposition parties. • This system, moreover, creates a bias in favour of moderation, as the two contenders for power have to battle for floating votes in the centre ground.

16. Two-party System • Adversarial two-party system has often been explained by reference to the class nature of party support, or as a consequence of party democratization and the influence of ideologically committed grass-roots activists. • Another problem with the two-party system is that two evenly matched parties are encouraged to compete for votes by outdoing each other’s electoral promises, perhaps causing spiraling public spending and fuelling inflation. • The last weakness of two-party systems is the obvious restrictions they impose in terms of electoral and ideological choice. While a choice between just two programmes of government was perhaps sufficient in an era of partisan alignment and class solidarity, it has become quite inadequate in a period of greater individualism and society diversity.

17. Dominant-party system • A dominant-party system, or one-party dominant system, is a system where there is "a category of parties/political organizations that have successively won election victories and whose future defeat cannot be envisaged or is unlikely for the foreseeable future.” • In another words, a dominant party system is competitive in the sense that a number of parties compete for power in regular and popular elections, but is dominated by a single major party that consequently enjoys prolonged periods in power.

18. Dominant-party system However, dominant-party system is usually seen as a regrettable and unhealthy phenomenon. • First of all it tends to erode the important constitutional distinction between the state and the party in power. • Second, an extended period in power can engender complacency, arrogance and even corruption in the dominant party. • Third, a dominant party system is characterized by weak and ineffective opposition. • Finally, the existence of a permanent party of government may corrode the democratic spirit by encouraging the electorate to fear change and to stick with the neutral party of government.

19. Multi-party system • A multi-party system is a system in which multiple political parties have the capacity to gain control of government separately or in coalition. • The effective number of parties in a multi-party system is normally larger than two but lower than ten. • It is a system where there are large amounts of major and minor political parties that all hold a serious chance of receiving office, and because they all compete, a majority may not come to be, forcing the creation of a coalition.

20. Multi-party system • The strength of multi-party system is that they create internal checks and balances within government and exhibit a bias in favour of debate, conciliation and compromise.

21. Multi-party system • The principal criticisms of multiparty systems relate to the pitfalls and difficulties of coalition formation. • Moreover, coalition governments may be fractured and unstable, paying greater attention to squabbles amongst coalition partners than to the tasks of government. • A final problem is that the tendency towards moderation and compromise may mean that multiparty systems are so dominated by the political center that they are unable to offer clear ideological alternatives.

22. The Decline of Parties • We can say that the emergence of political parties was usually greeted with suspicion and distrust. Liberals like Mill, for example, argued that parties suppress freedom of thought and individual politics. Modern concern about parties stems from evidence of their decline as agents of representation and as an effective link between government and the people.

23. The Decline of Parties • Evidence of a crisis in party politics can be found in the decline in party membership and partisanship, as well as in the rise of antiparty groups and movements. This can be explained by the perception that parties are tainted by power, ambition and corruption, and that they have suffered as a result of general disillusionment caused by the grooving inability of governments to deliver on their promises. They are also seen to have failed to articulate the aspirations and sensibilities associated with postmaterialism or generated by postmodernism.