Political Parties and Party Systems

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Political Parties and Party Systems

• Nov. 17

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Overview

• Defining political parties
• Origins and political cleavages
• Functions of parties
• Models of party organization
• State regulation of parties
• Party systems
• Electoral systems and party systems

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Defining political parties

• Key elements
• Their objectives obtaining political office,
  obtaining political power, advancing issues,
  representing interests
• Their methods organizing, mobilizing (and
  hopefully) creating supporters, contesting
  elections and forming governments

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Origins

• Earliest parties emerged within parliaments and
  legislatures (cadre parties)
• Extra-parliamentary parties emerged to organize
  and represent excluded interests (mass parties)

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Origins and Political Cleavages

• In the western European context, most
  contemporary parties and party families
  originated from the radical socio-economic and
  political changes between the mid-nineteenth
  century and the first two decades of the
  twentieth.

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Origins and Political Cleavages

• national revolutions (the rise of the nation
  state, process of state formation and
  nation-building)
• centre-periphery cleavage
• state-church cleavage
• industrial revolution
• rural-urban cleavage
• workers-employers cleavage (further divided into
  communism-socialism cleavage)

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Origins and Political Cleavages

• post-industrial revolution
• materialism-post-materialism cleavage
• globalization cleavage?

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Functions of parties

• Interest aggregation, this is the process by
  which the interests of separate individuals and
  groups are aggregated together into a program of
  governance.
• Interest articulation, this is the process by
  which individuals and groups express (articulate)
  their needs and policy preferences within the
  political process.
• Source http//www.socsci.uci.edu/rdalton/germany
  /other/glossary.htm

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Functions of parties

• Coordination
• Within government
• Within society
• Between government and society
• Contesting Elections
• Recruitment
• Representation

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Models of party organization

• cadre or elite parties
• mass parties
• catch-all parties
• cartel parties (and anti-cartel parties)
• business firm party

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Party Membership

• Political parties face a crisis of declining
  membership.

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State regulation of parties

• Political parties are regulated due to
• their centrality to democracy,
• the power of parties,
• administrative convenience or necessity.

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State regulation of parties

• State regulation of parties is particularly
  prominent in the area of party finance
• regulation of spending,
• regulation of fundraising,
• public subventions.

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Party Systems

• Dominant-Party System
• Two-Party System
• Multi-Party System
• Bipolar system

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Electoral Systems and Party Systems

• mechanical effects
• psychological effects

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Conclusion

• Political parties are among the central actors in
  politics.
• Very rare to have democratic governance without
  parties.
• Political parties are experienced a crisis, to a
  certain extent.
• But there appears to be little chance of them
  disappearing or being replaced.