A
political party is a
political organization that seeks to
attain and maintain
political power within
government, usually by participating in
electoral campaigns. Parties often espouse
an expressed
ideology or vision bolstered
by a written
platform with specific
goals, forming a
coalition among disparate
interests.
Voting systems
The type or
electoral system is a
major factor in determining the type of party political system. In
countries where
first past the
post voting systems there is an
increased likely hood for the establishment of a two party system.
Countries
that have a proportional
representation voting system, as exists throughout Europe, or
to a lesser extent preferential
voting systems, such as in Australia
or Ireland
, three or
more parties are often elected to public
office.
Nonpartisan
In a
nonpartisan system, no
official political parties exist, sometimes reflecting legal
restrictions on
political parties. In nonpartisan elections, each candidate is
eligible for office on his or her 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. Washington also warned against political parties
during his
Farewell
Address.
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.
In
Canada
, the territorial legislatures of the Northwest
Territories
and Nunavut
are
nonpartisan. Nonpartisan elections and modes of governance
are common outside of state institutions. Unless there are legal
prohibitions against political parties, factions within nonpartisan
systems often evolve into political parties.
Tokelau
also has a
nonpartisan parliament.
Single dominant party
In
single-party systems, 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; others can be found in
Fascist states such as Nazi Germany
was between
1933 and 1945. The
single-party system is thus usually
equated with
dictatorships and
tyranny.
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
, the African
National Congress in South Africa,
the Democratic Party of
Socialists of Montenegro in Montenegro
and the Social
Democratic Party in Sweden
.
One party
dominant systems also existed in Mexico
with the
Institutional
Revolutionary Party until the 1990s, in the southern United States
with the Democratic Party from the
late 19th century until the 1970s, and in Indonesia
with the Golongan
Karya (Party of the Functional Groups) from the early
1970s until 1998.
Two dominant parties
Two-party systems are states such as the
United
States, Jamaica
, and
Ghana
in which there are two political parties dominant
to such an extent that electoral success under the banner of any
other party is almost impossible. 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.
The
United
Kingdom
is widely considered a two-party state, as
historically power alternates between two dominant parties
(currently the Labour Party and
the Conservative
Party). However, the Liberal Democrats, as well as numerous
other parties and independents, hold a substantial number of seats
in Parliament
.
A
plurality voting system
(such as that in the United States) usually leads to a two-party
system, a relationship described by
Maurice Duverger and known as
Duverger's Law.
Multiple parties
Multi-party systems are systems in which
more than two parties are represented and elected to public
office.
Australia, Canada, Pakistan
, India
, the
Republic of
Ireland
, Norway
, and the
United
Kingdom are examples of countries with two strong parties
and additional smaller parties that have also obtained
representation. The smaller or "third" parties may form a
part of a
coalition government
together with one of the larger parties or act independently from
the other dominant parties.
More commonly, in cases where there are three or more parties, no
one party is likely to gain power alone, and parties work with each
other to form
coalition
governments.
This has been an emerging trend in the
politics of the Republic of Ireland and is almost always the case in Germany on national
and state level, and in most constituencies at the communal level. Furthermore since the
forming of the Republic of Iceland
there has never been a government not led by a
coalition (usually of the Independence Party & one
other oftentimes the Social
Democratic Alliance. The major drawback of any
coalition government is that it is
potentially vulnerable to rapid changes and tends to lack
stability.
Balanced multiple-party systems
Extensive
studies including simulations and polls by Donald Arthur Kronos,
have shown that an effectively two-party system such as that currently
used in the United
States could be modified into a balanced plurality voting
system through the addition of a negative vote option to better
represent the intentions of the voters. This differs from a
standard
Plurality voting system or
an
anti-plurality voting
system in that rather than
either allowing a
choice of whom to vote for
or allowing a choice of
whom to vote against, a balanced system would allow each vote to be
either for or against any candidate. In the case of balanced
range voting an individual could in
fact cast a combination of for and against votes.
The problem with the traditional
plurality voting system is that any
attempt to prevent a candidate from getting elected tends to result
in a
false positive vote, generally
for a candidate thought to have an advantaged position over other
candidates, thereby causing or increasing such advantage. A
balanced plurality election would allow the voter to represent a
true negative vote, thus eliminating or at least reducing the
occurrence of false positive votes.
A balanced multiple-party system significantly reduces the odds of
a well known but largely unpopular candidate winning an election,
by allowing those who oppose the election of that candidate to cast
a more accurate vote than would have been possible in an unbalanced
system of only negative votes or only positive votes. Of course the
option of a positive vote is also necessary in order to have
balance. Simply changing to an all negative vote system would just
reverse the polarity of the imbalance rather than remove it.
The number of votes per voter is not a factor in the system being
balanced. It should be consistent within an election across all
voters to be fair. This also has the mathematical effect of
eliminating the feedback loop that would otherwise give an unfair
advantage over time to exactly two parties. This feedback loop
happens in a traditional
plurality voting system when a voter
attempts to represent a negative vote where only positive votes are
available. The voter is forced to evaluate the choices available
and determine what is most likely to reduce the odds of a win by
the opposed candidate. For example, since the history of a party
may give some indication of the electability of a candidate
endorsed by the party, the closest thing to a vote against a
candidate in a general election would be a vote for the candidate
of the party that the voter believes has won the most elections
historically. If the opposed candidate is in fact running under
that same party, then the obvious choice is the next most
historically successful party's candidate. This causes only two
parties to have any reasonable viability once a history has been
established. A balanced voting system would eliminate this feedback
loop for voters who take advantage of it.
The addition of a negative vote option to balance a party system
can theoretically be applied to a popular vote, an electoral
college vote, or both. In cases where an electoral college is
expected to in some way represent the popular vote, it would of
course make sense to allow balanced voting options for both the
electoral college and the populace. The concept of a balanced
election system is applicable to many types of
voting systems including
instant runoff voting and other such
multiple vote systems and can be applied equally well to
plurality voting or
proportional representation
systems.
Party funding
Political parties are funded by contributions from party members,
individuals and organizations which share their political ideas or
who stand to benefit from their activities or governmental public
funding. 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 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 take only
the average industrial wage out of their entire earnings.
Public financing for parties and candidates during elections has
several permutations and is increasingly common. There are two
broad categories of funding, direct, which entails a montetary
transfer to a party, and indirect, which includes broadcast time on
state media, use of the mail service or supplies. According to the
Comparative Data from the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, out of a
sample of over 180 nations, 25% of nations provide no direct or
indirect public funding, 58% provide direct public funding and 60%
of nations provide indirect public funding. Some countries provide
both direct and indirect public funding to political parties.
Funding may be equal for all parties or depend on the results of
previous campaigns or the number of candidates participating in an
election. Frequently parties rely on a mix of private and public
funding and are required to disclose their finances to the
Electoral Management Body.
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.
Pink sometimes signifies moderate
socialist.
Yellow is often
used for
libertarianism or
classical 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
, in Israel
with the Orange Camp 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.
White also is associated with nationalism. "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 parties' colours of red and blue) and as a
highly idealistic "peace and love" party
[3905]-- in a
similar vein to a Green Party, perhaps.
Black
is generally associated with
fascist
parties, going back to
Benito
Mussolini's blackshirts, but also with
Anarchism.
Similarly, brown is
often associated with Nazism, going back to
the Nazi Party's brown-uniformed
storm
troopers.
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
alliance are formed between political
parties and other organizations, for example:
Red Tory, "Purple" (Red-Blue) alliances,
Red-green alliances,
Blue-green alliances,
Traffic light coalitions,
Pan-green coalitions, and
Pan-blue coalitions.
Political
color schemes in the United States diverge from international norms. Since
2000, red has become associated with the right-wing
Republican Party and blue
with the left-wing
Democratic Party. However,
unlike political color schemes of other countries, the parties did
not choose those colors; they were used in news coverage of 2000
election results and ensuing legal battle and caught on in popular
usage. Prior to the 2000 election the media typically alternated
which color represented which party each presidential election
cycle. The color scheme happened to get inordinate attention that
year, so the cycle was stopped lest it cause confusion the
following election.
The
emblem of socialist parties is often a
red
rose held in a fist. Communist parties
often use a
hammer to represent the worker, a
sickle to represent the farmer, or
both a hammer and a sickle to refer to
both at the same time.
The emblem of
Nazism, the
swastika or
"hakenkreuz," has been adopted as a
near-universal symbol for almost any organized hate group, even
though it dates from more ancient times.
Symbols can be very important when the
overall
electorate is illiterate. In
the
Kenyan
constitutional referendum, 2005, supporters of the constitution
used the
banana as their symbol, while the
"no" used an
orange.
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),
Christian
Democratic International 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
.
Some countries (e.g.
Hong
Kong
) outlaw formal linkages between local and foreign
political organisations, effectively outlaw international political
parties.
See also
References
- Redding 2004
- Abizadeh 2005.
- Duverger 1954
- Donald A. Kronos Simple Electoral Reform for Fair and Balanced
Elections blog with links to polls
- http://aceproject.org/epic-en/CDMap?question=PC12 ACE Electoral
Knowledge Network: Comparitive Data: Political Parties and
Candidates
- http://aceproject.org/epic-en/CDMap?question=PC15 ACE Electoral
Knowledge Network: Comparitive Data: Political Parties and
Candidates
-
http://aceproject.org/ace-en/focus/core/crb/crb05/?searchterm=party%20funding
ACE Encyclopaedia: Public funding of political parties
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.
- Redding, Robert. 2004. Hired Hatred. RCI.
- Smith, Steven S. 2007. Party Influence in Congress.
Cambridge University 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.
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