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SSF1053 INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE

LECTURE 7

POLITICAL PARTIES AND ELECTIONS

I. POLITICAL PARTIES

A. Parties often espouse an expressed ideology or vision bolstered by awritten platformwith specific goals, coalitionamong disparate interests.

B. A political party is a group of officials or would be officials who are linkedwith a sizable group of citizens into an organization; a chief obect of thisorganization is to ensure that its officials attain power or are maintained inpower.

II. ORIGINS OF THE MODERN PARTY

A. !ong before the coming of electoral democracy, the state had a variedstructure of public officials " mayors, members of parliament, ministers fordefense, and so on. Before democracy arrived, people attained theseoffices in a variety of ways# by being born into them, by buying the office,by bribery, by appointment.

B. $nce democracy was introduced, however, many of these positions werefilled by election. %n the old days, the person who wished to have the officedealt with a single king or perhaps with a few people who could be bribed#under democracy, the would&be official had to seek the votes of athousand or more people.

'. %t did not take long for politicians in the new democracies to see that somesort of club or organization that bound them together with large numbers ofvoters would help them to attain and hold office. (hus, the political partywas born.

). (he first modern electoral democracy was the *+A, and it was here thatthe first political party developed. By the -/s, there were well&organizedparties, and the )emocratic Party, which can trace its roots back to thattime, is the oldest political party in the world.

0. %n Britain, -12 was the first year in which there was reasonablywidespread extension of the vote. As of that year, / percent of the

population was entitled to vote. As a result of this expansion of theelectorate, the first modern party organization Britain had known wasestablished in the city of Birmingham; the !iberal Party.

3. +imilarly, all over 0urope, whenever a reasonably large and variedelectorate was established with the coming of democracy, the politicalparty appeared.

4. !ike elections themselves, political parties have been widely copied andare found in many countries that are not electoral democracies. (he'ommunist parties of the 0astern 0uropean states were obviousexamples of this, but many other autocratic states have had politicalparties that functioned importantly in their politics. 0gypt, for instance, is

governed by the 5ational )emocratic Party, 6imbabwe by the 6imbabwe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_platformhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalitionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_platformhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition

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African 5ational *nion, 7enya by the 7enyan African 5ational *nion, and+yria by the Ba8ath Party.

III. PARTY SYSTEMS

A. $ne party system. $ne party system is one which only a single political party is allowed to

be active. (he former communist states of 0astern 0urope; 0gypt,(anzania and many other new states of the +outh; and the right&wingdictatorship of 5azi 4ermany are examples of the one party system.'urrent examples of one party state are 'hina, 'uba, 0riteria, 5orth7orea and !aos.

. %n such systems, the government and the party are closely identified,because the government enforces the rule that other parties are notallowed to be active.

9. (he party may closely control the governmental apparatus or the party

may simply have been created by those in charge of government.:. (he party in a one party system concentrates heavily on the tasks of

mobilization, communication and control.B. A dominant party system

. A dominant party system is similar to the one party system in that asingle party holds power all the time, but it differs from the one partysystem in that other political parties are allowed to function openly andwith reasonable effectiveness.

. %n many ways, a dominant party system is like a one party system.owever, the tolerance of other parties in the system does lead toimportant differences.

9. 3or one thing, the existence of alternative parties provides a base forcriticism of the government and guarantees that there will be moreopen debate about politics than in a one party system.

:. (he largest opposition party in . %n the ??2 election, the P=% lost control of the lower house of'ongress and lost the powerful mayoralty of

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orkers8 Party. But only the two maor parties usually have anyexpectation of winning.

:. %n contrast to a dominant party system, a two party system offerssomewhat more regular variety and choices in policies and candidates.At the same time, a single party usually wins an election cleanly and is

able to govern by itself without forming a coalition with other parties.). seatsD, 'hristian People8s Party C> seatsD, Progress PartyC> seatsD, 'onservative Party C9 seatsD, 'entre Party C seatsD, !eft+ocialists C? seatsD, !iberal Party C1 seatsD, 'oast Party C seatD.

9. (here are 1> seats; therefore -9 are reEuired to control a maorityvote in the Parliament, and no one party had enough seats to rule byitself.

:. %n this case, no group of parties with -9 or more seats among themwas willing to form a coalition. %nstead, the 'hristian People8s Party,the 'entre Party and the !iberal Party formed a coalition based on their: seats; other parties agreed to support them on certain bills, whileremaining out of the government. +uch a cabinet is called a minoritygovernment.

>.

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A. A basis for the mobilization of masses of citizens. A political party is a handy instrument with which to stir up the

electorate and get them to the polls. %t is controlled by its leaders, whoare at the same time the rulers of the state, and it may have a

membership that extends down into every village, so it is strategicallyplaced to turn out large numbers of people. %n the *+, political partiesmake great efforts to get out the vote. (hey do this not to bolstersupport for the regime, but to help themselves win elections.

. Aside from elections, political parties may serve to mobilize the peoplefor special purposes or to meet crises. hen President Anwar +adat of0gypt was assassinated in ?- and was succeeded by ice Presidentosni

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risen to the top only because she was the sort of person her partywanted and because, in each position she held, she had learned fromthe rest of the party how to behave in the ways they preferred.

'. A mechanism to structure political identity at the mass and elite levels. Party can be an important part of one8s identity. (his source of identity

is called party identification.. 3or those who become Euite active, the political party may become a

vital and central personal concern.9. $ne important thing about party as a source of identity is that it can

provide continuity in a political world that is otherwise Euite fluid.:. By furnishing individuals and politically active people with a lasting

political identity, the party can give them a source of politicalcommunity throughout their lives.

>. Parties may provide an even longer&range continuity in politics thanthat of a single lifetime if party connections are passed on from parentsto children or if local party organizations continue their activity across

generations.). A method of control within a government structure

. Political party offers an excellent channel for political leaders to controlthe actions of other political leaders or the citizens.

. (he leaders of a party have many punishments and rewards at theirdisposal " nomination for various offices, support in passing favoredlegislation, advancement to more powerful positions within the partyand so on.

9. !eaders use these inducements to force obedience on lesser partyfigures in legislative votes, campaign activity, and so on.

:. Parties may also be used as a channel for power by which the leadersof the state control the masses. (his is more common in authoritarianstates than in democracies, where direct control of citizens is supposedto be the expectation rather than the rule.

V. ELECTIONS

A. An election is a decision&making process by which a population choosesan individual to hold formal office. (his is the usual mechanism by whichmodern representative democracyfills offices in the legislature, sometimesin the executiveandudiciary, and for regionaland local government. (hisprocess is also used in many other private and businessorganizations,

from clubs to voluntary associations and corporations.

B. %n his book The Spirit of Laws,

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). (oday elections are widespread around the world, even though a numberof the world8s states are not democracies.

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. 0lections may also be the mean by which leaders and actual policiesare chosen by the people.

. 3or this to be the case, an election must involve a choice betweencandidates or a choice whether a particular policy is to be followed. %ndemocratic states, elections are set up in this way.

9. %n democracies, the choice of political leaders at all levels is made bycompetitive elections.

:. %n addition, some democracies provide for the referendum, a device bywhich the voters choose directly through their ballots whether aparticular proposal will become law.

>. (he *+ does not have any provision for national referendums, butmany localities and states do provide for them. 'alifornia is particularlynoted for their use, as in the famous Proposition 9 =eferendum inwhich the state8s voters chose to limit property taxes to percent of thevalue of the property.

1. Beyond these few instances, many democracies that would not accept

the regular use of referendums do use them on rare occasions fordecisions of great gravity, where it is felt that all the people should beinvolved in the decision. +pain, for instance, when it initiated its newdemocratic 'onstitution in ?2-, held a referendum is that the'onstitution could be ratified by the people.

VII. TYPES OF ELECTIONS

A. Presidential election " is the election of any head of state whose officialtitle is president

B. 4eneral election " an election in which all or most members of a givenpolitical body are up for election. (he term is usually used to refer toelections held for a nation8s primary legislative body. (he term originates inthe *7 general elections for the ouse of 'ommons.

'. Primary election " is an election in which voters in a urisdiction selectcandidates for a subseEuent election. %n other words, primary elections areone means by which a political party nominates candidates for thefollowing general election. Primaries are common in the *+, where theirorigins are traced to the progressive movement. (here, primary electionsare conducted by government on behalf of the parties.

). By&election " is an election held to fill a political office that has become

vacant between regularly&scheduled elections. *sually this occurs whenthe incumbent has died or resigned, but it may also occur when theincumbent becomes ineligible to continue in office, for example because ofa recall or a sufficiently serious criminal conviction.

0. !ocal election " is an election held to fill positions in the local government" city or town councils.

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