Assignment

Subject/ Title:
International Relations
Submitted To:
Ma’am Nusrat Rehman
Submitted By:
Dania Zaman
Roll No:035

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

LAHORE GARRISON UNIVERSITY, LAHORE

 Table of Contents

Contents Page

List of Figures………………………………………………………!!

1. Introduction------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1

2. Components------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1

3. Framework-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2

4. Types--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2

5. Functions---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3

6. Significance-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3

7. Interaction with international and national political parties-------------------------3

8. Advantages-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4

9. Disadvantages-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------5

10. Conclusion---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6

11. References-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7
 1. Introduction:
Definition:
A political party is a group of dedicated people who come together to win elections, operate
the government, and determine public policy.
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular
country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics,
and parties may promote specific ideological or policy goals.
A party system is a concept in comparative political science concerning the system of
government by political parties in a democratic country.
• As 1770, Edmund Burke: A political party, ideologically, as a body of men and
women united on the basis of their shared political ideas so as to promote the national
interest.
• Samuel J. Eldersveled: A political party as a system of patterned activity or a group
of individuals populating particular roles and behaving as member-actors of a
boundaries and identifiable social unit.

What do political parties do?

Political parties in the United States do a variety of things. There are five main functions that
political parties have. Recruiting candidates for public office is one of the most important
functions that political parties have. An important goal of political parties is to gain control of
the government, and to do this, parties must work to recruit candidates for all elected offices.
For example, if a state had an opening for governor, each political party would try and find a
person they could support to run for that position.
Political parties also actively try to gather volunteers to help register voters as well as organize
and run the election day voting. The hope is that the more people that are involved in helping
with the election, the more interest there will be in the outcome, which should increase voter
turnout. The ultimate goal is to get the person the party supports to win an election.

2. Components:

• A leader:
In a governmental system, a party leader acts as the official representative of their political party,
either to a legislature or to the electorate.
• Active members:
The active membership of political parties is usually studied with regard to their potential
recruitment to public office, or to them.
 • Followers:
Who believe in the party's ideology and support the party by casting their votes in favor of
the party at the time of the election.

3. Framework:
• Party
• Ideologies
• Persuade people
• Vote
• Election

4. Types:
There are types of political parties:
• One Party System:
A one-party system is a form of government where the country is ruled by a single political
party, meaning only one political party exists and the forming of other political parties is
forbidden.
Advantage: Proponents of this system are of the view that; it is not good to have two or more
political parties in a state as that can lead to power struggle and political instability in the
nation. This happens to be one of the major advantages one-party system has over other type
of party system.
Disadvantage: One party system is not a perfect system of government because it has its own
disadvantages or demerits as well. Conversely, in this article, we will be looking at the both
the advantages and disadvantages of one-party system.
• Two Party System:
A two-party system is a political party system in which two major political parties consistently
dominate the political landscape.
Advantage: It places restrictions on the amount of extremism that enters the government. It
encourages the government to offer majority representation. It gives every eligible person a
chance to run for office.
Disadvantage: It creates inconsistent governing patterns for the country. It eliminates the idea
of having 100% representation of personal ideas. It forces the parties into a fixed, but still
changing, set of political views.
• Multi-Party System:
In political science, a multi-party system is a political system in which multiple political parties
across the political spectrum run for national elections, and all have the capacity to gain control
of government offices, separately or in coalition.
Advantage: Multi-party system demands a high degree of political maturity, a culture of
tolerance and understanding a high standard of political discipline.
Disadvantage: The arguments against the system contributes to the reasons why most
countries prefer a one party or two-party system to a multi-party system.

5. Functions:
• They contest elections.
• They introduce various policies and programmed for the people.
• They play an important role in decision-making to legislate and execute.
• These parties, when successful in elections, form and run the government.
• These parties, if they lose, become the opposition parties and play the role of criticizing
the government.
• The parties mound the public’s opinion on various issues. They can help them form an
opinion and can also influence them to alter their opinion.
• These parties help the citizenry to access the government’s policies and acts.

6. Significance:
Political parties contest elections and share power. They agree on some policies and
programmed for the society to promote collective good. If a political party is unable to win a
majority, it makes an alliance with other parties to form a Coalition Government.

7. Interaction with other Political Parties:

This policy memo outlines the role of Pashtun and Islamist political parties concentrated
around the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in advancing democracy in Afghanistan. The selected
Pashtun political parties include the Awaji National Party (ANP), the Qamar Witan Party
(QWP), and the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP). Although the Pashtun Taaffe
Movement (PTM) is not a political party, its role is also analyzed owing to two of its leaders’
presence in Pakistan’s National Assembly and the party’s strong political following in the
Newly Merged Districts (NMD). The selected Islamist political parties include Jamaat-e-
Islamic (JI), Jamaat Ulema Islam-Fazlur Rehman (JUI-F), and Jamaat Ulema Islam-Samul
Haqq (JUI-S). Given the problem of democratization in Afghanistan and the challenges the
international community has faced in addressing it, this policy memo presents these political
parties as key actors in assisting in democracy and peace-building efforts in the country based
on the following three rationales. First, Pakistani political parties have deep-rooted
 multilayered ties with Afghanistan. A preliminary analysis of these relationships based on a
review of archival data and literature, and interviews with the leadership of the political parties
show that many Pakistanis view their ties with Afghanistan in light of the arrival of Islam in
the region a connection that proceeds creation of Afghanistan and Pakistan as a sovereign state.
Tribal relations superimpose political relations.

8. Advantages:

1. Political Parties encourage public participation:

Political parties, when structured within a representative form of government, encourage the
average person to be politically active. They ask for people to become informed about specific
situations that are happening within society so they can take a stand on those issues. Debates allow
for people to express opinions or share ideas to formulate an informed opinion. Many political
parties will even encourage members to run for political office at all levels of government.

2. Political Parties create checks and balances:

In the United States, with two major political parties, the system is designed to bring politicians
together so that negotiations occur over legislation. In other systems of government with multiple
major political parties, negotiations over power and leadership are required to form a majority
government. The goal of forming political parties is to create a system of checks and balances to
prevent one person or one group from grabbing too much power in representative governments.

3. Distribute information throughout society:

In many elections, political parties are a primary source of information for current and future
legislations. It’s the once chance for the general population to work with politicians to begin
crafting a vision for the future. Although the voters must continue to press their politicians to stay
true to their word in a representative form of government, they have access through the political
party to do so.

4. Political parties water down special interest investment:

Without political parties, whomever had the most money to contribute would likely win elections
and influence society. Political parties allow people with similar values or interests to congregate
together to counter the monetary influences. That doesn’t mean special interests won’t work to
persuade politicians through the party system they do. The presence of the party means that the
majority, the voters, have an opportunity to band together to counter the paid influences.

5. Political parties help decisions be made quicker:

The state of politics in the United States in 2017 might make it seem like this isn’t an advantage
of political parties, but it generally is. When people can come together within the boundaries of
the party, they can debate ideas and create legislation or policies that benefit everyone faster than
if they were forced to do it themselves. The party must be managed properly for this advantage
to appear, however, and that is often why this key point is not always seen.
6. Political parties create connections.
People are naturally attracted to others who share similar beliefs and ideas. This attraction allows
people to network with one another, creating connections they might not have otherwise made.
Involvement in a preferred party can mean making new friends, traveling new places, and being
able to work toward making the world a better place.

9. Disadvantages:

1.Political parties can be abusive:

Not every government is a representative form of government. Communism has political parties.
Dictatorships often use political parties. The purpose of the parties in these instances is usually
more about enforcement of laws and expectations instead of being politically active from an
individualized perspective. If a political party has too much strength or leverage within a society,
it can become abusive.

2. Political parties encourage polarization:

Political parties do bring people together, but they also tear people apart. The platforms offered
by each party are increasingly presented as an all-or-nothing scenario. There is also a certain
level of righteousness assigned to that platform, making those who disagree with it be perceived
as “wrong.” Those who agree with it are perceived as “right.” Political parties may encourage
opinions, but only if those opinions agree with the platform.

3. Political parties prioritize themselves.

In 2016, the total cost of the U.S. election was an estimated $6.4 billion, according to
information from Open Secrets. The cost of the Presidential race was $2.38 billion. In 2012,
those figures were $6.2 billion and $2.6 billion respectively. Just one election in the United
States, at those figures, is enough to solve most world hunger issues for an entire year. That
means the goal of most political parties is to prioritize themselves so they can be in power.
Political parties see these costs as investments.

4. Political parties sacrifice individuality:

Personal opinions are important. We learn from individual experiences. In the structure of a
political party, however, the individual voice is often drowned out by the group voice. If enough
voices are loud enough, a minority of people within the party can lead the entire group toward a
new direction. Because group voices are louder, there tends to be less attention paid to concerned
individual voices – even if the observations or information being provided would benefit
everyone.

5. Political parties invite corruption:

If a person can be given a large enough and loud enough platform, they can influence the
direction of an entire election, community, or nation. Their very structure, where individuals
influence group voices to lead the party in a specific direction, invites corruption. Allegations of
corruption are frequent in political systems because a few typically hold power over many and
special interest groups want their message to get out to as many people as possible.
10. Conclusion:

Democratic decentralization is seen usually as the most effective system to make social policy
further responsive to the needs of citizens. The preceding discussion, however, clearly manifests
that the attempts of top-down decentralization with technocratic impulse have failed to make state
and public policy responsive to the needs of political society more entrenched within the informal
sector of economy. “I give you vote, what will you give me” trend is observed in the context of
immediate personal gains extraction. Economic underdevelopment and top-down development
model of state coupled with apolitical decentralization has led to personalization of politics. The
culture of patronage has perfectly wielded with this model of decentralization in Pakistan
attenuating the political development and restricting social transformation required for a
sustainable economic growth and development. Presence of local informal political institutions
seriously undermines the democratic nature of local politics because of differentials of power
locally. A vote exchange, regulated by customary rules and informal institutions embedded in local
cultural norms, is emerging, which in the absence of democratic political parties only helps in
recreating economic inequalities into political realm. Previous role played by the state in
decimating progressive political and social narratives is mostly responsible for the present state of
affairs. All household members vote as a unit and this unit is further a sub unit of a vote-block,
dharma. Household and vote-block head take mostly political decisions. Therefore, although
people participate in local elections the participation is conditioned by informal institution of vote-
blocks and Berardi. This presence of hierarchy made political parties redundant in local equation
of politics and ask for analyzing results carefully. This political informality is highly co-related
with the informalization of economy. Informalization of economy is duly linked with this existing
political informality and inequality in access to state and market which affect the voting patterns.
Majority of the labor force, employed in informal sector, is coalesced, manipulated or forced to
negotiate and determine terms of political action31. The confounded impact of these factors posits
a dilemma that demands new methods of investigation and critical perspectives to understand such
emergent sociocultural phenomenon. Public policy and democratization narratives must look at
the process in a reflexive not a linear way.

11.References:

• Akhtar, A 2011, Patronage and class in urban Pakistan: modes of labor control in the
contractor economy, Critical Asian Studies, 43(2), 159–184.
• Alavi, H 1972, The state in post-colonial societies: Pakistan and Bangladesh. New Left
Review, 74(1), 59–81
• Alavi, H 1973, Peasant classes and primordial loyalties, The Journal of Peasant Studies,
1(1), 23– 62
• Alavi, H 1976, The rural elite and agricultural development in Pakistan, Pakistan Economic
and Social Review, 173-210