Political Science: An Introduction

Chapter 11
Parties

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 Functions of Parties
 Political Party – Group seeking to elect officeholders
under a given label

 Functions of Parties
 Bridge between People and Government – Parties allow citizens
to get their needs and wishes heard by government

 Aggregation of Interests – Parties tame interest group conflict,

thereby helping groups attain partial goals

 Integration into Political System – Parties pull into the political

system groups that had been left out, giving them input into party
policies, and a stake in political system

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 Functions of Parties
 Functions of Parties
 Political Socialization – Parties teach members how to play the
political game

 Mobilization of Voters – Parties are a powerful instrument for

whipping up interest and boosting voting turnout

 Organization of Government – The victorious party gets to make

policy and appoint officials, though they still have to contend with
the permanent civil service

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 Parties in Democracies
 Centralization – degree of control exercised by party’s
national headquarters

 Setting Government Policy – Parliamentary parties that

hold a majority of seats can pass whatever laws they
want without having to bargain with other parties

 Party Participation in Government –The party’s

leadership assume command of the government’s
structures; run the government directly

 Financing the Party – Parties must finance their

activities, and campaigning is very costly – a severe
burden

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 Duverger’s Three Types of Parties
 Maurice Duverger developed three categories of parties:
 Mass parties – well organized, and strive for large and
ideologically committed membership

 Cadre parties – weakly organized, based on a politically active

elite, like the Republican and Democratic parties

 Devotee parties – the party is built around one (usually

charismatic) person – personalistic

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 Classifying Political Parties
 One way of classifying parties is to place them on the
left-right spectrum
 Left-wing parties
 Center-left parties
 Centrist parties
 Center-right parties
 Right-wing parties

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 A Spectrum of Parties

The parties in Swedish Riksdag (unicameral)

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 Party Systems

 Party System – Party systems are the interactions of

parties with each other
 Types of Party systems
 One-Party Systems
 Dominant-Party Systems
 Two-Party Systems
 Multiparty Systems
 Two-Plus Party Systems
 Fluid Party Systems

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 The Party System and the Electoral System

 How a nation gets its party system is complex; rooted in

its historical development and when and how the
franchise expanded

 Single-member districts in U.S. and Britain tend to

produce two-party or two-plus party systems; encourage
coalescing of parties because, if too many candidates,
your party may never win

 Proportional representation encourages parties to split;

more likely that your party will win at least a few seats
and can use them to form coalitions

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 Are Parties Fading?
 Parties and party systems are rooted in their countries’
history, society, and institutions

 Yet, parties are not what they used to be; in most

democracies, party membership is down and voters are
less loyal

 In U.S., the state structure means the parties do not

hang together well, are not centralized

 There may be an advantage in not having strong parties,

which may fall into the hands of oligarchic leaders who
control too much and stay too long, getting the party
stuck in rigid and outmoded viewpoints

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