A political party is an organized group of people who have the same ideology, or who otherwise have the same political positions, and who field candidates for elections, in an attempt to get them elected and thereby implement the party's agenda.
While there is some international commonality in the way political parties are recognized and in how they operate, there are often many differences, and some are significant. Most of political parties have an ideological core, but some do not, and many represent ideologies very different from their ideology at the time the party was founded. Many countries, such as Germany and India, have several significant political parties, and some nations have one-party systems, such as China and Cuba. The United States is in practice a two-party system but with many smaller parties also participating.
Historical development
The idea of people forming large groups or factions to advocate for their shared interests is ancient. Plato mentions the political factions of Classical Athens in the Republic, and Aristotle discusses the tendency of different types of government to produce factions in the Politics. Certain ancient disputes were also factional, like the Nika riots between two chariot racing factions at the Hippodrome of Constantinople.
However, modern political parties are considered to have emerged around
the end of the 18th or early 19th centuries, appearing first in Europe
and the United States. What distinguishes political parties from factions and interest groups is that political parties use an explicit label to identify their members as having shared electoral and legislative goals. The transformation from loose factions into organised modern political
parties is considered to have first occurred in either the United Kingdom or the United States, with the United Kingdom's Conservative Party and the Democratic Party of the United States both frequently called the world's "oldest continuous political party".
Emergence in Britain
The party system that emerged in early modern Britain is considered to be one of the world's first, with origins in the factions that emerged from the Exclusion Crisis and Glorious Revolution of the late 17th century. The Whig faction originally organised itself around support for Protestant constitutional monarchy as opposed to absolute rule, whereas the conservative Tory faction (originally the Royalist or Cavalier faction of the English Civil War) supported a strong monarchy. These two groups structured disputes in the politics of the United Kingdom
throughout the 18th century. Throughout the next several centuries,
these loose factions began to adopt more coherent political tendencies
and ideologies: the liberal political ideas of John Locke and the notion of universal rights espoused by theorists like Algernon Sidney and later John Stuart Mill were major influences on the Whigs, whereas the Tories eventually came to be identified with conservative philosophers like Edmund Burke.
The period between the advent of factionalism, around the Glorious Revolution, and the accession of George III in 1760 was characterised by Whig supremacy, during which the Whigs remained the most powerful bloc and consistently championed constitutional monarchy with strict limits on the monarch's power, opposed the accession of a Catholic king, and believed in extending toleration to nonconformist Protestants and dissenters. Although the Tories were out of office for half a century, they largely remained a united opposition to the Whigs.
When they lost power, the old Whig leadership dissolved into a decade of factional chaos with distinct Grenvillite, Bedfordite, Rockinghamite, and Chathamite
factions successively in power, and all referring to themselves as
"Whigs". The first distinctive political parties emerged from this
chaos. The first such party was the Rockingham Whigs under the leadership of Charles Watson-Wentworth and the intellectual guidance of the political philosopher Edmund Burke.
Burke laid out a philosophy that described the basic framework of the
political party as "a body of men united for promoting by their joint
endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in
which they are all agreed".
As opposed to the instability of the earlier factions, which were often
tied to a particular leader and could disintegrate if removed from
power, the party was centred around a set of core principles and
remained out of power as a united opposition to government.
In A Block for the Wigs (1783), James Gillray caricatured Fox's return to power in a coalition with North. George III is the blockhead in the centre.
A coalition including the Rockingham Whigs, led by the Earl of Shelburne, took power in 1782, only to collapse after Rockingham's death. The new government, led by the radical politician Charles James Fox in coalition with Lord North, was soon brought down and replaced by William Pitt the Younger
in 1783. It was now that a genuine two-party system began to emerge,
with Pitt leading the new Tories against a reconstituted "Whig" party
led by Fox. The modern Conservative Party was created out of these Pittite Tories. In 1859 under Lord Palmerston, the Whigs, heavily influenced by the classical liberal ideas of Adam Smith, joined together with the free trade Tory followers of Robert Peel and the independent Radicals to form the Liberal Party.
Emergence in the United States
Although the framers of the 1787 United States Constitution
did not anticipate that American political disputes would be primarily
organised around political parties, political controversies in the early
1790s over the extent of federal government powers saw the emergence of two proto-political parties: the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party, which were championed by Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, respectively. However, a consensus reached on these issues ended party politics in 1816 for nearly a decade, a period commonly known as the Era of Good Feelings.
The splintering of the Democratic-Republican Party in the aftermath of the contentious 1824 presidential election
led to the re-emergence of political parties. Two major parties would
dominate the political landscape for the next quarter-century: the
Democratic Party, led by Andrew Jackson, and the Whig Party, established by Henry Clay from the National Republicans
and from other Anti-Jackson groups. When the Whig Party fell apart in
the mid-1850s, its position as a major U.S. political party was filled
by the Republican Party.
Worldwide spread
Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party
Another candidate for the first modern party system to emerge is that of Sweden. Throughout the second half of the 19th century, the party model of politics was adopted across Europe. In Germany, France, Austria and elsewhere, the 1848 Revolutions
sparked a wave of liberal sentiment and the formation of representative
bodies and political parties. The end of the century saw the formation
of large socialist parties in Europe, some conforming to the philosophy of Karl Marx, others adapting social democracy through the use of reformist and gradualist methods.
At the same time, the Home Rule League Party, campaigning for Home Rule for Ireland in the British Parliament, was fundamentally changed by the Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell in the 1880s. In 1882, he changed his party's name to the Irish Parliamentary Party and created a well-organized grassroots structure, introducing membership to replace ad hoc
informal groupings. He created a new selection procedure to ensure the
professional selection of party candidates committed to taking their
seats, and in 1884 he imposed a firm 'party pledge' which obliged MPs to
vote as a bloc in parliament on all occasions. The creation of a strict
party whip and a formal party structure was unique at the time, preceded only by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (1875), even though the latter was persecuted by Otto von Bismarck
from 1878 to 1890. These parties' efficient structure and control
contrasted with the loose rules and flexible informality found in the main British parties, and represented the development of new forms of party organisation, which constituted a "model" in the 20th-century.
Origin of political parties
Political
parties are a nearly ubiquitous feature of modern countries. Nearly all
democratic countries have strong political parties, and many political
scientists consider countries with fewer than two parties to necessarily
be autocratic.
However, these sources allow that a country with multiple competitive
parties is not necessarily democratic, and the politics of many
autocratic countries are organised around one dominant political party. There are many explanations for how and why political parties are such a crucial part of modern states.
Social cleavages
One of the core explanations for why political parties exist is that
they arise from existing divisions among people. Building on Harold Hotelling's work on the aggregation of preferences and Duncan Black's development of social choice theory, Anthony Downs
showed how an underlying distribution of preferences in an electorate
can produce regular results in the aggregate, such as the median voter theorem.
This abstract model shows that parties can arise from variations within
an electorate, and can adjust themselves to the patterns in the
electorate. However, Downs assumed that some distribution of preferences
exists, rather than attributing any meaning to that distribution.
Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan
made the idea of differences within an electorate more concrete by
arguing that several major party systems of the 1960s were the result of
social cleavages that had already existed in the 1920s.
They identify four lasting cleavages in the countries they examine: a
Center-Periphery cleavage regarding religion and language, a
State-Church cleavage centered on control of mass education, a
Land-Industry cleavage regarding freedom of industry and agricultural
policies, and an Owner-Worker cleavage which includes a conflict between
nationalism and internationalism.
Subsequent authors have expanded on or modified these cleavages,
particularly when examining parties in other parts of the world.
The argument that parties are produced by social cleavages has
drawn several criticisms. Some authors have challenged the theory on
empirical grounds, either finding no evidence for the claim that parties
emerge from existing cleavages or arguing that this claim is not
empirically testable.
Others note that while social cleavages might cause political parties
to exist, this obscures the opposite effect: that political parties also
cause changes in the underlying social cleavages.
A further objection is that, if the explanation for where parties come
from is that they emerge from existing social cleavages, then the theory
has not identified what causes parties unless it also explains where
social cleavages come from; one response to this objection, along the
lines of Charles Tilly's bellicist theory of state-building, is that social cleavages are formed by historical conflicts.
Individual and group incentives
An alternative explanation for why parties are ubiquitous across the world is that the formation of parties provides compatible incentives for candidates and legislators. One explanation for the existence of parties, advanced by John Aldrich,
is that the existence of political parties means that a candidate in
one electoral district has an incentive to assist a candidate in a
different district, when those two candidates have a similar ideology.
One reason that this incentive exists is that parties can solve
certain legislative challenges that a legislature of unaffiliated
members might face. Gary W. Cox and Mathew D. McCubbins
argue that the development of many institutions can be explained by
their power to constrain the incentives of individuals; a powerful
institution can prohibit individuals from acting in ways that harm the
community.
This suggests that political parties might be mechanisms for preventing
candidates with similar ideologies from acting to each other's
detriment.
One specific advantage that candidates might obtain from helping
similar candidates in other districts is that the existence of a party
apparatus can help coalitions of electors to agree on ideal policy
choices, which is in general not possible.
This could be true even in contexts where it is only slightly
beneficial to be part of a party; models of how individuals coordinate
on joining a group or participating in an event show how even a weak
preference to be part of a group can provoke mass participation.
Parties as heuristics
Parties may be necessary for many individuals to participate in
politics, because they provide a massively simplifying heuristic which
allows people to make informed choices with a much lower cognitive cost.
Without political parties, electors would have to evaluate every
individual candidate in every single election they are eligible to vote
in. Instead, parties enable electors to make judgments about a few
groups instead of a much larger number of individuals. Angus Campbell, Philip Converse, Warren Miller, and Donald E. Stokes argued in The American Voter that identification with a political party is a crucial determinant of whether and how an individual will vote.
Because it is much easier to become informed about a few parties'
platforms than about many candidates' personal positions, parties reduce
the cognitive burden for people to cast informed votes. However,
evidence suggests that over the last several decades the strength of
party identification has been weakening, so this may be a less important
function for parties to provide than it was in the past.
Structure
A political party is typically led by a party leader (the most powerful member and spokesperson representing the party), a party secretary (who maintains the daily work and records of party meetings), party treasurer (who is responsible for membership dues) and party chair
(who forms strategies for recruiting and retaining party members, and
also chairs party meetings). Most of the above positions are also
members of the party executive, the leading organization which sets
policy for the entire party at the national level. The structure is far
more decentralized in the United States because of the separation of
powers, federalism and the multiplicity of economic interests and
religious sects. Even state parties are decentralized as county and
other local committees are largely independent of state central
committees. The national party leader in the U.S. will be the president,
if the party holds that office, or a prominent member of Congress in
opposition (although a big-state governor may aspire to that role).
Officially, each party has a chairman for its national committee who is a
prominent spokesman, organizer and fund-raiser, but without the status
of prominent elected office holders.
In parliamentary democracies, on a regular, periodic basis, party conferences
are held to elect party officers, although snap leadership elections
can be called if enough members opt for such. Party conferences are also
held in order to affirm party values for members in the coming year.
American parties also meet regularly and, again, are more subordinate to
elected political leaders.
Depending on the demographic spread of the party membership,
party members form local or regional party committees in order to help
candidates run for local or regional offices in government. These local
party branches reflect the officer positions at the national level.
It is also customary for political party members to form wings
for current or prospective party members, most of which fall into the
following two categories:
- identity-based: including youth wings and/or armed wings
- position-based: including wings for candidates, mayors, governors, professionals, students, etc. The formation of these wings may have become routine but their existence is more of an indication of differences of opinion, intra-party rivalry, the influence of interest groups, or attempts to wield influence for one's state or region.
These are useful for party outreach, training and employment. Many
young aspiring politicians seek these roles and jobs as stepping stones
to their political careers in legislative or executive offices.
The internal structure of political parties has to be democratic
in some countries. In Germany Art. 21 Abs. 1 Satz 3 GG establishes a
command of inner-party democracy.
Parliamentary parties
When
the party is represented by members in the lower house of parliament,
the party leader simultaneously serves as the leader of the parliamentary group of that full party representation; depending on a minimum number of seats held, Westminster-based parties typically allow for leaders to form frontbench
teams of senior fellow members of the parliamentary group to serve as
critics of aspects of government policy. When a party becomes the
largest party not part of the Government, the party's parliamentary
group forms the Official Opposition, with Official Opposition frontbench team members often forming the Official Opposition Shadow cabinet.
When a party achieves enough seats in an election to form a majority,
the party's frontbench becomes the Cabinet of government ministers. They
are all elected members. There are members who attend party without
promotion.
Regulation
The
freedom to form, declare membership in, or campaign for candidates from
a political party is considered a measurement of a state's adherence to
liberal democracy as a political value. Regulation of parties may run
from a crackdown on or repression of all opposition parties, a norm for
authoritarian governments, to the repression of certain parties which
hold or promote ideals which run counter to the general ideology of the
state's incumbents (or possess membership by-laws which are legally
unenforceable).
Furthermore, in the case of far-right, far-left and regionalism
parties in the national parliaments of much of the European Union,
mainstream political parties may form an informal cordon sanitaire which applies a policy of non-cooperation towards those "Outsider Parties" present in the legislature which are viewed as 'anti-system' or otherwise unacceptable for government. Cordons sanitaire,
however, have been increasingly abandoned over the past two decades in
multi-party democracies as the pressure to construct broad coalitions in
order to win elections – along with the increased willingness of
outsider parties themselves to participate in government – has led to
many such parties entering electoral and government coalitions.
Starting in the second half of the 20th century, modern
democracies have introduced rules for the flow of funds through party
coffers, e.g. the Canada Election Act 1976, the PPRA in the U.K. or the
FECA in the U.S. Such political finance
regimes stipulate a variety of regulations for the transparency of
fundraising and expenditure, limit or ban specific kinds of activity and
provide public subsidies for party activity, including campaigning.
Partisan style
Partisan
style varies according to each jurisdiction, depending on how many
parties there are, and how much influence each individual party has.
Nonpartisan systems
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 United States Congress were nonpartisan. Washington also warned against political parties during his Farewell Address. In the United States, the unicameral legislature of Nebraska is nonpartisan but is elected and often votes on informal party lines. In Canada, the territorial legislatures of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are nonpartisan. In New Zealand, Tokelau
has a nonpartisan parliament. Many city and county governments in the
United States and Canada 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.
Uni-party systems
In one-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. North Korea and China are examples; others can be found in Fascist states, such as Nazi Germany between 1934 and 1945. The one-party system is thus often 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 one-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 Cambodian People's Party in Cambodia, the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, and the National Liberation Front in Algeria. One-party dominant system 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, in Indonesia with the Golkar from the early 1970s until 1998.
Bi-party systems
Two-party systems are states such as Honduras, Jamaica, Malta, Ghana
and the United States 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 States has gone through several party systems,
each of which has been essentially two-party in nature. The divide has
typically been between a conservative and liberal party; presently, the Republican Party and Democratic Party
serve these roles. Third parties have seen extremely little electoral
success, and successful third party runs typically lead to vote splitting
due to the first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all systems used in most
US elections. There have been several examples of third parties
siphoning votes from major parties, such as Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 and George Wallace in 1968, resulting in the victory of the opposing major party. In presidential elections, the Electoral College system has prevented third party candidates from being competitive, even when they have significant support (such as in 1992).
More generally, parties with a broad base of support across regions or
among economic and other interest groups have a greater chance of
winning the necessary plurality in the U.S.'s largely single-member
district, winner-take-all elections.
The UK political system, while technically a multi-party system,
has functioned generally as a two-party (sometimes called a
"two-and-a-half party") system; since the 1920s the two largest
political parties have been the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Before the Labour Party rose in British politics the Liberal Party was the other major political party along with the Conservatives. Though coalition and minority governments have been an occasional feature of parliamentary politics, the first-past-the-post electoral system used for general elections
tends to maintain the dominance of these two parties, though each has
in the past century relied upon a third party to deliver a working
majority in Parliament. (A plurality voting system usually leads to a two-party system, a relationship described by Maurice Duverger and known as Duverger's Law.) There are also numerous other parties that hold or have held a number of seats in Parliament.
Multi-party systems
A poster for the European Parliament election 2004 in Italy, showing party lists
Multi-party systems are systems in which more than two parties are represented and elected to public office.
Australia, Canada, Nepal,
Pakistan, India, Ireland, United Kingdom and Norway are examples of
countries with two strong parties and additional smaller parties that
have also obtained representation. The smaller or "third" parties may
hold the balance of power in a parliamentary system, and thus may be invited to form a part of a coalition government together with one of the larger parties, or may provide a supply and confidence agreement to the government; or may instead act independently from the dominant parties.
More commonly, in cases where there are three or more parties, no
one party is likely to gain power alone, and parties have to work with
each other to form coalition governments. This 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 involving the Independence Party or the Progressive Party. A similar situation exists in the Republic of Ireland,
where no one party has held power on its own since 1989. Since then,
numerous coalition governments have been formed. These coalitions have
been led exclusively by either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
Political change is often easier with a coalition government than in one-party or two-party dominant systems.
If factions in a two-party system are in fundamental disagreement on
policy goals, or even principles, they can be slow to make policy
changes, which appears to be the case now in the U.S. with power split
between Democrats and Republicans. Still coalition governments struggle,
sometimes for years, to change policy and often fail altogether, post
World War II France and Italy being prime examples. When one party in a
two-party system controls all elective branches, however, policy changes
can be both swift and significant. Democrats Woodrow Wilson, Franklin
Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson were beneficiaries of such fortuitous
circumstances, as were Republicans as far removed in time as Abraham
Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. Barack Obama briefly had such an advantage
between 2009 and 2011.
Funding
Political parties are funded by contributions from
- party members and other individuals,
- organizations, which share their political ideas (e.g. trade union affiliation fees) or which could benefit from their activities (e.g. corporate donations) or
- governmental or public funding.
Political parties, still called factions by some, especially those in the governmental apparatus, are lobbied vigorously by organizations, businesses and special interest groups such as trade unions.
Money and gifts-in-kind to a party, or its leading members, may be
offered as incentives. Such donations are the traditional source of
funding for all right-of-centre cadre parties. Starting in the late 19th
century these parties were opposed by the newly founded left-of-centre
workers' parties. They started a new party type, the mass membership
party, and a new source of political fundraising, membership dues.
From the second half of the 20th century on parties which
continued to rely on donations or membership subscriptions ran into
mounting problems. Along with the increased scrutiny of donations there
has been a long-term decline in party memberships in most 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 some parties, such as the post-communist parties of France and Italy or the Sinn Féin party and the Socialist Party,
elected representatives (i.e. incumbents) take only the average
industrial wage from their salary as a representative, while the rest
goes into party coffers. Although these examples may be rare nowadays, "rent-seeking" continues to be a feature of many political parties around the world.
In the United Kingdom, it has been alleged that peerages have been awarded to contributors to party funds, the benefactors becoming members of the House of Lords and thus being in a position to participate in legislating. Famously, Lloyd George was found to have been selling peerages. To prevent such corruption in the future, Parliament passed the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) 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 as well as assumed "influence peddling"
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 increase. 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 in a
country that was the first to regulate campaign expenses (in 1883).
In many other democracies such subsidies for party activity (in
general or just for campaign purposes) have been introduced decades ago.
Public financing for parties and/ or candidates (during election times
and beyond) has several permutations and is increasingly common.
Germany, Sweden, Israel, Canada, Australia, Austria and Spain are cases
in point. More recently among others France, Japan, Mexico, the
Netherlands and Poland have followed suit.
There are two broad categories of public funding, direct, which
entails a monetary transfer to a party, and indirect, which includes
broadcasting 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 elections 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 Election management body.
In fledgling democracies funding can also be provided by foreign aid. International donors provide financing to political parties in developing countries as a means to promote democracy and good governance.
Support can be purely financial or otherwise. Frequently it is provided
as capacity development activities including the development of party
manifestos, party constitutions and campaigning skills. Developing links between ideologically linked parties is another common feature of international support for a party.
Sometimes this can be perceived as directly supporting the political
aims of a political party, such as the support of the US government to
the Georgian party behind the Rose Revolution.
Other donors work on a more neutral basis, where multiple donors
provide grants in countries accessible by all parties for various aims
defined by the recipients.
There have been calls by leading development think-tanks, such as the
Overseas Development Institute, to increase support to political parties
as part of developing the capacity to deal with the demands of
interest-driven donors to improve governance.
Colors and emblems
Generally speaking, over the world, political parties associate themselves with colors, primarily for identification, especially for voter recognition during elections.
• Blue generally denotes conservatism.
• Yellow is often used for liberalism or libertarianism.
• Orange is the traditional color of Christian democracy.
• Black is generally associated with fascist parties, going back to Benito Mussolini's blackshirts, but also with Anarchism. Similarly, brown is sometimes associated with Nazism, going back to the Nazi Party's tan-uniformed storm troopers.
Color associations are useful when it is not desirable to make rigorous links to parties, particularly when coalitions and alliances are formed between political parties and other organizations, for example: "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 the
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.
Emblems
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 organised
white supremacist group, even though it dates from more ancient times.
International organization
During
the 19th and 20th century, many national political parties organized
themselves into international organizations along similar policy lines.
Notable examples are The Universal Party, 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), Hizb ut-Tahrir, Christian Democratic International and the International Democrat Union (blue). Organized in Italy in 1945, the International Communist Party, since 1974 headquartered in Florence has sections in six countries. Worldwide green parties have recently established the Global Greens. The Universal Party, The Socialist International, the Liberal International, and the International Democrat Union
are all based in London.
Some administrations (e.g. Hong Kong) outlaw formal linkages between
local and foreign political organizations, effectively outlawing
international political parties.
Types
Klaus von Beyme
categorised European parties into nine families, which described most
parties. He was able to arrange seven of them from left to right:
Communist, Socialist, Green, Liberal, Christian democratic, Conservative and Libertarian. The position of two other types, Agrarian and Regional/Ethnic parties varied.
Political scientists have distinguished between different types
of political parties that have evolved throughout history. These include
cadre parties, mass parties, catch-all parties and cartel parties.
Cadre parties were political elites that were concerned with contesting
elections and restricted the influence of outsiders, who were only
required to assist in election campaigns. Mass parties tried to recruit
new members who were a source of party income and were often expected to
spread party ideology as well as assist in elections. In the United
States, where both major parties were cadre parties, the introduction of
primaries and other reforms has transformed them so that power is held
by activists who compete over influence and nomination of candidates.
Cadre party
A cadre party, or elite party,
is a type of political party that was dominant in the nineteenth
century before the introduction of universal suffrage and that was made
up of a collection of individuals or political elites. The French
political scientist Marcel Duverger first distinguished between “cadre”
and “mass” parties, founding his distinction on the differences within
the organisational structures of these two types.
Cadre parties are characterised by minimal and loose organisation, and
are financed by fewer larger monetary contributions typically
originating from outside the party. Cadre parties give little priority
to expanding the party’s membership base, and its leaders are its only
members. The earliest parties, such as the early American political parties, the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists, are classified as cadre parties.
Mass party
A mass party is a type of political party that developed around cleavages in society and mobilised the ordinary citizens or ‘masses’ in the political process.
In Europe, the introduction of universal suffrage resulted in the
creation of worker’s parties that later evolved into mass parties; an
example is the German Social Democratic Party.
These parties represented large groups of citizens who had previously
not been represented in political processes, articulating the interests
of different groups in society. In contrast to cadre parties, mass
parties are funded by their members, and rely on and maintain a large
membership base. Further, mass parties prioritise the mobilisation of
voters and are more centralised than cadre parties.
Catch-all party
The catch-all party, also called the ‘big tent’ party, is a term developed by German-American political scientist Otto Kirchheimer used to describe the parties that developed in the 1950s and 1960s from changes within the mass parties.
Kirchheimer characterised the shift from the traditional mass parties
to catch-all parties as a set of developments including the “drastic
reduction of the party’s ideological baggage” and the “downgrading of
the role of the individual party member”.
By broadening their central ideologies into more open-ended ones,
catch-all parties seek to secure the support of a wider section of the
population. Further, the role of members is reduced as catch-all parties
are financed in part by the state or by donations. In Europe, the shift of Christian Democratic parties that were organised around religion into broader centre-right parties epitomises this type.
Cartel party
Cartel parties
are a type of political party that emerged post-1970s and are
characterised by heavy state financing and the diminished role of
ideology as an organising principle. The cartel party thesis was
developed by Richard Katz and Peter Mair who wrote that political parties have turned into “semi-state agencies”,
acting on behalf of the state rather than groups in society. The term
‘cartel’ refers to the way in which prominent parties in government make
it difficult for new parties to enter, as such forming a cartel of
established parties. As with catch-all parties, the role of members in
cartel parties is largely insignificant as parties use the resources of
the state to maintain their position within the political system.
Niche party
Niche parties are a type of political party that developed on the
basis of the emergence of new cleavages and issues in politics, such as
immigration and the environment.
In contrast to mainstream or catch-all parties, niche parties
articulate an often limited set of interests in a way that does not
conform to the dominant economic left-right divide in politics,
emphasising issues that do not attain prominence within the other
parties.
Further, niche parties do not respond to changes in public opinion to
the extent that mainstream parties do. Examples of niche parties include
Green parties and extreme nationalist parties, such as the Front National in France.
However, over time these parties may lose some of their niche
qualities, instead adopting those of mainstream parties, for example
after entering government.
