5. Growing Autonomy of Parliaments
Expansion of Suffrage
Avenues to Political Power
6.
7. “A body of men united,
for promoting by their
joint endeavors the
national interest, upon
some particular
principle in which they
are all agreed”
Edmund Burke
8. Inter and Intra-PartyVariation
Political Party vs. Political Ideology
Conservative Democrats, Liberal Republicans
Politicians’ Choices
▪ Vote or caucus with another party
▪ Defect party and join another
9.
10. A broad coalition of individuals who:
(1) Recruit, nominate, and elect candidates for office
(2) Under a given label
(3)To control the government
(4) In accordance with their ideas and policies.
11.
12.
13.
14. Intermediary Between Citizens and Govt.
Bring PublicTogether; Define and Accomplish Objectives
Competition with Others (e.g. interest groups, media)
Nominate Candidates for Office
National, State, and Local Levels
Role of PartyVaries (e.g. party list)
Contest Elections
Mobilize Electorate; EncourageVoting
Engage Supporters, Persuade Undecided, Minimize Opposition
15.
16. Organize Government
RoleVaries (Parliamentary vs. Presidential System)
Provide Accountability
Government Responsibility
Importance of PID
Prospective and RetrospectiveVoting
Manage Conflict
Reconciling Group Demands
17.
18.
19. Membership restricted to political elites
Quality of membership
Internal development within legislatures
Example: “King Caucus” in United States
20.
21. Replaced elite control of parties
Challenges from non-governmental actors
Quantity of membership
“Cradle-to-Grave” organizations
26. Dominant-Party System
One party controls government
Lack of competition in elections
Subtype: Single-Party System (e.g. Nazis, CCP)
Two-Party System
Two major parties struggle for power
Platforms highlight party differences
Multiparty System
More than two parties
Emphasis on coalitions
27. Dominant-Party System
One party controls government
Lack of competition in elections
Subtype: Single-Party System (e.g. Nazis, CCP)
Two-Party System
Two major parties struggle for power
Platforms highlight party differences
Multiparty System
More than two parties
Emphasis on coalitions
28. Dominant-Party System
Degree of dominance by major party
▪ 100% or 51% of vote
Two-Party System
Alternation of power between two parties
One party wins often in certain period
Multiparty System
Fragmentation (large # of small parties
Concentration (small # of large parties)
29.
30. Can’t you just count them?
Effective Number of Parties
Calculation:
▪ Proportion of seats held by party squared
▪ Add squares together and divide by 1
▪ Example:Three parties (P1 – 40%, P2 – 40%, P3 – 20%)
▪ 1 / [(0.40*0.40) + (0.40*0.40) + (0.20*0.20)]
▪ .16 + .16 + .04 = .36 1 / .36 = 2.78
31. Persistence and Electoral Success
How many electoral cycles is party around for?
Stability of Ideologies / Platforms
Leads to degree of party cohesiveness
Emphasis on Institutions, Not Individuals
Significance of party name
32.
33. Duverger argued that two-party systems will emerge
in countries operating with a simple plurality vote.
34.
35.
36. Interest groups are groups of citizens who:
(1) Share common interest
(2)Try to influence policy
What is relationship with the State?
Pluralism – Many groups; “marketplace of ideas”
Corporatism – Relationship w/ groups, State
37.
38. Representation
Represent members’ views to institutions / agencies
Persuading policymakers = Lobbying
Participation
People sharing interests can participate toward group goals
Education
Influence policymakers on relevant issues; brochures/publications
Agenda Building
Provision of Program Alternatives
Program Monitoring – Deals with policy implementation
39.
40. DIRECT LOBBYING
“Inside Lobbying”
Interaction with
decision makers in
government
INDIRECT LOBBYING
“Outside Lobbying”
Mobilizes interest
group membership /
general public to
contact govt. officials
on given issue
Editor's Notes
This chapter focuses on three interrelated topics that all play important roles in politics: 1) Political Parties, 2) Party Systems, and 3) Interest Groups
We will discuss each in some detail .
The formation of modern political parties can be linked to three developments:
#1: Growing Autonomy of Parliaments
Political elites had to ensure that decisions could be reached.
#2: Expansion of Suffrage
Elites had to appeal to masses as they got voting rights, and new types of
parties appealed to these new voters.
#3: Avenues to Political Power
Elites saw value in creating parties as way to wield political power.
What exactly is a political party?
Edmund Burke, a British philosopher, defined “party” this way:
“A body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavors the national
interest, upon some…principle in which they are all agreed.”
What’s wrong with this definition?
It does not take into account the inter and intra-party variation present in modern parties nor separates a political party from the idea of political ideology.
These are very different components. As an example, in the United States, we have conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans serving in Congress.
Politicians may choose to vote with another party on an issue, caucus with them, or defect one party and join another altogether.
Think about your answer to this question.
We can better define a “party” as:
A broad coalition of individuals who recruit, nominate, and elect candidates for office under a given label in order to control the government in accordance with their ideas and policies.
A political scientist named V.O Key, Jr. argued that the term “political party” was used too generally and could describe many different groups. Therefore, he proposed a three-part structure to better conceptualize the idea of political parties.
Now we turn to learning about the various functions political parties perform.
Political parties serve a variety of functions, including:
1) Serving as Intermediaries Between Citizens and Government
- Parties function as institutions to bring different elements of the public together,
to define objectives, and to achieve goals through policymaking.
- Parties must compete with others for this role, such as interest groups.
2) Nominating Candidates for Office
- Many national, state, and local elected officials are nominated by parties.
- As we have seen, the role of party in carrying out this function based a
country’s electoral system (e.g. use of party list).
- Outcome of partisan nominations can significantly influence a party’s electoral
chances and future course of development.
3) Contesting Elections
- Parties mobilize the electorate, encouraging them to vote for their slate of
candidates.
- This requires ensuring your party base will vote, persuading undecided voters
to support you, and diminishing the opposition—not an easy task.
This chart demonstrates how political parties serves as intermediaries between citizens and government. Parties are also called “linkage institutions” for this reason.
#4: Organizing Government
- This role can also vary, as we have seen in our previous discussions of
legislatures and executives
- Parliamentary System: Majority party forms government
- Presidential System: Branches centralized around partisanship
#5: Providing Accountability
- Parties provide voters with means to hold public officials accountable for the
actions of government. Party labels (or PID) allow voters to sort through
complex policy issues and come to voting decision.
- Periodic elections give voters a chance to register general approval or disgust
toward party’s stewardship of government.
Retrospective Voting: Looking toward Past
Incumbent: “Are you better off now than four years ago?” (keep status quo)
Challenger: “Are you better off now than four years ago?” (want change)
Prospective Voting: Looking toward Future
Incumbent: “Keep us on the job, we’ll go forward together”
Challenger: “Throw the bums out, elect us, and get something better
#6: Managing Conflict – Reconciling competing group demands
We will now discus the major types of political parties.
Membership and scope of this group of parties were restricted to political elites.
There was a focus on quality of members and NOT quantity.
Politics centered to connections to aristocracy. Voting or suffrage rights were then based on property so limited electoral audience.
Platforms did not have to appeal to mass audiences, and so groups developed internally within a legislative body.
Coalitions of politicians sharing common political interests.
Emergence of electoral caucuses to promote candidates
Example: “King Caucus” in United States
Members of Congress would come together and decide on
presidential nominees.
Over time, mass parties replaced elite control of parties.
Popular calls for suffrage expanded in society., and challenges from non-governmental actors(i.e. working classes) began to develop.
Members of the working class movements could not depend on elites to represent interests, so they formed external parties. In doing so, they drew on mass support (quantity NOT quality).
Mass parties were “cradle-to-grave” organizations for members.
Elite parties based on social NOT ideological connections
Now needed support from electorate (e.g. constituency) to remain in office
and hold power.
Each party pushed for a larger membership than rivals.
Devotee Parties are a type of mass party.
Goal: Enroll masses but maintain “purity” of movement
More open than caucuses BUT more restrictive than mass parties
Examples: Communist, Fascist Parties
Catch-all parties are those that are flexible in their ideological orientation.
Try and attract support from broad range of society.
Strategy includes:
- Not having “ideological baggage”
- Reducing role of individual and boosting role of party
- Argument is that when one party becomes a catch-all organization, it will put
political pressure on other parties to follow suit
- US parties make “catch-all” appeals for median voters
The next topic of this lecture focuses on party systems.
Parties are important, but their overall influence can hinge on the national party system. Is your party strong and popular enough to political difference?
How many major parties can compete in elections to participate in government?
#1: Dominant-Party System
- Occurs in both democratic and authoritarian systems.
- One party dominates politically, controlling main branches of government.
- Leads to lack of competition in elections; clear choices for voters.
Single-Party System
- Subtype of dominant party system.
- Any parties besides dominant party are banned or disallowed
Examples:
Historic: Nazi Germany; Modern: Chinese Communist Party (China)
Why might single-party systems be a good thing?
- Cultural values of deference to authority.
- Multiparty systems are too divisive
#2: Two-Party System
- Struggle for political power and authority between two major parties.
- Persists over multiple election cycles
- Each party has different set of policy positions in a platform.
- Statements highlight economic and social differences
#3: Multiparty Systems
- More than two significant parties have opportunity to govern.
- Might have two major parties, but they are competing with minor parties who
continually win enough seats to influence governance.
- No party wins a majority of seats, forcing coalition governments.
All of these systems can still vary a bit:
Dominant-Party Systems:
- Different degrees of dominance by leading party.
- Single party wins 100% of seats in legislature every time.
- Single party barely wins 51% of vote
Two-Party Systems:
- Frequent alternation of power between two parties
Example: Present Day GOP and Dems
- One party wins more often for a period of time
Example: Early Twentieth Century GOP and Dems
- GOP in power in 1920s (Harding, Coolidge, Hoover)
- Dems in power in 1930s-1950s (FDR, Truman)
Multiparty Systems: Degree of fragmentation or concentration in the system.
Fragmented System: Party system has a large number of smaller parties
Concentrated System: Party system has a small number of larger parties
How do you determine the number of parties in a system?
- Seems easy enough to just count them, but it actually more complicated.
- If minor party wins one seat in legislature in two-party system, does this
make them viable third party?
Example: United Kingdom: Liberal Democrats are prominent partner
in coalition with Conservative Party
Effective Number of Parties
- Measure designed to capture number of meaningful parties in a given party
system that weights number of parties by their size.
- Represents degree of fragmentation or centralization in a system
- Calculated by taking proportion of seats held by each party, squaring each,
then adding squared sums together and dividing by 1
Example: Three parties exist in a system. Party 1 gets 40% of the vote, Party 2 gets 40% of the vote, and Party 3 obtains 20% of the vote. Completing the math that is on the slide above, we arrive at approximately 2.78 effective parties in this system.
You will find a worksheet on Canvas to practice calculating the effective number of parties in a system. I would highly encourage you to complete it on your own time, as questions asking you to identify the effective number of parties may appear on the upcoming Second Exam.
How can we know the stability of a party system over time?
Party System Institutionalization:
Main Aspects:
1) Persistence and Electoral Success of Party
- Do parties endure or only around for 1-2 cycles?
2) Stability of Ideologies, Programs, and Platforms
- Coherent nature and cohesiveness of party
3) Parties as Institutions, Not Individuals
- Party name has significance
- Less associated with someone and ideas
The final section of the political parties section of this lecture concerns how these elements influence the issue of representation in politics.
Duverger’s Law was developed by Maurice Duverger, a French jurist, sociologist, and politician. It suggests a connection between a party system and an electoral systems.
When elections are based on a plurality vote, they marginalize smaller political
- parties resulting in a two-party system.
Example:
- Country X has three viable political parties.
- Party A takes 40% of vote, Parties B and C take 30% each
- Party A will always win unless B and C join forces, eliminating them as
independent entitles.
Be sure and read more about Duverger’s Law on p. 266 of your textbook
The median voter theory represents one consequence of the two-party system.
Says that two major parties will work to attract median voter, or voter / group of voters at center of the political spectrum.
We need to return to the distinction between sincere and strategic voting.
- Very conservative or liberal voters would still strategically vote for a more
moderate version of the party if is prevented other party from winning.
I have placed a video on Canvas on the Median Voter Theorem. Please review it.
Now we will turn to discussing interest groups.
Interest groups are groups of citizens who 1) Share a common interest…
This could be a political opinion, religious affiliation, ideological belief, social goal or economic objective
…and 2) Who try to influence policy
Either on behalf of their specific membership, or for the broader good of the community and society
Interest groups play six main roles:
#1: Representation: Representing members’ views to national political institution and administrative agencies; Act of persuading policymakers to support their members’ preferences is called lobbying, a central activity of interest groups
#2: Participation: Interest groups provide an avenue for citizen participation in politics that goes beyond voting in periodic elections.
#3: Education: One of the most important functions of interest groups to educate policymakers regarding issues that are important to the group. Interest groups provide details on issues about which they are experts.
#4: Agenda Building: Interest groups have the—responsibility or privilege— to alert the proper government authorities about its issue positions, get onto the political agenda, and make the issue a high priority for government action.
#5: Provision of Program Alternatives: Interest groups can be effective at supplying alternative suggestions for how issues should be dealt with once they have been put on the agenda.
#6: Program Monitoring: Interest groups keep an eye on passed policies. This helps the government decide whether to continue or change a given policy—and it also helps to keep politicians accountable by ensuring that someone is actually paying attention to what they do.
Three are three main types of interest groups which all engage in lobbying to some degree.
There is a direct between direct and indirect lobbying:
Direct Lobbying
“Inside Lobbying,” interaction with actual decision makers within government.
Indirect Lobbying
“Outside Lobbying,” mobilizes interest group membership / general public to contact governmental officials on given issue.
