HC 2 Party families +liberalism Flashcards
How will we examine parties and the party system?
→ Supply and demand side
Supply: ideologies, organization, party families
Demand: cleavages, economy are factors.
Supply side
party system
Supply: ideologies, organization, party families
Internal supply
How political parties organize/ funciton.
The party itself, the political ideology
Internal supply is made up of how parties compete
External supply
The party system itself
How parties compete
The context within which parties are competing
Why does Robert Dahl think that parties are important?
(his ideal: Greek polis)
True democracy is about direct representation.
But with rise of nation state, representation is only possible via a representative.
Parties are needed for linkage between government and society.
Polyarchy (existing democracy) is about representative democracy
Demand side
Society in a larger sense.
How society is structured.
Important for society are cleavages, which lead to attitudes, and the economy.
How and why individuals are embedded in society
Demand: cleavages, economy are factors.
What is a party family? (summary)
Group of parties collected together by different aspects: organization, ideology, supporters and alliances. They are often divided by their sociological background, transnational federation, policies/ ideology and names. The division of policy and ideology is often the best due to the fact it goes to the crux of the party and its ideas.
Political party
- A political party has an organizing role and is the link between parliament, government, policy and citizens.
There are slightly different definitions to explain political parties:
1. An institution seeking influence by attempting governmental positions. Political party aggregates interests and has a mobilization function. (kaltz.)
2. A political group identified by official label that presents at elections, and is capable of placing through elections, candidates for public office (sartori)
3. Autonomous group of citizens with the purpose to gain control of government power by capturing public offices and the organization of the government. - Caramani ,2017
Why does Nadia Urbinatie think that parties are important?
Party democracy is about mediation between citzens and representators.
There is contestation between parties over ideas, the common good etc
This enhances discussions about what actually are common goods, etc. but also enhances pluralism
Why does Anthony Downs think that parties are important?
Social and political issues are complex.
Most citizens do not have time or knowledge to be fully informed.
Parties are information reducers.
They reduce information into digestible pieces.
Parties allow the people to embed their choices in bigger story. Ideologies can make choices earier for people.
People choose a certain ideology and do not have to think about every single problem.
They just have to say that they want something done in the way of a certain ideology
parties make politics less complex.
Why does not David van Reybrouck think that parties are important
Critical of elections.
The answer is sortition: individuals must be randomly chosen to represent the country.
Policy is not ideology, there is an objective truth and anyone can find that objective truth.
Anyone can make a policy
How can parties be grouped?
- By how they organize
2.. By their ideas - by their supporters
- by their alliances
How to decide who belongs to party family?
look at:
1. sociological origins
2. transnational federations
3. policy and ideology
4. the name
Sociological origins: look at the historical background of a party and the type of voters a party gets (cleavages).
Problem:
What is the difference between communist and social democratic parties? Both have the same historical context.
Transnational federations: parties often join together into international organizations
Problem: parties can be in the same organization with different ideologies
Policy+ ideology: this is in many ways the best ways: it gets to the ‘‘crux of the ideas’’ of the party.
it looks at parties idenity and policies
name: often works. Look at social democratic and christian democratic parties for example.
But names do not always tell you where they want to belong
conclusion: best ways are sociologicl origins + policy and ideology
Features of ideology
An ideology is a more or less coherent set of ideas that provides the basis for organized political action,whether this is intended to preserve, modify or overthrow the existing system of power. All ideologies therefore have the following features:
a) advance an account of the existing order, ususally in the form of a world view (worldview)
b) outline a model of the desired future, a viision of ‘‘good’’ society (vision good society)
c) explain how political change can and should be brought about (how to get from a to B: political change)
–> how to get from a to b
Thick ideology
full worldview on a full range of policy fields
