Lecture Notes 6: Political Parties Flashcards
- What is the main purpose of political parties? What do they offer to the political process, and how do they do so?
The main purpose is to organize to win elections, operate the government, and to determine public policy. A huge emphasize on organization. They also make it easier for voters to vote, by attaching their political party name on to one of its representative it creates a short-cut to what that person stands for. So you don’t have to research every person appearing on a ballot, instead you see if they’re on your “side”, and if they are chances are that they likely stand by your beliefs.
- How do the two major parties differ in terms of social policy?
Conservatives are pro-life meaning more restrictions on abortions. They believe in stricter immigration policies. Are pro-guns following the 2nd amendment interpretation that ALL firearms must remain legal. And their education policy closely follows that of a business, meaning more private education since that fosters competition which will be lead to better education.
Liberals are pro-choice, meaning that the decision to get an abortion lies on the shoulders of the women. Community-based environmentalism means they want the policy to improve well-being. Want more open and less strict immigration policies. And believe that private education would leave a lot children behind, so public is the way to go and should take a lot more resources to ensure that everyone can have access to quality and cheap education.
- How do the two major parties differ in terms of economic policy?
Conservatives prioritize free-market policies as they believe that the government stepping in will hurt the market. They prefer low taxes across the board, as they believe that the government won’t spend their money as well as they can, and would rather use their money how they see fit instead of seeing it go into policies that they don’t want. And finally they believe in supply-side economics which is the belief that the consumer benefit from less regulation.
Liberals are also capitalist but see that capitalism has natural issues so sustainability policies are put in to address it. They also would like to see increased taxes among the middle-class but especially the super-wealthy. And follow a Keynesian economic policy, where the government steps in to help especially with taxing and spending, in the hopes of helping the economy during times of recession or struggle.
- How do the two major parties differ in terms of governmental policy?
Conservatives believe that in state-level governance, meaning they believe that the states can make better decisions for the people of their state than the national government can. They also believe in fewer regulations on the market and people, for instance, they would like to decide if they want to help disadvantaged folks instead of simply being forced to help through taxes.
Liberals focus more on national governance, especially in civil issues. And do tend to favor government regulation in order to ensure equality.
- Identify and describe two key characteristics of the factions within the two major parties (e.g., libertarians,
populists, etc).
For the Conservative side, we’ll look at libertarians and populists.
Libertarians want no government interventions unless to protect life, basically excluding government at an extreme. They believe that the free market and private industry can handle and innovate on everything that the government does. They believe in equality for all, and as far as tax policy goes they believe that if you want to pay taxes you can but again the private sector can handle things like infrastructure so it’s not forced.
Populists are politicians who appeal to the general public. Meaning they promise a lot but hardly deliver anything, telling them exactly what they want to hear. Can be a left-wing thing too, but in the context of conservatives, populists would appeal to conservative values on society, economy, and governance issues.
On the liberal side we have:
Social progressives believe in taxing the super-rich to fund and provide services that help the public such as education, public transportation, etc.
And the third way, which is in the middle of liberals and conservatives, believes that more politics in the middle are best. So maybe having liberal policies on societal issues while conservative policies on economics would be great.
- Are the two major parties ideologically consistent? Why or why not?
No, ideological consistency doesn’t really exist. Being liberal or conservative on the issue doesn’t mean you will be on all other issues, this is true for individuals, making it true for political parties. Especially since they have a ton of followers and supporters who definitely have their own views and chose to join a party based on who they agree with the most, it’s very unlikely to agree with everything your party beliefs in.
- What are the two main causes of the two-party system in the United States? What is the most important cause,
and why does it lead to two parties?
The two causes are social and institutional barriers. With institutional barriers being the most important of the two. American elections are done in a single-member district/ plurality process, commonly referred to as winner-takes-all. This means whoever gets the plurality of a vote in a district wins the entire district, meaning whoever reached 51% first wins. This process ensures that 3rd parties won’t gain any ground since they will always struggle behind the two biggest parties that appear.
- What is the difference between a two-party system (single-member district, plurality system) and multi-party
systems (multi-member proportional representation systems)? How do these differences affect political
outcomes?
Under a two-party system whichever party gets a plurality of the votes in a district wins that entire district, and thus wins that seat. Under a multi-party system, seats are awarded to the legislator based on the percentage of votes that the party won in the election. A two-party system will result in two parties coming into dominance, with little potential for third parties to grow. In a multi-district proportional system, the legislator is more diverse since more parties make it up, and it better represents the percentage of the vote in an election.
- Describe the following: the spoiler effect, issue awareness, and the “pressure valve” benefit of third/minor parties.
The spoiler effect is when a third party takes ENOUGH votes from a similar party so that both the third party and the similar party LOSE the election.
The “pressure valve” is what we call when voters who dislike both parties vote for a third party to show discontent, that way they still participate and express their beliefs and thoughts.
Third-party also allow for issue awareness, whenever a third party shows up they argue that they would do a better job at a policy that the two big parties are failing to tackle.
- Why are third parties unlikely to play a significant role in the American political process? Identify and describe two
key reasons.
One big reason is that the two bigger parties will often co-opt the ideas of the smaller parties. They come in and say that they are “the party of x”, and if that is true you should vote for them instead of that party since they would have a higher chance of winning and thus pushing that policy that you favor. Another issue is that they simply don’t gain much support especially financially.
