political parties Flashcards
what can political parties provide society?
- address and represent social cleavages
- recruit and socalise the political elite providing opporunties for everyone to get into politics
- mobilisation of the masses (like labour and working classes to strike)
- link between ruler and ruled
- organises democracy to work within society
how have political party models developed?
- oringially promoted interests of elite
- early 20th centruy began to represent large social groups
- 1950s catch all parties wanting to gain office not worried about representing social cleavages
- 1970s cartel parties to get their leaders into power to avoid prosecution
- 1970s anti-cartel parteis wanted eleite out
- businesss firm; business men using politics to futher career
how can political parties be good for democracy?
- allow for mass political involvement
- competion between elites stops it from getting violent
- policy c-ordination to act in the publics interest
- political stability brinign groups together to form common policy limting instability between groups
what is the responsible party governemnt model of democracy?
- parties willl produce rival manifestos displaying their policies on immigration and health which citizens pick the one that best fits their views
people dont just vote along party line they vote who is relevant to them by juding how effective they have been in the past and if they have delivied on promises
voting along cleavages dissapearing and people are voting on a ration choice cost v benefit
how can political parties be bad for democracy?
- representing elite intersts
- only proote on part of the general will of the public
- leads to polarisation in society
- since 1970s cartel parteis have captured the state to protect their own interests rather than socities
- parties can prevent MPs from representing their constituents due to whips
who created the cleavage model?
lipset and rokkan 1967
what is the cleavage model?
the idea that particlar social groups vote based on their social group
there are parties that exclusivley represent each one and rely on enough of that group to vote for them to win with no attempt to cross social lines
no compomisig on thier policies to win office they just represent their social group
who created the strategic model?
downs 1957
what is the strategic model?
parties dont represent a social group, instead they are fromed by like minded politicans to represent their interests
not interestsed in the electorate’s votes and dont want members or they will have to listen to them
appeal to pivitol vote or median voters not a particalr class
all they want is office so they will change thier policy to fit what the average voter is thinking to win
what predictions does the cleavage model make?
- if there is only working class there will be 2 parties
- if there are more social cleages such as class and religion you will have 3 parties
- if you have meany cleavages you will have a multiparty system like belgium
how have old cleavages changes over time?
traditionally he ‘party families’ were:
- a social democratic or socialist party for the working class
- a liberal party for the middle class
- a conservative party for the aristocracy
(and potentially agrarian or cristian democratic)
however how ‘party families’ have developed due to new cultural cleaveges and multi dimentional debaes between values in the market
- green party
- radical right
what is the measurement to count how many parties are present in a political system?
the effective number of parties index created by loakaso and taaerpera
why have multi-party systems developed across the globe?
number of parties in westen countries have increased due to systems that favour coalitions. there is usually a party in these calitions which is a kingmaker who gets a lower amount of voters but is needed to from coalition
how can it be argued that all parties are becoming the same?
or example in 2010 lib dem and conservatives have relatively the same ideas
how can it be argues parties are moving further apart?
political parties are moving further away from the centure either bring populist on the right or left to portect their own ideas and social cleavges
(ex marie la pen and nigel farage)