Political Parties Flashcards
What is a political party?
A political party is a group of people who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government.
They agree on some policies and programmes for the society with a view to promote the collective good.
Since there can be different views on what is good for all,parties try to persuade people why their policies are better than others.
They seek to implement these policies by winning popular support through elections.
Thus, parties reflect fundamental
political divisions in a society. Parties are
about a part of the society and thus
involve PARTISANSHIP. Thus a party is
known by which part it stands for, which
policies it supports and whose interests
it upholds.
A political party has three components:
-> the leaders,
-> the active members and
-> the followers
Challenges to political parties
parties are the most visible face of
democracy, it is natural that people blame
parties for whatever is wrong with the
working of democracy.
All over the world, people express strong
dissatisfaction with the failure of political
parties to perform their functions well.
This is the case in our country too.
Popular dissatisfaction and criticism has
focussed on four problem areas in the working of political parties.
Political parties need to face and overcome these challenges in order to remain effective instruments of democracy
1) lack of internal democracy within parties
All over the world there is a tendency in
political parties towards the
concentration of power in one or few
leaders at the top.
Parties do not keep membership registers, do not hold organisational meetings, and do not conduct internal elections regularly.
Ordinary members of the party do not get sufficient information on what happens inside the party. They do not have the means or the connections needed to influence the decisions.
As a result the leaders assume greater
power to make decisions in the
name of the party.
Since one or few leaders exercise paramount power in the party, those who disagree with the leadership find it difficult to continue in the party.
More than loyalty to party principles and policies, personal loyalty to the leader
becomes more important.
2) dynastic succession
most political parties do not practice
open and transparent procedures for
their functioning, there are very few ways
for an ordinary worker to rise to the top
in a party.
Those who happen to be the leaders are in a position of unfair advantage to favour people close to them or even their family members.
In many parties, the top positions are always controlled by members of one family.
This is unfair to other members of that
party.
This is also bad for democracy,
since people who do not have adequate
experience or popular support come to
occupy positions of power.
This tendency is present in some measure all over the world, including in some of
the older democracies.
3) growing role of money and muscle
power in parties
Since parties are focussed only
on winning elections, they tend to use
short-cuts to win elections.
They tend to nominate those candidates who have or can raise lots of money.
Rich people and companies who give funds to the parties tend to have influence on the policies and decisions of the party.
In some cases, parties support criminals who can win elections.
Democrats all over the world are worried about the increasing role of rich people and big companies in democratic politics.
4) parties do not seem to offer a
meaningful choice to the voters
In order to offer meaningful choice, parties
must be significantly different.
In recent years there has been a decline in the ideological differences among parties in
most parts of the world.
For example, the difference between the
Labour Party and the Conservative Party in Britain is very little. They agree on more
fundamental aspects but differ only in details on how policies are to be framed and implemented.
In our country too, the differences among all the major parties on the economic
policies have reduced.
Those who want really different policies
have no option available to them.
Sometimes people cannot even elect very different leaders either, because the same set of leaders keep shifting from one party to another.
