Political parties and ideology

Question 1

What is a political party?

Answer 1

A group of people organised for the purpose of winning govt power by electoral or other means.
United by shard ideology and policy preferences

Question 2

What is the nature of parties?

Answer 2

Parties are unitary actors (they do things as an organisation) but they are not unitary in a number of ways.
MPs, employees, members
National, regional, electorate groups, ideological factions

Question 3

How should political parties act?

Answer 3

Delegates (pluralist)
- The party democratically debates policies in committees and conferences, and lists them in a manifesto. Voters approves that manifesto by voting them into office. Main reason to be an active party member is to influence party policy.
Trustees (liberal-elite). Parties MPs decide on policies with party leaders having the most influence. The job of party activists is to raise money, organise the party, and help get them into Parliament. They should leave policy to politicians, and only discuss policy in ways that promote the agreed-upon policies.

Question 4

What are the 3 different ideologies?

Answer 4

Conservative - if it aint broke, don’t fix it.
Classic Liberal - the freedom of the individual is paramount
Social democratic - market economies accepted as only reliable means of generating wealth, but they are seen as ineffective at redistributing wealth.

Question 5

Define Neo-liberalism ideology

Answer 5

Supremacy of individual rights and freedom
small govt means people are free
state should focus on basic functions
market mechanisms (privatisations etc) favoured.

Question 6

Define social democratic ideology

Answer 6

Market economies accepted as only reliable means of generating wealth, but they are seen as ineffective at redistributing wealth
capitalism tends to create ‘structural inequality’ and poverty
state should be the caretaker of the public interest

Question 7

Explain the benefits of using the spectrum

Answer 7

Deals well with issues such as state intervention, labour, welfare state versus market economy
Allows us to study similarities and differences between people, parties, countries and over time.
But it does reduce complexity and nuance

Question 8

Which ideologies do not fit into the spectrum?

Answer 8

Communism, socialism who are non-market ideologies.
Non-statistic ideologies such as anarchism, religious ideologies. Also environmental ideologies, or nationalist (fascist) ideologies