A detailed, in-depth summary of chapter 11 of the book Politics by Andrew Heywood. The summary includes all terms and definitions and is sufficient scope for the exam. This book is often used for first-year political science courses.
CHAPTER 11 – PARTIES AND PARTY SYSTEMS
PARTY POLITICS
- Authoritarian or democratic
- Seeking power through elections or through revolutions
- Left-right-centre
- By the late 1950s – most of the world run by political parties
o 1960s and 1970s – decline of political parties
- Political parties are inconvenient for economic and military elites
- Asia, Africa, and Latin America – the collapse of military rule caused by re-emergence
of parties
- Former communist states – one-party system replaced by establishment of
competitive parties
- Political party → group of people that is organized for the purpose of winning
government power, by electoral or other means
o They aim to exercise government power by winning political office
o Organized bodies with formal card-carrying membership
o They adopt broad issue focus
o They are united by shared political preferences and general ideological
identity
- Before – factions or parties were little more than groups of like-minded politicians
formed around a key leader or family
- Modern kind of political parties – emerged in the US
- Beginning of 20th century – party system as political manifestation
- Faction → a section or group within a larger formation, usually a political party
- Factionalism → proliferation of factions or bitterness of factional rivalry
Types of party
Cadre and mass parties
- Cadre – party of notables
o Dominated by informal group of leaders who saw little point in building a
mass organization
o Franchise is limited
o Includes trained and professional party members
o Examples: Communist party of the Soviet Union, Nazi Party in Germany,
Indian Congress Party
o Strict political criteria for party membership
- Mass party
o Heavy emphasis on broadening membership and constructing a wide
electoral base
o Examples: German Social democracy, UK Labour Party, US Republicans and
Democrats
o Heavier stress of recruitment than ideology
, o Catch-all parties
Representative and integrative parties
- Distinction advanced by Sigmund Neuman (1956)
- Representative
o Primary function as being the securing of votes in elections
o Reflecting rather than shaping the public opinion
o Now – prevalence of representative parties – Joseph Schumpeter
- Rational choice → approach to politics based on the assumption that individuals are
rationally self-interested actors, an economic theory of politics
- Integrative
o Adopting proactive rather than reactive strategies
o They wish to mobilize, educate, and inspire masses
o UK conservatives under Thatcher
Constitutional and revolutionary parties
- Constitutional
o Acknowledge the rights and entitlements of other parties
o Operate withing the framework of rules and constraints
o Division between the state and party power
o Formal independence and political neutrality
o Mainstream parties in liberal democracies
- Revolutionary
o Anti-system and anti-constitutional parties (left/right)
o Nazis and Fascists – extremists
Left- and right-wing parties
- Ideological orientation
- Left-wing (progressive/socialist/communist)
o Commitment to change in the form of social reform or economic
transformation
o Helping poor and disadvantaged
- Right-wing (conservative/fascist)
o Uphold existing order, forcing continuity
o Business interests and materially contented middle class in focus
- The division is misleading
o New issues now – environment, feminism, animal rights…
Mainstream and populist parties
- How societies should be governed
- Mainstream (conventional/traditional)
o Broadly accept the constitutional status quo
o Operating in established political game
o Catch-all, centre politics
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