Lecture 9

• Political Science: Session 9 focuses on Political Ideologies and Parties, with Lecturer dr Ammar Maleki.
• Political Parties are defined as a group identified by name and ideology that nominates candidates at elections in order to win public office and control government.
• Political parties are crucial mobilizing devices of the 20th century, drawing millions of people into the national political process.
• In the new century, political parties are no longer as popular as before, with social movements and promotional groups possessing greater appeal for the young.
• Political parties still perform essential functions in a democratic world.
• The functions of parties include representation/aggregation, which involves aggregating interests, selecting, prioritizing and proposing policies.
• Mobilization is a function of parties, which involves encouraging voters to participate in politics.
• Competition, a function of parties, involves giving voters contrasting sets of policies, a system of competing parties gives effect to liberal democracy.
• Recruitment is a function of parties, which involves recruiting and preparing candidates for public office.
• Government is a function of parties, which involves governing the state and offering governments direction.
• Cadre Party is a type of party that emerged in the 19th century, with its origins in parliament and was heavily committed to their leader’s authority.
• Private donation in party finance is challenged by regulating and monitoring.
• Public Funding is supported for parties that serve the state, provide a level playing field between parties, prevent pro-business parties from gaining access to greater funding, and discourages reliance on private donation.
• Candidate selection features include incumbents, advantage for current members, rules, who can be a candidate, gender quotas, electoral system, and plurality or party list.
• Party Finance in Belgium involves membership subscription, which is challenged by a large decline in the number of party members.
• In the UK, party leaders select from a list generated at lower levels.
• Parties have a public function, provide a level playing field between parties, prevent pro-business parties from gaining access to greater funding, and discourages reliance on private donation.
• Belgium has a combination of parliamentary and ordinary members, with selection by both members of parliament and ordinary members, where the former selects two (or more), and the latter selects one of them.
• Party conventions or committees in the UK select candidates.
• In an "open primary", parties allow anyone, regardless of party affiliation, to vote.
• Parties serve the state, not society, reduce parties' incentive to attract members, favour status quo, established and large parties, encourage a cartel, and burden taxpayers.
• Registered supporters in the UK, also known as "closed primaries", choose their candidates.
• Party members in the UK choose their candidates.
• Mass party is a type of party that emerged in the 20th century, with the aim of achieving parliamentary representation for a particular social group and acting as the agent of a segment of society in pursuit of its own interest.
• Catch-all party is a type of party that emerged in the 1945-present, with the aim of governing rather than representing and working to attract voters with a wide variety of political views and ideologies.
• Two-party system: Two major parties compete to run majority government, e.g. USA.
• Multi-party system: Multiple parties are serious contenders for government coalition membership, e.g. most of Europe.
• In both party systems, leaders are selected by party congress (convention/committee), members of parliamentary party, or party members.
• Duverger’s proposition: The simple-majority system with second ballot and proportional representation favors multi-partyism.
• Duverger’s law: The simple-majority single-ballot system (plurality system) favors the two-party system.
• Duverger’s law applies to the US (ENPP=2.00), UK (=2.2), but there are exceptions like Canada (=2.9) and India (=5.3)!
• Single party system: One party has all seats, ENPP=1/(1^2)=1.
• Duverger’s hypothesis applies to the Netherlands (ENPP=5.2), Belgium (=8), but what about other Proportional Representation (PR) systems like South Africa (=2.1), Greece (=2.4) and Spain (=2.5 )?
• Multi-party system: 45%, 35%,15%,5% have seats, ENPP=1/(0.45^2+0.35^2+0.15^2+0.05^2)=2.86.
• Two-party system: 90% and 10% have seats, ENPP=1/(0.9^2+0.1^2) =1.22.
• Dominant party system: Two parties have 50% of seats, ENPP=1/(0.5^2+0.5^2)=2.
• In decentralized parties, leaders set policy priorities, develop party’s image, provide material for electoral campaign, and local agents select candidates, implement election strategy.
• In centralized parties, leaders play a crucial role in ruling parties, set policy priorities, develop party’s image, provide material for electoral campaign, and local agents select candidates, implement election strategy.
• Societal culture and party system: Party Organization in democracies can be centralized with leaders having top-down authority, or decentralized with local branches.
• For each 'policy issue' selected, identify a related proposition in question 64, which will give you an additional 0.45 points.