In Political Parties and Party Systems, Alan Ware summarizes the two main competing theories that attempt to explain party systems. First, the Sociological approach and then the Institutional approach. In order to comprehend his analysis it is necessary to realize that party systems are in a constant state of evolution, they do not remain stagnant. This evolution may, at times, be imperceptible and at others very noticeable, such as during a revolution; but the change is undoubtedly occurring. It is much easier to understand these theories if you view these two theories from a flexible standpoint as opposed to having a concrete beginning and end with exact delineations in between. Lipset and Rokkan created a model that identifies the main aspects of the Sociological theory. Their main thesis was that modern party systems were rooted in social conflicts that had been occurring for ages before the systems came to be. They called these conflicts cleavages and established four different lines to which the modern systems could be traced back. The first of these was a Centre-Periphery cleavage which was centered on two issues: Was “society’s religion to be national or international” and, as Latin was how religion was practiced, how can this conflict between state languages and Latin be remedied? The second cleavage, State-Church, involved the state’s desire to control the education of its citizens in order to maintain a close relationship with the citizenry, which clashed with religious thought at that time. The third cleavage was Land-Industry, which concerned the interests of agriculture and industry and the application of tariffs vs. free trade. The last cleavage was Owner-Worker; the critical juncture of the entire process being t... ... middle of paper ... ...ns were strained on multiple occasions; such as the issue of slavery, indentured servitude, Native American “Trail of Tears”, etc… These all played integral parts in shaping the country that we have before us today. To relate it to the argument asserted by Lipset and Rokkan- America had cleavages well before a significant increase in enfranchisement, and our political history abounds with extremism and devoted supporters. To be sure, the American government constantly attempts to better represent the people. The evolution of America’s party system is, I believe, unique; and it’s this uniqueness that breaks the mold set by the other countries. There is no one class that defines us all, nor any single race, creed, or national origin to which we subscribe. Assuming that the Sociological approach to party systems is correct, the United States belongs in that category.
Click here to unlock this and over one million essays
Show MoreThere are two ways to get rid of the causes of factions, or political parties. The first way of removing these causes is to destroy the liberty essential to their existence. The second way to get rid of the causes is to give everyone the exact same o...
Rosenstone, Steven J., Roy L. Behr, and Edward H. Lazarus. Third Parties in America. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
A key issue raised by the Federalists in their campaign for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, and by the Anti-Federalists in their campaign against it, was that of factions. In The Federalist No. 10, “The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection,” James Madison defines the dangers of factions and elaborates on the effectiveness of a large, representative democracy in dealing with them. In Essay No. 3, the Anti-Federalist Cato argues that factions are necessary and we must preserve them in a large government if we are to prevent single individuals from corrupting the system. In modern America, we see the influence of factions – parties – growing daily, instigating rivalries and stalling political progress. Despite strong arguments from the Anti-Federalists, this modern evidence proves that factions do negatively impact the government when they are allowed too much power.
Cleavages existing in society are divisions such as religion, gender, race, and most importantly socioeconomic status. Political parties form around these divisions in society and in America’s society; money has proven to be the major factor. The major parties in American politics are Democrat and Republican, and the political preference of each member of these parties’ deals greatly with the amount of income they receive.
A two-party system is a political system in which only two parties have a realistic opportunity to compete effectively for control. As a result, all, or nearly all, elected officials end up being a member in one of the two major parties. In a two-party system, one of the parties usually holds a majority in the legislature hence, being referred to as the majority party while the other party is the minority party. The United States of America is considered to be a two-party system. A two-party system emerged early in the history of the new Republic. Beginning with the Federalists and the Jeffersonian Republicans in the late 1780s, two major parties have dominated national politics, although which particular two parties has changed with the times and issues. During the nineteenth century, the Democrats and Republicans emerged as the two dominant parties in American politics. As the American party system evolved, many third parties emerged, but few of them remained in existence for very long. Today the Democrats and Republican still remain as the dominant parties. These two parties hav...
When looking at and understanding the historical aspect of the party systems, it is important to note that there are some number of definitions of party systems. To some degree, a party system simply can be defined as the competition between parties in the political realm in efforts to gain the support for their give...
James Wilson’s article, “How Divided are We?”, attempts to convince the reader that there is polarization (a culture war) in the United States. Wilson does not define polarization by partisan disagreements solely, rather as “an intense commitment to a candidate, a culture, or an ideology that sets people in one group definitively apart from people in another, rival group” (Canon 205). This polarization stretches to the extent that one group’s set of beliefs is totally correct and the rival is wholly wrong (Canon 206). Wilson provides three chief factors for the growth of polarization...
In almost each countries’ political system, political parties would be found. Political parties could divide into two main class which are authoritarian and democratic. They might explore power by-election and social movements. Political parties are usually organized by a group of people who shared the similar political ideas or ideologies. Parties are mostly focusing on extensive tasks that involve in varied perspectives of the government’s policies. There are many types of political parties, for instance core and accumulation, representative and unifying, left-wing and right-wing, and constitutional and revolutionary parties. (Heywood, 2007)
To characterise the notion of political parties, Rod Hague and Martin Harrop choose to use the definition submitted by Giovanni Sartori, which says that a political party concerns ‘any political group identified by an official label that presents elections, and is capable of placing through elections candidates for public office’ (1976, p. 63, cited in Hague and Harrop, 2010, p. 203). Andrew Heywood defines it as ‘groups of people organised to gain formal representation or win government power’, ‘united by shared political preferences and a general ideological identity’, which function is to ‘filling the political office and the wielding of government power’ (2007, pp. 272, 275 and 455). So they all agree that parties are unified, structured and ideological groups, which aim to rise to power and govern states. Also it seems that it is the way they are perceived nowadays by the general opinion, thus it is based on theses definitions that they will be considered in this essay.
Political parties have been in a declining state in recent political evolution and has provoked numerous discussions/arguments whether the political parties have been indeed in such a state or whether they have been simply restructuring their organisational and/or ideological principles to withstand certain challenges. Several theories were introduced/developed in the recent years so as to distinguish the “ideal” behavioural type of political party development. The most renowned “ideal” party types are the cadre party type, the mass party type (Duverger, 1954) and the catch-all party type (Kirchheimer, 1966). Nevertheless, a recent theory regarding party types proposed initially by Richard Katz and Peter Mair (1995) was the “Cartel Party” which also drew a lot of academic interest. The “Cartel Party” is a new model of political party development suggested by Richard Katz & Peter Mair (1995) as the last decades the electoral support and partisanship levels have been decreasing substantially, while voter volatility increased; thus political parties began to seek state subsidies and other much needed resources directly through the state, in order to secure “control” of the electoral rules, subsidies from the state and the media as well. Concomitantly, political parties allegedly employ their domination power to even “control” which new political parties may join the “cartel”, and which are left out of the equation. However, this new prospect within the political parties’ mechanism, ultimately alters their organisational and ideological principles, thus in this way give rise to the so-called “Cartel Parties”. In short, the theory of Cartelisation over the political parties suggested by Katz & Mair propose that political parties progre...
According to the Party Politics in America book, the major American parties are composed of three interacting parts. They are the party organization, which includes party leaders and the activists who work for party causes and candidates; the party in the government which is composed of men and women who run for and hold public office on the party’s label; and the party in the electorate are those citizens who express an attachment to the party. (Party Politics in America book)
In the Divide, Drucker identifies two important periods that have drastically changed our dominant political creed. He mentions that the century has begun in 1776 with the ‘Wealth of Nations’ by Adam Smith and that ten years after 1873, the great liberal parties that had marched under the banners of ‘progress’ and ‘enlightenment’ all over the west were in retreat and disarray ( Drucker 1989, p 4). He said that the European Continent immediately split into Marxist socialist and anti-Semitic socialist that both were equally anti-capitalist, and hostile to free markets and ‘bourgeois democracy’ (Drucker 1989, p 5). Drucker says that this paradigm- shift changed our political perspective in the 19 century by letting “Marxist socialist become the single largest party in every major continental European country, in France and Italy, in Germany, Austria, and even though officially suppressed in tsarist Russia”( Drucker 1989, p 6).
Consequently a bigger party will shape the organization and the minority gathering will outline the limitation, and coalitions of the lesser party are possible. The Two-party structure has purposes of intrigue and hindrances they contain. Two-party systems have been denounced over the top viewpoints, and putting a minute feeling on practical issues inside a nation. The two-party system doesn’t give enough choices since only two choices are permitted on the ticket. To continue the negative outcomes of having a two party government is that the major parties objective are aimed towards grabbing or holding power, as opposed to improving the advancement of the population good. Ware stated, “…parties provide a variety of opportunities for individuals politicians to pursue their own goals, whether those goals be advancing,” It has just made captivated parties that are just keen on their own agenda. (Ware,
Throughout the years, American politics have changed from no real party affiliation, to recognizing multiple parties, but today, we focus on two. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party; each with its own sets of ideals and views on policy, many Americans follow the party footsteps to the legislation door, and then to the voting booths. Americans have strong party identity and seem to majorly vote accordingly. Political scientists and analysts alike can debate for days about rather our current two party system is beneficial or detrimental to American Society.
There are different divisions in society, but Lipset-Rokkan has defined four fundamental cleavages for Western civilization. According to them, these divisions have determined the emergence and the content of many political parties, especially in Europe. With the emergence of two revolutions, the national revolution and the industrial revolution, different social divisions related to the division of parties and electoral behavior were