Page 244 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Unit 10: Party System

intermediary which links social forces and ideologies to official governmental institutions and relates Notes
them to political action within the larger political community.”
Such a view of political party makes it hardly distinguishable from a pressure or an interest group. A
‘specific interest’ may constitute the foundation of a political party. Thus, differences between or
among political parties may be sought on the basis of specific interests. For this reason, Dean and
Schuman observe that political parties have become essentially political institutions to implement
the objectives of interest groups.” A similar vein may be discovered in the interpretation of Grotty
who says: “A political party is a formally organised group that performs the functions of educating
the public.... that recruits and promotes individuals for public office, and that provides a comprehensive
linkage functions between the public and governmental decision-makers.”
But basically different from the English and American views is the Marxist view on the theme of
political party as elaborated by Lenin. Here a political party is taken as a ‘vanguard’ of the social class
whose task is to create class consciousness and then to prepare the proletariat for a bloody and
violent revolution. Every party is a class organisation. The ‘bourgeois’ parties of whatever name
have their vested interest in the maintenance of the status quo, but the party of the workers (communist
party) has its aim at the overthrow of the existing system and its substitution by a new system in
which power would be in the hands of the working class and the society under the rule of this party
would be given a classless character so as to eventuate into a stateless pattern of life in the final stage
of social development. As Lenin says: “The communist party is created by means of selection of the
best, most classconscieres, most self-sacrificing and far—sighted workers.....The communist party is
the lever of political organisation, with the help of which the more progressive part of the working
class directs on the right path the whole of proletariat and the semi-proletariat along the right road.”
It is true that political parties grew as a faction in the early modern age, but now a distinction between
the two is made.
Opposed to this, party is a respectable term. Its members take part in the struggle for power on the
basis of some definite policies and programmes and they observe the sanctity of constitutional means.
So it is said that while “a party acts by counting heads, a faction acts by breaking heads.” But parties
are ‘specialised associations’ and they become more complex, organised and bureaucratic as a society
approaches the modem type.”

Faction is a bad term, because its members take part in disruptive and dangerous
activities so as to paralyse the working of a government.

Definition of Political Parties
Group of persons organised to acquire and exercise political power. Formal political parties originated
in their modern form in Europe and the U.S. in the 19th century. Whereas mass-based parties appeal
for support to the whole electorate, cadre parties aim at attracting only an active elite; most parties
have features of both types. All parties develop a political programme that defines their ideology and
sets out the agenda they would pursue should they win elective office or gain power through extra
parliamentary means. Most countries have single-party, two-party, or multiparty systems. In the
U.S., party candidates are usually selected through primary elections at the state level. Political system
in which individuals who share a common set of political beliefs organise themselves into parties to
compete in elections for the right to govern. Single-party systems are found in countries that do not
allow genuine political conflict. Multiparty and two-party systems represent means of organising
political conflict within pluralistic societies and are thus indicative of democracy. Multiparty systems
allow for greater representation of minority viewpoints; since the coalitions that minority parties
must often form with other minority parties to achieve a governing majority are often fragile, such
systems may be marked by instability.

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