Page 254 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Unit 10: Party System

Self-Assessment Notes
1. Choose the correct options:
(i) A political party is an institution that
(a) Seeks influence in a state
(b) Attempting to occupy positions in government
(c) Usually consists of more than single interest in the society.
(d) All of these.

(ii) The independent labour party was founded in
(a) 1893 (b) 1894 (c) 1857 (d) 1888
(iii) The National Fascist party was
(a) German party (b) a Canadian party
(c) a Italian party (d) None of these
(iv) Parties act as a check against the tendency of absolutism what is also known as
(a) Caesarism (b) Bonapartism (c) both (a) and (b) (d) None of these

(v) The National Fascist Party ruled Italy from
(a) 1922 to 1943 (b) 1900 to 1930 (c) 1913 to 1947 (d) 1920 to 1950.
10.4 Summary

• A body of men united for promoting the national interest on some particular principles in
which they are all agreed.” Reiterating the same view, Disraeli defined political party as “a
group of men banded together to pursue certain principles.
• “We define a political party generally as the articulate organisation of society’s active political
agents, those who are concerned with the control of governmental powers and who compete
for popular support with another group or group holding divergent views. As such, it is the
great intermediary which links social forces and ideologies to official governmental institutions
and relates them to political action within the larger political community.”
• 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 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.”
• 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.
• Faction is a bad term, because its members take part in disruptive and dangerous activities so
as to paralyse the working of a government.
• 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.
• 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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