WEEK VIII.

Political parties
Origins: 18
th
century ->French / American revolution =>creations of the political parties
- political parties= a creation of the modern era

A political party is:
-> it is continuous
-> obtaining political power alone or in an coalition
-> obtaining popular support through elections
-> popular, continuous organizations
-> interest to take the power of governing unlike the interest groups that only want to influence
the decision-making process.
-> interest groups are more sincere
-> interest groups never nominate individuals, unlike the political parties

A political party is an organization.

1. DUVERGER:
The party is not a community but a set of communities, a union of small groups documented
and grouped through the society, in sections, committees and local associations, tied together by
coordinated institutions.
Militants ------- > Partisans --------- > Supporters = Voters

2. WEBER:
a set of associative relations with the main task of providing power to a leader an
institutionalized group, in order to accomplish an ideal or to obtain material for the militants.
- common goals, relations, aspirations, necessarily for the society

Political parties as an Ideal:
1. E. BURKE: (1770)
an organized set of individuals unites and united to work together in the name of the national
interest. The vocation of a political man = to find adequate means of his aid and use them
efficiently.

2. Georges BURDEAU:
a group of individuals who, because having the same political types and view, try to adapt
themselves into practice, by gathering a great number of citizens and trying to conquer power or
at least to influence the decisions.


Approaches of the parties through the FUNCTIONS:
1. Raymond ARON:
..the party is organized on a regular and lasting bases of a certain number of individuals, who
want to exercise power, to conquer and to preserve it.

2. Anthony DOWNS:
..a coalition of people who try through legal means to exercise control over power.
- seek to maximize the number of votes they receive -> the maximizers
- party leaders -> seen as political entrepreneurs
- a voluntary association of individuals who share common values and points of view regarding
the governing -> aim = to represent the interests of various groups in an organized society.

Origins:
Genesis = Legislative branch
Duverger: -> internal (inside the parliament)
-> external (outside the parliament)
- established many various institutions already existing and shown into the parliament
- why is a party born? when, who, with whim was the party born? how.

Typologies of parties:
LEFT RIGHT
- interventionalist in the market - free market
- equalitarism, equalitarianism - individualism
- progressive - conservative, traditional
- secular - clerical
- internationalist - nationalist
-> catch all, mass parties, kartel parties

According to their TARGETS:
-> vote seeking parties
-> office seeking parties
-> policy seeking parties

Types of political parties:
liberals, christian democrats , agrarian, socialists, communist parties, extreme right, green parties
(left)
DUVERGER: => mass parties, specialist parties, indirect parties
-> mass - specialist parties
- totalitarian parties (communist, fascist)
-> indirect catholic parties (christian democrat parties)
- social democratic parties
-> specialist - rigid specialist parties (UK)
- subtle specialist parties (USA)

Functions of political parties:
- 2 types of grouping functions:
1. a) the function of elaborating doctrines, ideologies and political programs :
- main ideas
- they have also to elaborate discourses and to appeal to political propaganda
b) exercising power: - they help the progress of the institutions
- national safety and stability
c) controlling and criticizing the legislative and the executive: - opposition parties
2. a) the main origins of political ideas: ideological parties- with major problematical
ideas, defectives problematical parties
- they do sometimes change their points of view if they want an electoral win
b) facilitating the political socialization of individuals inside of a certain political
culture
c) the function of linking the individual to the system
d) mobilizing and recreuting political activists, activants
e) organization and coordinating the governmental actions
f) opposition of parties (multi-parties systems)
- are not allowed to abstract the actions over government

Political systems: multi-party, two party, one party systems, dominant party (one and a half party
system)

Objective Strategies:
Why are elections important?
- elections are those that socialize the political activities
- transform scattered political participation into routine
- they do the socialization process into an institutionalized frame
- elections allow the citizens to win for public functions
- they should make the citizens and institutions aware that they can make and keep their
government legal and
Highest turn out: Australia 94%
-> rating is not mandatory in Austria, Germany, Belgium etc
-> the US = the country with the lowest turn-out (rating vote) -> 45%
-> highest ranking into voting public community problems -> Netherlands (contacting officials)
Germany = first place in attending political reunions -> organized effort to pressure the voters
to choose one of the numerous candidates.

Electoral campaigns:
1. to win elections
2. to organize the elections
US: first to formal intent in campaigning, started in 1920 -> constant condition

3 broad stages:
1. building the base (people have to be recruited)
2. planning and strategy (find a campaign theme, by trying to squeeze as much information
as possible from the voters, issues of people or people)
3. getting the vote itself.