Characteristics of political parties
The concept of political party has a geographical and historical meaning:
- Geographical because it has been exported from Western experience as a necessary instrument of political modernization. Historically, the term party has been referred to in relation to institutions such as the Roman Senate, medieval city-states, revolutionary France, etc.
These characteristics make any general analysis impossible. Therefore, the concept of analysis and attention to political parties that participate in competitive elections is defined in order to make their candidates access representative public offices; taking as the main reference the countries included within the Anglo-Saxon democracy since the second half of the 19th century.
Nature and role of political parties
The nature and role of political parties is difficult to define.
- First, the nature of the party differs according to its relations with the other parties and the party system; second, a party differs according to its relations with the different institutions of the political system as a whole; third, parties differ according to their relationships with the social sphere. Fourth, it depends on the level at which it is studied. Fifth, they also differ according to the period of historical development in which they are.
What is a party system?
A party system is the result of the interactions that result from electoral political competition. It is not only the sum of the parties that compose it, but something more complex that requires an autonomous analysis. Finally, it must be emphasized that a party as an individual unit is always within a system that is pre-existing to it. It is necessary to establish what are the different models of interaction and the characteristics that identify it, there are different ways and approaches for this.
How to identify the characteristics of a political party?
Genetic approach
It analyzes the processes through which party systems develop and crystallize in a specific concrete configuration. The processes are related to the set of political-social fractures or lines of rupture that arise from the historical experiences linked to the processes of formation of the national states.
The dimensions of this conflict are basically two:
- A territorial dimension where the conflict poles are the central state with the periphery, and within the national elites that occur in the center. The second dimension has a functional character, in this dimension one pole is the conflict over economic resources and their distribution, the other pole conflicts between moral principles and over the views and interpretations of history.
Stein Rokkan has identified some major fractures in European political development:
- The first opposes the dominant culture of the political elites of the new states with the resistance of particular peripheral groups. The second fracture is related to the conflicts between the state and the Church, which concern ecclesiastical control over social life. The third opposes the Emerging urban commercial and industrial interests, to agrarian and peasant interests. The Fourth Rift opposes industrial workers with proprietary labor providers. The last critical phase is that between communism and socialism, seen as the confrontation between integration in nation states. against support for the international revolutionary movement.
Naturally, a genetic scheme is not necessarily rigid and in the analysis of the cases it is seen how the cleavages intersect and vary in the basic configuration of the party system. The comparative analysis reveals that the lines of rupture such as class or religious lines are politicized to a greater or lesser extent according to the countries.
Morphological approach
In this approach, a very important criterion is the number of units that interact. This gives information on the relationship between concentration and dispersal of power and especially on the greater or lesser complexity of their interactions. In this sense we have mono-party systems, two-party systems and other multi-party systems. The two-party system and the electoral competition between two parties with governmental ambitions have been considered as desirable models; In contrast, another model characterized by competition between a large number of parties is mentioned, which gives rise to post-electoral consultations in search of political stability and therefore there are alternatives not directly determined by the vote of the voters. However, it is likely that the positive or negative assessment has been exaggerated,especially from the institutionalist school, which has been based on one model or another.
Another important analysis perspective is the Duverger classification that classifies the parties according to their potential governmental role, distinguishes parties with a majority vocation (large), medium parties and minor parties. In addition, other schemes have been developed (Rokkan, Lijphart, Rae, etc).
These efforts have produced further distinctions in the already broad and heterogeneous category of multipartism, distinguishing various possible levels of fragmentation and different configurations of distribution of forces with important implications for the dynamics of the party system. However, the problem of how to count the number of important parties remains, the criterion of the electoral dimension as the basis for assessing their relevance is not enough.
For Sartori there are some qualitative criteria to assess when a minor party can be considered irrelevant.
- The first criterion is whether it continues to be superfluous over time; the second, a match is relevant if its presence influences the competition tactics of the other matches.
On the other hand, the classic distinction between bi-party and multiparty has been subjected to criticism, and the expansion of research in comparative politics has brought to light that not all multiparty systems have similar modes of operation, leading to the need to combine the criterion numerical with other functional elements, new dimensions of analysis have been introduced that refer to the capacity of partisan political elites to develop attitudes of cooperation, compromise and negotiation while maintaining the support of the respective organized subcultures, calling them consociative democracies.
Sartori proposes a qualitative distinction based on the ideological distance that separates the competing parties. It translates into two types of multiparty systems, the moderate and the polarized; the first with a low average number of parties with little ideological distance, the polarized one has a high number of highly polarized parties. Sartori has added a third type, the predominant party system, which is where a single party for an extended period of time holds the absolute majority of seats in parliament.
Competition model
This model emphasizes competition in the "political market" between parties and leaders who appear as businessmen who rationally calculate their strategies for maximizing votes, choosing programs for this purpose. Voters are the consumers who choose the parties through voting, valuing the proximity to their own political positions.
The analogy with the economy reaches a model in which parties and voters are deprived of any extra-rational link and full information on the voter is assumed. The central theme of this approach in his initial proposal is revealed in unrealistic practice. Most of the voters, in this sense, are not rational, and are not fully informed either.
A second issue of the spatial approach presents more serious problems: to what extent is it realistic to maintain that the different party units compete on a single political dimension? Many data seem to suggest that the dimensions of competition in any party system are plural, the same reflection on the genetic break lines leads to conclusions in this direction. In general, it is argued that among the different dimensions, one has a dominant character for partisan competition, and therefore is the only one significant for the dynamics of the system.
Other elements that characterize party systems
For the characterization of party systems, more important than coalition theory itself are the modes of operation of the party system in relation to the objective of adding majorities and government coalitions.
From this point of view some general situations can be distinguished:
- The first is the alternation of power between two parties or blocs. The second is semi-alternation, that is, a only partial replacement. The third is defined as peripheral replacement, that is, the continuous permanence of some parties and the replacement of the peripheral allies that determine the change from one government to another. The fourth coalition model is where all the parties, or at least the main ones, can enter into coalitions with any of the other parties without any privileged or blocked alignments (Belgium). The fifth is the grand coalition, where there is a very high electoral force clearly superior to that necessary for the absolute majority. Finally, the sixth,where only one party is in a position to obtain a majority of the seats and is faced with a group of parties that only by allying themselves together can hope to achieve a majority, a situation that is politically very complex and difficult to achieve.
The advancement of the typological analysis of party systems in the sense of assessing their nature, their impact on other institutions and their functioning goes through an integration of these three approaches in that the variables that each of them has in relief influence each other respectively..
Bibliography
Political Science Manual. Stefano Bartolini. -Chapter 6- Editorial Alliance, 1996.
