Political party
A
political party is a
political organization subscribing to a certain
ideology or formed around very special issues. In
party-list proportional representation, parties (and sometimes multi-party cartels) can play a functional role in the
voting system. Political parties often play a leading role in
political campaigning.
A
partisan is a member of a party, especially one who espouses and defends the party's values and/or
platform, and also sometimes contributes efforts that benefit the party.
Partisanship is when partisan politicians spar against other partisan politicians (in another party) in the conduct of a
legislative process. Extreme partisanship is referred to as
partisan warfare.
Single-party, two-party, and multi-party governments
\nIn single-party states, only one political party is legally allowed to hold effective power. Although minor parties may sometimes be allowed, they are legally required to accept the leadership of the dominant party. This party may not always be, however, identical to the government, although sometimes positions within the party may be in fact more important than positions within the government.
In one party dominant states, opposition parties are allowed, but are widely considered to have no real chance of gaining power. Often, the dominant party will remain in power by using patronage and sometimes by voting fraud. Examples of one party dominant states include the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, the People's Action Party in Singapore. Also, one party dominant systems existed in Mexico with the Institutional Revolutionary Party until the 1990's, and in the southern United States with the Democratic Party from the 1800s until the 1970s.
Two-party systems are states such as the United States and Jamaica in which there are two dominant political parties, with extreme difficulty for anybody to achieve electoral success under the banner of any other party. In two party states political parties are traditionally catch all parties which are ideologically broad and inclusive. One right wing coalition party and one left wing coalition party is the most common ideological breakdown in such a system. The relationship between the voting system used and the two-party system was described by Maurice Duverger and is known as Duverger's Law.
Multi-party systems are systems in which there are multiple parties.
In nations such as Canada and the United Kingdom, there may be two strong parties, with a third party that is electorally successful. The party may frequently come in second place in elections and poses a threat to the other two parties, but has still never formally held government.
In some rare cases, the nation may have an active three-party system, in which all three parties routinely hold top office. It is very rare for a country to have more than three parties who are all equally successful, and all have an equal chance of independently forming government.
More commonly, in cases where there are numerous parties, no one party often has a chance of gaining power, and parties must work with each other to form coalition governments.
Parties and directions
\nPolitical parties are often considered on a political spectrum. One typical spectrum has the Left associated with radical or progressive policies and the Right with conservative or reactionary policies. Other analyses include other dimensions such as the political parties' acceptance of parliamentary democracy as opposed to authoritarian or totalitarian attitudes, and economic policies, the Left favoring social-democracy, socialism or communism, while the Right tends to favor laissez-faire economics. Centrist parties often adopt a collection of policies that defy easy placing on the political spectrum.
Many parties will have (formal or informal) factions within them that have differing views on policy direction.
Colors and emblems for parties
\nGenerally speaking, over the world, political parties associate themselves with colors, primarily for identification, especially for voter recognition during elections. Red usually signifies leftist, communist or socialist parties; pink sometimes signifies socialist. Conservative and Christian democratic parties generally use blue. Yellow is often used for liberalism. Green is the color for green parties and Islamic parties. Brown is generally associated with fascist or neofascist parties, going back to the Nazi Party's brownshirt security guards.
There are notable exceptions and variations: \n*In Canada, the official colour for the New Democratic Party is orange, while the Liberal Party of Canada uses red, the Conservative Party of Canada uses blue, and the Bloc Quebecois uses light blue.\n*In Belgium, the Liberal Democrats (VLD and MR) are blue and the Christian Democrats (CD&V and CDH) are orange. \n*In the Netherlands, conservative Liberals (VVD) are blue, Liberal Democrats (D66) use green as well as the Christian Democrats.\n*In Northern Ireland, the Protestant parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly are called the "orange block" and the Catholic parties are the "green block".\n*In the rest of the UK where electoral rosettes are commonly worn for cmapaigns, the Conservatives used dark blue, Labour red and the Liberal Democrats yellow. With many other smaller parties choosing their own colour schemes, Independents unsuprisingly use white. Notably the single issue UK Independence Party has chosen to use the non-alligned colour purple with yellow.\n*In Taiwan, the New Party uses yellow as its party color though its policies are conservative; Democratic Progressive Party uses green though its international alignment is with the Liberal International and not the Green parties. \n* In the United States, the (currently) conservative Republican Party is red, and the (currently) liberal Democratic Party is blue, stemming from southern Texas ballots helping illiterate voters in late 19th century and early 20th century thus colored [1]. Quite confusingly, however, electoral maps for Presidential elections are produced by the U.S. government with these colors reversed. For example, see U.S. presidential election, 1992. Nevertheless, the news media tends to use red for Republicans and blue for Democrats. The color green is often used for the Green Party.\n* In Germany, the Social Democrats are traditionally branded red while the conservative Christian Democrats are black. The Liberal party is yellow, and the Greens are unsurprisingly green.\n*In Australia, the Australian Labor Party will typically use red, and the Liberal Party of Australia typically blue. The Australian Greens use green, while a green-and-gold combination is used both by the National Party of Australia and the Australian Democrats.
Color associations are useful for mnemonics when voter illiteracy is significant. Another use case is when it is not desirable to make rigorous links to parties, particularly when coalitions and alliances are formed between political parties and other organizations, for example: Red Tory, "Purple" (Red-Blue) alliances, Red-Green Alliances, Blue-Green Alliances, Pan-green coalitions, and Pan-blue coalitions.
The emblem of Socialist Parties is often a red rose held in a fist.
See also: Political colour
International organizations of political parties
\nDuring the 20th century, many national political parties organized themselves into international organizations along similar policy lines. Notable examples are the International Workingmen's Association, the Socialist International (both red), the Liberal International (yellow), and the International Democrat Union (blue). Worldwide green parties have recently established the Global Greens. The Socialist International, the Liberal International, and the International Democrat Union are all based in London.
See also
\n*List of political parties
External links
\n* Political parties around the world\n* Political resources on the net
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