political parties

Question 1

what can political parties provide society?

Answer 1

• address and represent social cleavages
• recruit and socalise the political elite providing opporunties for everyone to get into politics
• mobilisation of the masses (like labour and working classes to strike)
• link between ruler and ruled
• organises democracy to work within society

Question 2

how have political party models developed?

Answer 2

• oringially promoted interests of elite
• early 20th centruy began to represent large social groups
• 1950s catch all parties wanting to gain office not worried about representing social cleavages
• 1970s cartel parties to get their leaders into power to avoid prosecution
• 1970s anti-cartel parteis wanted eleite out
• businesss firm; business men using politics to futher career

Question 3

how can political parties be good for democracy?

Answer 3

• allow for mass political involvement
• competion between elites stops it from getting violent
• policy c-ordination to act in the publics interest
• political stability brinign groups together to form common policy limting instability between groups

Question 4

what is the responsible party governemnt model of democracy?

Answer 4

• parties willl produce rival manifestos displaying their policies on immigration and health which citizens pick the one that best fits their views

people dont just vote along party line they vote who is relevant to them by juding how effective they have been in the past and if they have delivied on promises

voting along cleavages dissapearing and people are voting on a ration choice cost v benefit

Question 5

how can political parties be bad for democracy?

Answer 5

• representing elite intersts
• only proote on part of the general will of the public
• leads to polarisation in society
• since 1970s cartel parteis have captured the state to protect their own interests rather than socities
• parties can prevent MPs from representing their constituents due to whips

Question 6

who created the cleavage model?

Answer 6

lipset and rokkan 1967

Question 7

what is the cleavage model?

Answer 7

the idea that particlar social groups vote based on their social group

there are parties that exclusivley represent each one and rely on enough of that group to vote for them to win with no attempt to cross social lines

no compomisig on thier policies to win office they just represent their social group

Question 8

who created the strategic model?

Answer 8

downs 1957

Question 9

what is the strategic model?

Answer 9

parties dont represent a social group, instead they are fromed by like minded politicans to represent their interests

not interestsed in the electorate’s votes and dont want members or they will have to listen to them

appeal to pivitol vote or median voters not a particalr class

all they want is office so they will change thier policy to fit what the average voter is thinking to win

Question 10

what predictions does the cleavage model make?

Answer 10

• if there is only working class there will be 2 parties
• if there are more social cleages such as class and religion you will have 3 parties
• if you have meany cleavages you will have a multiparty system like belgium

Question 11

how have old cleavages changes over time?

Answer 11

traditionally he ‘party families’ were:
- a social democratic or socialist party for the working class
- a liberal party for the middle class
- a conservative party for the aristocracy
(and potentially agrarian or cristian democratic)

however how ‘party families’ have developed due to new cultural cleaveges and multi dimentional debaes between values in the market
- green party
- radical right

Question 12

what is the measurement to count how many parties are present in a political system?

Answer 12

the effective number of parties index created by loakaso and taaerpera

Question 13

why have multi-party systems developed across the globe?

Answer 13

number of parties in westen countries have increased due to systems that favour coalitions. there is usually a party in these calitions which is a kingmaker who gets a lower amount of voters but is needed to from coalition

Question 14

how can it be argued that all parties are becoming the same?

Answer 14

or example in 2010 lib dem and conservatives have relatively the same ideas

Question 15

how can it be argues parties are moving further apart?

Answer 15

political parties are moving further away from the centure either bring populist on the right or left to portect their own ideas and social cleavges
(ex marie la pen and nigel farage)

Question 16

why may parties not converge in the midle?

Answer 16

• people still feel tied to socia cleavages
• threat of competion, moving towards the centre parties may loose voter base (can be seen by cmerons tory party referendum)

depends on how leaders are elected
- if they are chosen in party pirmaries they will be closer to the median party member than edian overall overs (ex liz truss) than if they are chosen by a general elections

Question 17

what 3 ways do political scientists measure where a party is located on the horse shoe?

Answer 17

1) formulation of manfiestos
- looking at manifestos over a long time to see f a party is trying to move away from trditonal cleavage

2) interview experts
people who have previously been imortant to the party ask them if it has moved or not?

3) analyse parliametnry votes
- comapre how the electorate votes in elections as to how representative fo social cleavages electoral outcomes are

Question 18

what is stategic polarisation? and give an example

Answer 18

when a party converges to the median voter to undermine their main opponent and gain votes

blair’s new labour
- got rid of cleave V to converge to attract the middle classes
- after loosing 4 electiosn needed to appeal to the conservatives voter base to gain votes
- worked as in 1997 won on a landslide

Question 19

what knock on effect did blair’s strategic polarisation have on british politics?

Answer 19

• turnout in Uk elected declined substaintally under blair as both parteis were chasing the same sothern mmiddle class ma so other social groups felt un-represented
• working class voters voed to UKIP or tories deimantling the cleavage model

Question 20

mainstream v neiche parties

Answer 20

another way to classsify parties and their strategies is by identifying if they are a mainstream or neche party (elrow et al)

Question 21

what are qualities of a mainstream party?

Answer 21

• votes and office seeking
• provide soloution to many issues
• leadserhip based
• appeal to many groups
• wiling to entre coalitions and adopt more centerist platforms to gain office

Question 22

what are qualities of neiche parties

Answer 22

• policy seeking
  -focusing on one or two core issues
• gras roots activist based with a narrow support base
• often not willing to cooperate with other parties

Question 23

case study of denmark and the power of nieche parties: facts

Answer 23

strategic de-polarisaion of mainstream parteis driven by neiche parties:

• triggerd by an anti immigration and asylum act (danish alie act) put forward by right win leaders in which the media ran with framing aslyum seekers rather than politicasn are being a probelm

up until this point more governemtn were formed by social democrats but after most governemtn were formed by the centre right who were a neiche party

Question 24

case study of denmark: why did this happen?

Answer 24

• the danish peoples party went hard on anti-immigration and that daish culture was under threat which became a salinet issue in the media
• mainsteam parteis started to polarise on this cultural dimention to ‘prtect danish cultures and undermie the danish peoples party (the neiche party)

this led to a resahping of political landscape
showinf how no matter how small neiche parteis are they can ahve a highy destabilising affect on political stragies of thier mainstream oppponents

Question 25

why parties may not converge

Answer 25

1) social clavages
2) threat of competition from other parties ex people voting tory becuase the labour party is too centrist
3) multiple dimentions
4) depends how party leaders are chosen. if they are chosen by party members like lizz truss was then they are less likely to be centrist

Question 26

aldrich defintion

Answer 26

political parties coaltions of elites to capture and sue plitical office

Question 27

burke defintion

Answer 27

a body of men who want to promote the national interest