Political Science 1020E Lecture Notes - Lecture 99: Harvey Mansfield, Nuclear Umbrella, Social Inequality

• School: Western University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: Political Science 1020E
• Professor: Charles Jones

Document Summary

In this lecture, we discover that political scientists discuss not just parties, but also party systems. The concept of party system refers not to parties in isolation, but to the patterns of interaction that become established amongst parties competing for power within a political system. We categorize party systems based on the number of parties, the size of the parties, and their degree of moderation or radicalism. The key is that, once identified, the party system helps to explain important outcomes. Now, a one-party system is not really a party system, as one party means no inter-party interactions. But we can usefully note that this type of arrangement enables the party to make the state do it(cid:495)s bidding. A dominant party system is based on the leading party(cid:495)s ideological viewpoint; and (cid:523)b(cid:524) since competition does indeed a system, as multiple parties do compete, though one does routinely win elections.