POLI 410 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Liberal Democracy, Elections Canada, Absolute Monarchy
15 Jun 2018
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POLI410 What is a Political Party Lecture Notes
What is a political party?
- Connection between, candidates, platforms, and the electoral machine
- A more recent phenomenon
- Often treated parties as a single actor
o Where internal politics played no rule
- Though to be connected to Western liberal democracies
- Parties as a marker for the development of western liberal democracies in developing
countries
- Contested
o Have a few basic functions
▪ Recruitment
• And election of policy holders
▪ Interest articulation
• Bundling of ideas and conference work
• Articulation of values and connection of values ad individual
policies
▪ Political socialization
• Persuasion
• Engage and try to influence citizens in line with their political and
cultural ideology
• So far, Liberal most influential – how its policies affect our
ideology, eg. Multi-culturalism
- Even absolute monarchies now have political parties
- Canada’s politial parties defined y Eletions At
o Elections Canada: political parties is an organization, one of its fundamental
purpose is to participate in public affairs through endorsement of candidates
- All these claims are contested as well as their relationship with one another
- Also a normative question, not only descriptive
o Should it mediate the government and the governed?
o All about elections?
o Do they exist to promote ideas no matter how controversial it is? obligation to
limit certain forms of speech?
o Tools to access government? Or does it serve a larger interest?
- Certain advantages
o Enables citizens to participate cohesively, based on broad value and policy
o Bring fracture and diverse groups of people together under one banner
o Provides continuant in electoral system
o Parties participate in encouraging people to participate in politics
Party Organization (Katz and Mair 1993)
- Three Faces
find more resources at oneclass.com
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1. Party in public office
a. First form of organization and only applies to parties in government
b. Dominated by those with the party who they themselves have be successful in
elections
c. Depend on continued electoral success to continue their positions
d. Outward symbol of success for the party
e. Huge benefits to being the party in office
f. Social privilege and capital
g. Policy reward – able to pursue their own policy objective
h. More likely to see compromise to incremental movement to a certain goal, while
opposition sees it as a retreat from a position
i. Constraints: its ultimate success is not in their own making but in the hands of
the voters
i. Attentive to electorate and public opinion
ii. Have to be able to provide resources for successful campaigns
j. More likely to be made of electoral elites
2. Party on the ground
a. Loosely taken to be regular activists, financial supporters, loyal voters
b. Voluntary membership and permanence and regulatory: - this is what makes the
heart of the movement
c. Benefits to local activist and party member
i. Civic functions for their members and may conquer status
ii. Some kind of patronage to be a loyal activist
iii. (1) They want to push their policy and preferences but also (2) symbolic
reason of solidarity – a performative aspect
iv. gain access to the resources of larger party
d. can organize labour – crucial to campaigning
e. filling local positions like advisory board, has money and votes, more so that the
other two faces of the movement
f. brings local knowledge to the movement
g. ut they’re not the party in office
h. voluntarism is very fickle, can change across time
3. Party central office
a. Located in national capital
b. Two overlapping groups of people
i. National executive committee
ii. Central party staffer secretariat
c. Functions
i. The nucleolus where the other two faces of the movement are formed
ii. May be the core of activists that go out into the country to organize
elections
iii. But also coordinate elections
iv. Serves basic functions for the party – press, policy research → More
efficient fundraising organizations
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Poli410 what is a political party lecture notes. Connection between, candidates, platforms, and the electoral machine. Often treated parties as a single actor: where internal politics played no rule. Though to be connected to western liberal democracies. Parties as a marker for the development of western liberal democracies in developing countries. Contested: have a few basic functions, recruitment, and election of policy holders. Even absolute monarchies now have political parties. Canada"s politi(cid:272)al parties defined (cid:271)y ele(cid:272)tions a(cid:272)t: elections canada: political parties is an organization, one of its fundamental purpose is to participate in public affairs through endorsement of candidates. All these claims are contested as well as their relationship with one another. How they maintain position and to what end. In theory, relationship between part on the ground and in office is symbiotic, but in practice most power is in central office: eg.
