POLSCI 140 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Party System, Closed List, Open List
19 Dec 2016
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Chapter 5: Interest Aggregation and Political Parties (75-93)
• Interest aggregation: process by which political demands are combined into policy
programs
• Authoritarian parties mobilize interests to support the gov’t rather than responding
to demands by ordinary citizens or social interests
• Patron-client networks: structures in which a central officeholder or authority
figure, the patron, provides benefits/ patronage to clients in exchange for their
loyalty and support
• Political parties are groups that seek to place candidates in office under their label
• In competitive party systems, parties try to build electoral support
• )n noncompetitive or authoritarian party systems, ruling parties don’t need to worry
about electoral competitors
• The 1st parties were typically internally created; their founders were politicians who
already held seats in a national assembly or other political office; they were
committed to broad constitutional principles, they had loose policy program &
colorful names
• Growth of industrial working class led to formation of socialist, social democratic,
communist, and other worker’s parties
• New left/green parties emerged in late 1960s to champion international peace,
enviro protection, gender equality, minority rights
• Populist right: Forza Italia & National Front; critical of existing parties, favor strict
law and order politics but criticize what they see as politically correct gov’t
intervention in other policy areas; dislike distortions created by welfare states,
oppose large scale immigration, champion national sovereignty & citizenship rights
• Party activists often want policies that are more radical than those that most voters
would prefer
• Autocrats often manipulate elections to legitimatize their gov’t
• Electoral system: rules by which elections are conducted
• Single member district plurality (SMDP) election rule/ first past the post: winner
only needs to finish ahead but doesn’t need majority of the votes
• Majority runoff/ double-ballot: used in France & Russia; first round takes majority
of votes to win, (needs more votes than all other candidates combined); if there is
no majority winner in 1st round, top 2 make it to 2nd round and whoever gets
plurality is elected
• Proportional representation (PR): used by most democracies in Europe & Latin
America, # of representatives a party wins depends on overall proportion of the
votes it receives
• In US voters directly select candidates for office through primary elections
• In most other countries w/SMD elections, party officials select the candidates
• In PR elections, the party draws up a list of candidates for each district; in closed list
PR systems, the elected representatives are drawn from this list in declining order;
in open list voters can give preference votes to individual candidates to decide
which candidates will represent the party in that district
• Duverger’s Law: states that there is a systematic relationship btw electoral systems
and party systems, so that single-member district plurality election systems tend to
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Document Summary
Chapter 5: interest aggregation and political parties (75-93) America, # of representatives a party wins depends on overall proportion of the votes it receives. In us voters directly select candidates for office through primary elections. In most other countries w/smd elections, party officials select the candidates. In pr elections, the party draws up a list of candidates for each district; in closed list. In a conflictual party system, the legislature is dominated by parties that are far apart on issues or are antagonistic towards each other and the political system. In consociational/ accommodative party systems, political leaders seek to bridge party wins a legislative majority and have no tradition of pre-election coalitions. Inclusive governing party: recognizes and accepts some other groups and organizations but may repress those that it sees as a threat decentralization of sensitive decisions to the separate social groups.
