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A political party is a political organization that seeks to attain political power within a government, usually by participating in electoral campaigns. Parties often espouse a certain ideology and vision, but may also represent a coalition among disparate interests.

Contents 1 Definitions 2 Party systems 3 Party funding 4 Colors and emblems for parties 5 International organizations of political parties 6 References 7 Bibliography 8 See also 9 External links

In political science several definitions of political parties exists. Traditionally political scientists have focused on the role of political parties as instruments of promoting candidacies in elections to public office. Crotty defines political parties as:

"A political party is a formally organized group that performs the functions of educating the public to acceptance of the system as well as the more immediate implications of policy concerns, that recruits and promotes individuals for public office, and that provides a comprehensive linkage function between the public and governmental decisionmakers."

^[1]

Similarly, according to Coleman a political party is:

"an association that competes with other similar associations in periodic elections in order to participate in formal government institutions and thereby influence and control the personnel and policy of government."

^[1] However, not all political scientists agree that participation is the defining criteria of political parties. Neuman utilizes a broader definition, that political parties are

"the articulate organization of society's active political agents, those who are concerned with the control of governmental power and who compete for popular support with another group or groups holding divergent views."

^[2]

Moreover, in many countries political parties predates elections and universal suffrage.

Suryadinata notes that in non-Western societies, standard Western definitions of political parties have limited usage. He urges that the criteria for should be the functions of an organization should be the essential aspect and that an organization might have the functions of a political party without formally identifying itself as a political party.^[3]

In a nonpartisan system, no official political parties exits, or the law does not permit political parties. In nonpartisan elections, each candidate is eligible for office on her or his own merits. In nonpartisan legislatures, there are no typically formal party alignments within the legislature. The administration of George Washington and the first few sessions of the US Congress were nonpartisan. Washington also warned of political parties during his farewell address. ^[4] The unicameral legislature of Nebraska is the only state government body that is nonpartisan in the United States today. Many city and county governments are nonpartisan. In Canada, the territorial legislatures of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are nonpartisan. Nonpartisan elections and modes of governance also exist outside of state institutions, an important model of which is found in the practice of Baha'i administration.^[5] Unless there are legal prohibitions against political parties, factions within nonpartisan systems often evolve into political parties.

In single-party systems, 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 identical to the government, although sometimes positions within the party may in fact be more important than positions within the government. Communist states such as China are some of the examples.

In dominant-party systems, opposition parties are allowed, and there may be even a deeply established democratic tradition, but other parties are widely considered to have no real chance of gaining power. Sometimes, political, social and economic circumstances, and public opinion are the reason for others parties' failure. Sometimes, typically in countries with less of an established democratic tradition, it is possible the dominant party will remain in power by using patronage and sometimes by voting fraud. In the latter case, the definition between Dominant and single-party system becomes rather blurred. Examples of dominant party systems include the People's Action Party in Singapore and the African National Congress in South Africa. Also, one party dominant systems existed in Mexico with the Institutional Revolutionary Party until the 1990s, and in the southern United States with the Democratic Party from the 1880s until the 1970s.

Two-party systems are states such as the United States and Jamaica in which there are two political parties dominant to such an extent that electoral success under the banner of any other party is extremely difficult. One right wing coalition party and one left wing coalition party is the most common ideological breakdown in such a system but in two-party states political parties are traditionally catch all parties which are ideologically broad and inclusive. A majority voting election system usually leads to a two-party system. This relationship between the voting system used and the two-party system was described by Maurice Duverger and is known as Duverger's Law.^[6]

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 pose a threat to the other two parties, but has still never formally held government. However in times of minority governments, their support is often necessary to either support or defeat a government which means it can have considerable influence under optimal circumstances.

In some rare cases, such as in Finland, 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 all have a roughly 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. This has been an emerging trend in the politics of the Republic of Ireland and is almost always the case in Germany on national and state level (and often common on communal level, too).

In general, in countries that use proportional representation, a multi-party system is likely.

Some countries have restrictions on political parties, which may include banning them entirely.

Political parties are funded by contributions from their membership and by individuals and organizations which share their political ideas or who stand to benefit from their activities. Political parties and factions, especially those in government, are lobbied vigorously by organizations, businesses and special interest groups such as trades unions. Money and gifts to a party, or its members, may be offered as incentives. In the United Kingdom, it has been alleged that peerages have been awarded to contributors to party funds, the benefactors becoming members of the Upper House of Parliament and thus being in a position to participate in the legislative process. Famously, Lloyd George was found to have been selling peerages and to prevent such corruption in future, Parliament passed the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 into law. Thus the outright sale of peerages and similar honours became a criminal act, however some benefactors are alleged to have attempted to circumvent this by cloaking their contributions as loans, giving rise to the 'Cash for Peerages' scandal. Such activities have given rise to demands that the scale of donations should be capped. As the costs of electioneering escalate, so the demands made on party funds increases. In the UK some politicians are advocating that parties should be funded by the State; a proposition that promises to give rise to interesting debate. Along with the increased scrutiny of donations there has been a long term contraction in party memberships in a number of western democracies which itself places more strains on funding. For example in the United Kingdom and Australia membership of the two main parties in 2006 is less than an 1/8 of what it was in 1950, despite significant increases in population over that period. In Ireland, elected representatives of the Sinn Féin party take only the average industrial wage from their salary as a representative, while the rest goes into the party budget. Other incomes they may have are not taken into account. Elected representatives of the Socialist Party (Ireland) take only the average industrial wage out of their entire earnings.

Some nations, such as Australia, give political parties public funding for advertising purposes during election periods.

Main article: see political colour and List of political party symbols

Generally 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. Conservative parties generally use blue or black.

Pink sometimes signifies moderate socialist. Yellow is often used for libertarianism or classical liberalism. Green is the color for green parties, Islamist parties and Irish nationalist and republican parties in Northern Ireland. Orange is sometimes a color of nationalism, such as in The Netherlands or with Ulster Loyalists in Northern Ireland; it is also a color of reform such as in Ukraine. In the past, Purple was considered the color of royalty (like white), but today it is sometimes used for feminist parties. "Purple Party" is also used as an academic hypothetical of an undefined party, as a centralist party in the United States (because purple is created from mixing the main parties' colours of red and blue) and as a highly idealistic "peace and love" party[1]-- in a similar vein to a Green Party, perhaps. Black is generally associated with fascist parties, going back to Mussolini's blackshirts, but also with Anarchism. Similarly, brown is often associated with the Nazism going back to the Nazi Party's brownshirt security guards.

Color associations are useful for mnemonics when voter illiteracy is significant. Another case where they are used 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.

United States politics diverge from international trends of political colour schemes. Recently in the U.S., with red becoming associated with the conservative Republican Party and blue with the liberal Democratic Party. However, unlike political colour schemes of other countries this is not an issue of self-identification of neither of the two parties. In U.S. politics, all mainstream politician forces tend to use combinations of red-white-blue.^{[citation needed]}

The emblem of socialist parties is often a red rose held in a fist. Communist parties often use a hammer, a sickle, or both. Symbols can be very important when the electorate is overall illiterate. In the Kenyan constitutional referendum, 2005, supporters of the constitution used the banana as their symbol, while the "no" used an orange.

During the 19th and 20th century, many national political parties organized themselves into international organizations along similar policy lines. Notable examples are the International Workingmen's Association (also called the First International), the Socialist International (also called the Second International), the Communist International (also called the Third International), and the Fourth International, as organizations of working class parties, or 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.

• Abizadeh, Arash. 2005. "Democratic Elections without Campaigns? Normative Foundations of National Baha'i Elections." World Order Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 7-49.
• Duverger, Maurice. 1954. Political Parties. London: Methuen.
• Gunther, Richard and Larry Diamond. 2003. "Species of Political Parties: A New Typology," Party Politics, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 167-199.
• Neumann, Sigmund (ed.). 1956. Modern Political Parties. IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Redding, Robert. 2004. Hired Hatred. RCI.
• Sutherland, Keith. 2004. The Party's Over. Imprint Academic. ISBN 0-907845-51-7
• Ware, Alan. 1987. Citizens, Parties and the State: A Reappraisal. Princeton University Press.

• List of politics-related topics
• List of political parties
• Party class
• Particracy (a political regime dominated by one or more parties)
• Political faction (both pre- and within a modern party)
• The Party (politics)
• Duvergerian equilibrium
• Political colour
• List of political party symbols

• U.S. Party Platforms from 1840-2004 at The American Presidency Project: UC Santa Barbara
• Political resources on the net
• Leftist political parties of the world
• Liberals Vs Conservatives Non partisan community where both sides of the fence may enter into debate.

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