(4) What is the function of a political party?

(4) What is the function of a political party?

1. Representation

   • Primary funation of a political party
   • Parties link government to the people by responding to and articulating public opinion
   • The major UK parties are therefore "catch-all parties"
     • A party that develops polices that will appeal to the widest range of voters, by contrast with a programmatic party
   • Parties translate public opinion into government policy
   • The effectiveness of parties in ensuring representation has also been questioned
     • The electorate is not always well-informed and rational in choosing between parties. Factors such as a party's image and the personality of leaders maybe important as its policies
     • The "first-past-the-post" election system, means that parties may only need the suport of 35-40% of the electoate to win a GE

2. Policy formulation

   • Political parties are one of the key means through which societies set collective goals and formulate public policy
   • In the process of seeking power, parties develop programmes of government
     • Party forums
     • Annual conferences
     • Election manifestos
   • Not only does this mean that parties often initiate policy, but they also formulate coherent sets of policy options that give the electorate a choice of realistic and achievable goals
   • The effectiveness of parties in formulating polices has also been questioned
     • As the major parties distance themselves from their tradtional ideologies, they have becoem less interested in formulating larger goals for society, and generally less interested in ideas
     • Parties have become more eager to follow public opinion than trying to shape it by adopting clear ideological stances

3. Recuitment of leaders

   • All senior political careers start with the decision to join a political party
   • As a party member, a budding politician can gain experience of canvassing, debating issues and helping to run a constituency party
   • Parties recuit and train the politcal leaders of the future
   • The effectiveness of parties in recruiting and training the leaders has also been questioned
     • As government are appointed from the ranks of the majority party in the Commons, they rely on a relatively small pool of talent
     • Electioneering and other party activites may be poor training for running a large government department

4. Organization of government

   • The operation of government relies on parties in many ways:
     • Parties help to form governments, meaning that the UK effectively has a system of "party government"
     • Parties give government a degree of stability and coherence, especially as the members of the government are usally drawn from a single pparty and are therefore united by common sypathies and attachments
     • Facilitate cooperation between the two major branches of government and Parliament and the executive
     • Provide a source of opposition and criticism, helping to scrutinize government policy and provide a "governmnent in waiting"
   • The effectiveness of parties in organizing government has also been questioned
     • The decline in party unity since the 1970s has tended to weaken the majority party's control of the Commons

5. Participation and mobilization

   • Political parties foster participation in two ways:
     • Provide opportunities for citizens to join political parties and therefore help to shape policy and government policy
     • Help to educate and mobilize the electorate through a range of activities - canvassing, public meeting, advertising and poster campaigns, party broadcasts..
   • Parties are at the heart of electoral machines, operating though the building up of loyalty and identification amongst the electorate
   • The effectivness of parties in ensuring participation and mobilization had also been questioned
     • Voters loyalty towards, and identification with, parties has declined. Whereas 44% of voters claimed to have a "very strong" attachment to a party in 1964, this had fallen to a mere 10% by 2005 though the process of partisan dealignment
     • Turnout in GE has fallen sharply since 1997, with only 59% voting in 2001, the lowest turnout since 1918
     • The membership of parties in the UK has fallen- from over 3 million in the 1960s to around 800,000 in the early 2000s