Political Parties
Why do we need political parties?
Explain what political parties do and why democracy needs them.
Everyone knows parties, few trust them. Even people who know nothing about the Constitution usually know about political parties: for many, democracy simply means parties. But being well known is not the same as being liked. People blame parties for much of what goes wrong. So: do we need them at all? About a hundred years ago, few countries had parties; now few do not.
What is a political party? A group of people who join together to fight elections and win power in government. They agree on policies and programmes they believe are good for society, and try to persuade people that their ideas are better than others'. A party stands for one part of society, so it is partisan (it takes a side). It has three parts: leaders, active members and followers.
Seven jobs parties do.
- Contest elections. In the USA, party members and supporters choose the candidates; in India, top leaders choose them.
- Offer policies for voters to choose from: they turn millions of opinions into a few clear positions.
- Make laws. Most members of the legislature belong to a party and follow its leaders' direction.
- Form and run governments. They train leaders and make them ministers.
- Act as opposition when they lose: voicing other views, criticising the government's failures, and rallying people against wrong policies.
- Shape public opinion: they raise issues, and sometimes launch movements.
- Give people access to government offices and welfare schemes. Ordinary people find a local party leader easier to reach than an officer, so parties must listen, or lose the next election.
Imagine a democracy with no parties. Every candidate would be an independent.
- Nobody could promise major policy changes, because one person alone cannot deliver them.
- Each representative would answer only to their own constituency, so nobody would be responsible for how the country is run.
Even in panchayat elections where parties are not allowed, villages split into factions, each putting up a 'panel' of candidates. That is exactly what a party does.
Why parties grew. Parties rose with representative democracy. Big, complex societies need someone to gather people's views and take them to government, to bring representatives together to form a responsible government, and to support or check that government. Parties do all this, so they are a necessary condition for democracy.
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