Types of political parties pdf

Coalitions are typically formed to maximize the rewards or outcomes to the group and its members. Therefore, most coalitions are comprised of the minimum number of members required to achieve a successful decision. Coalitions tend to be unstable and temporary unless there are philosophical or ideological commonalities that keep the parties together. However, co-optation generally refers to an enduring relationship rather than a temporary alliance of a coalition.

Co-opting occurs, for example, when a sub Unit asks a local critic to join their group and work with them in solving their problems. School systems, hospitals, and other civic organizations use a co-opting strategy of placing influential citizens on their board of directors as a conscious strategy of reducing their uncertainty and minimizing outside criticism. Politics, either in organizations or in government, has a language of its own that is designed to rationalize and justify decisions by using the appropriate symbolic , labels.

Without this legitimization, the exercise of power would be unacceptable and would create resistance. Political actors need to use appropriate language and symbols to generate support when their decisions are made on the basis of power.

Decisions that are largely based on power can often be made to appear as though they resulted from rational decision making. Perhaps the most blatant political strategy is when people directly pursue their goals through persuasion, manipulation, or integration. Persuasion is an overt attempt to influence others by asking for co-operation and by providing information that supports the request. There is no effort to conceal the intentions of the persuader and, for the most part, the information is considered accurate.

There is a difference between persuasion and manipulation. In manipulation, however, the intent of the person is concealed from the other person and critical information is either distorted or withheld to influence the decision. Ingratiation is a form of interpersonal manipulation that is accomplished through flattery and display of sincerity. The most direct form of integration is when person A goes to person B and makes flattering comments.

A more effective strategy is for person A to make flattering comments about person B to someone else who could be expected to report the comments back to person B. See the attributes of government for a similar exercise. Stepping back from single voter issues and policy stances of parties in-action for a second and focusing on the core left-right ideology that generally defines political parties:. Generally, we can look at left-right ideology to see if one party is more left or right than another party, we can then look at what classical type of government they favor, and then look at their basic political philosophy to see if a party is more liberal or conservative or socialist.

With this in mind we can describe the four basic types of political parties as: Classically liberal left in terms of liberty , Socially Liberal left in terms of equality , Classically Conservative right in terms of authority , and Socially Conservative right in terms of favoring traditional social hierarchy over progressive social equality.

Learn more about liberalism and conservatism. Then, parties themselves denote political groups in which those who share stances on single-voter issues, left-right politics, and liberal or conservative values come together under a single name to influence government. The early anti-federalists in America wanted small government, as do libertarians, thus they are examples of classical liberal parties in many respects.

The U. The conservative Tories of the U. The idea is to start simple and then work our way up to the difference between a democratic socialist and a social democrat.

For our purposes ideologies are generally either left or right, liberal or conservative, and classical or social with each denoting a stance on liberty and equality. Simple as that, we can derive most of what we need to know about politics from that simple paradigm. Placing this all in a Basic Left-Right Table that denotes the classical and social forms of liberalism and conservatism it looks like this:.

Thus, we should also consider these ideological factors, many of which very notably affect which single-issue voter factions a parties aligns with, some of which have already noted above :. With that in mind, we can then state the overarching dichotomy that arises from the above factors as:. By placing the above stances in broad categories like left and right, or liberal and conservative, we can get a pretty clear view of any party.

Making the jump from ideological theories to real governments is tricky. We have to consider that:. TIP : Learn about the namesakes of the U. As Thomas Jefferson , the great founder and philosopher, once said describing the fundamental nature of parties and the above dichotomy,.

In every country, these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object.

The last one of Aristocrats [elite republicans, conservative, center right, toward aristocracy] and Democrats [populist republicans, liberal, center left, toward democracy] is the true on expressing the essence of all. ME See also realist vs. Also, see physiological differences in conservatives and liberals. In other words, if we look at the fundamental ideology of political parties and of people, we will see that political beliefs create the parties rather than parties creating political ideology.

Luckily this slightly disturbing truism lends itself to analysis and makes it easy to differentiate the naturally occurring populist and aristocrat parties of any nation or time and allows us to create rock solid theories that work over and over. Below we further examine the political ideologies noted above and then we compare those to the modern and historic British and American political parties. The Political Systems.

This video is on point, but leans toward the libertarian view. TIP : Conservatism is the opposite philosophy to liberalism in many ways. Meanwhile, the basic related forms of government come from the Greeks thinkers in and around the time of Aristotle and Plato. TIP : Some nations use liberal to mean conservative and conservative to mean liberal, and this can happen for a varied of reasons. We use the traditional historical meanings and denote when meanings change.

This will all lead up to a discussion about the modern political parties, but the idea here is to fully examine the core ideology so we understand parties in general else it is just me explaining the difference and similarities between a National Front Party and a Nationalist Socialist Party, where the difference is Socialism, and the similarity Nationalism.

Two major questions underly all political ideology from left-right ideals, to the forms of government , to social contract theory, and to the modern party platforms. They are:. The basic political affiliations that arise from the authority vs. This left-right model with explainers is one way to look at the basic 4 point left-right spectrum. Both classical liberalism and libertarianism are similar ideologies, but different types of each would be placed in different spots on the above chart.

The chart is showing broad terms, and can be illustrated a number of different ways using the same method discussed above. We can center ourselves instead in historical fact. The terms we use above in the chart and below in further descriptions are historical and not based on a modern viewpoint. TIP : The political terms always work best as comparative terms. See the history of liberalism , origin of left-right , social contract theory , and the basic forms of governments for more reading.

All historical and modern political parties can be described by as types of liberal , conservative , and socialist.

Each denotes an array of left-right ideology and is rooted in history specifically the enlightenment and the liberal revolutions. Liberal and conservative groups can be further broken down into either classical or social varieties. L iberal includes both classical liberal and social liberal.

The conservative spectrum includes classical conservative and social conservative. Meanwhile, socialist comes in a range of styles based on how authoritative it is and who it favors. Liberalism , socialism , and conservatism can be further described as:.

Thus we can say a party has democratic attributes, or favors democracy like the original Anti-Federalists and Democrats. Or we can say they have aristocratic attributes like the original Federalists and Republicans. If we want to do a simple two way split, like Jefferson suggests, we can denote two basic groups as populists and elites. On Populist Parties : Populist parties are parties that direct their message at the common citizen and not the elite classes.

They can be despotic or tyrannical , they can be left or right, they can be cronyist and monopolistic , or they can strive to always rule in-line with the general will and focus on civil service. Consider, monarchs can be populist like Lenin, Oliver Cromwell, Julius Caesar, or Napoleon, and conversely rough-and-tumble commoners can technically be aristocratic in their policy and message.

Populism is largely just a reaction to inequality that takes the shape of a political party when there is social unrest. The many heads hurt each other, and the many tails obey a single head which wants to devour everything. See Plato on how democracy becomes tyranny when an oligarchical tyrant arises. On Other Types of Tyranny : There are other types of tyranny that can result from the lack of powers being checked and balanced.

Aristocrats can be despotic or tyrannical, teaming up with businesses to create cronyist or monopolistic entities by creating a union of elite governors and special interest oligarchs. A corrupt senate elected or not who favors special interests is almost always what the populists are rebelling against in the first place!

At best, the aristocrats keep law and order and ensure a strong and wealthy nation, at worst they create a form of tyranny that breeds angry mobs. Here we can also affirm that a military state a timocracy is just as liable to be corrupt.

This is to say, no ideology offers a perfect solution, instead they all simply arise naturally, and then from that point a whole lot can go right or wrong depending on how well the government ensures liberty and rights. This is why many from the Romans to Americans have attempted mixed systems that check and balance the powers. We can use all the above terms to paint a clear picture of any party and where they stand on each issue.

For example, American Libertarians are classical liberals who favor democracy although, they often form coalitions with social conservatives, as both groups have an aversion to most types of authority. Thus, they are both left-left and left-right as a group, as long as its not statist ideology, it can fit into libertarian ideology. It only gets more complex when we consider the deregulatory small government rhetoric of a modern conservative is also classically liberal as it is adverse to authority.

With that said, and the above fundamentals covered, lets move on to the modern political parties. First we will define them broadly, then in detail.

Now with the above in mind, in America each party represents a big tent of ideologies, but can be described as:. Progressive as a political term, not a party name, describes how quickly one moves toward change.

For example, a small government libertarian is almost always going to embrace policies that support free markets and small government. Thus, while one might assume looking at policy stances is key, in most cases, policy stances found in platforms are almost always just a result of left-right ideology in practice. The same generally goes for the rest of the major U. TIP : The chart below from Wikipedia shows how all the concepts we have discussed so far apply per-issue to prominent U.

By this, I mean members who favor trade, globalization , and free-market capitalism, which are all classical liberal ideologies but are otherwise informed by the political ideology of their given party. For instance, a social liberal may favor single-payer-healthcare , while a neoliberal in the same party may favor a privatized version of this.