Parties, Party Systems, and Party Competition

Flashcards based on lecture notes about parties, party systems, and party competition.

What is a political party?

A group of people that includes those who hold office and those who help get and keep them there.

What are the four main purposes of political parties?

Structure the political world, Recruit and socialize political elite, Mobilize the masses, The link between rulers and the ruled

What is a nonpartisan democracy?

No official political parties

What is a single-party system?

Only one political party is legally allowed to hold power.

What is a one-party dominant system?

Multiple parties may legally operate but only one has a realistic chance of gaining power.

What is a two-party system?

Only two major political parties have a realistic chance of holding power.

What is a multiparty system?

More than two parties have a realistic chance of holding power.

What is the effective number of parties?

A measure that captures both the number and the size of the parties in a country, weighting larger parties greater than smaller parties.

What is the effective number of electoral parties?

The number of parties that win votes

What is the effective number of legislative parties?

The number of parties that win seats

What is the primordial (bottom-up) view of party formation?

Parties as the natural representatives of people who share common interests, forming to represent the interests of natural divisions or social cleavages in society.

What is the instrumental (top-down) view of party formation?

Parties as teams of office seekers, focusing on the role played by political elites and entrepreneurs who discern an opportunity to represent a previously unrepresented interest.

What are some examples of social cleavages that parties represent?

Urban-rural, confessional, secular-clerical, class, post-materialist, ethnic, and linguistic cleavages

What are the three necessary components of populism?

People-centrism, anti-pluralism, moralized politics

What are some examples of host ideologies of Populism?

Nationalism or environmentalism

What is the difference between an attribute and an identity category?

An attribute is a characteristic that qualifies an individual for membership in an identity category. Identity categories are socially constructed.

What is a cross-cutting attribute (cleavage)?

A country with uncorrelated attributes.

What is a reinforcing attribute (cleavage)?

A country with correlated attributes.

In a country with reinforcing attributes between language and region, which identity categories are likely to be activated or politicized?

Dutch-speaking Northerners and French-speaking Southerners

What is the relationship between latent social cleavages, electoral institutions, and politicized social cleavages?

Latent social cleavages -> Electoral institutions -> Politicized social cleavages

What is Duverger's Theory?

Social divisions are the primary driving force behind the formation of parties; electoral institutions influence how social divisions are translated into political parties.

How do social cleavages affect the demand for political parties?

The more social cleavages there are and the more that they’re cross-cutting, the greater the demand for distinctive representation and political parties.

What are the two mechanisms through which electoral institutions influence party system size?

The mechanical effect and the strategic effect.

What is the mechanical effect of electoral laws?

The way votes are translated into seats; disproportionate systems punish small parties and reward large parties.

What is the strategic effect of electoral laws?

How the way in which votes are translated into seats influences the strategic behavior of voters and political elites.

What is strategic voting?

Voting for your most preferred candidate or party that has a realistic chance of winning.

What is strategic entry?

Whether political elites choose to enter the political scene under the label of their most preferred party or under the label of their most preferred party that has a realistic chance of winning.

What are the three ways parties compete?

Policy competition, issue competition, and valence competition.

What is proximity voting?

Voters vote for the party located closest to them.

What is issue competition?

Parties emphasize some issues more than others in their campaign communications; they try to influence issue salience.

What is a high yield issue?

One on which a party is united and where the party’s position is widely shared in the electorate.

What is a low yield issue?

One on which a party is internally divided and where the party’s position enjoys only limited electoral support.

According to issue ownership theory, what type of issue should parties emphasize?

Parties emphasize issues they ‘own’ because voters perceive it to be more competent or credible at dealing with it.

What is issue entrepreneurship?

Parties appeal to voters by emphasizing new issues.

What are the three strategies established mainstream parties can adopt when responding to new parties?

Dismissive, accommodative, and adversarial.

What is valence?

A party's competence, integrity, trustworthiness, leader quality, and experience.

What is programmatic politics?

Ideologically consistent and coherent policy platforms, the delivery of goods and services is typically provided by an impersonal and nonpartisan bureaucracy, and the receipt of goods and services isn’t contingent on the provision of political support.

What is nonprogrammatic politics?

The delivery of goods and services is discretionary and not based on formalized rules that have been made public.

What is clientelistic politics?

A form of nonprogrammatic politics where the distribution of goods and services is made conditional on the provision of political favors by the recipients.

Who are brokers in clientelistic politics?

Powerful local notables who, due to their networked position in a community, claim to have the information that parties desire.