Factors affecting success + how democratic parties are

why small parties fall

• lack funding

• electoral systems may discriminate against them

• lack media exposure

• lack organisation in communities

• ppl consider voting for them a waste

how small parties can succeed

• find wealthy benefactors to support, like reform did

• in devolved regions, proportional representation helps, if party can develop concentrated geographical support can break thru a region like SNP

• strong charismatic leader,

• may gain widespread popular support based on policies, build good community teams

• in proportional systems less votes wasted.

factors affecting successes

• leadership

• unity

• media

leadership

• qualities voters prefer= experience, decisiveness, ability to leads, media image, intelligence, honesty

• leaders seen to damage rep, rishi sunak, nick clegg, some enhanced until fell- johnson , blair, thatcher.

Unity

• in 1980s conservative united around leader of thatcher while labour split between left n right, result= two large victories for con, 1983 + 1987

• 1997 labour almost totally united, around new labour under blair, conservatives under major, split over UK position in EU, crushing victory labour

• 2015 united conservatives dominated disunited labour, in 2017 labour succeeded in uniting and resulted in dramatic improvement

• 2019 having suspended moderate con from party n require all to sign pledge to get brexit done able to unify, labour divided over brexit,

media

• whatever true policies are media influences electorate, esp in newspapers, research suggests newspapers only reinforce existing political affiliations and dont change minds.

• correlation of political views and readership of newspapers, 2017 most papers supported conservative but lost to labour, 2010, nick clegg performance to widely praised, did well enough to form coalition,

media influences

• media are prism that public perceptions of parties are created

• winning party usually has maj sup of newspapers

• since 2010, leadership debates become key moments in general campaign

• parties increasingly develop resources to use social media to influence voters,

• leaders spend more time cultivating positive media images

media x influence

• influential media tends to reflect not lead attitudes to parties

• despite nearly all newspapers opposing corbyn he performed well in 2017

• little evidence to suggest leadership debates have affected perception

• social media tends to act as echo chamber and rarely changes minds

• other factors like leadership and policies may be more influencial.

positive aspects of UK party role in representative democracy

• provide open opportunities for ppl to become active in politics and are inclusive, make few demands on members

• make political issues coherent and hold gov accountable

• help make operations of parl to public more understandable and effective

• identify, recruit and “train” pp; for potential office and leadership

negative aspects of UK party role in representative democracy

• adversarial party politics is negative in that it denies consensus and reduces issues to false, simplistic choices

• parties claim legitimacy thru electoral mandate even when elected to power thru minority vote

• parties can become elitist so that small leadership groups dominate policy making to detriment of internal democracy

• limit pool of talent for political leadership to membership only