Chapter 7 - Political Parties

Political Parties

Publicly organized groups of people who are motivated by some common set of political ideas and whose goal it is to have their particular members win public office so that those ideas can be put into practice.

Five Functions of Political Parties

1. Recruitment: recruit people into the party as members and sometimes candidates and people who can work with them in office, campaigns

2. Fundraising: parties raise money for their organizations and election campaigns. If you break the rules, you can be restricted from running for office (Charter S. 3)

3. Interest aggregation

4. Policy development: parties develop and promote policies that reflect their platform and the desires of their members and are developed as new issues arise and parliament deals with them.

5. Political education: parties educate people about political life. Party membership provides an education in holding political office by means of providing elected offices within the party. I.e. media coverage

Interest aggregation

The process by which political parties articulate and combine diverse demands and preferences from various groups in society into coherent policy proposals or a party platform.

Ideology

Fundamental political principles that a political party is usually built on. The principles are used as the basis of generating ideas about the purposes of gov’t, how it should be organized, and what policies should be implemented.

High Partisanship

A reasonable commitment to a set of political ideals that are related to the principles of the regime, as well as to the hope that these ideals prevail in a fair contest of ideas and argument.

Low partisanship

Refers to the “retail,” practical party of politics, to the actions and operations that must be performed to get people into gov’t to achieve the higher ideals.

Pragmatic

• Less ideological

• major Canadian political parties are this

• Practical politicians with political principles

  • Deals with things sensibly and realistically, based on practical rather than theoretical considerations

Programmatic

• More ideological

• Emphasizes adherence to a specific party program derived from core principles

• Policy decisions are strongly guided by established ideological frameworks

• Often characterized by a commitment to a detailed set of policy proposals, rather than adapting frequently to immediate circumstances

Elite Driven/ Cadre Party

• Driven by leadership, formal leadership of party

• Not necessarily elected people, but others that work behind the scenes

• Small permanent membership 

• Policy-setting dominated by party elites

• Fewer, but bigger, donors

• More pragmatic

Member driven/ Mass party

• Large, consistent permanent membership 

• Actively participate in active governance 

• Policy-setting dominated by party members

• Many smaller donors 

• Characterized by conventions 

• Shaped by delegates of the convention 

• Party finance - many members so smaller amounts

• More ideological

Why are Canada’s political parties a combination of elite and member driven?

• Parties are not organized cleanly into one of these categories

• Mass qualities at election and leadership times

• Cadre qualities between elections

• Mass qualities for financing (by law/default) 

  • Can’t receive big donations anymore

  • More dependent on small donations 

• Win nomination contests 

  • Once someone is chosen as the nominee, no one renews their membership

Duverger’s Law

Plurality voting (First-Past-The-Post) in single-member districts tends to create a two-party system, while proportional representation (PR) favors multi-party systems

Party Systems

The framework showing how political parties compete, cooperate, and function in a country's government, structuring political conflict and interest representation through elections, and can range from single-party states (like China) to multi-party democracies (like India) or dominant two-party systems (like the U.S.), defined by party numbers, fragmentation, and power dynamics

Multi-Party system

Several parties are allowed to operate but are limited in their ability to operate freely that they have no relastic chance of competing in elections. I.e. Canada

Single-party system

Only one political party is legally sanctioned. Public interest is best served by working out public policy within the party rather than by allowing diverse parties to develop competing alternatives (i.e. China)

Electoralist Parties

• Main goal is to win elections and gain political power through the electoral system, rather than to push a rigid ideology or transform society outside formal politics

• Pragmatic and flexible

• Campaign-focused

• Less ideologically rigid and adjust their policy and ideology to make the party attractive to a persuadable group of voters

Brokerage Parties

• Large, highly pragmatic parties that espouse middle-of-the-road policy positions and try to appeal to every region, every ethnic group, and every social class (i.e. Liberals and Conservatives)

• Dominated in the Canadian regime

  • Responsible gov’t

    • Power is concentrated in the party that forms government. Parties that cannot realistically form government have little influence, which encourages large, moderate parties focused on winning office rather than ideological or single-issue parties.

  • SMP system

    • SMP over-rewards large national parties and penalizes small, ideological, or new parties, making it difficult for non-brokerage parties to win seats. This strongly reinforces the dominance of broad, catch-all brokerage parties.

Ideological Parties

Espouse ideological views that are outside of the mainstream and are more concerned with promoting those views than with winning seats (i.e. Christian Heritage Party).

Single-issue Parties

Resemble ideological parties in that they are more concerned with promoting a point of view than with electoral success, but in this case the point of review relates to a single issue rather than an ideology (i.e. The Marijuana Party).

Protest Parties

Emerge from people who believe that the dominant forces in political life systematically ignore them and who are angry enough about it to use their vote as a way of expressing a protest (i.e. The Reform Party)

Parliamentary Wing

• Consists of the party leader and elected MPs (caucus)

• Operates inside the House of Commons

• Holds the most power within the party

• Shapes policy and public positions between conventions

• Focuses on re-election and electoral success

• The party leader dominates the parliamentary wing

Extra-parliamentary Wing

• Consists of party executives at the constituency, provincial, and national levels

• Includes local riding associations

• Handles membership recruitment, fundraising, and organization

• Helps develop policy through conventions

• Influence is limited by electoral realities and leader dominance

Party Finance

• Restrictions on donations have forced parties to innovate

• Largely still about fighting elections

• Modest annual per vote allowances in BC

• Means parties still have weak capacity

  • Some outside of the political party

  • Parties themselves don’t undertake the work most of the time

• Increasing issue has been worries about foreign interference through money

  • Where is the money for parties coming from?

  • Unclear sometimes

• Reimbursed expenses and allowances can reduce dependence on funds

  • A good portion of what parties spend (as long as they follow all rules), they get some of the money back 

    • Reimbursement 

    • Not as reliant on donations to meet spending caps that they have 

• Negative: can entrench the existing parties and leave less room for new ideas 

  • If you give money to new parties based on what votes they got last election, there is an incentive that discourages new smaller parties

Regulatory Framework for Party Finance

1. Contribution limits: only Canadian citizens/permanent residents can donate to party/candidate/nomination candidate. In one year, up to $1600 can be given to a registered party, but candidates can commit higher amounts to their own campaigns

2. Spending limits: Persons standing for nomination as candidate for a party are limited to about 20 per cent of the spending limit for a candidate in an election campaign.The larger the number of electors, the higher the spending limit.

3. Reimbursement:  If a candidate wins at least 10 per cent of the vote in a riding and submits all her or his reports to Elections Canada, she or he can be reimbursed up to 60 per cent of her or his election expenses.

4. Tax credits for political contributions: Persons donating to a political party or candidate are eligible for a generous tax credit of up to $650

5. Reporting requirements: parties and candidates must submit detailed reports of their donations and expenses (PUBLIC documents)

6. Cash for access: raising money through organizing events that party officials attend, but such events are now regulated

7. False statements:  Parliament in 2018 moved to increase regulation of what can be said about candidates in election campaign

Party government

• Undeniable that Canada’s political parties are imperfect

  • Perhaps the expectations for political parties are too high

• Responsive to the institutional incentives we give them

• Hard to imagine parliamentary government without parties 

  • Shortcut to deciding who leads

  • Allow clear majority and results