Unit 4 - Party and Electoral Systems and Citizen Organizations

• Party and Electoral Systems and Citizen Organizations

• types of electoral systems

  • majority (over 50%) vs plurality (more than anyone else)

• Objectives of election rules

  • Can’t assume its fulfilling will of people - sometimes may be to suppress

  • proportional representation - increase number of political parties represented, increase number of minority voices

  • single member district plurality - to have geographic representation

    • Tends to decrease voices of minority parties and groups

  • presidential

  • ballot access and competition

    • corruption minimized in Mexico and Nigeria with independent electoral commission (IEC)

  • appointment system

    • iran, china, russia

    • can promote diversity of viewpoints or to advance political agenda of governing elites

    • term limits (eg presidential)

• Access to electoral process

  • Iran: GC excludes reform-minded candidates/those who don’t support Islamic values

    • limits number of candidates, reduces electoral competition and representation

  • Mexico and Nigeria - both have created independent organizations to help reduce electoral fraud, increase competition

    • Mexico: There’s a cap on number of seats a party can hold, prevents party domination

      • Primaries choose nominees (ended el dedazo - presidential power selecting nominees)

      • National voter ID to reduce voter fraud

• Appointment

  • Can be used to promote diversity of viewpoints (UK) or used to advance political agenda (Iran, Russia)

    • UK House of Lords approved by monarch

    • Iran GC are selected by SL, half are nominees from Majles

    • Russia

• Rules and Timing

  • How often elections happen

Political Party Systems

• Typically not required by law

• Degree of competition, strength,, influence, and power between parties reflects values of regime/type of gov

• Chracteristics

  • are they allowed? are they there? are they actually influential or there to make elections look competitive?

  • who is allowed to be a member?

    • citizen participation with policy making

      • either encourage or prevent

  • dominant vs multi party systems

• Catch-all parties

  • Occupy middle of spectrum, shift with popular opinion

  • Have very diverse ideological platforms

• Dominant vs Multi Party systems

  • One party: 1 part runs the state, has exclusive power (eg CCP)

    • Doesn’t mean other parties existing is illegal, but no other parties allowed to govern

      • Other parties may be used to control population

      • China - about control

    • Party and state are intertwined

  • One party dominant: 1 party dominates elections, unlikely to lose power any time soon (eg United Russia in Russia)

    • All parties must legally register to run for office

      • Russia will disqualify parties/candidates if they want

      • Threshhold rules - prevent other people from joining government (eg lots of media control allows for control)

      • Russia has eliminated governer elections

      • limit access = limit power

  • Two-party system: 2 main parties vie for power, smaller parties are veryyyy minor or regional (UK and Nigeria)

    • First past the post (bc of strategic voting/spoiler effect) tends to lead to two party

  • Multi party system: Multiple parties have chance to win elections/govern (Mexico)

    • 3 parties have

  • Iran: Does not have political parties

• Organization

  • can be highly organized (eg UK)

• Things to know:

  • CCP - China

  • None - Iran

  • PAN, PRD, PRI, Morena - Mexico

  • United Russia - Russia

  • Labour, Conservative - UK

  • PDC, PDP - Nigeria

    • Major parties have ethnic quotas to reduce tensions

  • Single member district plurality

    • Regional parties (eg Bloq in Canada) can have significant representation - eg Scotish rep in UK

• Social Movements and Interest Groups

  • Don’t want to govern but want to influence government

  • Social movement: large groups of ppl pushing for a significant political/social change

    • less formal organization

    • often not clear and specific in what they want

      • hard to address by government

    • Can

  • Interest group: explicitly organized to accomplish specific goals

  • Grassroots social movements

    • exert power from local to regional/national/international level

    • starting from the ground building up

• Plualist and Corporatist Intersts

  • Corporatism: A system where gov controls policymaking by relying on state-sanctioned groups or invites a few large groups to participation policy making

    • Gov controls

    • SPAs (Single peak associations)

    • Can present facade of diversity (gov approved representatives)

    • Competing elites

  • Pluralism: System promotes competition among autonomous groups

    • True competition of POIs for better representation

  • Mexico: Corporatism to Pluralism

    • PRI practiced state corporatism

    • Divided interest groups into labour, peasants, middle class

      • Made it look like government is listening to demographics - in reality basically bribing leaders of interest groups

        • Working against interests of the people supposed to be represented - nobody actually represents the common people

        • Fostered government corruption

      • Don’t permit anyone else from participating

      • Only allowed 1 labour union to exist on political level

    • PAN - tried to encourage pluralism but difficult to single party dominance neded