Political Parties

Overview
• What parties do
• Theories of the "party system"
• Parties declined for a long time
• Are parties on the rebound?

3 Headed Monster
• Party as an Organization
* Fund raising
* Recruiting members, candidates
• Party in the Electorate
* Voters have "party loyalty" (or lack thereof)
• Party in Government
* Congress organized along party lines
* Cooperation and competition

Parties are good?
• Pro:
* Organize issues
* Simplifying elections
* Orchestrate government
	
• Con:
* Confuse responsibility
* Oppress viewpoints


Big Theories 

• One Good theory:
* Duverger's Law

• One Pretty-good theory:
* Re-alignment theory

Duverger's Law
• Single-member, simple-plurality: one winner per district
• Duverger's Law: single member district systems tend to have 2 parties
• Contrast with Proportional Representation in multi-member districts.
Duverger's Law in Action
2 recognizable labels


Its different in a PR system!
• Parties list candidates
• Get seats in proportion to votes
• Allows more small parties!
• Ex: Hungary has 70 registered parties and 6 have significant seats in the legislature

Italian Party of Love! True Facts

Realignment Theory
• Party Alignment: issue stances of 2 major parties
• Realignments used to happen every 32-36 years during "critical elections"
• After 1968, what happened?
* Dealignment
* Bungled Republican realignment

Republican Realignment
Tell me about the olden days, Daddy
• Early parties were "aristocratic"
• 1828→parties became "mass based"
* Conventions
* Spoils system (machine politics)
* Can I buy you a vote?

Then they took a horrible beating
• Secret ballot
• Civil service reform
• Nonpartisan city governments
• Political primaries

And then "candidate centered" campaigns began
• Candidates appeal to public/media, not party leaders
• Winning candidates don't owe party
• Declining party membership levels
• Rise of "political independence"

Just when you thought the Party was over!
• Rising professionalism of national party offices after 1980
• Soft money
• Increasing party cohesion in Congress through 1980s-1990s

Soft Money Reform
• Campaign "reform" bans "soft money"
• What are the political implications?