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A political party is a group of people that is organised for the purpose of winning government power, by electoral or other means. Parties are often confused with interest groups or political movements. Four characteristics usually distinguish parties from other groups:
•Parties aim to exercise government power by winning political office (small parties may nevertheless use elections more to gain a platform than to win power).
•Parties are organised bodies with a formal 'card carrying' membership. This distinguishes them from broader and more diffuse political movements.
•Parties typically adopt a broad issue focus, addressing each of the major areas of government policy (small parties, however, may have a single-issue focus, thus resembling interest groups).
. Parties are united by shared political preferences and a general ideological identity.
Types of parties
A variety of classifications have been used for political parties. The most important of these are the following:
•cadre and mass parties
•representative and integrative parties
•constitutional and revolutionary parties
•left-wing and right-wing parties.
The term cadre party originally meant a 'party of notables”, dominated by an informal group of leaders who saw little point in building up a mass organisation. The term cadre is now more commonly used to denote trained and professional party members who are expected to exhibit a high level of political commitment and doctrinal discipline. The distinguishing feature of cadre parties is their reliance on a politically active elite which is capable of offering ideological leadership to the masses.
A mass party, on the other hand, places a heavy emphasis on broadening membership and constructing a wide electoral base. The key feature of such parties is that they place heavier stress on recruitment and organisation than on ideology and political conviction.
Representative parties see their primary function as being the securing of votes in elections. The prevalence of such parties in modem politics gave considerable force to arguments based on rational choice models of political behaviour which portray politicians as power-seeking creatures who are willing to adopt whatever policies are likely to bring them electoral success.
Parties of integration, in contrast, adopt pro-active, rather than reactive, political strategies; they wish to mobilise, educate and inspire the masses, rather than merely respond to their concerns.
Constitutional parties acknowledge the rights and entitlements of other parties and thus operate within a framework of rules and constraints.
Revolutionary parties, on the other hand, are anti-system or anticonstitutional parties, either of the left or of the right. The final way of distinguishing between parties is on the basis of ideological orientation, specifically between those parties labeled left-wing and those labeled right-wing.
PARTY SYSTEMS
Political parties are important not only because of the range of functions they carry out, but also because the complex interrelationships between and among parties are crucial in structuring how political systems work in practice. This network of relationships is called a party system.
One-party systems
A single party enjoys a monopoly of power through the exclusion of all other parties
two-party systems
A two-party system is duopolistic in that it is dominated by two major' parties that have a roughly equal prospect of winning
two partyism, moreover, creates a bias in favour of moderation, as the two contenders for power have to battle for'floating' votes in the centre ground.;
Dominant-party systems
Dominant-party systems should not be confused with one-part systems, although they may at times exhibit similar characteristics, dominant-party system is competitive in the sense that a number parties compete for power in regular and popular elections, but if dominated by a single major party that consequently enjoys prolonged periods in power.
Multiparty systems
A multiparty system is characterised by competition amongst more than two parties.
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