Zusammenfassung der Ressource
(11) What are the features
of a political party?
- organisation
- To be successful, parties need to be organised:
a large organisation of activists are needed to
mobilise public opinion and to fight elections.
- Even the Green Party which is loosely organised on a
largely informal basis, has developed a mechanism for
producing election manifestos and selecting candidates.
- Parties fail because they are unable to create an effective
organisation quickly enough e.g. in 1997 the James Goldsmith
Referendum party because it could not attract sufficient members.
- Ideological identity
- This is important in developing policies and
programmes to present to the electorate.
- Public support
- Parties must devise policies
which gain support.
- Selecting candidates
- Procedures need to be set in place for
selecting candidates. This is usually a local
function as politicians should represent the
locality as elections are local affairs.
- Leadership
- Leaders give the party direction and are essential
for mobilising public support. The Green Party is
the exception as it is reluctant to recognise
leaders as it is a highly democratic party.
- Government
- Large parties aim to secure office. To gain office or to
influence policy is their reason for existence. For a new or
small party e.g. Greens (2010) the immediate objective
may be to gain supporters and to win a few seats.