Politics

As an academic discipline

Political science, the study of politics, examines the acquisition and application of power. Related areas of study include political philosophy, which seeks a rationale for politics and an ethic of public behaviour, political economy, which attempts to develop understandings of the relationships between politics and the economy and the governance of the two, and public administration, which examines the practices of governance.

Spectra

Left-right politics

Main article: Left-Right politics

Recently in history, political analysts and politicians divide politics into left wing and right wing politics, often also using the idea of center politics as a middle path of policy between the right and left. This classification is comparatively recent (it was not used by Aristotle or Hobbes, for instance), and dates from the French Revolution era, when those members of the National Assembly who opposed the monarchy sat on the left, while those who supported it sat on the right^.The original meaning disappeared quickly. A particularly influential event was the publication of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in 1848. The Manifesto suggested a course of action for a proletarian revolution to overthrow the bourgeois society and abolish private property, in the belief that this would lead to a classless and stateless society.

The meaning of left-wing and right-wing varies considerably between different countries and at different times, but generally speaking, it can be said that the right wing often values tradition and capitalism while the left wing often values egalitarianism.

According to Norberto Bobbio, one of the major exponents of this distinction, the Left believes in attempting to eradicate social inequality, while the Right regards most social inequality as the result of ineradicable natural inequalities, and sees attempts to enforce social equality as utopian or authoritarian.

Some ideologies, notably Christian Democracy, claim to combine left and right wing politics; according to Geoffrey K. Roberts and Patricia Hogwood, "In terms of ideology, Christian Democracy has incorporated many of the views held by liberals, conservatives and socialists within a wider framework of moral and Christian principles." Movements which claim or formerly claimed to be above the left-right divide include Gaullism in France, Peronism in Argentina, and National Action Politics in Mexico.

Authoritarian-libertarian politics

Authoritarianism and libertarianism refer to the amount of individual freedom each person possesses in that society relative to the state. One author describes authoritarian political systems as those where "individual rights and goals are subjugated to group goals, expectations and conformities" while a libertarian political system is one in which individual rights and civil liberties are paramount. More extreme than libertarians are anarchists, who argue for the total abolition of government, while the most extreme authoritarians are totalitarians who support state control over all aspects of society.

For instance, classical liberalism (also known as laissez-faire liberalism, or, in much of the world, simply liberalism) is a doctrine stressing individual freedom and limited government. This includes the importance of human rationality, individual property rights, free markets, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, constitutional limitation of government, and individual freedom from restraint as exemplified in the writings of John Locke, Adam Smith, David Hume, David Ricardo, Voltaire, Montesquieu and others. According to the libertarian Institute for Humane Studies, "the libertarian, or 'classical liberal,' perspective is that individual well-being, prosperity, and social harmony are fostered by 'as much liberty as possible' and 'as little government as necessary.'"

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Nonpartisan

In a nonpartisan system, no official political parties exist, sometimes reflecting legal restrictions on political parties. In nonpartisan elections, each candidate is eligible for office on her or his own merits. In nonpartisan legislatures, there are no typically formal party alignments within the legislature. The administration of George Washington and the first few sessions of the US Congress were nonpartisan. Washington also warned against political parties during his Farewell Address.^[1] The unicameral legislature of Nebraska is the only state government body that is nonpartisan in the United States today. Many city and county governments^[vague] are nonpartisan. In Canada, the territorial legislatures of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are nonpartisan. Nonpartisan elections and modes of governance are common outside of state institutions. Unless there are legal prohibitions against political parties, factions within nonpartisan systems often evolve into political parties. Tokelau also has a nonpartisan parliament.

Single dominant party

In single-party systems, one political party is legally allowed to hold effective power. Although minor parties may sometimes be allowed, they are legally required to accept the leadership of the dominant party. This party may not always be identical to the government, although sometimes positions within the party may in fact be more important than positions within the government. Communist states such as China are some of the examples; others can be found in Fascist states such as Nazi Germany was between 1933 and 1945. The single-party system is thus usually equated with dictatorships and tyranny.

In dominant-party systems, opposition parties are allowed, and there may be even a deeply established democratic tradition, but other parties are widely considered to have no real chance of gaining power. Sometimes, political, social and economic circumstances, and public opinion are the reason for others parties' failure. Sometimes, typically in countries with less of an established democratic tradition, it is possible the dominant party will remain in power by using patronage and sometimes by voting fraud. In the latter case, the definition between Dominant and single-party system becomes rather blurred. Examples of dominant party systems include the People's Action Party in Singapore, the African National Congress in South Africa, the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro in Montenegro and the Social Democratic Party in Sweden. One party dominant systems also existed in Mexico with the Institutional Revolutionary Party until the 1990s, in the southern United States with the Democratic Party from the late 19th century until the 1970s, and in Indonesia with the Golongan Karya (Party of the Functional Groups) from the early 1970s until 1998.

Two dominant parties

Two-party systems are states such as the United States and Jamaica in which there are two political parties dominant to such an extent that electoral success under the banner of any other party is extremely difficult. One right wing coalition party and one left wing coalition party is the most common ideological breakdown in such a system but in two-party states political parties are traditionally catch all parties which are ideologically broad and inclusive.

The United Kingdom is widely considered a two-party state, as historically power alternates between two dominant parties (currently the Labour Party and the Conservative Party). However, the Liberal Democrats, as well as numerous other parties and independents, hold a substantial number of seats in Parliament.

A plurality voting system (such as that in the United States) usually leads to a two-party system, a relationship described by Maurice Duverger and known as Duverger's Law.^[2]

Multiple parties

A poster for the European Parliament election 2004 in Italy, showing party lists

Multi-party systems are systems in which more than two parties are serious contenders to participate in ruling.

Canada, Pakistan, India, the Republic of Ireland, Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom are examples where there are two strong parties, with a third party that is electorally successful. This "third" party may frequently rank second in elections, and pose a threat to the other two parties, but has still never led the government. Such a party is particularly influential where it traditionally had a rather rigid two-party system country but after 2002 elections, the system has gone through significant changes.

More commonly, in cases where there are three or more parties, no one party is likely to gain power alone, and parties work with each other to form coalition governments. This has been an emerging trend in the politics of the Republic of Ireland and is almost always the case in Germany on national and state level, and in most constituencies at the communal level. Furthermore since the forming of the Republic of Iceland there has never been a government not led by a coalition (usually of the Independence Party & one other often times the Social Democratic Alliance. The major drawback of any coalition government is that it is potentially vulnerable to rapid changes and tends to lack stability.

Balanced multiple party systems

Extensive studies including simulations^{[citation needed]} and polls^[3] by Donald Arthur Kronos, have shown that an effectively two-party system such as that currently used in the United States could be modified into a balanced plurality voting system through the addition of a negative vote option to better represent the intentions of the voters. This differs from a standard Plurality voting system or an anti-plurality voting system in that rather than either allowing a choice of who to vote for or allowing a choice of who to vote against, a balanced system would allow each vote to be either for or against any candidate. In the case of balanced range voting an individual could in fact cast a combination of for and against votes.

The problem with the traditional plurality voting system is that any attempt to prevent a candidate from getting elected tends to result in a false positive vote, generally for a candidate thought to have an advantaged position over other candidates, thereby causing or increasing such advantage. A balanced plurality election would allow the voter to represent a true negative vote, thus eliminating or at least reducing the occurrence of false positive votes.

A balanced multiple party system significantly reduces the odds of a well known but largely unpopular candidate winning an election, by allowing those who oppose the election of that candidate to cast a more accurate vote than would have been possible in an unbalanced system of only negative votes or only positive votes. Of course the option of a positive vote is also necessary in order to have balance. Simply changing to an all negative vote system would just reverse the polarity of the imbalance rather than remove it.

The number of votes per voter is not a factor in the system being balanced. It should be consistent within an election across all voters to be fair. This also has the mathematical effect of eliminating the feedback loop that would otherwise give an unfair advantage over time to exactly two parties. This feedback loop happens in a traditional plurality voting system when a voter attempts to represent a negative vote where only positive votes are available. The voter is forced to evaluate the choices available and determine what is most likely to reduce the odds of a win by the opposed candidate. For example, since the history of a party may give some indication of the electability of a candidate endorsed by the party, the closest thing to a vote against a candidate in a general election would be a vote for the candidate of the party that the voter believes has won the most elections historically. If the opposed candidate is in fact running under that same party, then the obvious choice is the next most historically successful party's candidate. This causes only two parties to have any reasonable viability once a history has been established. A balanced voting system would eliminate this feedback loop for voters who take advantage of it.

The addition of a negative vote option to balance a party system can theoretically be applied to a popular vote, an electoral college vote, or both. In cases where an electoral college is expected to in some way represent the popular vote, it would of course make sense to allow balanced voting options for both the electoral college and the populace. The concept of a balanced election system is applicable to many types of voting systems including instant runoff voting and other such multiple vote systems and can be applied equally well to plurality voting or proportional representation systems.

[edit] Party funding

Political parties are funded by contributions from their membership and by individuals and organizations which share their political ideas or who stand to benefit from their activities. Political parties and factions, especially those in government, are lobbied vigorously by organizations, businesses and special interest groups such as trades unions. Money and gifts to a party, or its members, may be offered as incentives. In the United Kingdom, it has been alleged that peerages have been awarded to contributors to party funds, the benefactors becoming members of the Upper House of Parliament and thus being in a position to participate in the legislative process. Famously, Lloyd George was found to have been selling peerages and to prevent such corruption in future, Parliament passed the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 into law. Thus the outright sale of peerages and similar honours became a criminal act, however some benefactors are alleged to have attempted to circumvent this by cloaking their contributions as loans, giving rise to the 'Cash for Peerages' scandal. Such activities have given rise to demands that the scale of donations should be capped. As the costs of electioneering escalate, so the demands made on party funds increases. In the UK some politicians are advocating that parties should be funded by the State; a proposition that promises to give rise to interesting debate. Along with the increased scrutiny of donations there has been a long term contraction in party memberships in a number of western democracies which itself places more strains on funding. For example in the United Kingdom and Australia membership of the two main parties in 2006 is less than an 1/8 of what it was in 1950, despite significant increases in population over that period. In Ireland, elected representatives of the Sinn Féin party take only the average industrial wage from their salary as a representative, while the rest goes into the party budget. Other incomes they may have are not taken into account. Elected representatives of the Socialist Party (Ireland) take only the average industrial wage out of their entire earnings.

Some nations, such as Australia, give political parties public funding for advertising purposes during election periods.