In this article you will learn about the Features of Political Party in Political Science.
Political Party
Political parties or the party system are extra-constitutional structures. However, these always play a leading part in every political system, more particularly in every democratic political system. These are the instruments which perform various political functions. Without political parties, elections cannot be held, government-making cannot be effectively pursued, law-making can get jeopardised, political communication process can suffer a big decline, government can behave arbitrarily, public opinion can remain ambiguous and confused, people’s support to the government can decrease, opposition to government can become anomic and harmful, and the functioning of the political system can become difficult, inefficient and unstable. Political systems are considered democratic only when the people have the right to organise their political parties and only when in reality at least two parties are involved in the struggle for power. Political systems with one party systems are not accepted as really democratic systems. Munro says that, “No party, no democracy”.
Political Party : Meaning
A political party is a party of the people organised on the basis of an ideology, which is always keen to get political power through peaceful and constitutional means, and which remains continuously involved in the process of politics. Its final aim is to secure political power in the state and to use this power for making and implementing laws and policies for the entire society.
We can also say that a political party is an organised large group of people based on ideological unity, which considers itself separate from other parties by a specific programme and which actively, peacefully and constitutionally participates in politics with the ultimate aim of securing political power in the state.
Features of Political Party
1. A Fairly Large Group of People : A political party is a fairly large and organised group of people. It is a whole which consists of several groups of people, young and old, rich and poor, landlords and workers, men and women, liberals and conservatives, leftists and rightists, all are members of a political party. Some of them work as ordinary members, others as active leaders and still some others as supporters or sympathisers.
2. Agreement on Basic Principles : A political party is a united group of people. The basis of unity of this group is shared political ideals, beliefs and attitudes. Faith in a political ideology provides the basis for the unity of the members of a political party. Each party considers itself distinct from others because it has an agreed set of ideas, principles and programmes which are different from others. The members of a party hold similar ideas or views on public issues. A political party is held together primarily by its ideology and organisations.
3. Organisation : A political party is essentially an organised association or group of people. There is a party constitution which defines the aims, functions, objectives, policies and organisational structure of the party. Without proper organisation no party can exist and participate in the struggle for power. Organisation gives order and strength to the members of the party through which they can pool their resources and skills and help the party to achieve its goals – political power or at least political support from other masses.
Organisation is essential, but the organisation can be as loosely or as tightly structured, as the members of the party may desire. In all democratic political systems, the political parties are democratically organised and these function in a democratic way. However in a Communist state, a single communist party is organised. It is democratic in appearance but in reality it is a centralised party dominated by the top leadership. Single party system is regarded as undemocratic because in such a situation there can be no real election and political struggle.
4. Faith in Peaceful and Constitutional means : A political party is a political organised group of people which stands totally committed to secure political power by peaceful and constitutional means. All political parties agree that peaceful and orderly political campaigns and movements, and finally the battle of ballot (election) is the means for resolving political conflicts i.e. the conflict involving the attempts for securing the goal of political power. Any organisation which resorts to violent and unconstitutional means for capturing power cannot be accepted and recognised as a political party.
5. Promotion of National Interests : A political party always endeavours to promote national interests as distinguished from selfish or sectarian or communal interests. No doubt a political party has to secure material and power gains for its members yet the exercise has to be guided by self-interest viewed in the broad perspective of over-all national interest. A political party is expected to refrain from securing sectarian interest and temporary political and material gains.
6. Active Participation in Politics : A political party is always actively involved in the political process and at all the levels – inputs, conversion and outputs, local, regional and national. It plays a special role in interest aggregation, which is the process of the conversion of demands into policy alternatives. Political parties play a key and deterministic role in elections and in the working of the legislature.
These are the six essentials of a political party. These can be used as valuable for determining whether an organised association is a political party or not.
This article on Features of Political Party is contributed by Dipshikha Anand. If you like LawStudyPoint.com do follow us on our Twitter handle.