Chapter 5

Chapter 5Political Parties

Section 1Parties and what

they do

Political Parties:Definition & Purpose

What Is a Political Party?

A political party is a coalition of people seeking to control government by contesting elections & winning office.

What Is the role & core purpose of a Political Party?

The core of a political party's purpose is to

Get their party’s candidates elected to office.

The two major partiesmajor parties in USA politics are the Republican Party…Republican Party…

A political cartoonist drew a

Donkey clothed in lion‘s skin,

Scaring away all the animals

in the forest. One of those

animals, the elephant, was labeled

“The Republican Vote.” That's all

it took for the elephant to become

associated with the Republican Party.

and DemocraticDemocratic party.

The now-famous Democratic donkey was first associated with Democrat Andrew Jackson's 1828 presidential campaign. His opponents called him a jackass (a donkey), and Jackson decided to use the image of the strong-willed animal on his campaign posters.

Parties can be:

principle-oriented, issue-oriented, or election-oriented.

The American parties are election-oriented.

In the US, the Parties are not made up of people who agree on every issue…each party is a broadly based coalitioncoalition..

Example: abortion….

Too Moderate?American parties are sometimes accused of being too similar to each other….Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Is this changing? Elites (extreme wealthy, extreme poor)may be more polarized, but citizens do not seem to be.

What happens if the party or candidate takes a position that is too extreme?

What Do Parties Do?

Five Party Functions • nominate candidates - by most common method today• mobilize voters – get out the vote drives

– President, Congress, State, local party cooperation to win elections

– Leaders stress party loyalty to proposed policies (with mixed results)

• Provide accountability/Bonding Agent- unintended side effect– Used by voters to hold elected official accountable

• form governments- organized along party lines– government appointments in executive & judiciary branches– leaders & members of Congressional committees

• watch dog- the party out of power polices the party in power and tries to push the voters to oust them from office in next election

Our political parties tend to reduce and moderate political conflict by forcing groups to agree to compromise solutions:

example: abortion

Also link people and governments by providing:

Political Parties

Organization & Information

Additional Vocabulary:Additional Vocabulary:

Partisan basisPartisan basis:Devoted to or biased in support of a party, group, or cause

Bi-Partisan basis: Bi-Partisan basis: support both parties.