Political Parties and the System of Election

We have discussed the political institutions of both the presidential and the parliamentary system above. Let us now go to the political processes: how political leaders are chosen, the roles of the parties and interest groups and the manner individual citizens participate in politics.

To start with, in all systems, the extent of direct participation by any considerable part of the people is limited. People generally take part in political activities through membership in a party or interest group or by voting.

Party systems have often been classified according to the number of parties competing in the elections such as one-party, biparty or multiparty systems.

Logically, a one-party system is an impossibility, because there is no system within which the single party could interact.

In biparty system, only two major parties realistically compete for the opportunity to form a government, regularly divide the largest part of the electoral vote between them, and enjoy some rotation at intervals in the exercise of government power. Minor parties also exist here but they have no reasonable chance to gain power for themselves. Classic Example of this is the British and the American system.

A multiparty system, on the other hand, exists where there are three or more parties, with considerable distribution of support among them, contest elections. There are three types of multiparty systems: operative, single-dominant and fragmented.

Operative system generally avoid polarization and emphasize the importance of holding middle ground, with the opposition contributing to the promotion of consensual policies. Coalition governments thus are formed with no great difficulty. Examples here include Belgium, Israel and Switzerland.

In the second type system, a single party is dominant, and regularly leads all coalitions, or may even govern with its own majority. An example is Japan’ Liberal Democratic Party.

The fragmented type is where the parties are sufficiently fragmented to make the formation of government majorities or coalitions at least difficult, and in some cases the future of the regime uncertain. Examples here are France and Italy.