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Power & Choice, 8/e
W. Phillips Shively, University of Minnesota---Minneapolis
Parties: A Linking and Leading Mechanism in Politics

Chapter Outline


I. The Political Party
  1. definition
  2. difference between political parties and interest groups

II. Origins of the modern party
  1. Why they emerged
  2. Where the first parties emerged
  3. Parties in non electoral democracies (Ex: communist parties of various Eastern European states, various autocratic states)

III. Political parties and the mobilization of the masses
  1. parties as instruments to get out the vote
  2. parties as instruments to mobilize people for special purposes or to meet crises
  3. parties as mobilizing masses against a regime

IV. Political parties and the recruitment and socialization of leaders
  1. making a political career in Britain
  2. comparison of Britain and the US
  3. why parties politically weaker in the US
  4. parties as the major avenue to political or economic advancement in one-party states (pre-1990 Yugoslavia example)

V. Political parties as a source of political identity
  1. how political parties an important part of one's identity
  2. political parties as source of continuity and community
  3. Indiana as example of the ability of parties to establish stable lines of conflict

VI. Political parties as a channel of control
  1. the unforeseen effect of political parties as means to exert control
  2. how rewards and punishments used by leaders to force obedience
  3. parties as means to keep apparatus of state under control of party leaders in one-party states
  4. parties as means to control the masses

VII. Party organization
  1. the loose and informal structure of political parties in the US
  2. parties as more formal organizations in other states
  3. the British Conservative Party as typical example of party organizational structure

VIII. Party finance
  1. Sources of funding
    1. public finance
    2. individual memberships
    3. bribes and kickbacks
    4. interest groups donations
    5. profits from business enterprise
    6. subsidies from foreign countries
  1. Box: Michels' "Iron Law of Oligarchy"

IX. Political Party Systems
  1. one-party system (former communist states; Egypt; Tanzania; Nazi Germany; Franco's Spain)
  2. dominant-party system (Mexico; India; Israel)
  3. two-party system (US, Britain)
  4. multi-party system (Norway, most other democratic systems)

X. Conclusion
  1. Example--The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1917-1991)
  2. Example--Mexico's Dominant Party System








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