Política Comparada

Is representative democracy possible without political parties?









Comparative Politics



A political party is defined as an organised group of people with at least roughly similar political aims and opinions, that seeks to influence public policy by getting its candidates elected to public office. Politicalparties reflect the spectrum of the people's views and needs, from their highest ideals to their basest instincts.
Parties tend to be deeply and durably entrenched in specific substructures of the specific society in a sustainable and well functioning democracy. They can link the governmental institutions to the elements of the civil society in a free and fair society and are regarded as necessaryfor any modern democratic system.

Political parties perform key tasks in a democratic society, such as

• aggregating and articulating needs and problems as identified by members and supporters

• socialising and educating voters and citizens in the functioning of the political and electoral system and the generation of general political values

• balancing opposingdemands and converting them into general policies

• activating and mobilising citizens into participating in political decisions and transforming their opinions into viable policy options

• channelling public opinion from citizens to government

• recruiting and training candidates for public office

Political parties are often described as institutionalized mediatorsbetween civil society and those who decide and implement decisions. Political parties perform an important task in government. They bring people together to achieve control of the government, develop policies favorable to their interests or the groups that support them, and organize and persuade voters to elect their candidates to office. The parties make possible the democracy, that is to say,they make the majority decisions viable and prevent from excluding from the rights to the minorities, allow the consensus but also the dissent and, therefore, the tolerance and the free debate of the ideas, political programs and laws. This function is the most important of the parties and reinforces the need that the democracies have to preserve them and to perfect them. The parties have afundamental role in the conformation of the organs of the State by means of the choices and are areas of discussion and debate, besides which when they come to the power for the electoral route they have opposite to the citizens the notable obligation to not to cancel the democratic procedures and the institutions, as well as look after the respect of the fundamental rights.-1-

The political systems of several nations are dominated by two parties, most notably the governments of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Other countries are nearly two-party systems, in the sense that two parties dominate and one or two smaller third parties ensure one or the other major parties maintains power (Germany being agood example). These systems stand in contrast to multi-party parliamentary systems where coalitions regularly shift (Israel, Japan, various Eastern European countries, various Latin American democracies). Recent developments have seen a number of countries, such as France and Italy, move towards a more two-party system as a number of smaller parties have come together under an umbrellaorganisation for the purpose of contesting elections. There are strong voices on either side of the debate over which kind of system is preferable. Some countries began more as multi-party systems, but they gradually settled into a two-party pattern as the electorate’s preferences polarized. Other countries, traditionally dominated by one or two parties, have seen the gradual emergence of influential third...