Secondly, political parties contribute to democratic government by nominating Party Systems candidates for election to public office. In the absence of parties, voters would be ignou confronted with a, bewildering array of self-nominated candidates, each seeking a OSes narrow victory over others on the basis of personal friendships, celebrity status or name. Parties minimize this danger by setting up their candidates in different constituencies, They carry out campaigns to win elections. They also defray the cost of contesting elections where the candidate is a poor person. Again, political parties help democratic government by structuring voting ch reducing the number of candidates on the ballot to those who have realistic chance of winning. Parties that have won sizeable portions of the vote in past elections are likely to win comparable portions of the vote in future ones also. This discourages non-party or non-serious candidates for running for the office. This in turn focuses the election on the contest between parties and on candidates with established records, which reduces the amount of new information that voters need in order to make a rational decision. In addition, parties also help voters choose candidates by proposing alternative programmes of government action in the form of party manifestos. The specific policies advocated in an election campaign may vary from candidate to candidate and from election to election, the types of policies advocated by candidates of one party nonetheless usually tend to differ from those proposed by candidates of other parties. In the case of the US, for example, even though the neutrality of the names of major political parties, namely, Democratic and Republican suggests that they are undifferentiated in their policies, in reality, however, these parties regularly adopt very different policies in their platforms. Besides, parties help co-ordinate the actions of public officials. A government based on the separation of powers like that of the Unites States, divides responsibilities for making public policy. The President and leaders of the House and Senate are not required to cooperate with one another. Political parties are the major means for bridging the separation of powers, of producing co-ordinated policies that can govern the country effectively. Individuals of the same party in the presidency, the House, and the Senate are likely to share political principles and thus to cooperate in making policy. In a parliamentary political system, where the formation and continuance of the real executive, i. ¢., the Council of Ministers, depends on the support of the majority in legislature, political parties perform the task of disciplining the members of the majority to keep them united for providing the life line support to the government. This role of political parties has, in fact, made them informal governments in democracies as the powers of the legislature has now been usurped, to a great extent, by political parties. Though victory is certainly the first commandment of a political party, in a democracy defeat of party also does not mean its demise. In that case, a party functions as a critic and watchdog of the government's policy. Political parties thus play an extremely significant role in democracies. While, on the one hand, they have to maintain and strengthen the structure of democratic norms and values; on the other, they have to secure maximal community mobilisation for social and economic development. Political parties have thus to induce both political and socio-economic development. 20.5 PRINCIPAL TYPES OF PARTY SYSTEMS As political parties represent various opinions in a democracy, a variety of political parties should characterise democratic system. In reality, however, number of viable parties differ from country to country in accordance with legal requirements and peculiar circumstances obtaining in a particular country. In Great Britain and e Content Digtzod by eGyanKosh, GNOUterme of Political the United States, for example, a two-party system prevails, wi ticipation and in majority of ee aaee countries including India and France, multi-party system has come in to existence. ‘On the other hand, in authoritarian and Communist countries like China one-party lignou system operates. It, therefore, appears useful to examine the relative merits and arene demerits of these types of party systems. 20.5.1 One Party Systems ‘The one party or single party system is found upon the assumption that the sovereign will of the state reposes in the leader and the political elite. This, authoritarian principle found expression first in monarchies, later in dictatorships and more recently in some democracies. As the dictatorship needs a monopoly of power for its survival, it abolishes all political parties. Though elections are conducted even in such a regime if only to show the fagade of popular support, the voter’s choice is limited to only one candidate. There may be some variations in the single party system prevailing in different countries, but some of the common features of dictatorial parties in these countries make them unique. These features are : (1) Such party is an official party in the sense that it has a monopoly and is led by the same persons who rule: (2) membership of such a party is usually made an essential requirement for acquiring at least important government jobs; (3) this kind of party supervises the governtintal efforts to ideologically indoctrinate peoples: and (4) it is characterized by its elite personality. The essential function of one-party system thus is not to elicit decisions from the mass electorate on the big issue of politics, but to ensure discipline and obedience among the people. In its organization and methods, it is more like an army than a political party. Obviously, therefore, a one-party system becomes necessarily totalitarian. As the sole operator of a political system, the party extends its authority everywhere ‘The general policy is decided by the dictates of the party. Every word the party declares is, like the Delphic oracle, taken to be true, The source of all laws is the party, and no aspect of individual and social life is immune from its potential control. Not surprisingly, a single-party system involves the abolition of freedom of speech and expression, press and association. Accordingly, the line of distinction between society and the state is blurred and the latter completely swallows up the former. This type of party system was found in Fascist Italy under Mussolini’ who assumed power in 1922 and systematically destroyed all parties except his own Fascist Party. In Germany, Hitler came to power in 1933 and destroyed all opposition. In 1934, the party purged itself of scores of prominent members of the party by shooting them down under the pretence that they were resisting arrest. Similarly, there was only Communist Party rule in former USSR and there were several purges between 1936 and 1938 by the Communist Party. Single mass parties have, of course, come to power in some of the Afro-Asian states in the post-colonial era These countries include Ghana, Kenya, Tanzani Turkey and Mexico, etc. In Turkey, for instance, the People's Republican Party, operated from 1923 to 1946 without killing democracy. Tanzania under J Nyerere, who founded African National Union, is another example of single-party democracy. In that country, though TANU was the only recognized party, yet voters did have a choice of candidates from within that party as in each constituency more than one TANU candidate was allowed to contest. In Kenya, the government banned the only opposition party, Kenya African People’s Union in 1969, but allowed the members of that party to compete in elections. ‘One can, therefore, divide one-party system into two sub types : (1) authoritarian a ‘one-party systems: and (2) non-authoritarian one-party systems. On the whole, ‘Content Digitized by eGyanKosh, IGNOUhowever, the emphasis of a one-party system is proverbially on the side of Paty Systems authoritarianism. It proclaims its own brand of philosophy and a peculiar way of ignou life to which the whole society is forced to conform. As Barker observes, “The Oz: democratic criticism the one-idea State is not a criticism of its object..it is a criticism of its whole process of life.” In fact, the monopolisation of legality that empowers a party to be the sole custodian of truth spells a grave danger for civilisation itself. 20.5.2 Two Party Systems ‘A two-party system is one where only two parties, despite the presence of other parties, have substantial support of the electorate and expectation of forming the government. Under this system, the majority of the elected candidates at a given time belong to any one of the two major parties which form the government, while the other party remains in the opposition, In such a system, there may exist more than two parties, but actual or likely transfer of power takes place between two giant parties only. The United States and the United Kingdom provide good examples of two-party system. In the former, the Democratic and Republican parties are two giant parties. In the UK, the transfer of power takes place between the two major parties, the Labour and the Conservative. There are, of course, certain differences between the American and British party systems. While the American parties are not ideologically very much different from each other—they are broker-bargaining parties to the point that each party achieves a basically similar political consensus—the British parties, though also pragmatic, are, generally speaking, ideologically distinct from each other. Recognising these differences the two party system may be divided into (a) indistinct two-party system in the US, and (b) distinct two-party system in Britai 20.5.3 Multi-Party Systems A multi-party system is one in which more than two major parties exist, who struggle with each other for power but no party can alone secure absolute ‘majority to rule. In countries like India and several countries on the Continental Europe, such a system exists, though in a variety of forms. ‘One can discem two kinds of multi-party systems from the point of view of stability of government : (a) unstable multi-party-systems; and (b) working multi party systems. As its name indicates, the former does not provide stability. India today provides one of the best examples of this, where recurring ‘hung’ Parliaments due to plethora of parties has caused political instability at the union level since 1996. France under the Third and Fourth Republics provides another example of this kind of party system, where governments formed by coalition of parties rose and fell with dismaying regularity. Italy provides yet another example, ‘where hardly any party since the Second World War has been able to win a majority of the seats in the Italian Parliament. ‘The working multi-party systems, on the other hand, behaves like two-party system and thereby tend to provide stability to government, even though they have more than two major political parties. Former West Germany, before the rise of the Social Democratic Party as the government party, had characteristics of a two-party system as two of the three major parties, working together, provided the government and the Social Democrats remained in the opposition. In Norway, ‘Sweden, Belgium and Israel also the existence of various parties have not caused instability n Content Digitized by eGyanKosh, IGNOU