Multi-party systems are systems in which more than two parties are serious contenders to participate in ruling.

Canada, India, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom are examples where there are two strong parties, with a third party that is electorally successful. This "third" party may frequently rank second in elections, and pose a threat to the other two parties, but has still never led the government. Such a party is particularly influential when its support or opposition sustains or ends a minority government.

Finland is a rare case of a nation where three parties routinely hold top office. It is very rare for a country to have more than three parties who all have a roughly equal chance of independently forming government.

Colombia traditionally had a rather rigid two-party system country but after 2002 elections, the system has gone through significant changes.

More commonly, in cases where there are three or more parties, no one party is likely to gain power alone, and parties work with each other to form coalition governments. This has been an emerging trend in the politics of the Republic of Ireland and is almost always the case in Germany on national and state level, and in some constituencies at the communal level. The major drawback of any coalition government is that it is potentially vulnerable to rapid changes and tends to lack stability.

[

Party funding

Political parties are funded by contributions from their membership and by individuals and organizations which share their political ideas or who stand to benefit from their activities. Political parties and factions, especially those in government, are lobbied vigorously by organizations, businesses and special interest groups such as trades unions. Money and gifts to a party, or its members, may be offered as incentives. In the United Kingdom, it has been alleged that peerages have been awarded to contributors to party funds, the benefactors becoming members of the Upper House of Parliament and thus being in a position to participate in the legislative process. Famously, Lloyd George was found to have been selling peerages and to prevent such corruption in future, Parliament passed the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 into law. Thus the outright sale of peerages and similar honours became a criminal act, however some benefactors are alleged to have attempted to circumvent this by cloaking their contributions as loans, giving rise to the 'Cash for Peerages' scandal. Such activities have given rise to demands that the scale of donations should be capped. As the costs of electioneering escalate, so the demands made on party funds increases. In the UK some politicians are advocating that parties should be funded by the State; a proposition that promises to give rise to interesting debate. Along with the increased scrutiny of donations there has been a long term contraction in party memberships in a number of western democracies which itself places more strains on funding. For example in the United Kingdom and Australia membership of the two main parties in 2006 is less than an 1/8 of what it was in 1950, despite significant increases in population over that period. In Ireland, elected representatives of the Sinn Féin party take only the average industrial wage from their salary as a representative, while the rest goes into the party budget. Other incomes they may have are not taken into account. Elected representatives of the Socialist Party (Ireland) take only the average industrial wage out of their entire earnings.

Some nations, such as Australia, give political parties public funding for advertising purposes during election periods.

[

Colors and emblems for parties

Main article: see political colour and List of political party symbols

Generally speaking, over the world, political parties associate themselves with colors, primarily for identification, especially for voter recognition during elections. Red usually signifies leftist, communist or socialist parties. Conservative parties generally use blue or black.

Pink sometimes signifies moderate socialist. Yellow is often used for libertarianism or classical liberalism. Green is the color for green parties, Islamist parties and Irish nationalist and republican parties in Northern Ireland. Orange is sometimes a color of nationalism, such as in The Netherlands, in Israel with the Orange Camp or with Ulster Loyalists in Northern Ireland; it is also a color of reform such as in Ukraine. In the past, Purple was considered the color of royalty (like white), but today it is sometimes used for feminist parties. White also is associated with nationalism. "Purple Party" is also used as an academic hypothetical of an undefined party, as a centralist party in the United States (because purple is created from mixing the main parties' colours of red and blue) and as a highly idealistic "peace and love" party[1]-- in a similar vein to a Green Party, perhaps. Black is generally associated with fascist parties, going back to Mussolini's blackshirts, but also with Anarchism and Christian democracy. Similarly, brown is often associated with Nazism, going back to the Nazi Party's brown-uniformed storm troopers.

Color associations are useful for mnemonics when voter illiteracy is significant. Another case where they are used is when it is not desirable to make rigorous links to parties, particularly when coalitions and alliances are formed between political parties and other organizations, for example: Red Tory, "Purple" (Red-Blue) alliances, Red-green alliances, Blue-green alliances, Pan-green coalitions, and Pan-blue coalitions.

Political color schemes in the United States diverge from international norms. Since 2000, red has become associated with the center-right Republican Party and blue with the center-left Democratic Party. However, unlike political color schemes of other countries, the parties did not choose those colors; they were used in news coverage of 2000 election results and ensuing legal battle and caught on in popular usage.

The emblem of socialist parties is often a red rose held in a fist. Communist parties often use a hammer to represent the worker, a sickle to represent the farmer, or both a hammer and a sickle to refer to both at the same time.

The emblem of Nazism, the swastika or "hakenkreuz," has been adopted as a near-universal symbol for almost any organized hate group, even though it dates from more ancient times.

Symbols can be very important when the overall electorate is illiterate. In the Kenyan constitutional referendum, 2005, supporters of the constitution used the banana as their symbol, while the "no" used an orange.

[

International organizations of political parties

During the 19th and 20th century, many national political parties organized themselves into international organizations along similar policy lines. Notable examples are the International Workingmen's Association (also called the First International), the Socialist International (also called the Second International), the Communist International (also called the Third International), and the Fourth International, as organizations of working class parties, or the Liberal International (yellow), Christian Democratic International and the International Democrat Union (blue). Worldwide green parties have recently established the Global Greens. The Socialist International, the Liberal International, and the International Democrat Union are all based in London.

[

References

[

Bibliography

• Abizadeh, Arash. 2005. "Democratic Elections without Campaigns? Normative Foundations of National Baha'i Elections." World Order Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 7-49.
• Duverger, Maurice. 1954. Political Parties. London: Methuen.
• Gunther, Richard and Larry Diamond. 2003. "Species of Political Parties: A New Typology," Party Politics, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 167-199.
• Neumann, Sigmund (ed.). 1956. Modern Political Parties. IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Redding, Robert. 2004. Hired Hatred. RCI.
• Sutherland, Keith. 2004. The Party's Over. Imprint Academic. ISBN 0-907845-51-7
• Ware, Alan. 1987. Citizens, Parties and the State: A Reappraisal. Princeton University Press.

[

See also

• List of politics-related topics
• List of political parties
• Party class
• Particracy (a political regime dominated by one or more parties)
• Political faction (both pre- and within a modern party)
• The Party (politics)
• Duvergerian equilibrium
• Political colour
• List of political party symbols

[

External links

• U.S. Party Platforms from 1840-2004 at The American Presidency Project: UC Santa Barbara
• Political resources on the net
• Leftist political parties of the world
• Liberals Vs Conservatives Non partisan community where both sides of the fence may enter into debate.
• Do political parties do more harm than good?[2]

v • d • e Political ideologies Anarchism · Christian democracy · Communism · Communitarianism · Conservatism · Fascism · Feminism · Green politics · Liberalism · Libertarianism · Nationalism · Social democracy · Socialism · Utilitarianism Politics Portal Relationship to political parties: Ideologies of parties · Parties by ideology

BCUZ.com FACTS Encyclopedia content is licensed under the GFDL as approved by Wikipedia.
For more information review our copyright contact and privacy policy. © 1996 - BCUZ.COM - We have all the FACTS you need about Small Business Financing, Behavior Disorder, Having Too Many Bills, Needing Cash Fast, Structured Settlements, Frequent Flier Programs, Top Steak Houses, The Mayan Indians, Norfolk and Suffolk England, Growing Longer Hair and a full reference English Encyclopedia and Spanish Encyclopedia.Privacy Policy