POSC150 Lecture 15: Political Parties

• School: University of Delaware
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POSC150
• Professor: Philip Edward Jones

Document Summary

Parties help bridge the gap: help politicians represent citizens, help citizens hold politicians accountable. Parties: organizations of people that are united by ideological goals and seek to control government: party organization. Official structures (decentralized and federal) of committees conducting party business (main goal: win election) District democratic committees: there is no one party organization, party-in-government. All the officials in government representing a party. Ordinary citizens who identify with a political party. The responsible party model: a view favored by some political scientists about how parties should work. According to the model, parties should offer clear choices to the voters, who can then use those choices as cues to their own preferences of candidates. Once in office, parties would carry out their campaign promises: to link citizens with politicians, parties should. Us party organizations have little control over. +draw safe districts for own party ( gerrymandering )- high tendency to do so.