POLI 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 31: Party System
Document Summary
Political parties: common interest, critical to the operation of canadian democracy, dominate the practice of canadian democracy. Ideology- set of fundamental political principles: varies from country to country, bad word- suggests a lack of thought or respect for democracy. Canadian parties and ideology: conservatives and ndp more likely to be programmatic, ideological. Internal ideological problem for liberals (cid:862)big tent(cid:863: success lies in the centre and the centre shifts from time to time. Mass parties: large, consistent memberships, membership control over platforms, dependent on many small donations. Cadre parties: small permenant memberships, party elites dominate policy making and setting, fewer and bigger donors. Canada"s parties: mix of both at times, mass qualities at elections and leadership conventions, cadre qualities between elections. Party system: stable 2+ party system at federal level, frequent realignment of support and characer, different systems in the provinces, not well integrated. Party functions: recruit(candidate and leaderships, finance(for elections, aggregate interests, formulate policy, educate.
