Concept Of Political Parties

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2. Political Parties 2.1. Concept of Political Parties The political party is one of the most appealing subjects in political science discourses. It is due to its position as power seeking and preserving machinery, where the power is one of the core goals in politics. According to Scarrow (2006: 21-22), the study on political parties academically has been developed by scholars since the third quarter of the nineteenth century. During this time, scholars examined the political party as mainly a response to the swift improvement of the role of political party in the government. Meanwhile, studies on political parties deal with new discourses in the late nineteenth century when parties became an extra-parliamentary organisation. Ostrogorsky…show more content…
Therefore, Neumann (1963: 352-353) argues that the political party denotes to an articulate institution of society’s active political agents, those who are concerned with the control of governmental power and who compete for popular votes and supports with other groups holding divergent outlooks. Thus, the party should represent the connecting link between administration and public opinion. Similarly, Sartori (1976: 41) forcefully stresses that the party has a vital role as a mediator or a channelling organisation between a state and its society’s interests. It portrays that the party is a fundamental element of democratic government and a tool of society in articulating their aspirations. Along with Neumann and Sartori, Mainwaring (1991: 41) highlights that parties are not mere abstract institutions which follow some mechanical rules in the political system. They are institutions created above all by politicians, and the way they relate to civil society and the state, as well as their capability to represent and impede the representation of…show more content…
Even Islamist parties keep a low profile and are no longer actively support the introduction of Islamic sharia or the establishment of an Islamic state. Besides, the influence of the military on political parties is on the decline and electors can give a warning to parties which have bad performances. Unfortunately, some evidences shows that parties are no longer social movements with their own tight network of organisations like in the era of 1950s. Thus, the politics of aliran is feeble. In various local elections of regional heads it can be found that the selection of candidates by political parties, the decisions of voters and the partisan coalition building are not the result of long-term loyalties in specific social milieus but of pragmatic decisions. Many coalitions in fact are formed just for the sake of winning. These weaknesses are accompanied by other problematic developments: the rise of presidential or presidentialised parties, the increasing intra-party authoritarianism, the prevalence of ‘money politics’, the lack of meaningful political platforms, weak loyalties to parties, the building of cartels, and the upsurge of new local

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