Talk:Political party
Cf. Party Systems... --Larry Sanger 11:07, 28 November 2007 (CST)
- definition. Political parties are different from pressure groups. The article needs to follow political science standard terminology. See [1] for a major summary. Richard Jensen 12:35, 28 November 2007 (CST)
Please be patient, it's too soon to start an exchange of semantics. Nick Gardner 15:25, 28 November 2007 (CST)
German party policies
Thank you for your comment Christian Kleineidam, I have inserted the words "many of" to meet your point. However, I think that you may have intended your comment to appear on this page rather than as an amendment to the article (where it doesn't seem to fit in its present form). I should be most interested to hear more from you about German party policies. Could you please let me have some more notes that I could adapt for insertion? Nick Gardner 10:35, 1 December 2007 (CST)
Title change
If I had thought I was drafting an article on the subject of "political party" rather than "political parties" it would not have been this one. What I have written has been about how parties interact, how they differ, how they compete etc. No doubt an interesting article could be written about the internal organisation of a "political party", but this is not it. Is this how readers will see it, or am I wasting everybody's time with semantics? Nick Gardner 16:23, 18 January 2008 (CST)
- An article about political parties, whether titled political parties or political party, should discuss both the internal structure of political parties, and the competition between parties for political power. Parties' internal structures affect how they compete with other parties, and vice-versa, but your distinction would be a good place to start sectioning. Anthony Argyriou 17:20, 18 January 2008 (CST)
Suggestion for new intro
I suggest the following replace the existing intro:
| “ | A political party is an organization of people with some common interest which seeks to gain control over governmental power through the capture of public offices and the organization of the government. Political parties have developed differently in different countries, and their development has had a significant bearing upon the development of domestic policies in those countries. There are fundamental differences between political parties which intend to contest for power democratically, through elections, those which support democracy and elections but operate under undemocratic regimes, and those which seek to sieze power through non-democratic means. These differences affect the external activities and internal organization of the parties. | ” |
The first sentence is modified from the definition at the top of http://www.apsanet.org/content_5221.cfm , though I've removed the bits about democracy, as political parties can exist in non-democratic countries, and at the lowest level, seek to accomplish the same thing. The second sentence is a restatement of the current opening sentence. The next two sentences set up a possible organization for the article. Probably more could be written before the first section break, but what should be written would depend on what direction the article is to take. Anthony Argyriou 17:38, 18 January 2008 (CST)
- parties in non-democratic countries a are very different beast. Either they are illegal underground groups seeking democracy, or they are pawns of the government designed to transmit the will of the rulers downward. Richard Jensen 23:05, 18 January 2008 (CST)
- They may be, though the political parties of Pakistan may be a counterexample to your assertion. Also, some political parties, whether operating in a democratic society or not, do not seek democracy (for example, any Communist Party). However, I don't know of a good term to distinguish political parties which are not entirely democratic (or operate in a non-democratic environment) from those which are, so they should be discussed in this article, under a separate section heading. Anthony Argyriou 14:31, 22 January 2008 (CST)
- very good point. Happily it is not CZ's job to come up with an explanation. All we have to do is summarize what the experts in comparative politics have to say. Richard Jensen 15:16, 22 January 2008 (CST)
- They may be, though the political parties of Pakistan may be a counterexample to your assertion. Also, some political parties, whether operating in a democratic society or not, do not seek democracy (for example, any Communist Party). However, I don't know of a good term to distinguish political parties which are not entirely democratic (or operate in a non-democratic environment) from those which are, so they should be discussed in this article, under a separate section heading. Anthony Argyriou 14:31, 22 January 2008 (CST)
- parties in non-democratic countries a are very different beast. Either they are illegal underground groups seeking democracy, or they are pawns of the government designed to transmit the will of the rulers downward. Richard Jensen 23:05, 18 January 2008 (CST)
- - especially if they disagree Nick Gardner 02:15, 23 January 2008 (CST)
National parties list - which subpage?
It's currently being developed on the related articles subpage, but it's already getting pretty unwieldy and only a fraction of countries and their parties have been included so far. Maybe a catalog would be better? We could include a note on the related articles subpage to see the catalog subpage for a list of parties. Shamira Gelbman 20:29, 25 July 2009 (UTC)