1. Political Parties
Chapter 5

2. Parties and What They Do
Section One

3. Political parties perform five major functions:
A political party is a group of people who try to control government by winning elections and holding public offices. The United States two major parties are the Republicans and the Democrats.
Political parties are essential to democratic government. Parties help link the people and their wishes to government action. Parties also help unify people by finding compromise among contending views.
Political parties perform five major functions:
First, they nominate, or name, candidates for public office. Parties present these candidates to the voters and then gather support for them.
Second, parties inform the people and inspire them to participate in public affairs.
Third, political parties help ensure that their candidates and officeholders are qualified and of good character.

4. Fourth, political parties have some governing responsibilities
Fourth, political parties have some governing responsibilities. Congress and State legislatures are organized along party lines. They conduct much of their business based on partisanship, or firm allegiance to a political party.
Fifth, parties act as watchdogs over the conduct of government. The party out of power keeps an especially close eye on the policies and behavior of the party in power, or the party that controls the executive branch of each national or State government.

5. The Two-Party System
Section 2

6. In the United States, there is a two-party system, which means that two major political parties dominate politics. Minor parties, or those without wide support, also exist.
The first two American political parties arose during the ratification of the Constitution; several factors have made the two-party system last.
One basic factor is tradition; the system remains because it has always been.
Also, the democratic system favors a two-party system. Nearly all U.S. elections are single-member districts elections, in which voters choose only one candidate for each office. The winner is whoever receives a plurality, or the largest number of votes.
Most voters tend not to vote for minor party candidates, who are unlikely to win.
Also, much of U.S. election law-created by Republicans and Democrats together, or in a bipartisan way-discourages minor parties.

7. The United States is a pluralistic society, or one that consists of distinct cultures and groups. Still, there exists a broad consensus-a general agreement among various groups-on fundamental matters. Consensus helps eliminate the need to form many parties.
However, alternative political systems exist around the world:
In a multiparty arrangement, several major and minor parties compete. To gain power, a number of parties often form a coalition, or a union of people with diverse interests who will share power.
Nearly all dictatorships today have one-party systems, in which only one party is allowed.

8. The Two-Party System in American History
Section 3

9. Debate over the Constitution’s ratification caused two sides—the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists—to form. These became the first two political parties.
In the election of 1800, Anti-Federalist Thomas Jefferson beat the incumbent, that is, the current officeholder, Federalist President John Adams. The Anti-Federalists then took control of politics. They later became the Democratic-Republicans and then the Democrats.

10. There have been four eras during which one party dominated national politics:
From 1800 to 1860, the Democrats held power. By the mid-1820s, they had split into factions, dissenting groups.
In 1854 the Republican Party formed. It controlled national politics from 1860 to The party was supported by business and financial interests, farmers, laborers, and newly freed African Americans. By 1896 the Republicans drew from a broad range of the electorate—the people eligible to vote.
At that time the nation’s party politics began to move toward the economic arena and away from the sectionalism, or devotion to the interests of one region, that had plagued the nation for years.
The Great Depression had a huge impact on American life, and one change it saw was the return to dominance of the Democrats. From 1932 to 1968, they operated from a strong base of southerners, small farmers, labor union members, and city people.

11. A new era began in 1968 with the election of Republican President Richard Nixon. From 1968 until 2000, neither party entirely dominated politics. During that time, while one party held the White House, the other controlled Congress in part or as a whole.
From , both the Congress and the Presidency were controlled by the Republican Party.

12. The Minor Parties Section Four

13. Four types of minor parties have played a role in American politics:
Ideological parties are based on certain social, economic, or political ideas. They do not often win elections, but they remain active for a long time.
Single-issue parties focus on one public policy matter. They fade away after the issue has been resolved or people lose interest. Sometimes they are able to get one of the major parties to take on their issue.
Economic protest parties appear during tough financial times. They criticize the economic actions and plans of the major parties.
Most of the important minor parties in American politics have been splinter parties—parties that have broken away from one of the major parties. Usually they have a strong leader who did not win a major party’s nomination.

14. Although most Americans do not support them, minor parties still have an impact on politics and on the major parties. The minor parties’ members act as critics and innovators, drawing attention to otherwise neglected or controversial issues.
Strong third-party candidates can also play the “spoiler” role in elections. This means that they pull votes away from one of the major parties, weakening that party’s ability to win an election.

15. Party Organization Section Five

16. The major parties are decentralized, or fragmented
The major parties are decentralized, or fragmented. At the national level, the party machinery has four basic elements:
the national convention that nominates the party’s candidates,
the national committee that runs the party’s affairs between conventions,
the national chairperson who heads the national committee, and
congressional campaign committees that work to elect party members to Congress.

17. From the perspective of its members, a party has three basic and loosely connected parts.
The party organization consists of the party machinery’s leaders.
The party in the electorate refers to those followers who usually vote for the party’s candidates.
The party in government describes the party’s officeholders.

18. At the State and local levels, party structure is largely set by State law. At the State level, a central committee is headed by a chairperson.
Local party structure varies widely, with a party unit for each district in which elections are held. The districts include congressional and legislative districts, counties, cities and towns, wards, and precincts.
A ward is a small unit of a city; a precinct is a subdivision of a ward.
Political parties have been in decline since the 1960s. More and more voters regard themselves as independents.
Also, split-ticket voting, or voting for candidates of different parties in the same election, has increased.