Major Parties
A major party is a political party that holds substantial influence in a country's politics, standing in contrast to a minor party. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: Major parties hold a significant percentage of the vote in elections and claim higher membership than minor parties. Typically, major parties have the most donors, best-organized support networks and excellent funding for elections. Their candidates for political positions are closely watched since they have the highest chance of being elected to office because of the high membership, recognition and donations that these parties are able to generate. Two major parties can lead to a two-party system. If there is only one major party, then it is a dominant-party system. In a multi-party system, a major party is one that occasionally controls the presidency or premiership and is the most influential party in a coalition government. See also * Ruling party The ruling party or governing party in a d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Minor Party
A minor party is a political party that plays a smaller (in some cases much smaller, even insignificant in comparison) role than a major party in a country's politics and elections. The difference between minor and major parties can be so great that the membership total, donations, and the candidates that they are able to produce or attract are very distinct. Some of the minor parties play almost no role in a country's politics because of their low recognition, vote and donations. Minor parties often receive very small numbers of votes at an election (to the point of losing any candidate nomination deposit). The method of voting can also assist or hinder a minor party's chances. For example, in an election for more than one member, the proportional representation method of voting can be advantageous to a minor party as can preference allocation from one or both of the major parties. A minor party that follows the direction/directive of some other major parties is called a bloc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Two-party System
A two-party system is a political party system in which two major political parties consistently dominate the political landscape. At any point in time, one of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referred to as the ''majority'' or ''governing party'' while the other is the ''minority'' or ''opposition party''. Around the world, the term has different meanings. For example, in the United States, the Bahamas, Jamaica, United Kingdom and Zimbabwe, the sense of ''two-party system'' describes an arrangement in which all or nearly all elected officials belong to either of the two major parties, and third parties rarely win any seats in the legislature. In such arrangements, two-party systems are thought to result from several factors, like "winner takes all" or "first past the post" election systems.Regis PublishingThe US System: Winner Takes All Accessed August 12, 2013, "...Winner-take-all rules trigger a cycle that leads to and strengthen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dominant-party System
A dominant-party system, or one-party dominant system, is a political occurrence in which a single political party continuously dominates election results over running opposition groups or parties. Any ruling party staying in power for more than one consecutive term may be considered a dominant party (also referred to as a ''predominant'' or ''hegemonic'' party). Some dominant parties were called the natural governing party, given their length of time in power. ''Dominant''-parties and their domination of a state, develop out of one-sided electoral and party constellations within a multi-party system (particularly under presidential systems of governance), and as such differ from states under a ''one''-party system, which are intricately organized around a specific party. Sometimes the term "''de facto'' one-party state" is used to describe dominant-party systems which, unlike a one-party system, allows (at least nominally) democratic multiparty elections, but the existing ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Multi-party System
In political science, a multi-party system is a political system in which multiple political parties across the political spectrum run for national elections, and all have the capacity to gain control of government offices, separately or in coalition. Apart from one-party-dominant and two-party systems, multi-party systems tend to be more common in parliamentary systems than presidential systems and far more common in countries that use proportional representation compared to countries that use first-past-the-post elections. Several parties compete for power and all of them have reasonable chance of forming government. In multi-party systems that use proportional representation, each party wins a number of legislative seats proportional to the number of votes it receives. Under first-past-the-post, the electorate is divided into a number of districts, each of which selects one person to fill one seat by a plurality of the vote. First-past-the-post is not conducive to a prolifer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Coalition Government
A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in nations with majoritarian electoral systems, but common under proportional representation. A coalition government might also be created in a time of national difficulty or crisis (for example, during wartime or economic crisis) to give a government the high degree of perceived political legitimacy or collective identity, it can also play a role in diminishing internal political strife. In such times, parties have formed all-party coalitions (national unity governments, grand coalitions). If a coalition collapses, the Prime Minister and cabinet may be ousted by a vote of no confidence, call snap elections, form a new majority coalition, or continue as a minority government. Coalition agreement In multi-party states, a coalition agreeme ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ruling Party
The ruling party or governing party in a democratic parliamentary or presidential system is the political party or coalition holding a majority of elected positions in a parliament, in the case of parliamentary systems, or holding the executive branch, in presidential systems, that administers the affairs of state after an election. In many democratic republic countries like the Philippines, the ruling party is the party of the elected president that is in charge of the executive branch of government. In parliamentary systems, the majority in the legislature also controls the executive branch of government, thus leaving no possibility of opposing parties concurrently occupying the executive and legislative branches of government. In other systems, such as in an American style presidential system, the party of the president does not necessarily also have a legislative majority. A ''ruling party'' is also used to describe the party of one-party states, such as the Chinese Commun ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Political Parties
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or policy goals. Political parties have become a major part of the politics of almost every country, as modern party organizations developed and spread around the world over the last few centuries. It is extremely rare for a country to have no political parties. Some countries have only one political party while others have several. Parties are important in the politics of autocracies as well as democracies, though usually democracies have more political parties than autocracies. Autocracies often have a single party that governs the country, and some political scientists consider competition between two or more parties to be an essential part of democracy. Parties can develop from existing divisions in society, like the divisions between low ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |