![Scottish Green Party conference](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Scottish_Green_Party_conference.jpg)
The terms party conference (
UK English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, ...
), political convention (
US and
Canadian English
Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA) encompasses the varieties of English native to Canada. According to the 2016 census, English was the first language of 19.4 million Canadians or 58.1% of the total population; the remainder spoke French ( ...
), and party congress usually refer to a general meeting of a
political party
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 political ideology ...
. The conference is attended by certain
delegates who represent the party membership. In most political parties, the party conference is the highest decision-making body of the organization, tasked with electing or nominating the
party's leaders or leadership bodies, deciding party policy, and setting the
party's platform and agendas.
The definitions of all of these terms vary greatly, depending on the country and situation in which they are used. The term ''conference'' or ''
caucus
A caucus is a meeting of supporters or members of a specific political party or movement. The exact definition varies between different countries and political cultures.
The term originated in the United States, where it can refer to a meeting ...
'' may also refer to the organization of all party members as a whole. The term ''political convention'' may also refer to international bilateral or multilateral meetings on state-level, like the convention of the
Anglo-Russian Entente
The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 (russian: Англо-Русская Конвенция 1907 г., translit=Anglo-Russkaya Konventsiya 1907 g.), or Convention between the United Kingdom and Russia relating to Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet (; ...
(1907).
Leadership roles
Within party conferences, there might be different offices or bodies fulfilling certain tasks, usually including:
*''
Chairmanship'' — Chosen from within the body's membership to preside over its business.
*''
Secretary
A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a w ...
'' — Responsible for keeping
minutes
Minutes, also known as minutes of meeting (abbreviation MoM), protocols or, informally, notes, are the instant written record of a meeting or hearing. They typically describe the events of the meeting and may include a list of attendees, a state ...
of the conference's proceedings.
*''
Policy committee
A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
s'' — Responsible for setting and maintaining review of current party policy, and preparing proposals for presentation to the full conference.
Party conferences around the world
Canada
In Canada, besides annual or biennial conventions, parties often hold special conventions to elect new leaders; often known as a ''
leadership convention {{Politics of Canada
In Canadian politics, a leadership convention is held by a political party when the party needs to choose a leader due to a vacancy or a challenge to the incumbent leader.
Overview
In Canada, leaders of a party generally rem ...
''. The new leader of a party is often seen as that party's de facto candidate for Prime Minister (as the party leader almost always goes on to serve as Prime Minister should their party get elected to a
majority government
A majority government is a government by one or more governing parties that hold an absolute majority of seats in a legislature. This is as opposed to a minority government, where the largest party in a legislature only has a plurality of seats. ...
).
Communist states
![20th CPSU Congress](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/20th_CPSU_Congress.jpg)
*
Communist parties
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
convene a ''congress'' to elect a
Central Committee
Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of Communist party, communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party org ...
, which in turn sets up a
Politburo
A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states.
Names
The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contraction ...
.
* A Communist ''conference'' may also meet on occasion, to discuss a particular issue or plan an event, but would have no such official powers.
Ireland
All Irish parties have annual party conferences, called
Ardfheis
or ''ardfheis'' ( , ; "high assembly"; plural ''ardfheiseanna'') is the name used by many Irish political parties for their annual party conference. The term was first used by Conradh na Gaeilge, the Irish language cultural organisation, for i ...
, at which party policy is decided by the membership and the party chairperson and executive board are elected.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom the political conferences (usually called ''party congress'', or ''party conference'') generally take place in three weeks of September and October of each year, whilst the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
is in recess. The conferences of the three largest UK-wide parties, the
Conservative Party Conference
The Conservative Party Conference (CPC) is a four-day national conference event held by the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. It takes place every year around October during the British party conference season, when the House of Commons is ...
, the
Labour Party Conference
The Labour Party Conference is the annual conference of the British Labour Party. It is formally the supreme decision-making body of the party and is traditionally held in the final week of September, during the party conference season when the ...
and the
Liberal Democrat Conference
The Liberal Democrat Conference, also known inside the party as the ''Liberal Democrat Federal Conference'', is a twice-per-year political conference of the British Liberal Democrats, the third-largest political party in the UK by the number of ...
, are held during this time.
United States
![Roll_call_DNC_2008](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Roll_call_DNC_2008.jpg)
In the United States, a ''political convention'' usually refers to a
presidential nominating convention
A United States presidential nominating convention is a political convention held every four years in the United States by most of the political parties who will be fielding nominees in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. The formal purpo ...
, but it can also refer to state, county, or congressional district nominating conventions in which candidates are nominated, delegates to larger regional or national conventions are elected and the
party platform
A political party platform (US English), party program, or party manifesto (preferential term in British & often Commonwealth English) is a formal set of principle goals which are supported by a political party or individual candidate, in order ...
is adopted. Today, the two largest conventions on national level are the
Democratic National Convention
The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 ...
and the
Republican National Convention
The Republican National Convention (RNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1856 by the United States Republican Party. They are administered by the Republican National Committee. The goal of the Repu ...
, usually held every four years to select their candidates for the offices of
president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
and
vice president
A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...
. They are attended by
delegates, who are mostly elected in
primaries
Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the c ...
.
Between the national conventions, the ''national committee'' of each party (see
DNC and
RNC) leads the party administratively, while they are politically represented by their
leaders in Senate and
in the House, or (if applicable) by the president. However, some party charters also provide for ''party conferences'' to be held between two national conventions to deal with various matters.
In fact, those and the national committees can be compared to regular party conventions in other countries.
The first political convention held in America took place in
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...
in March 1766. The meeting was organized by the
Sons of Liberty
The Sons of Liberty was a loosely organized, clandestine, sometimes violent, political organization active in the Thirteen American Colonies founded to advance the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. It pl ...
, who, in challenging incumbent governor
Thomas Fitch, nominated
William Pitkin for
governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
and
Jonathan Trumbull
Jonathan Trumbull Sr. (October 12, 1710August 17, 1785) was an American politician and statesman who served as Governor of Connecticut during the American Revolution. Trumbull and Nicholas Cooke of Rhode Island were the only men to serve as gov ...
for deputy governor.
In the US, the term ''party conference'' is sometimes also used to refer to the equivalent of
parliamentary group
A parliamentary group, parliamentary party, or parliamentary caucus is a group consisting of some members of the same political party or electoral fusion of parties in a legislative assembly such as a parliament or a city council.
Parliamentar ...
s in other countries (see also
congressional caucus
A congressional caucus is a group of members of the United States Congress that meet to pursue common legislative objectives. Formally, caucuses are formed as congressional member organizations (CMOs) through the United States House of Represent ...
).
Germany
![CDU Bundesparteitag 2015 by Olaf Kosinsky](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/CDU_Bundesparteitag_2015_by_Olaf_Kosinsky.JPG)
Other than in the United States, party conferences in Germany (both on state and federal level), called ("party
diet
Diet may refer to:
Food
* Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group
* Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake
** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...
"), will not only meet to nominate candidates for public elections, but also regularly (at least once a year) to adopt political resolutions, select party officials or to amend their statutes. Generally, the party organizations themselves and also their representatives (such as the chairperson, called
party leader
In a governmental system, a party leader acts as the official representative of their political party, either to a legislature or to the electorate. Depending on the country, the individual colloquially referred to as the "leader" of a political ...
, and other board members) play a much more prominent role in German politics than they do for example in the US or UK, where the parties are mainly represented by their members and leaders in parliament or (if applicable) government.
See also
*
Political party
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 political ideology ...
*
Lists of political parties
Lists of Political party, political parties include:
* List of agrarian parties
* List of banned political parties
* List of centrist political parties
* List of communitarian political parties
* List of fictional political parties
* List of fri ...
*
Party leader
In a governmental system, a party leader acts as the official representative of their political party, either to a legislature or to the electorate. Depending on the country, the individual colloquially referred to as the "leader" of a political ...
References
{{Authority control
*
*
Conventions (meetings)