Party Classifications

            To classify the parties present in the class elections, there are three methods of categorization in Alan Ware’s Political Parties and Party Systems; they are based on ideological, membership, and organizational differences. By looking at ideological differences, it is evident that all the parties are similar socially and thus fall under the Social Democratic party family. Further investigation will then reveal regional differences that establish local and non-local divisions, showing how the parties are different. Then in terms of tendency and faction, organizational aspects, the parties can be divided into cadre parties and catch-all parties (the membership aspect discusses party-constituency relations and will not be addressed because party support and activism were not part of the process). By addressing ideological and organizational differences it will be evident that the Justice League is closest to a non-local, catch-all party, whereas the smaller parties are locally-concerned, cadre parties.

            Beginning with party ideology, all the parties are composed of charities and can be classified as Social Democratic. This is because every charity uses donations to improve the lives of the less fortunate. As parties then, the desire to help the less fortunate is parallel to public spending. All the parties also fall into the regional and ethnic party family, but this is where they differ. The Justice League is primarily composed of non-local charities, whereas the remaining parties exclusively support local organizations. The issue however is that Ware discusses regional differences in terms of culture, tradition, and economic interests (39-40). Thus, the local/non-local divide can be explained using economic interests because the debate is in where the money should go. More interestingly, the local/non-local issue can be related to the regional family because of cultural divisions, because most of the minorities in Hon4200 are part of the Justice League, an overall non-local party. This is just a theory however, and there is not enough information to assume that minorities favor one type of regional party over another.

            Second, the parties can be classified on organization. The two types are tendencies and factions, and this influences the size of the parties. Organization based on tendency involves common ideology or “…patterned sets of attitudes found among different members of the party…” (Ware 109).The smaller parties formed based on common ideology, and thus the parties are attributed with specific concerns. This is in comparison to the faction-type organization of the Justice League, where the party is made up of power groups that are together to get votes. These parties may have nothing in common, making it more difficult to see how all of the candidates or charities relate. The benefit however is that such parties have the opportunity to gain more votes because their platform addresses more concerns.

Finally with an understanding of the organization, the parties in class can be designated as either catch-all or cadre parties. Because the Justice League attempts to get votes on multiple concerns, it is catch-all party. This is because it is comprised of several charities that address different concerns like health, nutrition, education, and so on. As a result, the party is large, improving the chances that the party will express concerns everyone has and thus get more votes. The other parties are cadre because they speak to a specific audience and thus alienate other concerns. Although they do not represent elitist concerns, they represent less popular ones, which can be considered similar for this example (because these parties received fewer votes). It can be seen then that these parties have smaller constituencies, and are thus smaller, just like cadre parties.