5.3 - Political Parties
Political Parties and Linkage Institutions
Linkage Institutions: channels connecting people's preferences to policymakers. The four covered here are political parties, interest groups, elections, and the news media.
- Political parties: bring together people with similar views, run candidates, and turn votes into control of government.
- Interest groups: push for specific policies all year, through lobbying, lawsuits, and mobilizing members (see 5.6).
- Elections: let voters pick leaders and reward or punish them for their records (see 5.8 and 5.9).
- Media: tells the public what government is doing and tells officials what the public cares about (see 5.12).
Primary Goal: a party's overriding goal is to win elections and gain power, since only winning lets them actually shape policy.
Functions of Political Parties
- Mobilizing and Educating Voters: Get Out The Vote efforts and sharing information meant to persuade people to support their candidates.
- Establishing a Platform: a statement of the party's policy goals for the next four years, giving voters an easy way to see where the party stands.
- Recruiting and Managing Campaigns: finding future candidates, raising money, and running media strategy, all in service of winning.
- Influencing Congress: parties heavily shape committee assignments and leadership positions like Speaker or Majority Leader, which go to members of the majority party.
Connection to Federalist No. 10
In Federalist No. 10 (1787), Madison warned about factions, groups united by an interest that works against other people's rights or the good of the whole community. Political parties and interest groups are today's factions. Madison said getting rid of factions would mean destroying liberty, so instead a large republic should control their effects: with so many groups competing, no single one can easily take over. The two major parties, each a coalition of many smaller groups, are one way that competition plays out today (see 5.6 for interest groups).
Big picture
Political parties link citizens to government, with winning elections as their core goal. They pursue that goal by mobilizing voters, setting a clear platform, recruiting and funding candidates, and controlling much of Congress's internal structure and leadership.