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Why do we need political parties? · Part 2

Chapter 4: Political Parties · POLITICAL SCIENCE

take a side and inability to take a balanced view on an issue. © RK Laxman - Brushing up the years all, parties try to persuade people why their policies are better than others. They seek to implement these policies by winning popular support through elections. Thus, parties reflect fundamental political divisions in a society.

Parties are about a part of the society and thus, involve partisanship . Thus, a party is known by which part it stands for, which policies it supports and whose interests it upholds. A political party has three components:  the leaders,  the active members and  the followers Functions What does a political party do? Basically, political parties fill political offices and exercise political power.

Parties do so by performing a series of functions: Parties contest elections . In most democracies, elections are fought mainly among the candidates put up by political parties. Parties select their candidates in different ways. In some countries, such as the USA, members and supporters of a party choose its candidates.

Now more and more countries are following this method. In other countries like India, top party leaders choose candidates for contesting elections. Parties put forward different policies and programmes and the voters choose from them. Each of us may have different opinions and views on what policies are suitable for the society.

But no government can handle such a large variety of views. In a democracy, a large number of similar opinions have to be grouped together to provide a direction in which policies can be formulated by the governments. This is what the parties do. A party reduces a vast multitude of opinions into a few basic positions which it Okay, granted that we can’t live without political parties.

But tell me on what grounds do people support a political party? supports. A government is expected to base its policies on the line taken by the ruling party . Parties play a decisive role in making laws for a country.

Formally, laws are debated and passed in the legislature. But since most

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