United States Political Parties

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Political parties in the United States are an important element of the United States ' political system . Although smaller parties that have regional or programmatic importance also exist, two large parties have dominated the multiparty system of the United States for over 160 years . In fact, there is a two-party system .

overview

The United States has a pluralistic, multi-party system, with most offices, particularly at the federal level, held by members of the two largest parties. This results from the majority voting system used and the limited access to voting slips for these parties. There have been a ton of other parties in the history of the United States , but most of these current third parties are virtually irrelevant to government policy. Historically, parties other than the two current major parties formed this constellation at times.

Nonetheless, many third parties are or have been regionally successful and some (especially the Prohibition Party and the Socialist Party of America ) occasionally found their suggestions in the party program of the Democrats or Republicans. It should be noted that in the United States, local elections down to the level of public prosecutors or the school board are elected and there are few political parties there. The elections are also much more personal and the candidates tend to shape the content of their party rather than the other way around.

membership

From the point of view of many other states, especially the member states of the European Union , it should be emphasized that parties in the United States have no members in the narrower sense. In most, but not all countries, you can register for a certain party, but this is not a membership in the sense of an association , since registration is not a party matter, but a matter of public law , e.g. B. in connection with the general right to vote . Registration does not enter into any obligation towards this party and it cannot be refused by either party. This applies both to the right to be nominated as a candidate for a party and to the right to vote in primary elections .

The administrative organizations of the two major parties at the federal level are called the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee . Their primary task is to organize the four-year nomination party conference and the election campaign . Outside of this, however, they only play a subordinate role in everyday political life. Formally , they also have chairmen , but these mainly have administrative tasks , which makes them more comparable to the “directors” of European parties. Political leadership, on the other hand, is left to the party leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives and, if he belongs to the party, to the president .

In addition to the parties, there are political associations that are very close to the parties such as the Democrats or Republicans and whose membership corresponds approximately to membership in the respective parties. But they are not official parts of the parties.

Categorization of the parties

In order to represent the existing structure of rule in the United States, registered political parties are categorized into four groups. These are not necessarily synonymous with the political orientations of the total US population, the trend of voter turnout has leveled very stable of all eligible voters in the last eleven presidential elections, that is, since 1972, at an average of only 52 percent (see. The opposite, the concept of democracy for B. in the Federal Republic of Germany, where there is talk of an 80 percent mark ).

  • The first group is that of the "big parties" as defined above, consisting of the Democrats and the Republicans.
  • The second group represents “other major parties,” where “importance” is measured by how successful the party was in getting its presidential candidate on the ballot.
  • The third group consists of “Active Small and Regional Third Parties”, consisting of all active parties that do not fall into the first two groups.
  • The last group are "Former Parties", parties that no longer actively participate in the United States' political system .

Active parties

Big parties

Other major parties

Small parties

Regional parties

Former parties in the order in which they were founded

literature

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