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108-563: The Kōdōha was never an organized political party and had no official standing within the Army, but its ideology and supporters continued to influence Japanese militarism into the late 1930s. The Empire of Japan had enjoyed economic growth during World War I but this ended in the early 1920s with the Shōwa financial crisis . Social unrest increased with the growing polarization of society and inequalities , such as trafficking in girls , with

216-556: A liberal - conservative divide, or around religious disputes. The spread of the party model of politics was accelerated by the 1848 Revolutions around Europe. The strength of political parties in the United States waned during the Era of Good Feelings , but shifted and strengthened again by the second half of the 19th century. This was not the only country in which the strength of political parties had substantially increased by

324-456: A party chair , who may be different people from the party leader. These executive organizations may serve to constrain the party leader, especially if that leader is an autocrat. It is common for political parties to conduct major leadership decisions, like selecting a party executive and setting their policy goals, during regular party conferences . Much as party leaders who are not in power are usually at least nominally competing to become

432-463: A single-member district electoral system tend to have very few parties, whereas countries that use proportional representation tend to have more. The number of parties in a country can also be accurately estimated based on the magnitude of a country's electoral districts and the number of seats in its legislature. An informative way to classify the party systems of the world is by how many parties they include. Because some party systems include

540-416: A candidate in one electoral district has an incentive to assist a similar candidate in a different district. Thus, political parties can be mechanisms for preventing candidates with similar goals from acting to each other's detriment when campaigning or governing. This might help explain the ubiquity of parties: if a group of candidates form a party and are harming each other less, they may perform better over

648-543: A candidate to victory in an election. Some scholars argue that the first modern political parties developed in early modern Britain in the 17th century, after the Exclusion Crisis and the Glorious Revolution . The Whig faction originally organized itself around support for Protestant constitutional monarchy as opposed to absolute rule , whereas the conservative Tory faction (originally

756-683: A century, and Japanese foreign policy had little experience there. In pursuing Nanshin-ron Japan would risk and, in some quarters even welcome, a large-scale war with the great powers from across the globe. In November 1936, the Anti-Comintern Pact was concluded between Japan and Nazi Germany . It agreed that in case of an attack by the Soviet Union against Germany or Japan, both countries agreed to consult on what measures to take "to safeguard their common interests." They also agreed that neither would make any political treaties with

864-403: A community of party members. Parties in democracies usually select their party leadership in ways that are more open and competitive than parties in autocracies, where the selection of a new party leader is likely to be tightly controlled. In countries with large sub-national regions, particularly federalist countries, there may be regional party leaders and regional party members in addition to

972-532: A country with multiple competitive parties is not necessarily democratic, and the politics of many autocratic countries are organized around one dominant political party. The ubiquity and strength of political parties in nearly every modern country has led researchers to remark that the existence of political parties is almost a law of politics, and to ask why parties appear to be such an essential part of modern states. Political scientists have therefore come up with several explanations for why political parties are

1080-720: A defensive strategy against Russia . A February 1907 Imperial National Defence guideline envisioned two strategies: Nanshu Hokushin Ron (南守北進, defence in the South and advance in the North) and Hokushu Nanshin Ron (北守南進, defence in the North and advance in the South). There was intense discourse within Japan on the two diverging theories. After World War I , Japanese troops were deployed as part of

1188-413: A democracy will often affiliate with a specific political party. Party membership may include paying dues, an agreement not to affiliate with multiple parties at the same time, and sometimes a statement of agreement with the party's policies and platform. In democratic countries, members of political parties often are allowed to participate in elections to choose the party leadership. Party members may form

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1296-456: A democracy. There have been periods of government exclusively or entirely by one party in some countries that are often considered to have been democratic, and which had no official legal barriers to the inclusion of other parties in the government; this includes recent periods in Botswana , Japan , Mexico , Senegal , and South Africa . It can also occur that one political party dominates

1404-662: A future war would be a total war , which would require the cooperation of the bureaucracy and the zaibatsu conglomerates to maximize Japan's industrial and military capacity. The Kōdōha was strongly supportive of the Strike North strategy of a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union, but the Tōseiha wanted a "more cautious" defense expansion by the Strike South policy. After the Manchurian Incident ,

1512-426: A large membership base. Further, mass parties prioritize the mobilization of voters and are more centralized than elite parties. The term "catch-all party" was developed by German-American political scientist Otto Kirchheimer to describe the parties that developed in the 1950s and 1960s as a result of changes within the mass parties. The term "big tent party" may be used interchangeably. Kirchheimer characterized

1620-485: A large number of parties that have a very low probability of winning elections, it is often useful to think about the effective number of parties (the number of parties weighted by the strength of those parties) rather than the literal number of registered parties. In a non-partisan system, no political parties exist, or political parties are not a major part of the political system. There are very few countries without political parties . In some non-partisan countries,

1728-401: A large number of political parties around the world, not all political parties have an organizing ideology, or exist to promote ideological policies. For example, some political parties may be clientelistic or patronage -based organizations, which are largely concerned with distributing goods. Other political parties may be created as tools for the advancement of an individual politician. It

1836-555: A larger membership, greater stability over time, and a deeper connection to the electorate. The idea of people forming large groups or factions to advocate for their shared interests is ancient. Plato mentions the political factions of Classical Athens in the Republic , and Aristotle discusses the tendency of different types of government to produce factions in the Politics . Certain ancient disputes were also factional, like

1944-495: A major upheaval in their politics and have not yet returned to a stable system of political parties. For example, the United States began as a non-partisan democracy, and it evolved a stable system of political parties over the course of many decades. A country's party system may also dissolve and take time to re-form, leaving a period of minimal or no party system, such as in Peru following the regime of Alberto Fujimori . However, it

2052-399: A nearly universal political phenomenon. One of the core explanations for the existence of political parties is that they arise from pre-existing divisions among people: society is divided in a certain way, and a party is formed to organize that division into the electoral competition. By the 1950s, economists and political scientists had shown that party organizations could take advantage of

2160-511: A number of countries, particularly longstanding European democracies. Political scientists have distinguished between different types of political parties that have evolved throughout history. These include elite parties, mass parties, catch-all parties and cartel parties. Elite parties were political elites that were concerned with contesting elections and restricted the influence of outsiders, who were only required to assist in election campaigns. Mass parties tried to recruit new members who were

2268-438: A particular ideology. However, many political parties have no ideological affiliation, and may instead be primarily engaged in patronage , clientelism , the advancement of a specific political entrepreneur , or be a " big tent ", in that they wish to attract voters who have a variety of positions on issues. Political parties are collective entities and activities that organize competitions for political offices. The members of

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2376-517: A party leader, who has primary responsibility for the activities of the party; party executives, who may select the leader and who perform administrative and organizational tasks; and party members, who may volunteer to help the party, donate money to it, and vote for its candidates. There are many different ways in which political parties can be structured and interact with the electorate. The contributions that citizens give to political parties are often regulated by law, and parties will sometimes govern in

2484-417: A phenonmenon observable among European Green parties during their transformation from radical environmentalist movements to mainstream centre-left parties. An Entrepreneurial party is a political party that is centered on a political entrepreneur , and dedicated to the advancement of that person or their policies. While some definitions of political parties state that a party is an organization that advances

2592-440: A political party contest elections under a shared label. In a narrow definition, a political party can be thought of as just the group of candidates who run for office under a party label. In a broader definition, political parties are the entire apparatus that supports the election of a group of candidates, including voters and volunteers who identify with a particular political party, the official party organizations that support

2700-886: A realistic chance of competing to form government. One current example of a two-party system is the United States , where the national government has for much of the country's history exclusively been controlled by either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party . Other examples of countries which have had long periods of two-party dominance include Colombia , Uruguay , Malta , and Ghana . Two-party systems are not limited to democracies; they may be present in authoritarian regimes as well. Competition between two parties has occurred in historical autocratic regimes in countries including Brazil and Venezuela . A democracy's political institutions can shape

2808-834: A shift towards Nanshin-ron to procure colonial resources in South East Asia and to neutralize the threat posed by Western military forces in the Pacific. Japan and the USSR signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941, which freed Japan for preparations for the Pacific War . When Nazi Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Japan did not join its Axis ally's invasion by opening

2916-412: A single best policy choice without some institution constraining their options. Another prominent explanation for why political parties exist is psychological: parties may be necessary for many individuals to participate in politics because they provide a massively simplifying heuristic , which allows people to make informed choices with much less mental effort than if voters had to consciously evaluate

3024-410: A single party that governs the country, and some political scientists consider competition between two or more parties to be an essential part of democracy. Parties can develop from existing divisions in society, like the divisions between lower and upper classes , and they streamline the process of making political decisions by encouraging their members to cooperate. Political parties usually include

3132-558: A smaller group can be a feature of party leadership transitions in more autocratic countries, where the existence of political parties may be severely constrained to only one legal political party, or only one competitive party. Some of these parties, like the Chinese Communist Party , have rigid methods for selecting the next party leader, which involves selection by other party members. A small number of single-party states have hereditary succession, where party leadership

3240-405: A source of party income and were often expected to spread party ideology as well as assist in elections. In the United States, where both major parties were elite parties, the introduction of primaries and other reforms has transformed them so that power is held by activists who compete over influence and nomination of candidates. An elite party is a type of political party that was dominant in

3348-479: A specific set of ideological or policy goals, many political parties are not primarily motivated by ideology or policy, and instead exist to advance the career of a specific political entrepreneur . Political ideologies are one of the major organizing features of political parties, and parties often officially align themselves with specific ideologies. Parties adopt ideologies for a number of reasons. Ideological affiliations for political parties send signals about

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3456-465: A sub-national region of a democratic country that has a competitive national party system; one example is the southern United States during much of the 19th and 20th centuries, where the Democratic Party had almost complete control, with the Southern states being functionally one-party regimes, though opposition parties were never prohibited. In several countries, there are only two parties that have

3564-476: A very large portion of society and it can play substantial roles in civil society that are not necessarily directly related to political governance; one example of this is the Chinese Communist Party . Bans on competing parties can also ensure that only one party can ever realistically hold power, even without completely outlawing all other political parties. For example, in North Korea , more than one party

3672-628: A way that does not conform to the dominant economic left-right divide in politics, in turn emphasising issues that do not attain prominence within the other parties. Further, niche parties do not respond to changes in public opinion to the extent that mainstream parties do. Examples of niche parties include Green parties and extreme nationalist parties, such as the National Rally in France. However, over time these parties may grow in size and shed some of their niche qualities as they become larger,

3780-483: A way that favours the people who donate time and money to them. Many political parties are motivated by ideological goals. It is common for democratic elections to feature competitions between liberal , conservative , and socialist parties; other common ideologies of very large political parties include communism , populism , nationalism , and Islamism . Political parties in different countries will often adopt similar colours and symbols to identify themselves with

3888-521: Is also common, in countries with important social cleavages along ethnic or racial lines, to represent the interests of one ethnic group or another. This may involve a non-ideological attachment to the interests of that group, or may be a commitment based on an ideology like identity politics . While any of these types of parties may be ideological, there are political parties that do not have any organizing ideology. Political parties are ubiquitous across both democratic and autocratic countries, and there

3996-423: Is also possible – albeit rare – for countries with no bans on political parties, and which have not experienced a major disruption, to nevertheless have no political parties: there are a small number of pacific island democracies, such as Palau , where political parties are permitted to exist and yet parties are not an important part of national politics. In a one-party system , power

4104-576: Is held entirely by one political party. When only one political party exists, it may be the result of a ban on the formation of any competing political parties, which is a common feature in authoritarian states. For example, the Communist Party of Cuba is the only permitted political party in Cuba , and is the only party that can hold seats in the legislature. When only one powerful party is legally permitted to exist, its membership can grow to contain

4212-407: Is inherited by the child of an outgoing party leader. Autocratic parties use more restrictive selection methods to avoid having major shifts in the regime as a result of successions. In both democratic and non-democratic countries, the party leader is often the foremost member of a larger party leadership. A party executive will commonly include administrative positions, like a party secretary and

4320-408: Is largely insignificant as parties use the resources of the state to maintain their position within the political system. Niche parties are a type of political party that developed on the basis of the emergence of new cleavages and issues in politics, such as immigration and the environment. In contrast to mainstream or catch-all parties, niche parties articulate an often limited set of interests in

4428-526: Is officially permitted to exist and even to seat members in the legislature, but laws ensure that the Workers' Party of Korea retains control. It is also possible for countries with free elections to have only one party that holds power. These cases are sometimes called dominant-party systems or particracies . Scholars have debated whether or not a country that has never experienced a transfer of power from one party to another can nevertheless be considered

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4536-399: Is often very little change in which political parties have a chance of holding power in a country from one election to the next. This makes it possible to think about the political parties in a country as collectively forming one of the country's central political institutions , called a party system. Some basic features of a party system are the number of parties and what sorts of parties are

4644-442: Is reduced as catch-all parties are financed in part by the state or by donations. In Europe, the shift of Christian Democratic parties that were organized around religion into broader centre-right parties epitomizes this type. Cartel parties are a type of political party that emerged post-1970s and are characterized by heavy state financing and the diminished role of ideology as an organizing principle. The cartel party thesis

4752-432: Is the ideology that is most closely connected to the history of democracies and is often considered to be the dominant or default ideology of governing parties in much of the contemporary world. Many of the traditional competitors to liberal parties are conservative parties. Socialist, communist, feminist, anarchist, fascist, and nationalist parties are more recent developments, largely entering political competitions only in

4860-727: The Aizawa Incident . Aizawa's military tribunal was held under the jurisdiction of the First Infantry Division in Tokyo , whose commander, General Heisuke Yanagawa , was a follower of Araki. The trial thus became a vehicle by which the Kōdōha was able to denounce the Tōseiha , portray Aizawa as a selfless patriot , and Nagata as an unprincipled power-mad schemer. At the climax of the Aizawa trial, to reduce tensions on

4968-648: The Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party . By the early 19th century, a number of countries had developed stable modern party systems. The party system that developed in Sweden has been called the world's first party system, on the basis that previous party systems were not fully stable or institutionalized. In many European countries, including Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, and France, political parties organized around

5076-485: The Hokushin-ron policy since he believed that Japan's main enemy was communism and that Japan's destiny lay in conquest of the natural resources of the sparely-populated Northern Asian mainland. General Yukio Kasahara was also a major proponent of the Hokushin-ron philosophy and felt strongly that the Soviet Union posed both a major threat and a major opportunity for Japan. However, rival cliques of officers in

5184-694: The Hokushin-ron proposal was for Japan to seize control of Manchuria to obtain an extensive de facto land border with the Soviet Union . Insubordination by rogue Japanese military personnel in the Kwantung Army in 1931 led to the Mukden Incident and provided a pretext for the Japanese invasion of Manchuria . As the Kwantung Army had 12,000 men available for the invasion of Manchuria, it needed reinforcements. War Minister Sadao Araki

5292-765: The Nika riots between two chariot racing factions at the Hippodrome of Constantinople . A few instances of recorded political groups or factions in history included the late Roman Republic's Populares and Optimates factions as well as the Dutch Republic's Orangists and the Staatsgezinde . However, modern political parties are considered to have emerged around the end of the 18th century; they are usually considered to have first appeared in Europe and

5400-584: The Royalist or Cavalier faction of the English Civil War ) supported a strong monarchy, and these two groups structured disputes in the politics of the United Kingdom throughout the 18th century The Rockingham Whigs have been identified as the first modern political party, because they retained a coherent party label and motivating principles even while out of power. At the end of

5508-618: The Siberian Intervention during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War , with the hope that Japan could be freed from any future Russian threat by detaching Siberia and forming an independent buffer state . The Japanese troops remained until 1922, which encouraged discussion by Japanese strategic planners of the idea of permanent Japanese occupation of Siberia east of Lake Baikal . An essential step in

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5616-586: The Soviet–Japanese border conflicts ; as a result, the Navy gained the ascendency. It was supported in that by a number of the powerful industrial zaibatsu , which were convinced that they could best serve their interests by fulfilling the Navy's needs. The military setbacks on the Mongolian front, the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War , and negative Western attitudes towards Japanese expansionist tendencies led to

5724-431: The labor unions increasingly influenced by socialism , communism and anarchism , but the industrial and financial leaders of Japan continued to get wealthier through their inside connections with politicians and bureaucrats . The military was considered "clean" in terms of political corruption , and elements within the army were determined to take direct action to eliminate the perceived threats to Japan created by

5832-666: The natural resources of Siberia by attacking the Soviet Union via Manchuria. Southward expansion ( Nanshin-ron ) would involve seizing the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia ) and other colonies from the French and/or the British. Japan's supply of resources would eventually be assured by creating a " Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere ". However, European powers had been dominant in Southeast Asia for more than

5940-422: The people , land and morality as one and indivisible. The Kōdōha envisioned a pure Japanese culture, a return to the pre- westernized Japan in which the state was to be purged of corrupt bureaucrats, opportunistic politicians, and greedy zaibatsu capitalists. The state would be run directly by Emperor Hirohito in a " Shōwa Restoration " assisted by the military. Domestically, the state would return to

6048-417: The 19th and 20th centuries. Environmentalism, multiculturalism, and certain types of fundamentalism became prominent towards the end of the 20th century. Parties can sometimes be organized according to their ideology using an economic left–right political spectrum . However, a simple left-right economic axis does not fully capture the variation in party ideologies. Other common axes that are used to compare

6156-525: The Army and war with China as a strategic imperative. Relations between the Japanese Army and Navy were never cordial and were often marked by deep hostility, a situation whose origin can be traced back to the Meiji period . From the early 1930s the Army saw the Soviet Union as Japan's greatest threat and for the most part supported the Hokushin-ron concept that Japan's strategic interests were on

6264-498: The Army claimed to represent the "true will" of the Emperor. The radical ultranationalist Imperial Way Faction ( Kōdōha ) had many young activists who were strongly supportive of the Hokushin-ron strategy and a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union. They were opposed by the more moderate conservative Control Faction ( Tōseiha ), which favored a more cautious defence expansion and sought to impose greater discipline over

6372-578: The Army, including Araki, who was forced to retire in March 1936. The Imperial Defence Plan, formulated in June 1936, incorporated a balance of both Hokushin-ron and Nanshin-ron by requiring both the Army and the Navy to take a peaceful and unprovocative approach to their "enemies". The plan's goal was to acquire territories that possessed the raw materials, particularly petroleum , which Japan needed to sustain its growth and economy but it did not possess itself. Northward expansion ( Hokushin-ron ) would gain

6480-625: The Asian continent. The Navy looked across the Pacific Ocean and saw the United States as the greatest threat and, for the most part, supported the Nanshin-ron concept that Japan's strategic interests were in Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands. By the mid-1930s there was the serious possibility of a clash between the Army and the Navy because of their incompatible expansionist ideas. The Kōdōha faction, which favoured Hokushin-ron ,

6588-538: The Pacific. From the 1890s First Sino-Japanese War , Hokushin-ron came to dominate Japanese foreign policy. It guided both the Japanese invasion of Taiwan (1895) and the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910 , which annexed Korea to Japan. After the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) Field Marshal Prince Yamagata Aritomo , a political and military ideological architect of Hokushin-ron , traced the lines of

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6696-596: The Soviet Union, and Germany also agreed to recognize Manchukuo. A series of Soviet–Japanese border conflicts , without any formal declaration of war , began in 1932. Aggressive actions initiated by Japanese staff and field officers on the Soviet border with Manchukuo and Mongolia led to the disastrous Battles of Khalkhin Gol (1939), which resulted in heavy casualties for Kwantung Army and severely challenged its much-vaunted reputation. Any farther expansion northwards into Siberia

6804-641: The Tokyo area, the First Infantry Division was ordered from Tokyo to Manchuria . Instead, this caused the situation to escalate further, as the Kōdōha decided that the time was right for direct action, and backed the First Infantry Division in an attempted coup d'état on 26 February 1936 known as the February 26 Incident . The failure of the coup three days later resulted in the almost complete purge of Kōdōha members from top army positions and

6912-559: The United States of America, with the United Kingdom's Conservative Party and the Democratic Party of the United States both frequently called the world's "oldest continuous political party". Before the development of mass political parties, elections typically featured a much lower level of competition, had small enough polities that direct decision-making was feasible, and held elections that were dominated by individual networks or cliques that could independently propel

7020-405: The base of the volunteer activists and donors who support political parties during campaigns. The extent of participation in party organizations can be affected by a country's political institutions, with certain electoral systems and party systems encouraging higher party membership. Since at least the 1980s, membership in large traditional party organizations has been steadily declining across

7128-475: The century, the United States also developed a party system, called the First Party System . Although the framers of the 1787 United States Constitution did not all anticipate that American political disputes would be primarily organized around political parties, political controversies in the early 1790s over the extent of federal government powers saw the emergence of two proto-political parties :

7236-438: The claim that parties emerge from existing cleavages, or arguing that the claim is not empirically testable. Others note that while social cleavages might cause political parties to exist, this obscures the opposite effect: that political parties also cause changes in the underlying social cleavages. A further objection is that, if the explanation for where parties come from is that they emerge from existing social cleavages, then

7344-424: The cognitive burden for people to cast informed votes. However, some evidence suggests that over the last several decades, the strength of party identification has been weakening, so this may be a less important function for parties to provide than it was in the past. Political parties are often structured in similar ways across countries. They typically feature a single party leader, a group of party executives, and

7452-575: The distribution of voters' preferences over political issues, adjusting themselves in response to what voters believe in order to become more competitive. Beginning in the 1960s, academics began identifying the social cleavages in different countries that might have given rise to specific parties, such as religious cleavages in specific countries that may have produced religious parties there. The theory that parties are produced by social cleavages has drawn several criticisms. Some authors have challenged it on empirical grounds, either finding no evidence for

7560-431: The election of that party's candidates, and legislators in the government who are affiliated with the party. In many countries, the notion of a political party is defined in law, and governments may specify requirements for an organization to legally qualify as a political party. Political parties are distinguished from other political groups or clubs, such as parliamentary groups, because only presidents have control over

7668-494: The end of the century; for example, around this time the Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell implemented several methods and structures like party discipline that would come to be associated with strong grassroots political parties. At the beginning of the 20th century in Europe, the liberal–conservative divide that characterized most party systems was disrupted by the emergence of socialist parties, which attracted

7776-411: The entire party, and some voters decide how to vote in elections partly based on how much they like the leaders of the different parties. The number of people involved in choosing party leaders varies widely across parties and across countries. On one extreme, party leaders might be selected from the entire electorate; on the opposite extreme, they might be selected by just one individual. Selection by

7884-783: The first political party in Uganda, and its name was chosen as an homage to the Indian National Congress. As broader suffrage rights and eventually universal suffrage slowly spread throughout democracies, political parties expanded dramatically, and only then did a vision develop of political parties as intermediaries between the full public and the government. Political parties are a nearly ubiquitous feature of modern countries. Nearly all democratic countries have strong political parties, and many political scientists consider countries with fewer than two parties to necessarily be autocratic . However, these sources allow that

7992-668: The formation of parties is explicitly banned by law. The existence of political parties may be banned in autocratic countries in order to prevent a turnover in power. For example, in Saudi Arabia , a ban on political parties has been used as a tool for protecting the monarchy. However, parties are also banned in some polities that have long democratic histories, usually in local or regional elections of countries that have strong national party systems. Political parties may also temporarily cease to exist in countries that have either only been established recently, or that have experienced

8100-575: The head of government, the entire party executive may be competing for various positions in the government. For example, in Westminster systems , the largest party that is out of power will form the Official Opposition in parliament, and select a shadow cabinet which (among other functions) provides a signal about which members of the party would hold which positions in the government if the party were to win an election. Citizens in

8208-464: The head of government. In both presidential democracies and parliamentary democracies , the members of a party frequently have substantial input into the selection of party leaders, for example by voting on party leadership at a party conference . Because the leader of a major party is a powerful and visible person, many party leaders are well-known career politicians. Party leaders can be sufficiently prominent that they affect voters' perceptions of

8316-471: The ideologies of political parties include ranges from liberal to authoritarian, from pro-establishment to anti-establishment , and from tolerant and pluralistic (in their behavior while participating in the political arena) to anti-system. Party positions for individual political parties are assessed by different published indices, such as the V-Party Dataset . Though ideologies are central to

8424-530: The introduction of universal suffrage resulted in the creation of worker's parties that later evolved into mass parties; an example is the German Social Democratic Party . These parties represented large groups of citizens who had not previously been represented in political processes, articulating the interests of different groups in society. In contrast to elite parties, mass parties are funded by their members, and rely on and maintain

8532-404: The long run than unaffiliated politicians , so politicians with party affiliations will out-compete politicians without parties. Parties can also align their member's incentives when those members are in a legislature. The existence of a party apparatus can help coalitions of electors to agree on ideal policy choices, whereas a legislature of unaffiliated members might never be able to agree on

8640-448: The merits of every candidate individually. Without political parties, electors would have to individually evaluate every candidate in every election. Parties enable electors to make judgments about just a few groups, and then apply their judgment of the party to its entire slate of candidates. Because it is much easier to become informed about a few parties' platforms than the positions of a multitude of independent candidates, parties reduce

8748-491: The ministry and the general staff. Whereas Ugaki was pushing for a modernization of the military in terms of materials and technology, Araki and his followers argued that the spiritual training, or élan , of the Army was more important. Tetsuzan Nagata and Hideki Tōjō created the Tōseiha (Control Faction) group, a loose faction united mostly by their opposition to Araki and his Kōdōha . Fundamental to both factions, however,

8856-440: The most successful. These properties are closely connected to other major features of the country's politics, such as how democratic it is, what sorts of restrictions its laws impose on political parties, and what type of electoral systems it uses. Even in countries where the number of political parties is not officially constrained by law, political institutions affect how many parties are viable. For example, democracies that use

8964-432: The national membership and leadership. Parties are typically led by a party leader , who serves as the main representative of the party and often has primary responsibility for overseeing the party's policies and strategies. The leader of the party that controls the government usually becomes the head of government , such as the president or prime minister , and the leaders of other parties explicitly compete to become

9072-434: The nineteenth century before the introduction of universal suffrage. The French political scientist Maurice Duverger first distinguished between elite and "mass" parties, founding his distinction on the differences within the organisational structures of these two types. Elite parties are characterized by minimal and loose organisation, and are financed by fewer larger monetary contributions typically originating from outside

9180-453: The number of parties that it has. In the 1950s Maurice Duverger observed that single-member district single-vote plurality-rule elections tend to produce two-party systems, and this phenomenon came to be known as Duverger's law . Whether or not this pattern is true has been heavily debated over the last several decades. Some political scientists have broadened this idea to argue that more restrictive political institutions (of which first past

9288-481: The outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. 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 ideological or policy goals. Political parties have become a major part of

9396-563: The party. Elite parties give little priority to expanding the party's membership base, and its leaders are its only members. The earliest political parties, such as the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists , are classified as elite parties. A mass party is a type of political party that developed around cleavages in society and mobilized the ordinary citizens or 'masses' in the political process. In Europe,

9504-613: The policies of Indira Gandhi in the 1970s. The formation of the Indian National Congress , which developed in the late 19th century as a pro-independence faction in British India and immediately became a major political party after Indian independence, foreshadowed the dynamic in many newly independent countries; for example, the Uganda National Congress was a pro-independence party and

9612-475: The political foundations of the party and also they include political factions, or advocacy groups, mostly by the fact that a party is focused on electing candidates, whereas a parliamentary group is a group of political parties, a political faction is a subgroup within a political party, and an advocacy group is focused on advancing a policy agenda. This is related to other features that sometimes distinguish parties from other political organizations, including

9720-456: The politics of almost every country, as modern party organizations developed and spread around the world over the last few centuries. Although some countries have no political parties , this is extremely rare. Most countries have several parties while others only have one . Parties are important in the politics of autocracies as well as democracies , though usually democracies have more political parties than autocracies. Autocracies often have

9828-529: The post is one example) tend to produce a smaller number of political parties, so that extremely small parties systems – like those with only two parties – tend to form in countries with very restrictive rules. Hokushin-ron Hokushin-ron ( 北進論 , "Northern Expansion Doctrine" or "Northern Road") was a political doctrine of the Empire of Japan before World War II that stated that Manchuria and Siberia were Japan's sphere of interest and that

9936-727: The potential value to Japan for economic and territorial expansion in those areas was greater than elsewhere. Its supporters were sometimes called the Strike North Group . It enjoyed wide support within the Imperial Japanese Army during the interwar period but was abandoned in 1939 after military defeat on the Mongolian front at the Battles of Khalkhin Gol (known in Japan as the Nomonhan incident) and

10044-531: The resignation of their leader Sadao Araki. Thus, after the February 26 Incident, the Kōdōha effectively ceased to exist, and the Tōseiha lost most of its raison d'être . Although Tōseiha followers gained control of the army, the Kōdōha ideals of spiritual power and imperial mysticism remained embedded in the army, as did its tradition of insubordination of junior officers ( gekokujō ), and resurfaced with

10152-403: The shift from the traditional mass parties to catch-all parties as a set of developments including the "drastic reduction of the party's ideological baggage" and the "downgrading of the role of the individual party member". By broadening their central ideologies into more open-ended ones, catch-all parties seek to secure the support of a wider section of the population. Further, the role of members

10260-494: The signing of Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in 1941. It was superseded by the diametrically-opposite rival policy, Nanshin-ron ( 南進論 , "Southern Expansion Doctrine" or "Southern Road") , which regarded Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands as Japan's political and economic sphere of influence and aimed to acquire the resources of European colonies and to neutralize the threat of Western military forces in

10368-451: The support of organized trade unions . During the wave of decolonization in the mid-20th century, many newly sovereign countries outside of Europe and North America developed party systems that often emerged from their movements for independence. For example, a system of political parties arose out of factions in the Indian independence movement , and was strengthened and stabilized by

10476-422: The theory is an incomplete story of where political parties come from unless it also explains the origins of these social cleavages. An alternative explanation for why parties are ubiquitous across the world is that the formation of parties provides compatible incentives for candidates and legislators. For example, the existence of political parties might coordinate candidates across geographic districts, so that

10584-661: The traditional values of Japan, and externally, war with the Soviet Union was unavoidable. In a news conference in September 1932, Araki first mentioned the word " Kōdōha " ("The Imperial Way"), from which his movement received its popular name. Araki became Minister of War in the cabinet of Prime Minister Inukai in 1931, and Masaki became Vice Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff . Both began to purge followers of their rival General Kazushige Ugaki from important posts in both

10692-414: The two cliques struggled against each other for dominance over the military. The Kōdōha was initially dominant; however, after the resignation of Araki in 1934 due to ill health, the Kōdōha began to suffer a decline in its influence. Araki was replaced by General Senjūrō Hayashi , who had Tōseiha sympathies. In November 1934, a plot by Kōdōha army officers to murder a number of important politicians

10800-589: The types of policies they might pursue if they were in power. Ideologies also differentiate parties from one another, so that voters can select the party that advances the policies that they most prefer. A party may also seek to advance an ideology by convincing voters to adopt its belief system. Common ideologies that can form a central part of the identity of a political party include liberalism , conservatism , socialism , communism , anarchism , fascism , feminism , environmentalism , nationalism , fundamentalism , Islamism , and multiculturalism . Liberalism

10908-459: The weaknesses of liberal democracy and political corruption. The founders of the Kōdōha were General Sadao Araki and his protégé , Jinzaburō Masaki . Araki was a noted political philosopher within the army, who linked the ancient Japanese bushido code of the samurai with ideas similar to European fascism to form the philosophical basis of his ideology, which linked the Emperor ,

11016-529: Was a solid supporter of the Hokushin-ron and of a proposed attack on the Soviet Far East and Siberia . He arranged for Chōsen Army forces to be moved from Korea north into Manchuria without permission from Tokyo in support of the Kwantung Army. The plot to seize Manchuria proceeded as planned, and when presented by the fait accompli , all that Prime Minister Reijirō Wakatsuki could do

11124-419: Was developed by Richard Katz and Peter Mair , who wrote that political parties have turned into "semi-state agencies", acting on behalf of the state rather than groups in society. The term 'cartel' refers to the way in which prominent parties in government make it difficult for new parties to enter, as such forming a cartel of established parties. As with catch-all parties, the role of members in cartel parties

11232-411: Was discovered before it could be implemented. The Tōseiha faction forced the resignation of Masaki from his position as Inspector General of Military Education (the third most powerful position in the Japanese Army hierarchy) for his complicity in the plot, and demoted some 3,000 other officers. In retaliation, a Kōdōha officer, Saburō Aizawa , murdered Tōseiha leader General Tetsuzan Nagata in

11340-413: Was dominant in the Army during Araki's tenure as Minister of War from 1931 to 1934 and occupied most significant staff positions. However, many of its members were replaced by Tōseiha officers following Araki's resignation from ill health in 1934. In 1936, Kōdōha-affiliated young Army officers launched an unsuccessful coup d'état in the February 26 Incident . As a result, Kōdōha generals were purged from

11448-567: Was shown to be impossible because of the Soviets' superiority in numbers and armour. However, General Ueda continued to support the actions of his officers, refused to discourage them from taking similar actions, and remained adamant in his support of the Hokushin-ron policy. He was recalled back to Japan in late 1939 and forced into retirement. The Kwantung Army was purged of both its more insubordinate elements and its proponents of Hokushin-ron . The Army lost prestige because of its failures in

11556-425: Was the common belief that national defense must be strengthened through a reform of national politics. Both factions adopted some ideas from totalitarian and fascist political philosophies, and espoused a strong skepticism of political party politics and representative democracy . However, rather than the confrontational approach of the Kōdōha , which wanted to bring about a revolution, the Tōseiha foresaw that

11664-466: Was weakly protest and resign with his cabinet. When the new cabinet was formed, Araki, as War Minister, was the real power in Japan. A puppet state was formed in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia , named Manchukuo , and was governed under a form of constitutional monarchy . Hokushin-ron was largely supported by the Imperial Japanese Army . General Kenkichi Ueda was a strong believer in

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