The inter-party competition in the US party system is mainly on power contest, however, though as said in the previous paragraphs that there are noticeable differences between the Democratic and Republican parties, with time goes by, they are both trying to attract the rest of population by meeting their needs, even differed with their ideology sometimes. For example, Reagan and Bush had put out policies on tax break for big businesses; on the Democrats side, they have put more effort on making social programmes legal. Therefore, over time, the two parties have gone closer rather than apart.
Though British government is famous for the competition between the Conservative and Labor party, there is actually a multi-party system there. The biggest challenger of those two main parties is the Liberal Democrats. Moreover, the Scottish Nationalist Party and Wales Plaid Cymru are also competitors of the two main parties in specific areas. Two party dominance is not so compete in UK, as both the two major parties are attracting smaller percentages of voters. Moreover, in many places in southeast and southwest, the primary choice is between Conservative and the Liberal Democratic, while in some places in the North, competition are mainly on Labor and Liberal Democratic.
The competitions among the three major parties are based on three aspects: ideologies, policy programmes and power sharing. The conservatives are associated with business community and “middle class”, while the Labor Party is associated with trade unions and the mainly “working class”. The fundamental principles of the Conservative Party are concluded by Anthony Quinton as several nouns: traditionalism, organicism, skepticism and defense of property rights. The ideology of labor party, on the other hand, is described by Robert Owen as ethical and scientific socialism. In the middle ground, the Liberals believe in a society where individuals can participate in decision making which shaped his or her own life.The policy differences are not so clear, but the Conservatives are more keen on free market while the Labor Party more interested in government control. Moreover, Labor Party is more enthusiastic about welfare than Conservative Party. Nevertheless, there is no clear distinguish among the policies of the three parties, a voter preference analysis in the policy areas of welfare, morality and racialism proof the conclusion. The results showed that the disagreement was not along party lines but more within parties, or only split one party with the other two.The Conservative Party has been the most successful party by far in winning elections, but Labor party has been doing better since 1980s. However, both the two parties are suffering from losing voters, while the Liberal Democratic Party is becoming more popular nowadays with increasing voters.
The characteristics of British party system are quite notable on mass membership, centralized power and strict disciplines. UK political parties have members, parties are seen as a social organization by many party members. For Conservative Party, the main members were originally middle aged to old people, and completely middle-class, however now these characteristics have almost disappeared. For Labor Party, it was initially older men without much formal education who form the party, however, an increasing number of young well-educated activists have joined since the 1970s. The Liberal Democrats are the most highly educated of any group of party activists, also the Liberal Democrats are very much the party of the “public sector middle class”.The UK political parties are quite centralized with national party organizations control local party organizations completely and efficiently. Candidates were selected by different parties and they compete for their own parties, the competition is more among parties, such as ideologies and policies, rather than individual charm. On the other hand, voters are voting for different parties with different orientations on more left or right from the center. The election in UK is conducted by party organizations rather than voters, mainly because there are a large number of visible party members and the party discipline is strict.
By compare and contrast the party systems in the UK and US, which have been drawn out respectively in the paragraphs above, it is clear to find several similarities and differences. Firstly, there are both two major parties in the party systems, however, the US system is a distinct two-party system, where voters mainly choose between the Republican and Democratic Party; the UK system is more towards a multi-party system, with a middle party of Liberal Democratic in spite of the Conservative and Labor Party. Secondly, the ideology differences are both on conservative (Republican and Conservative) and liberal (Democratic and Labor), nevertheless, in the US system, the difference is clearly focused on economic and social areas though the distance between two parties is becoming less; in the UK system, there is no clear areas where ideologies lie in, but the differences are never going to be weakened, on the contrary the distance between two ideologies even create space for the Liberal Democratic Party. Finally, the UK system is much stronger disciplined and power centralized than the US one, with larger membership, more complete control on candidates selection and more efficiently election conduct.
In conclusion, the US party system is a typical example of two-party system with some characteristics like a lack of mass membership and decentralized power, which both result from and strengthen its loose organization. The UK party system represents the type of multi-party system with three main competing parties, however it is very strictly disciplined with centralized and strong power, based on a mass membership. The two party systems are shaped by different historical background, and both of them are keeping changing to fit different time as well.
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