Are political parties guided by ideology or are they concerned simply with winning elections?

When evaluating whether parties are in fact guided by ideology or simply with winning elections, we must look at the functions carried out by political parties as well as their overall objectives, and decide the motivation behind these functions and objectives, i.e. are they driven by ideology or simply the desire to win elections?

The functions of a political party are fairly straightforward, they include forming the government of the day by winning elections, making policies as governments, taking responsibility for government actions and acting as a forum of information for the electorate and their party members, although pressure groups such as the National Rifle Association(NRA) in the US are today seen as the major link between the people and the government.  Whilst parties in opposition aim to get their own policies and initiatives onto the governments agenda, challenge government proposals (in the UK via Prime Ministers Questions and House of Common debates), gain financial backers e.g. businesses and corporations and ultimately they aim to replace the present government and form the government themselves.

I will now examine party ideologies and question the importance of them to political parties today, and then I will look at the factors which suggest that parties are in fact concerned simply with winning elections.

Ideologically the Democrats in the US are in line with public opinion on economic issues unlike the Republicans who share the publics view on social issues.  And thus by election time the two parties focus on the issues which they agree with the public on, e.g. Clinton ran his election campaign with the famous phrase ‘its the economy, stupid’.  Whilst in the UK the conservatives have traditionally looked to conserve the existing, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’, unlike the Labour party who are currently very much pro war, and are after changes in areas such as health, crime and education.

However, although all parties do have an ideology to an extent.  What becomes apparent, is that the major parties those with real electoral credibility, are generally happy to make changes to their ideologies around election time in order to gain votes.  This is one of the factors which suggest that parties are concerned simply with winning elections, and I will now examine these factors individually.

Around election time in the majority of liberal day democracies, the major parties tend to ‘occupy the middle ground’, in an attempt to gain voters.  This change of ideological standpoint, can be seen as political parties going all out to win votes and thus ignoring their fundamental beliefs or ideology.  For example, the conservative party, traditionally against any unnecessary changes and a party which seeked to conserve the established, are now openly promising to make changes in accordance with public opinion, e.g. to the National Health Service(NHS).  Whereas both Clinton and Blair before their respective election victories of 1996 and 1997, both moved ideologically closer to the center as a means of simply capturing more votes.  Both of these examples demonstrate a lack of a solid ideological viewpoint on the part of major political parties worldwide.

Secondly, once parties are elected to government they are increasingly prone to maintaining policies which have consensus regardless of whether or not the policies are against their fundamental ideologies, in order to keep the public happy.  Also parties are now willing to break manifesto policies once they are elected, in order to simply gain more votes, this clearly would be against their ideological standpoints which they preach.  The quote ‘Political parties… [are] designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind’, sums up the lack morality held by political parties today and the absence of a real solid ideological standpoint, instead a constantly evolving ideology which changes in order to win votes and ultimately elections.

The next point which I would make in order to justify my viewpoint that generally parties are not driven by ideology but are instead concerned simply with winning elections, would be the vast sums of money which they invest into a general election campaign.  Parties spend money on a vast arrange of advertisements come election time, to better their electoral chances.  As it has been proven that generally but not always the party which spends the most on their election campaign wins the election.  For example in the 2000 presidential election, the winner George W Bush spent $185, 921, 855 in comparison to Al Gore’s $120, 031, 205, and ‘money is the mothers milk of American politics’.  These vast sums of money which political parties spend on their individual campaigns demonstrate the determination which they have to win elections.  Whilst it also leads us to conclude that if parties were solely driven by a strong ideological standpoint, they would in fact invest this money into making improvements to the current system e.g. to public transport and the welfare state.

Overall it is true that the primary goal or purpose of a political party, is to capture governing  power by winning elections.  Therefore we can conclude that ideology is only a secondary consideration for all political parties, with forming the government being their primary consideration.  One political commentator recently made the remark that ‘policy choices are nothing but strategies for re-election’, demonstrating a belief that parties organise themselves according to what will capture votes and allow them to win elections.

However, I would point out that an exception to this rule is third parties e.g. the Green Party in the UK or the Reform Party ‘Perot’s party’ in the US.  These parties have little chance of electoral success due to the biased nature of the electoral systems worldwide, which tend to favour a two party system.  This point is supported by the fact that in the 1992 presidential election Ross Perot’s Reform Party received 26% of the vote, but yet no electoral college seats.  Therefore third parties tend to be more ideological than major parties.  An example of such a party would be the National Rifle Association or NRA they campaign for guns to not be restricted, and thus oppose all gun restriction bills.  Their ideology even in the face of growing public concern in the US over the relative ease by which guns can be accessed, has remained the same.  Demonstrating that the NRA are indeed a political party who are guided by ideology and are not simply concerned with winning elections.

In conclusion, what is apparent is that a large number of political parties are indeed concerned simply with winning elections and are not driven by ideology, these being the major parties in modern day democracies who dominate the political climates worldwide.  But at the same time an equal, if not greater number of minor/third parties like the ones I have mentioned throughout my essay, as well as the Australian Democrats and the Advance Australia Party, are guided by ideology and are not concerned with winning elections.  Even though it may only be because they have no real chance of electoral success.

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Bibliography

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2. Lijphart, Arend, ‘Electoral Systems and Party Systems’, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994

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4.  www.electoral-reform.org

5. Hague, Rod and Martin Harrop (2001), Comparative Government and Politics: An Introduction, 5th edition, London, Palgrave.

6. D. Butler et al (1981), Democracy at the Polls, Washington DC, AE1.

7. www.washingtonpost.com