THE UK PARTY SYSTEM IS FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT
The British two party system begins with the struggle for parliamentary supremacy between Whig and Tory during the period 1670 to 1714. For the remainder of the 18th century the conflict lay between Whig and Whig. The Rockingham Whigs found in Edmund Burke a substantial political theorist. In 1770, Burke offered a cogent defence of party as an institution: "Party is a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle upon which they are all agreed." Party was thus elevated above mere faction. In 1779, Capel Loft, wrote that faction consisted of, 'narrow views, selfish interests, and corrupt measures' whereas party was 'formed for the general good' to promote 'truth, freedom, virtue'. George III's reassertion of independent authority implied an attack on party as a device for limiting his powers and therefore sought to discredit party. He successfully installed William Pitt in the 1780's, a Prime Minister of his own choosing. It was a pro Pitt commentator, Major John Scott, who published in 1789, "In a free state, and a mixed Government like ours, there will always be two parties." The French Revolution (1788-1812) transformed British political life. Faced with the
The structure of American federalism provides one of the most important disintegrating influences on American politics. The Founding Fathers, in their determination to limit the power of government, also established a strict separation of personnel between Congress and the President's administration, and gave to President and Congress a different electoral basis and in fact different constituencies. Indeed as a result of this institutional division of governmental power, each of the political parties themselves have been divided into a Presidential and Congressional wing. This led James McGregor Burns to describe the American system as a four-party system. The presidential Democrats, the presidential Republicans, the congressional Democrats and the congressional Republicans are, he argued, "separate though overlapping parties". Why is it then, still meaningful to talk in some sense of an American two-party system? The major function of American political parties is to provide candidates for office and to secure their election. From a historical and constitutional point of view, the greatest force towards the creation and maintenance of the two-party system would seem to be the office of the Presidency and the mode of election to it. This simple fact immediately tends to polarize the political spectrum. The most successful strategy for capture of the Presidency is to create a great coalition behind one man, and the only potentially successful balancing factor is the creation of a second similar coalition. The very word coalition implies lack of a unifying ideology in the Republican and Democrat parties, which is not the case with Labour and Conservative parties of the UK. 6) The Politics In The United States - Ian Derbyshire
Some common words found in the essay are:
McGregor Burns, World War, Revolution Burke, Labour Party, Social Democrats, Britain Labour, Latin America, Democrat House, Conservative Party, Edmund Burke, party system, political parties, two-party system, labour party, uk party system, conservative party, uk party, political power, american political, multi-party system, trade unions,
Approximate Word count = 1550
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
