Talk:Dominant-party system

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NPOV? Article says: "An example of this is, arguably, the United Kingdom between 1979 and 1997 (18 years) where the Conservative party won all four elections in that period."

... but overlooks Labour having been a Dominant party since that time.

Contents

[edit] POV

I think that this from the first paragraph: "most often through various forms of corruption and constitutional quirks that purposely undermine the ability for an effective opposition to thrive." should be removed or at least edited since it was quite clearly POV. Take for example Venezuela, there is absolutely no evidence to support allegations of corruption, electoral fraud or even a constitution which favours the current president. The legislature was changed yes, but it was changed to a National Assembly elected by proportional representation. The opposition parties have the potential to form a government. It's just that Venezuelans will no longer vote for the traditional parties, it has nothing to do with Venezuela's system of government. There are of course other similar examples of dominant party systems where a single party dominates a government because the majority of the electorate simply prefer that party over all of the other parties, take Sweden and Norway for example.I do realize that the Social Democrats are no longer in office in Sweden, but for the last 60 years they have definately been the dominant political party in office almost all of the time.

[edit] Talk carried over from Talk:One party dominant system

It seems to me that by this definition, PRC should be included here, as well as PRI Mexico. Slrubenstein

I've merged this into Dominant-party system. PRI Mexico is included there. However, PRC in my opinion doesn't qualify as a state ruled by a dominant-party. It would fall under the single-party system, as no official opposition parties exist in China as far as I know. --bad_leprechaun 21:57, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Just added the Italian Christian Democrats to the list, thought that was a glaring omission.


[edit] USA?

A Dominant party system is one where opposition parties don't have a real chance. There are more than "a few" Democratic states. And, the Democrats have a very real chance of winning elections in 2006 and 2008. Members of the supreme courts are not affiliated with political parties.

Besides which, under US Senate rules, you need a 3/5ths majority (60 votes when all senators present) to pass just about anything (with a few exceptions such as the budget.) It has been decades since either party had 60 senators. Jon 19:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

There is one aspect in which the US would qualify in the historical area. Both prior to the rise of and after the fall of the Whig party, the party that we know of as the Democrats was the only major party. In fact, James Monroe won without opposition due to not having an opposing party.--Will 06:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] USA Federally

Wareq, you have added that "current conditions are conducive to the emergence of a dominant-party model in Washington". Do you have any good references to support that? Because the way it looks right now is that Democrats are still quite competitive federally, and Republicans are definitely not in danger of dying out. Until your statement can be substantiated by sources, I've removed it for the reasons mentioned here. Ikh (talk) 07:47, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Democrats are not competitive federally. If Venezuela is a dominant-party state based on a regime that's only been in power for six years, so is the United States. 24.22.58.51 10:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Time doesn't define a one-party state. The Democrats have lost the last few elections, but still have at least 45% of support nationwide and a good chance of winning elections in 2006 and 2008. Also, Supreme court justices are non-partisan, and a majority have been republicans for a long time.

Also, the Republicans have not controlled Congress for that long. They have won both houses in two straight elections, and not by high margins.

I feel that the following statements are incongruous. "The Democratic Party in the southern United States from about 1880 until the 1960s." "...the Republican Party from the American Civil War in 1860 through 1932..." Shouta 16:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

What was missing in that quote was the phrase "in the northern US" between "Republican Party" and "from the American ..." Jon 19:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Canada?

I deleted reference to Canada as it is not consistent with the definition of a "dominant-party system" as given in the article: a party system where only one political party can realistically become the government. While the Liberal Party did rule quite a bit in Canada, the Conservative Party (both present and historic versions) are and have been realistically capable of forming the government (for example right now). Ikh 08:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

We could probably say that from '93, up until '03 or '04, the liberals were the only party that had any chance of forming a government .. --142.242.2.248 15:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Well... I wouldn't quite say that. If they would have done something quite unpopular, I'm sure that they would have lost any of the elections in that period (and that's actually what brought them down eventually - the sponsorship scandal). In either case, that is certainly nothing like say Singapore or Malaysia, where the opposition parties are completely disadvantaged by the laws. Thus, I wouldn't include Canada under Liberal rule as this would be mostly a matter of oppinion, and most likely not be verifiable (and hence bad, as per Wikipedia:Verifiability). Ikh (talk) 16:02, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

"(and that's actually what brought them down eventually - the sponsorship scandal).", True, however until the Alliance/PC Merger, no other party had any chance of forming government. Hell, for a while the Bloc was the official opposition! -142.46.140.149 19:42, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the two examples of Canadas provinces. Many countries have states/provinces within them which are homogous in nature and as a direct result end up with one party or the other dominating the state/province for decades between major realignments. Jon 19:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why not include Alberta?

Why can't you include a semi-autonomous region within another nation? In Alberta the Progressive Conservative Party has dominated the political system with ease since 1971 and is nowhere near the point where they have to even worry about losing power to ANY of the opposition parties.

[edit] Zimbabwe

Surely Zimbabwe shouldn't be considered a dominant party state because of the haevy handed tactics used by ZANU-PU and Robert Mugabe to keep another party being elected. 139.168.35.186

[edit] Bad examples cut

"Dominant-party systems can occur temporarily. This can often occur when a two-party system is the norm, but one of the two parties sees a massive drop in support, often due to scandal or similar massive upset. An example of this is, arguably, the United Kingdom between 1979 and 1997 (18 years) where the Conservative Party won all four elections in that period. Previously, in the post-war period, the government had rotated from the Labour Party to the Conservative Party five times. This was also the case in Canada between 1993 and 2004, where the demise of the Progressive Conservative Party in the 1993 election meant that opposition to the Liberal Party was divided. This, in part, allowed the Liberals to win three consecutive majority governments. The Canadian province of Alberta has exhibited a dominant-party system for the whole of its history, from 1905 to the present. While the dominant party has changed on three occasions, each governing party has been entirely dominant until its replacement.

Though the United States as a whole is characterized by a competitive two-party system, some individual states, currently and in the past, qualify as a dominant-party system, and some periods in federal election history have also seen dominant-party characteristics, such as the Republican Party from the American Civil War in 1860 through 1932, or the Democratic Party during and after the Great Depression, especially in the South. The state of Georgia, for example was ruled by the Democratic Party for over 130 straight years, from 1872 to 2003." The paragaphs look almost unslavable, so I've cut them and placed them here. Problems I see:

  • UK, in no shape or form was the last few years of the Tory Govt in the UK dominent. I'm not even sure anything past the first Thatcher term was a large enough majority to be considered dominanet. It also neglents Labours dominence from 97 to the previous election. (It lost enough seats in the most recent election to no longer be considered dominent)
  • Canada, again a point could be made about Liberal being dominenant immedately following the 93 election and perhaps after the next one, but in certaintely wasn't domenint the last few years.
  • US, it's probably normal in a two party system for some states to have one party dominent while other states with different demographics have the other one dominent. On a National level; under the Senate rules that allow filibusters, a party has to have enough Senators to pass a closure motion to be considered dominent. This is currently a 3/5ths majority, and a few decades ago was 2/3rds. (Incidently, prior to the 1910s there was no closure motion) Jon

[edit] Removed Venezuela, but I'd like to hear what others think.

I don't think Venezuela, with Chavez's Fifth Republic in their 7th year of power, could be called a dominant-party state at this time. I can see the inclination, no doubt, but I think to characterize it as so at this point in time makes an imprudent assumption about Chavez's ambitions (and uses that assumption of future, illegitimate dominance to color the current temporary dominance as something more dark and sinister.) Dawson 07:58, 25 September 2006 (UTC)Dawsong

A dominant party system is not dark and sinister. The most progressive, liberal and developped third world countries, India (INC), South Africa (ANC) for instance, have (had) a dominant party system. As have developped western democracies such as Italy, Ireland, Japan and Sweden. If a party wins consequitive elections with majorities like Chavez, his party will dominate the legislature. It's simple mathematics, there's nothing dark or sinister about it. - C mon 08:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification of concepts?

After a conflict on Single-party system, an informal mediator suggested that part of the problem could be unclear definitions of the concepts we use. I started a discussion about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Single-party_state#Clarification_of_concepts.3F Please join in. --Regebro 01:25, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Some folks, particular those from Singapore, are arguing out there that Singapore is not a single-party state, but having a dominant-party system. Therefore they want to have Singapore excluded from that article. User:Regebro suggests the two terms do somehow overlap (de facto one-party states are having dominant-party systems), and proposes to merge the two articles. — Instantnood 18:55, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I am wondering what is the purpose of this post. Is this an attempt to single out wikipedians from a particular community?--Huaiwei 00:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
That's a presentation of fact. — Instantnood 08:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Bavaria?

OK its not a state, but the sheer dominance of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria must surely be a dominant party system. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by CTerry (talk • contribs) 00:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

True. Dorminant-party system may perhaps be more common at subnational level. — Instantnood 20:54, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Yep, definitely. In Austria alone, you've got a clear-cut SPÖ dominancy in Vienna and Burgenland, a clear-cut ÖVP dominancy in Lower Austria, Tyrol and Vorarlberg, and only the central states -- Styria, Upper Austria, Carinthia, Salzburg -- are actually interesting as far as regional elections go. However, this can change over time -- before 2000, noone would have considered it even possible that the SPÖ might ever win in Salzburg or Styria, yet they did. The CSU's dominance in Bavaria needn't last forever... —Nightstallion (?) 22:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Montenegro

Yes, of course I know about communist dictatorship in that period, but currently ruling party, DPS, is not a sucesor of KPJ(Tito's party)... Sideshow Bob 15:12, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

You mean SKJ, KPJ was renamed SKJ in the 1950s. Also, DPS is the successor of the Montenegrin branch of SKJ. --CrnaGora 21:30, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes; in 1952 the Communist Party of Montenegro changed its name to League of Communists of Montenegro and finally to Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro in 1991. --PaxEquilibrium 21:56, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible bias against smaller countries

Singapore, a country of about 4 million, is listed on the main article. However, Chicago is about the same size and has been controlled by a Democratic party mayor and Democratic party controlled government since 1931, which is much longer than Singapore. The reader may conclude that Singapore is more corrupt than Chicago when, in fact, Singapore has compartively little corruption (according to the Corruption Perceptions Index).

Similarly, the state of Utah is controlled by people who are members of the Republican Party.VK35 20:49, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I would include Singapore and Malaysia. Hermann Giliomee's "The Awkward Embrace" includes those two cases as one-party dominant systems. PRI in Mexico is negotiable; once they abandoned corrupt electoral schemes, they lost power on the National level. 140.160.49.37 00:54, 5 August 2007 (UTC) Joe in Seattle


[edit] Cases and Definitions

The concept of one-party dominance is, I admit, kind of fuzzy, but I think we can come to certain conclusions as to what constitutes a one-party dominant system versus, say, a one-party hegemonic system, or a single-party system. The literature (Pempel, Giliomee, Abedi, etc) tend to require that a case be essentially democratic. A dominant case would be Sweden, or Bavaria, or Botswana in which a party wins consistantly but does not cheat, which is to say that the party does not use the aparatus of the state to intimidate or invalidate potential competitors. The Botswana Democratic Party doesn't mess with the opposition as a competitor in the same way that ZANU-PF does in Zimbabwe, or how PRI did against PAC in Mexico during the 1980s. The PRC and the ROC-Taibei (prior to democratization) were one-party states in which opposition parties were (are) officially banned - no real controversy there. So, when I look at cases like Venezuela, or Egypt, I cringe. No one can really state that these cases are democratic, and they are certainly not liberal. Opposition parties are either banned out right, or de facto. Perhaps we should try to establish some definitional parameters derived from some of the party system literature. T.J. Pempel, Hermann Giliomee, Alan Ware, Amir Abedi, Giovanni Sartori, and even Maurice Duverger have all offered (pre-)dominant party definitions which take democratic and liberal characteristics into account. I think a differentiation needs to be made between cases like Egypt and Botswana, or Venezuela and Singapore in which, qualitatively, one stifles democratic consolidation and the other is more obviously liberal-democratic. 140.160.49.37 01:10, 5 August 2007 (UTC) Joe in Seattle

[edit] A system?

I find it odd that this article is refered to as a "system", suggesting there is legislation to support such an electorial outcome. Compare this to Single-party state, which ironically takes the word "state" when the opposite seems more appriopriate (Dominant-party state and Single-party system). Also compare with Two-party system, the title of which would suggest that two particles are legally permitted in the country, when that is actually not the case. And to make things worse, the entire jumble potentially conflicts with Party system, which instead of referring to the various "systems" here as per Template:Political parties, actually talks about the US model of First Party System through the Fifth Party System!--Huaiwei (talk) 18:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Paraguay

Paraguay was removed here [1], I've added it back as a former here [2]. Seems to be sufficient details to be but I thought I'd leave a note incase anyone wanted to add more Nil Einne (talk) 15:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Apologies: I should have moved it to the "former" section rather than deleting it. Kevin McE (talk) 15:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ireland

The definition of a dominant party system is "a party system where only one political party can realistically become the government". This is not the same as a situation wherein one party has historically been more successful. Fianna Fail has failed to win more than a third of the general elections since the introduction of the current constitution, and so, while their record as the most successful party can be acknowledged, it is patently untrue to say that they are the only "political party (which) can realistically become the government". Kevin McE (talk) 15:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)