Intra-party factions,single-issue caucuses, and the factors for their rise and growth Party factions are groups which exist within a single party whereby the rivals compete with each other so as to gain more power. On the other hand ,Single -issue caucuses refers to the kind of politics whereby supporters or members of a given political group come together through support, based on one essential policy area or idea which they strongly believe in.
Single-issue politics can be seen through the formation of political parties which address the single-issues or can be seen through lobbying by politicians and supporters or through other forms of political expression which are not normally seen in the representing government (Thellen 26). In faction politics there are a lot of conflicts which emerge between the interdependent groups within parties and due to this, the stability of the political parties and their systems are damaged. Factions influence how parties do carry their societal and state-oriented tasks.
Factions also do contribute greatly in the identity, structural organization, and the processes involved in the making of decisions within the parties and thus the stability of parties and party systems is greatly damaged. This also means that the institutional features of how a party is organized also determines the strength of factions and thus the allocation of public spending. Thus we can see that factions exist when some party members who share a common identity become conscious of differences that separate them from other party members and they collectively join hands to overcome the traitors within the party.
Factions acquire names that they can identify with, create organizations within the party , and articulate different idealist positions from the rest of their party members. They are the ”parties” behind the parties struggling to determine the image of the party,its affiliations,and how it can identify itself. The most serious problem occurs when a faction tries to take over the running of the entire party so that it can be its own. The second factor is the higher control of local government expenditure (Belloni 61) .
A faction expands only if it wins elections and for them to do this ,the role of money comes into place, with its corrupting influence on elections. The long life of factions is based on the party’s ability to expand by continually recruiting new candidates. The power to recruit can be controlled by internal party rules but this would in turn limit the factions ability to select able candidates and thus such an organizational check would damage the party in the sense voters would be less responsive to public good provision and thus lead to lower effort by faction members making the party less successful in elections.
Where there is greater loyalty ,more effort is evident, thus a higher rate of survival for the faction (Mair 77). Factions compete with each other so as to provide targeted public spending to their own . Another factor is the party conflicts brought about by the existence elite people in the respective parties,who always try to cling to power since there is no alternative source of employment for those formerly in power.
On the side of Single-issue caucuses,one of the reason contributing to their rise and growth , is the existence of the voting systems which encourage die-hard voters who always vote. They make their voting decisions by looking on their candidates stand on various issues . The existence of a large playing field for these politics has contributed to its growth coupled by the various issues like abortion,environment,animal rights.
Having looked at intra-party factions and single-issue caucuses, its evident that they have had a big impact on politics and democracy and will always continue having a greater impact on the democratic process all over the world.
Works cited
Mair,peter. Party system change:Approaches and Interpretations. oxford: Clarendon press,1997. Belloni , Frank P . , and Beller Dennis. ” The Western political Quarterly 29(1974):531-540 Thellen, Kathleen. ” Historical institutionalism in comparative politics. ” Annual review of political science 2(1999):369-404.