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A party system is a concept in comparative political science concerning the system of government by political parties in a democratic country. The idea is that political parties have basic similarities: they control the government, have a stable base of mass popular support, and create internal mechanisms for controlling funding, information and nominations.
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections.It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or policy goals.
American electoral politics have been dominated by successive pairs of major political parties since shortly after the founding of the republic of the United States. Since the 1850s, the two largest political parties have been the Democratic Party and the Republican Party—which together have won every United States presidential election since 1852 and controlled the United States Congress ...
In the United States, divided government describes a situation in which one party controls the White House (executive branch), while another party controls one or both houses of the United States Congress (legislative branch). Divided government is seen by different groups as a benefit or as an undesirable product of the model of governance ...
The three-party era of the early 20th century ended with the United and Reform parties (who had formed a coalition between 1931 and 1935) completely merging a year later into the new National Party, who remain Labour's main rival to the present day, both occupying either government or opposition ever since.
Modern democracies do not consistently provide a majority mandate, as several competing parties offer different policies, requiring coalition governments to make compromises between their members. In the United States, the two-party system always results in one party having a majority in government that can be interpreted as a mandate. [11]
The power of representatives is usually curtailed by a constitution (as in a constitutional democracy or a constitutional monarchy) or other measures to balance representative power: [7] An independent judiciary, which may have the power to declare legislative acts unconstitutional (e.g. constitutional court, supreme court).
This party system marked the first in a series of political realignments, a process in which a prominent third party coalition, often one that wins >10% of the popular vote in multiple states in a presidential election, realigns into one of the major parties, allowing that major party to dominate the federal government and/or presidency for the ...