B Decline

Some argue that political parties no longer play such a central role in determining election outcomes. However, political parties continue to provide expert assistance with polling, fundraising, and advertising efforts of candidates. Parties help to coordinate the campaigns of party members and they organize the statewide and national conventions that mark election years. However, as the capacity of parties to formulate programs, nominate candidates, and control campaigns has weakened, they have lost control over those who win elections under their name. Political parties have little basis for denying future renomination to those who deviate from the party program.

IV The Future of Political Parties

Though most pronounced in the United States, the decline of traditional parties is an international phenomenon. Some analysts believe political parties will one day cease to exist, and that the function of democratic linkage between citizen and state will then be performed by polls, by interactive television, and by other media. Others argue, however, that none of these institutions offers citizens the public arena in which reasoned debate can lead to collective action on behalf of an organized membership. Collective action, they suggest, is the only effective recourse of the less privileged members of a society. A nation without multiple strong, competitive political parties will inevitably be a nation in which power rests in the hands of a narrow elite. Still other analysts simply note that the first act of a new nation, or a nation newly liberated from authoritarian control, is to create political parties. These analysts believe that human political communities have not outgrown their need for political parties.

Source: Encarta, “Political Parties,”, at http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761580668_2/Political_Parties.html (20 Jully 2008).

Colors and emblems for parties

Generally, over the world, political parties associate themselves with colors, primarily for identification, especially for voter recognition during elections. Red usually signifies leftist, communist or socialist parties. Conservative parties generally use blue or black.

Pink often signifies moderate socialist. Yellow is often used for libertarianism or classical liberalism. Green is the color for green parties, Islamist parties and Irish nationalist and republican parties in Northern Ireland. Orange is sometimes a color of nationalism, such as in The Netherlands, in Israel with the Orange Camp or with Ulster Loyalists in Northern Ireland; it is also a color of reform such as in Ukraine. In the past, Purple was considered the color of royalty (like white), but today it is sometimes used for feminist parties. White also is associated with nationalism. Black is generally typical for fascist parties, going back to Mussolini's blackshirts, but also with Anarchism and Christian democracy. Similarly, brown is often associated with Nazism, going back to the Nazi Party's brown-uniformed storm troopers.The emblem of socialist parties is often a red rose held in a fist. Communist parties often use a hammer to represent the worker, a sickle to represent the farmer, or both a hammer and a sickle to refer to both.

Symbols can be very important when the electorate is mostly illiterate. In the Kenyan referendum, 2005, supporters of the constitution used the banana as their symbol, while the "no" an orange.