TOPIC 8: PARTY SYSTEMS AND THEIR EFFECT ON DEMOCRACY Respicius Shumbusho Damian Department of Political Science and Public

Administration Phone: +255777428318, Email: shumbusho@udsm.ac.tz INTRODUCTION Two factors are critical fro the healthiness of democracy and elections. The same factors equally are the central determinants of whether elections may serve as significant institutions of democracy and they play an important role in facilitating or hindering democratic consolidation. These are electoral system on the first hand, and party system on the other. This topic interrogates the effect of party systems on democracy, particularly focusing on the key characteristics of Tanzanian party system and its dynamics. THE CONCEPT OF PARTY SYSTEM Studies about party systems date back to times when a single dimension was used to categorize party systems, especially the number of political parties. Such of these was that of Duverger (1954), who classified polities into single party, Anlo-Saxon Two Party, and Multiparty systems. The followed Lipset and Rokkans (1967), Sartori (1967), and then (1968). In his writings of 1960s, Sartoris conception of party system was purely based on numerical analysis of party elements. The concept attracted new analytical tools and became popular after 1976 from a seminal work, Party and party Systems: A Framework for Analysis by Giovanni Sartori who clarified the concept and attempted to provide a typology of party systems. His conception of party system is built on the assumption that a system must at least have two parts, which are interconnected. He proposed that to understand the concept of party system, we need to distinguish party as a system from party system For him, what makes a system different from its constituent parties is that; The system displays properties that do not belong to a separate consideration of its component elements The system results from, and consists of, the patterned interaction of its component parts, thereby implying that such interactions provide the boundaries or at least boundedness, of the system (e.g. dominant may be distinguished from competitive). According to Sartori, Parties make for a system only when they are parts (in the plural); and a party system is precisely the system of interactions resulting from interparty competition. That is, the system in question bears on the relatedness of parties to each other, on how each party is a function (in a mathematical sense) of the other parties and reacts, competitively or otherwise, to the other parties. From Sartoris point of view, party systems could be categorized by using two main axes, the number of political parties, and secondly, the degree of ideological polarization. The modern theory of party systems goes beyond the two axes by Sartori (1976) and suggests that more dimensions should be considered while studying party systems. ________________________________________________________________________ PS 335: Democracy and Elections Lecture Series R.S. Damian 2013

Sartoris dimensions remain central. However, scholars like Lijphart (1977), Keman (1995), and Ware (1996) have criticized Sartoris criteria as lacking both theoretical and methodological consistence. During the Third Wave Democracy for instance, an opposite, but equally important dimension, party system institutionalization, which includes stability of competition, roots in society, legitimacy, and organization of parties has become of great attention among party system analysts. According to Geyikci (2011), a party system refers to patterns of interaction among political parties in electoral, parliamentary, and governmental arenas of a given political context. Scott P. Mainwaring (1999), Rethinking Party Systems in the third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil looks at party systems as a set of parties that interact in a patterned way. As patterned interaction, party systems need that there should be known rules that shape competition between parties even if those rules are contested or volatile (constantly changing). DIMENSIONS FOR DESCRIBING PARTY SYSTEM To understand the party system of a particular polity, we must look at the extent of cooperation, competition, and opposition between political parties as well as sympathy and antipathy towards these elements within parties rather than looking at individual political parties. It must be perceived as a system of recurrent interactions between parties How should we understand party systems? What makes party systems? Extent of competition between political parties: This refers to the degree and extent of competition between the parties that exist (mainly the major parties). In this regard, a party system may be described as dominant or competitive party system. Number of political parties: It should not be confused with existence of single party or multiparty political systems, but rather the number of political parties commonly available in a political community and how they politically interact. In the way, we may have 3 parties, but still have a two party system. In this regard, we may have a no party system, state-party system, two party system, and fragmented party system (above 5 parties). Configuration of competitive powers among parties: is power shared, dominated, or evenly distributed among political parties. Can shifts in power holding be forecasted or predicted? Configuration of cooperative attitudes between and within parties: this refers the dominant attitudes of political parties and party alliances towards each other or one another. So, we may have a party system characterized by alliances, cooperation, antagonism in all arenas of contestation, or even a dominant party struggling to suppress the rest of political parties and cleavages. Party System Polarization: The extent to which political parties are ideologically distant ________________________________________________________________________ PS 335: Democracy and Elections Lecture Series R.S. Damian 2013

The extent of party system institutionalization: this reflects how are the elements above forming a stable and permanent system of institutional rules and norms including roots in society, intra party organizations, legitimacy, and stability of the competition. Thus, the party system can be weakly institutionalized party system and strongly institutionalized party system.

________________________________________________________________________ PS 335: Democracy and Elections Lecture Series R.S. Damian 2013