example, the BritishLabour Party). These two basic modes of parliamentary
party are often distinguished as ‘cadre’ parties and ‘mass’ parties. They
represent no more than ideal types, and there are still examples of competitive
parties with virtually no mass organization at all—just as there are mass parties
which are really only loose coalitions of separate interests, groups or regions
with no central agreement on policy.
The fighting of elections is not the only reason for the organization of
political parties—the idea of a revolutionary party is an obvious example. Here,
though, the aim is still to seek power, if by different means, just as in asingle-
party systema party, while not competing for power, still exists to wield it.
Some parties form with little real expectation of winning power or even
gaining seats because fighting elections, with the attendant publicity, is a good
way of promoting a cause. If their advocacy of the cause through political
channels proves popular, an existing and successful party may adopt similar
policies; this has clearly happened in several countries where Green parties
exist (seeenvironmentalism). Such single issue campaigns, however, can
only be regarded as belonging to a party, rather than apressure group, if they
are accompanied by a generalprogrammefor government.
Party List System
By far the simplest method of ensuring that parties in an elected body receive
proportional representationis to count votes for them on a national or
regional basis. Either the entire country can be treated as one constituency (as
in Israel and the Netherlands), or large multi-member constituencies can be
used (as used to be the case in Italy until its political reforms in 1992—see
Italian Second Republic). In the simplest terms, the number of votes cast for
a party is divided by the total number of votes cast, and this proportion of the
seats to be filled is allocated to the party from a list of candidates submitted by
the party and ranked in the order that the party wishes them to be elected.
However, as the mathematics of this procedure will not produce precise
numbers of seats, various methods of dividing up the total vote and allocating
the remainder may be used. A variety of sequences of divisors exist, the object
being to ensure that each candidate elected receives as nearly as is possible the
same number of votes. However, it will always be true that the greater the
number of seats in the constituency, and the higher the number by which the
parties’ votes are being divided, the more proportional the representation will
be, and the more likely it will be that candidates of smaller parties will be
elected. Alternatively a quota may be set, again using a variety of rules, and seats
be allocated according to the multiples of that quota achieved by each party;
the seats which are left after this procedure can be allocated according to the
remainder votes, which may mean seats going to small parties which did not
Party List System