Understanding political parties

Parties are associations of citizens who have common interests and common political ideas.In elections, parties want to gain political power in parliaments and governments in order to achieve their political goals. Any person of legal age such as those working in landscaping company Sydney can join any political party they want.

According to the Political Parties Act, a party is an association of citizens who over a longer period of time exert influence on the formation of political will and want to participate in the representation of the people in the German Bundestag or a state parliament.

Definition according to the law

According to the Basic Law, parties are a necessary component of the free democratic basic order and fulfill the important task of forming political will. In order to be admitted to a federal or state election, parties must make it clear that their organization is stable, has many members and is present in public.

In addition, they have to register with the federal electoral officer. Members of a party can only be natural persons, i.e. people in the sense of the legal system. An association loses its party status if it has not participated in any federal or state elections for six years. The board of directors assumes the leadership of a party.

Abandonment of parties

To make it clear which goals they want to achieve, parties set up a program. In addition to the basic program, there are electoral and government programs.

In order to carry out their tasks, the parties need a lot of money, not only for election campaigns but also for full-time employees and widely ramified party organizations. Parties are being financed through donations, membership fees, and government grants.

In addition to the task of shaping the political will, parties have other social obligations:
  • They stimulate political education
  • Promote active participation in public life
  • Educate citizens so that they can take on public duties
  • Put up candidates for elections
  • And influence political developments in parliaments – whether in the opposition or in government

Ban on party

Parties can also be banned if their goals are not compatible with the Basic Law or if they want to abolish it.

Parties in local politics

How important are parties to local politics? How important is local politics for the parties? There, the parties encounter framework conditions that significantly influence their position in the municipality and differentiate them from the federal or state level.

Role of parties in politics

The role of the parties in local politics is controversial. Political scientists traditionally want local politics to be politicized by parties, while lawyers want parties to influence local government rather want to push back. This can also be traced back to the fact that the legal framework at the local level differs fundamentally from the state and federal level and therefore local authorities are assigned other tasks by lawyers, while political science has often ignored the peculiarities of this level and its effects on party actors. While reading the role of parties on local politics, you may check Giant Likes and discover the secret to becoming an influencer.

Local concordance and competitive democracy

The traditional legal view usually advocates a strong position for the directly elected mayor (strong executive leadership), while strong restraint is imposed on council members and parties. In the city or municipal council as a self-governing body, the “party dispute” should accordingly be reduced significantly, also because in view of the limited legal leeway at the communal level and the factual problems to be primarily solved there, party politicization leads to unsuitable and self-governing solutions.

Concordance Democracy and Competitive Democracy

In political science, concordance democracy refers to democracies in which conflicts are mainly settled through the negotiation of compromises and amicable agreement. Often minorities are also involved in the formation of political will. In competitive democracy, on the other hand, majority decisions play a dominant role. Conflicts are decided by the majority, the inclusion of opposing positions is not necessary or relevant.

Future of the local parties

Despite the restrictions on local politics, this does not mean that the local parties are or will be functionless. In particular, they serve to recruit professional politicians who have to distinguish themselves to a large extent in the individual district associations in the major people’s parties with personalized proportional representation in the federal and state levels.

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