The Contrasting American and Canadian Political Party Systems
Political parties have existed for many years and support societies in achieving goals and objectives. It is hard to imagine what like would be like without them. G. Bingham Powell found that:
Political parties are the institutions that link the voting choices of individual citizens with aggregate electoral outcomes in the competitive democracies. The parties set the alternatives offered to the citizens in elections and their organized activities can encourage both registration and election-day turnout. The relationships between party systems and nations cleavage structures should play a major role in shaping voting participation level (Holomon, Johnson, and Munroe, 2004).
With different political party systems there can be very different outcomes when it come to the satisfaction of voters with their political parties. The difference between Canada’s multiparty system and America’s two-party system is an unmistakable illustration of this. In this essay I will demonstrate how Canada’s representative democracy is better than America’s with respect to the number of political parties in each system because in America; fewer voters’ opinions are covered and politicians are attempting to win a greater percentage of votes at an expense.
With both Canada and the United States being so diverse and multicultural it should be expected to have a population of all various ideologies. In today’s modern, North American society it is only natural that citizens have disagreements in opinion about the most important of issues such as finance, economy, health care, abortion rights, and military, which are just a couple of examples. All of these issues are very much political issues that are all usually part of each political party’s platform. In Canada there is a multiparty system, which means there are more options of political parties to vote for. There is the Liberal Party, Conservative Party, New Democrat Party (NDP), the Bloc Quebecois, and the Green Party, all with
Political parties are the institutions that link the voting choices of individual citizens with aggregate electoral outcomes in the competitive democracies. The parties set the alternatives offered to the citizens in elections and their organized activities can encourage both registration and election-day turnout. The relationships between party systems and nations cleavage structures should play a major role in shaping voting participation level (Holomon, Johnson, and Munroe, 2004).
With different political party systems there can be very different outcomes when it come to the satisfaction of voters with their political parties. The difference between Canada’s multiparty system and America’s two-party system is an unmistakable illustration of this. In this essay I will demonstrate how Canada’s representative democracy is better than America’s with respect to the number of political parties in each system because in America; fewer voters’ opinions are covered and politicians are attempting to win a greater percentage of votes at an expense.
With both Canada and the United States being so diverse and multicultural it should be expected to have a population of all various ideologies. In today’s modern, North American society it is only natural that citizens have disagreements in opinion about the most important of issues such as finance, economy, health care, abortion rights, and military, which are just a couple of examples. All of these issues are very much political issues that are all usually part of each political party’s platform. In Canada there is a multiparty system, which means there are more options of political parties to vote for. There is the Liberal Party, Conservative Party, New Democrat Party (NDP), the Bloc Quebecois, and the Green Party, all with
References: Balz, D. & Broder, D. (2007, January 3). Remembering a Leader and a Party that was. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201194.html Holomon, C., Johnson, L., & Munroe E If Canada had a Two-Party System (2009, October 27). ThreeHundredEight.com. Retrieved from http://threehundredeight.blogspot.com/2009/10/if-canada-had-two-party-system.html Jones, A National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections: 1960-2008 (2008). Information Please. Retrieved from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html Party Standings (2010) Soutar, J. (2007, August 30). The Two-Party System: A Catastrophic Failure. Intellectual Conservative. Retrieved from http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/08/30/the-two-party-system-a-catastrophic-failure/