To what extent are the Labour and Conservative parties undemocratic organisations?
To what extent are Labour and Conservative Democratic organisations?
The definition of democracy is the control of an organisation or group by the majority of its members. By this definition Labour and Conservative are both democratic organisations because they have elements of policy formulation and MP election processes which are very democratic in nature as they involve a wide range of people within the party. However there are also undemocratic features about both these organisations such as one, or small group of people, being involved in party matters when democratically it should involve more people.
Labour is democratic because the way that they form their policy is through large consultation. For example they have smaller groups on more local levels to make sure every tier of the party is involved like the NEC (National Executive Committee.) This makes Labour democratic because it isn’t just the more powerful members of the party such as the party leader making all the decisions for everyone.
Conservative is also democratic because they use open primaries which gives more choice to the party for their parliamentary candidate. For example in 2009 they experimented for the first time as to how effective it would be to use open primaries to select two of its parliamentary candidates and this proved very effective. They are obviously a very democratic organisation as they have kept this process in place since this time.
Labour is also still very democratic because of the system they use to elect their MPs involves the rest of the party hugely. For example in 2010 they used the One Man One Vote system to ensure everyone as fairly represented. This is very democratic as it ensures a even spread of the types of people within a party who are voting.
However Labour does have undemocratic tendencies because the way their party funding works is that they rely heavily on donations for the organisation meaning that an outside party, someone with no party
The definition of democracy is the control of an organisation or group by the majority of its members. By this definition Labour and Conservative are both democratic organisations because they have elements of policy formulation and MP election processes which are very democratic in nature as they involve a wide range of people within the party. However there are also undemocratic features about both these organisations such as one, or small group of people, being involved in party matters when democratically it should involve more people.
Labour is democratic because the way that they form their policy is through large consultation. For example they have smaller groups on more local levels to make sure every tier of the party is involved like the NEC (National Executive Committee.) This makes Labour democratic because it isn’t just the more powerful members of the party such as the party leader making all the decisions for everyone.
Conservative is also democratic because they use open primaries which gives more choice to the party for their parliamentary candidate. For example in 2009 they experimented for the first time as to how effective it would be to use open primaries to select two of its parliamentary candidates and this proved very effective. They are obviously a very democratic organisation as they have kept this process in place since this time.
Labour is also still very democratic because of the system they use to elect their MPs involves the rest of the party hugely. For example in 2010 they used the One Man One Vote system to ensure everyone as fairly represented. This is very democratic as it ensures a even spread of the types of people within a party who are voting.
However Labour does have undemocratic tendencies because the way their party funding works is that they rely heavily on donations for the organisation meaning that an outside party, someone with no party