Are Political Parties in Decline?
No: Ronald Landes In Defence of Canadian Political Parties
Strong point – Ronald Landes mentions that the several functions of a political party focus on its responsibilities. His strongest point lies within the responsibilities of political governing. Walt Bagehot explains that a political party’s chief role is to join the government’s executive portion to that of the legislative portion. In short, Bagehot believes that parties force the government to run smoother and encourage them to solve more problems.
Landes’ weakest point is in regards to the function of party financing, specifically the electoral functions of party financing. He feels that just because a party can raise money year after year (in fact, the money is flowing more than ever), that the organization is successful. However, a simple explanation exists for why more money is coming into political parties. Firstly, government legislation has changed regarding the amounts of donations which can be made.
Parties can now take more and larger donations. Secondly, politicians are more business-oriented and influenced by large corporations, receiving large donations for corporate involvement. Parties are not more influential due to more money, nor are they better organized. John Meisel’s strong point is that the primary factor leading to the direct declination of political parties in Canada is the rise of the bureaucratic state. Modern politics have eclipsed the past when political parties did not need to gain specific knowledge as they focused on a few key points rather than large amounts of responsibility.
Today, too many complex issues are dumped upon our elected representatives, and they have no hope of being able to deal with all the issues or give the proper amount of time and care. The development of appointed civil servants has greatly aided in the solution of this problem, but unfortunately, the elected representatives have lost control over the matters. Meisel stated that politicians can only sit back and observe the results of the civil servants and accept these results. The officials can no longer act for the good of the people but rather must obey the control of the civil servants. Meisel’s weakest point is the decline of the parties due to the media.
He states in his article that television, the largest form of media, has transformed politics into a show” in which politicians play for the cameras and try to entertain the public. However, it doesn’t seem fair to blame the politicians for playing up their roles in society without condemning the very actions of society that cause problems in the media in the first place. Is the problem the politicians’ effect on the media or the media’s effect on the politicians?
