Abstract:
The study is a case study which focused on the formative potentials
and maintenance challenges of the political parties under two-party systems
in the United Kingdom and the Philippines. The researcher only studied the
Labour and Conservative Parties in the United Kingdom and the Liberal and
the Nacionalista Parties in the Philippines.
The theories of Duverger and Neumann were used as theoretical
frameworks in this study. As for the conceptual framework, the researcher
started off by presenting that it is just natural for democratic societies to lean
toward a party system which only has two dominant political parties vying for
governmental power during elections. These political parties have the same
formative potentials such as recruitment, membership and structure.
However, what made them different from each other is their capacity to
sustain their preeminence in the political party system, which is evident in
their decision-making, party financing, discipline, and the way they carry out
their activities.
This research is generally qualitative and basically relied on primary
data, which were gathered through interviews, and secondary data, which
were obtained through intensive library researches.
After analyzing the gathered data, the researcher concluded that the
political parties in United Kingdom were able to meet the maintenance
challenges which they faced and that is the primary reason why the two-party
system in United Kingdom still thrives until now. The members of the
British political parties have strong commitment to their party. Even rank and
file members are consulted before major decisions are made. In addition to
these, the parties are also successful in disciplining their members that is
why party-switching is not a common practice in UK. The two parties also
have delineated beliefs and ideology. Finally, both have enough money to
fund their activities and to continue with their service to the public.
The Philippine political parties however, were not able to meet with the
maintenance challenges making the two-party system short-lived. Political
parties are never mindful of their long-term programs or platform of government. There
is no party discipline to talk about since candidates are switching loyalties or founding
parties left and right for the sake of convenience. Members are not much
committed with their party because they are not even consulted when major
decisions are made. The sole decision-makers of both parties are just the
party officers and leaders and the voices of the rank-and-file members were
not regarded as important. Finally, the Nacionalista Party did not have
enough funds to disburse for its party activities which also made the party
inactive in the political scene.