Formative Potentials and Maintenance Challenges of Political Parties Under Two-Party System: The RP and UK Experience

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.