Why There Are Political Parties?

When the concept of democracy at the nation-state scale returned to the stage of history in a modernized form, that modern democracy had diverged significantly from the ancient democracy that was seen almost 2,500 years ago: first, the position of the people in democracy had shifted, and as a result of demographic and regional structure (as part of the transformation from city-states to nation-states), the people had become the central focus of the representative democracy. Secondly, the modern democracy had brought us a society of diverse thoughts and choices. In ancient times, it was believed that the social order should be homogeneous for democracy to succeed. Whereas the contemporary democracy had been a peaceful habitat for each opinion and providing them a welcoming foundation to discuss and so to be represented. Therefore, the existence of the political parties has come into being with people serving as investigators for the ruling elite, but no longer holding the authority. With acknowledging the other models of representative democracy, the theoretical and empirical paradigms go on to affirm that the political parties are the leading actors for building and upholding the representative bond between the electorates and the political figures. In that behalf, this paper tries to authenticate those two concepts mentioned above with putting a greater stress to the significant roles that the political parties have played in the contemporary.

As the structure of the societies had been transformed and it became nearly impossible for each individual to enter into politics on his/her own as in the ancient ages; the idea of representation had emerged, and political parties were seen as the primary practitioners since they committed to representation as members of parliament. The political parties are seen responsible for providing rational and systematic groundwork for political outcomes; offering the most suitable political combination to their existing and potential constituents. As a result, political parties are characterized broadly on the basis of channeling people's demands into the political sphere, with the objective of acquiring the legitimate authority in the state control. The significant role that is being played here by the political parties is conveying the interest of the citizens in a very minimum effort given by the citizens. The contemporary means of democracy had mandated the citizens to go to the polls on a regular basis, while the politicians were delegated to seek the interests of the people in the period. Rather, in ancient democracy, if one wanted to pursue his or her interest, had to attempt to engage in city affairs if that person was considered a "citizen" of the city. Thus, the value of political parties is underscored as serving the maximum output since it seeks the interests, conveys them in the political realm, and lays a more rational and consistent framework that yields political outcomes, while obtaining the authority to do so with the citizens' vote which is perceived to be a relativelyminimum input provided by the citizens.

Secondly, today, the Netherlands is usually recognized as one of the world's best examples of democracy, owing to its low election threshold and commitment to democratic values. The second thing that draw the attention is the relatively large number of political parties in the country which have a low threshold, allowing these political parties to be represented in parliament with little requirements. The political parties therefore perform the function for corresponding each of the views in society in a peaceful and political way, preventing underrepresentation of any social group in society. The existence of political parties in such a huge number provides for the discussion of all viewpoints without causing antagonism in society and it does not cause one to be under or non-represented in essence.

As a result, the political parties in the contemporary democracies serve as a means of maintaining the well-being of the society without even necessitating the homogeneity of that society as it does in the ancient democracy.