Growth of Political Parties

What are the functions and roles of political parties? How do political parties fit into the scheme of things?

The task that political parties perform is incumbent to the operation of responsible government. This essay will discuss the function and roles of political parties, as well, it will explain how they fit into the scheme of things.

The first function of political parties is to serve as a channel of communication between the citizens and those who exercise government power. They do this by organizing public opinion and communicating them to the government's center of decision making. But before doing this, they determine the majority opinion and modify it to coherent terms. Political parties also have a chief responsibility for arousing interest in and educating the electorate on political matters. In terms of fitting into the scheme of things, they act as a liaison between the people and the government.

The second function of political parties is to articulate the concept and meaning of broader community. It does it by integrating everyone's ideas so that it can bring about consideration and compromise. One can say, political parties serves as a broker of ideas for its supporting citizens. It uses the many compromises and concessions, so that the resulting policy will form the highest common factor on which their conflicting interests are able to unite. It is sometimes demeaning because it destroys ideas and replaces it with something else. However, everyone's ideas are considered and the final compromise takes everyone's ideas into consideration.

The third function is to undertake political recruitment. It acts as a staffing function. It has the responsibility of selecting the appropriate leader for political parties to represent the supporters. In addition, it recruits and trains them to perform up to the citizens expectations.

The fourth function is to serve as a locus of political responsibility. Political parties enables us to exercise a choice of competing