Answer

Political Parties and Two-Party System

The term political party has different connotations. The meanings are varied depending on the way the term is used. According to Roberts, political parties denote a group of people that are organized to either exercise or acquire political power (9). Scarrow, Paul and Thomas define political parties as groups of people who come together to contest elections with the intention of holding power in government positions (32). The third definition presented by Losco and Baker notes that political parties are organized groups of people with similar political opinions and aims that seek to influence public leadership and opinions by getting their candidates elected to government positions or public offices (15). Guided by these backdrop, this paper defines political parties and explains why the Unites States has just two major parties.

A commonality shared across these three definitions is that political parties represent a group of people with deeply entrenched beliefs and ideologies. Roberts, therefore, associates the presence of political parties with democratic outcomes as the electorates become affiliated and support the political parties that express their common beliefs and shared interests (12). These parties form the ticket for bringing together like minded people who can be elected to positions of power to promote the agenda of the electorates. The participation of the citizens in the affairs of their preferred political parties is known to present unique benefits, namely, influencing policy choices, having the power to choose a leader that supports similar ideologies, and generally, promoting democratic governance where the citizens can affiliate with political parties that support their views.

The second question seeks to explain why the USA has only two major political parties. Roberts notes that the party system embraced in the USA is known as a two party system (32). The USA has had two major political parties since 1850s. These parties are the Republican and Democratic parties. At any given time, one of these two parties represents the majority of legislatures thus referred to as the governing party. Whenever one party ascends to the majority position, the other automatically downgrades to the opposition or minority party. In a two party system, as it is applied in the USA, most of the elected officials will automatically belong to one of these two parties. The other smaller parties hardly win significant seats to guarantee representation of their agendas and ideologies.

Evidently, there are several reasons why the USA has only two major parties. For instance, it is speculated that the USA embraced a two-party system as a result of political battles between the federalist and anti-federalist groups. In the decades after the ratification of the American constitutions, there were several views on the possibility of reforming the constitution. In fact, the processes leading to the enactment of the constitution had divided the political landscape into two divergent ideological groups. These groups formed the basis for founding the two major political parties in the USA. Secondly, Blake argues that the winner-takes-all electoral system in addition to the particular federal and state laws have discouraged the rise of new and dominant political parties thus promoting the two-party system (para 3). These sentiments are seconded by political scientists who argue that the prevailing voting rules could be contributing towards the sustained dependence on the two-party system in the USA.

The political scientists contend that the current voting arrangement favors the two dominant parties, which discourages the rise of smaller parties. In particular, the first-past-the-post principle used in the American congress encourages the dominance of major parties. Additionally, the party-proportional representation approach to congress electoral system preserves the power already held by the two parties, making it hard for new third parties to emerge (Losco and Baker 143). By favoring these two large and established political parties, the voters have over the years become divided along the two parties and politicians have to join either of the two to win over the electorates and capture political power

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