In Latin, "pars" means "genus" and "partis" means "part". "Partio" - "I divide, I divide." It turns out that a party is an association of people who are separated from others due to common interests and the support of any ideas, teachings, ideology.
A political party is a special system that expresses the interests of the public, its class or strata, unites those representatives who are ready for active work, and guides them to achieve the goal. There is also such a thing as pressure groups. A pressure group and a political party are not the same thing. For the purposes of political parties - the achievement of power and the implementation of their own program. A political party is a well-organized entity with a clear structure, leaders and hierarchy.
Thus, the signs of a political party are, first of all, the expression of the interests and ideals of social groups, the struggle for power and the realization of their own programs
s, the presence of a certain structure (core, leaders, hierarchy,discipline, etc.), the existence of an ideology (party philosophy, program, ideological guidelines), which determines the strategy and tactics of the party.
In society, a political party is a twofold formation, which, on the one hand, is a public organization, part of civil society, which is capable of putting pressure on the authorities from below. But at the same time, factions in parliament and party leaders are part of political structures. It can be said that political parties link the state and civil society. Through their existence, individual citizens can influence the politics of the country.
At different times, there were different types of political parties. So, they are usually divided into government (members of the parliamentary majority, forming the government in a coalition or alone) and opposition (opposing the government, criticizing the ongoing political course).
Maurice Duverger singled out internally formed and externally formed parties. According to the organizational structure, he divided parties into personnel and mass parties.
Stephen Cohen divided the parties according to their functional purpose. Parties of the parliamentary type, or European, are parties in the traditional sense, with a permanent structure, organization, account of members and discipline. Campaign parties or American-style parties are parties that are formed specifically for elections. Parties as the political vanguard or parties of the communist type are the typeparties that remained today in Cuba, in China, in North Korea. extra-parliamentary parties. They have more similarities with public organizations, but they also have a hidden struggle for influence.
According to the nature of the program settings and strategy, political parties are divided into right, centrist and left. They differ in their attitude to private property, the form of state power and ideology, and the political course.
In the process of struggle for power, political parties unite in blocs and coalitions, create parliamentary associations. The totality of all parties, associations that participate in political life and in interactions in the struggle for power is determined as a party system.
