Editing Political party (section)

==Definition==
Political parties are collective entities and activities that organize competitions for political offices.<ref name = "Aldrich95"/>{{rp|3}} The members of a political party contest elections under a shared label. In a narrow definition, a political party can be thought of as just the group of candidates who run for office under a party label.<ref name = "Chhibber04"/>{{rp|3}} In a broader definition, political parties are the entire apparatus that supports the election of a group of candidates, including voters and volunteers who [[party identification|identify]] with a particular political party, the official party organizations that support the election of that party's candidates, and legislators in the government who are affiliated with the party.<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Sarah F. Anzia |author2=Olivia M. Meeks |title=Political Parties and Policy Demanders in Local Elections |journal=University of Maryland-Hewlett Foundation Conference on Parties, Polarization and Policy Demanders |date=May 2016 |url=https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/Anzia_Meeks_Parties_Local_Elections_5_27_16.pdf |access-date=14 February 2021 |archive-date=8 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201008034336/https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/Anzia_Meeks_Parties_Local_Elections_5_27_16.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> In many countries, the notion of a political party is defined in law, and governments may specify requirements for an organization to legally qualify as a political party.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Dan |last=Avnon |title=Parties laws in democratic systems of government |journal=The Journal of Legislative Studies |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=283–300 |date=16 November 2007 |doi=10.1080/13572339508420429}}</ref>

Political parties are distinguished from other political groups or clubs, such as [[Parliamentary group|parliamentary groups]], because only presidents have control over the political foundations of the party and also they include political factions, or advocacy groups, mostly by the fact that a party is focused on electing candidates, whereas a [[parliamentary group]] is a group of political parties, a [[political faction]] is a subgroup within a political party, and an [[advocacy group]] is focused on advancing a policy agenda.<ref>{{cite book |author1=John Anthony Maltese |author2=Joseph A. Pika |author3=W. Phillips Shively |year= 2020 |title=American democracy in context |publisher=Sage |page=182 |isbn=978-1544345222}}</ref> This is related to other features that sometimes distinguish parties from other political organizations, including a larger membership, greater stability over time, and a deeper connection to the electorate.<ref name = "Belloni76">{{cite journal | last1 = Belloni | first1 = Frank P. | last2 = Beller | first2 = Dennis C. | title = The Study of Party Factions as Competitive Political Organizations | journal = The Western Political Quarterly | volume = 29 | number = 4 | pages = 531–549 | year = 1976 | doi = 10.1177/106591297602900405| s2cid = 144697443 }}</ref>