Editing Political party (section)

==History==
The idea of people forming large groups or factions to advocate for their shared interests is ancient. [[Plato]] mentions the political factions of [[Classical Athens]] in the ''[[Republic (Plato)|Republic]]'',<ref>{{cite book | last=Plato |page=462 | title = The Republic | publisher = Macmillan and Co, Ltd. | year = 1935 }}</ref> and [[Aristotle]] discusses the tendency of different types of government to produce factions in the ''[[Politics (Aristotle)|Politics]]''.<ref>{{cite book | last=Aristotle | title = The Politics | publisher = The University of Chicago Press | year = 1984 | page = 135 }}</ref> Certain ancient disputes were also factional, like the [[Nika riots]] between two [[chariot racing]] factions at the [[Hippodrome of Constantinople]]. A few instances of recorded political groups or factions in history included the late [[Roman Republic|Roman Republic's]] ''[[Populares]]'' and ''[[Optimates]]'' factions as well as the [[Dutch Republic|Dutch Republic's]] ''[[Orangism (Dutch Republic)|Orangists]]'' and the ''[[Dutch States Party|Staatsgezinde]]''. However, modern political parties are considered to have emerged around the end of the 18th century; they are usually considered to have first appeared in Europe and the United States of America, with the United Kingdom's [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] and the [[History of the United States Democratic Party|Democratic Party]] of the [[United States]] both frequently called the world's "oldest continuous political party".<ref name = "Metcalf97">{{cite journal | last = Metcalf | first = Michael F. | title = The first "modern" party system? Political parties, Sweden's Age of liberty and the historians | journal = Scandinavian Journal of History | volume = 2 | issue = 1–4 | pages = 265–287 | year = 1977| doi = 10.1080/03468757708578923 }}</ref><ref name = "Chhibber04">{{cite book | last1=Chhibber | first1=Pradeep K. | last2 = Kollman | first2 = Ken | title = The formation of national party systems: Federalism and party competition in Canada, Great Britain, India, and the United States | publisher = Princeton University Press | year = 2004 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | last = Dirr | first = Alison | date = 24 October 2016 | title = Is the Democratic Party the oldest continuous political party in the world? | url = https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2016/oct/24/tim-kaine/democratic-party-oldest-continuous-political-party/ | work = Politifact Wisconsin | access-date = 30 September 2019 | archive-date = 30 September 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190930213349/https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2016/oct/24/tim-kaine/democratic-party-oldest-continuous-political-party/ | url-status = live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Stanek|first=Wojciech|title=Konfederacje a ewolucja mechanizmów walki politycznej w Rzeczypospolitej XVIII wieku|publisher=Interpress|year=1996|location=Olsztyn|pages=135–136}}</ref>

Before the development of mass political parties, elections typically featured a much lower level of competition, had small enough [[Polity|polities]] that [[direct democracy|direct decision-making]] was feasible, and held elections that were dominated by individual networks or cliques that could independently propel a candidate to victory in an election.<ref name=boix09>{{cite book |editor1=Carles Boix |editor2=Susan C. Stokes |author=Carles Boix |date= 2009 |title=The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics |chapter=The Emergence of Parties and Party Systems |pages=499–521 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199566020.003.0021 |isbn=978-0199566020}}</ref>{{rp|510}}

===18th century===
[[File:A-Block-for-the-Wigs-Gillray.jpeg|thumb|upright=1.2|In ''A Block for the Wigs'' (1783), [[James Gillray]] caricatured Fox's return to power in a coalition with North. George III is the blockhead in the centre.]]
Some scholars argue that the first modern political parties developed in [[early modern Britain]] in the 17th century, after the [[Exclusion Crisis]] and the [[Glorious Revolution]].<ref name = "Jones61">{{cite book | last=Jones | first=J. R. | title = The First Whigs. The Politics of the Exclusion Crisis. 1678–1683 | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 1961}}</ref>{{rp|4}} The [[Whigs (British political party)|Whig]] faction originally organized itself around support for Protestant [[constitutional monarchy]] as opposed to [[Absolute Monarchy|absolute rule]], whereas the conservative [[Tory (British political party)|Tory]] faction (originally the [[Royalist]] or [[Cavalier]] faction of the [[English Civil War]]) supported a strong monarchy, and these two groups structured disputes in the politics of the [[United Kingdom]] throughout the 18th century<ref name = "Jones61" />{{rp|4}}<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Hamowy |first=Ronald |title=Whiggism |author-link=Ronald Hamowy |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |year=2008 |publisher=[[SAGE Publishing|Sage]]; [[Cato Institute]] |location=Thousand Oaks, CA |isbn=978-1-4129-6580-4 |oclc=750831024 |lccn=2008009151 |pages=542–543 |doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n328 |access-date=4 December 2016 |archive-date=30 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200930100756/https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC%2F |url-status=live }}</ref> The [[Rockingham Whigs]] have been identified as the first modern political party, because they retained a coherent party label and motivating principles even while out of power.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jessenorman.com/2013/09/conhome-op-ed-the-usa-radical-conservatism-and-edmund-burke.html |title=ConHome op-ed: the USA, Radical Conservatism and Edmund Burke |access-date=19 October 2013 |archive-date=20 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020123727/http://www.jessenorman.com/2013/09/conhome-op-ed-the-usa-radical-conservatism-and-edmund-burke.html |url-status=live |date=Sep 2, 2013 |website=Jesse Norman}}</ref>

At the end of the century, the United States also developed a party system, called the [[First Party System]]. Although the framers of the 1787 [[United States Constitution]] did not all anticipate that American political disputes would be primarily organized around political parties, political controversies in the early 1790s over the extent of federal government powers saw the [[Presidency of George Washington#Rise of political parties|emergence of two proto-political parties]]: the [[Federalist Party]] and the [[Democratic-Republican Party]].<ref>{{cite book | last = Hofstadter | first = Richard | title = The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 |publisher = University of California Press |page=ix | year = 1970}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | editor = William Nisbet Chambers | title = The first party system | url = https://archive.org/details/firstpartysystem00cham | url-access = registration |page=1 | year = 1972| publisher = New York: Wiley | isbn = 978-0471143406 }}</ref>

===19th century===
By the early 19th century, a number of countries had developed stable modern party systems. The party system that developed in Sweden has been called the world's first party system, on the basis that previous party systems were not fully stable or institutionalized.<ref name = "Metcalf97"/> In many European countries, including Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, and France, political parties organized around a [[liberalism|liberal]]-[[conservative]] divide, or around religious disputes.<ref name=boix09/>{{rp|510}} The spread of the party model of politics was accelerated by the [[1848 Revolution]]s around Europe.<ref name="Busky8">{{Citation |first=Donald F. |last=Busky |title=Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey |place=Westport, Connecticut, US |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. |year=2000 |page=8 |quote=The Frankfurt Declaration of the Socialist International, which almost all social democratic parties are members of, declares the goal of the development of democratic socialism}}</ref>

The strength of political parties in the United States waned during the [[Era of Good Feelings]], but shifted and strengthened again by the second half of the 19th century.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Minicucci | first = Stephen | title = Internal Improvements and the Union, 1790–1860 | journal = Studies in American Political Development | volume = 18 | issue = 2 | pages = 160–185 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | doi = 10.1017/S0898588X04000094 | year = 2004 | s2cid = 144902648 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |page=465 | last = Kollman | first = Ken | title = The American political system | publisher = W. W. Norton and Company | year = 2012}}</ref> This was not the only country in which the strength of political parties had substantially increased by the end of the century; for example, around this time the Irish political leader [[Charles Stewart Parnell]] implemented several methods and structures like [[party discipline]] that would come to be associated with strong [[grassroots]] political parties.<ref name=jordan86>{{cite journal | last = Jordan | first = Donald | title = John O'Connor Power, Charles Stewart Parnell and the Centralization of Popular Politics in Ireland | journal = Irish Historical Studies | volume = 25 | issue = 97 | pages = 46–66 | year = 1986 | doi = 10.1017/S0021121400025335 | s2cid = 156076896 }}</ref>

===20th century===
At the beginning of the 20th century in Europe, the liberal–conservative divide that characterized most party systems was disrupted by the emergence of [[socialism|socialist]] parties, which attracted the support of organized [[trade union]]s.<ref name=boix09/>{{rp|511}}

During the wave of [[decolonization]] in the mid-20th century, many newly sovereign countries outside of Europe and North America developed party systems that often emerged from their movements for independence.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/what-can-be-done-about-the-problem-political-parties |title=What Can Be Done About the Problem of Political Parties? |publisher=[[Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars]] |first=Patrick |last=Liddiard |access-date=14 February 2021 |archive-date=15 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215055924/https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/what-can-be-done-about-the-problem-political-parties |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Michele Penner |last=Angrist |year=2006 |title=Party Building in the Modern Middle East |chapter=1 |publisher=University of Washington Press |pages=31–54 |isbn=978-0295986463}}</ref> For example, a system of political parties arose out of factions in the [[Indian independence movement]], and was strengthened and stabilized by the policies of [[Indira Gandhi]] in the 1970s.<ref name = "Chhibber04"/>{{rp|165}} The formation of the [[Indian National Congress]], which developed in the late 19th century as a pro-independence faction in [[British India]] and immediately became a major political party after Indian independence, foreshadowed the dynamic in many newly independent countries; for example, the [[Uganda National Congress]] was a pro-independence party and the first political party in Uganda, and its name was chosen as an homage to the Indian National Congress.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Conference on Constitutalism and Multiparty Governance in Uganda |first=Nathan |last=Byamukama |date=October 2003 |title=Formation and Impact of Political Parties in 1950s up to Independence (1962): Lessons for Democracy |page=7 |url=https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/20.500.12413/4825/byamukama-mak-res.pdf?sequence=1 |access-date=14 February 2021}}</ref>

As broader suffrage rights and eventually [[universal suffrage]] slowly spread throughout democracies, political parties expanded dramatically, and only then did a vision develop of political parties as intermediaries between the full public and the government.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=J. Kevin |last1=Corder |first2=Christina |last2=Wolbrecht |author-link2= Christina Wolbrecht |title=Political Context and the Turnout of New Women Voters after Suffrage |journal=The Journal of Politics |volume=68 |issue=1 |pages=34–49 |year=2006 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-2508.2006.00367.x|s2cid=54176570 }}</ref>