Editing Political party (section)

==Party positions and ideologies==
{{Main|List of political ideologies}}[[Political ideology|Political ideologies]] are one of the major organizing features of political parties, and parties often officially align themselves with specific ideologies. Parties adopt ideologies for a number of reasons. Ideological affiliations for political parties send signals about the types of policies they might pursue if they were in power.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Liesbet |last=Hooghe |title=What Drives Euroskepticism? Party–Public Cueing, Ideology and Strategic Opportunity |journal=European Union Politics |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=5–12 |year=2007 |doi=10.1177/1465116507073283 |s2cid=154281437 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1465116507073283 |access-date=30 January 2021}}</ref> Ideologies also differentiate parties from one another, so that voters can select the party that advances the policies that they most prefer.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Romain |last=Lachat |title=The impact of party polarization on ideological voting |journal=Electoral Studies |volume=27 |issue=4 |pages=687–698 |date=December 2008 |doi=10.1016/j.electstud.2008.06.002}}</ref> A party may also seek to advance an ideology by convincing voters to adopt its belief system.<ref>{{cite journal |first=John E. |last=Roemer |title=The Strategic Role of Party Ideology When Voters are Uncertain About How the Economy Works |journal=The American Political Science Review |volume=88 |issue=2 |pages=327–335 |date=June 1994 |doi=10.2307/2944707|jstor=2944707 |s2cid=145184235 }}</ref>

Common ideologies that can form a central part of the identity of a political party include [[liberalism]], [[conservatism]], [[socialism]], [[communism]], [[anarchism]], [[fascism]], [[feminism]], [[environmentalism]], [[nationalism]], [[fundamentalism]],<ref>{{cite book |first=Andrew |last=Vincent |year= 2009 |title=Modern Political Ideologies |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |pages=1–22 |isbn=978-1444311051}}</ref> [[Islamism]], and [[multiculturalism]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Andrew |last=Heywood |year=2017 |title=Political Ideologies: An Introduction |publisher=Macmillan International Higher Education |pages=1–23 |isbn=978-1137606044}}</ref> Liberalism is the ideology that is most closely connected to the history of democracies and is often considered to be the dominant or default ideology of governing parties in much of the contemporary world.<ref name=freeden96>{{cite book |first=Michael |last=Freeden |year=1996 |title=Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach |pages=vii–x |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0198275329}}</ref> Many of the traditional competitors to liberal parties are conservative parties.<ref name=freeden96/> Socialist, communist, feminist, anarchist, fascist, and nationalist parties are more recent developments, largely entering political competitions only in the 19th and 20th centuries.<ref name=freeden96/> Environmentalism, multiculturalism, and certain types of fundamentalism became prominent towards the end of the 20th century.<ref name=freeden96/>

Parties can sometimes be organized according to their ideology using an economic [[left–right political spectrum]]. However, a simple left-right economic axis does not fully capture the variation in party ideologies.<ref name=gunther03/> Other common axes that are used to compare the ideologies of political parties include ranges from liberal to authoritarian,<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Anna Lührmann |author2=Juraj Medzihorsky |author3=Garry Hindle |author4=Staffan I. Lindberg |title=New Global Data on Political Parties: V-Party |journal=V-Dem Briefing Paper |number=9 |pages=1–4 |date=26 October 2020}}</ref> from pro-establishment to [[anti-establishment]], and from tolerant and pluralistic (in their behavior while participating in the political arena) to anti-system.<ref name=gunther03>{{cite journal |author1=Richard Gunther |author2=Larry Diamond |title=Species of Political Parties: A New Typology |journal=Party Politics |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=167–199 |date=1 March 2003 |doi=10.1177/13540688030092003|s2cid=16407503 }}</ref>

Party positions for individual political parties are assessed by different published indices, such as the [[V-Dem Institute#V-Party Dataset|V-Party Dataset]].<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://v-dem.net/data/v-party-dataset/ | title=V-Party Dataset  | access-date=June 2, 2023  | website = V-Dem Institute }}</ref>

===Non-ideological parties===
Though ideologies are central to a large number of political parties around the world, not all political parties have an organizing ideology, or exist to promote ideological policies. For example, some political parties may be [[clientelism|clientelistic]] or [[patronage]]-based organizations, which are largely concerned with distributing goods.<ref name=hicken11>{{cite journal |first=Allen |last=Hicken |title=Clientelism |journal=Annual Review of Political Science |volume=14 |pages=289–310 |date=17 March 2011 |doi=10.1146/annurev.polisci.031908.220508|doi-access=free }}</ref> Other political parties may be created as tools for the advancement of an individual politician.<ref name=devries19>{{cite book |author1=Catherine E. De Vries |author2=Sara B. Hobolt |year= 2019 |title=Political Entrepreneurs: The Rise of Challenger Parties in Europe |publisher=Princeton University Press |pages=1–38 |isbn=978-0691194752}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author1=Mark Schneider |author2=Paul Teske |title=Toward A Theory of the Political Entrepreneur: Evidence from Local Government |journal=The American Political Science Review |volume=86 |issue=3 |pages=737–747 |date=September 1992 |doi=10.2307/1964135|jstor=1964135 |s2cid=155041917 }}</ref> It is also common, in countries with important [[social cleavage]]s along ethnic or racial lines, to represent the interests of one ethnic group or another.<ref name=ganawari17/> This may involve a non-ideological attachment to the interests of that group, or may be a commitment based on an ideology like [[identity politics]]. While any of these types of parties may be ideological, there are political parties that do not have any organizing ideology.<ref name=olanrewaju17>{{cite journal |first=John S. |last=Olanrewaju |title=Political Parties and Poverty of Ideology in Nigeria |journal=Afro Asian Journal of Social Sciences |volume=VI |issue=3 |pages=1–16 |date=28 June 2017}}</ref>