Analysing The Philippine Political Party System Politics Essay

Analysing The Filipino Political ships company piece Politics EssayFirst, thither is a need to hold out the difference between strongly institutionalized troupe transcriptions from weak ones. For a authoritiesal ships company form to be considered as strongly institutionalized, it must watch two characteristics (1) the stability in the policies and exemplifications of inter- caller emulation, and (2) the view of semi presidencyal actors on parties as legitimate and crucial parts of the democratic process. On the opposite hand, a weakly institutionalized ships company strategy has the following characteristics (1) there is a high degree of mental unsoundness in the policies and patterns of inter- troupe tilt (2) the deal and finale scores of parties argon high- there ar a crew of unsanded semi policy- do parties entering the system and a attractor of existing parties passing the system (3) high degree of electoral instability-the fate of the individual parties figure on the results of the preference, and last (4) the governmental actors view of parties as just wasted at best and as a danger at tally (Allen Hicken).Analysis of the Philippine fellowship SystemFor a political caller system to be considered as strongly institutionalized, the inter- caller ambition must be durable and the political actors must view political parties as legitimate and essential. However, in the Philippine setting, these two characteristics suck upm to be absentminded.Stability of Interparty Rivalryelectoral irritabilityA good indicator of the stability of interparty rivalry of party systems is the gauge of electoral volatility. electoral volatility determines the take to which there is pas seul in aggregate party right to balloting sh argons from one alternative issue to a nonher. When there is a low volatility score, it affirms that the same political parties be across constant degrees of live from one election period to a nonh er(prenominal), therefore, the pattern of inter-party rivalry is considered as stable. A high volatility score dooms that there is instability in the preferences of suffragers from one election period to another and/or there is elite-driven interchanges made to the party system, such as the termination of existing parties, the get of new parties, party coalitions, party accompanimentions, etc (Mainwaring and Zoco 2007). In spite of all these, electoral volatility is not a perfect gauge of the stability of interparty rivalry because finding party suffrage shares is tremendously complicated where there are many party coalitions or factions, or where a mountaindidates party standoff is difficult to determine. The latter remains a problem in the Philippine party system because some preservedidates often claim to be assort with several parties. That fact alone tells that party labels in the Philippines are so fluid that it becomes hard to measure the volatility of electoral resul ts (Ufen 2008). It is excessively meaningful to consider that electoral volatility does not allow one to bring up among the sources of instability-whether they are indecisive voters or temporary parties (Hicken and Kuhonta). Another problem with the Philippines is that it lacks the updated schooling needed to measure electoral volatility. During the 2001, 2004 and 2007 elections, the information needed regarding party vote shares was not further released and there was even a scandal involving immaculate vote counting during the 2004 elections. However, even though updated information are missing, Allen Hicken was unflurried able to measure electoral volatility of the Philippines using just the vote shares information available and supplemented those information with available data from party model shares. The single available data was from the elections during 1992, 1995 and 1998 elections.Table 1 Electoral VolatilityPeriodNumber ofElectionsVolatility of inaugural 2nd ele ctionsVolatility of fit electionAverageVolatilityPhilippines1992-1998346.428.237.3(Source Hicken and Kuhonta)Electoral volatility is metrical by taking the sum of the net change in the component part of votes achieved or lost by all(prenominal) party from one election to the next and then dividing it by two. A score of 100 indicates that the political parties winning votes are utterly varied from the one election to the other. A score of 0 indicates that the same political parties achieved exactly the same parting of votes from two different elections. The higher the volatility score, the less stable the pattern of inter-party rivalry and vice versa (Allen Hicken). Because the Philippines electoral volatility score are instead high, it is clear that the inter-party rivalry in the Philippine party system is facilitate not stable, contributing to the party system being weakly institutionalized. Voters even so do not book loyalty to parties and parties kick in not yet establi shed a original support base that would vote for them each and any election. The absence of loyalty and continued support by voters indicate that they still do not see certain political parties as groups that would promote their welfare so they seek and try to vote for other parties e rattling election. The instability of inter-party rivalry in the Philippines makes the party system weaker and political parties less reliable in consolidating the democracy of the agricultural.Birth and Death order of PartiesThe rate of the get and death of parties in the party system of a country is another factor in determine whether a party is strongly or weakly institutionalized. If there is a high throw and death rate in the party system, it style that the inter-party rivalry is not stable and there are a lot of parties entering and leave the system. In the post-Martial law period up to 2007, because of the conversion of the Philippine party system from a two party system into a multi-par ty system, the birth and death rates became high. Stabilization around parties was not bring in. A queen-size human action of political parties continue to enter and leave the system every election, and these rates contribute as well to the electoral volatility of the party system (Allen Hicken).Table 2 Party Birth and Death rank During House Elections (Seats)Birth RateDeath RateNumber of Parties1987NANA819920.430.50719950.130819980.500.50820010.330.25920040.730.113020070.330.4027Birth Rate Death Rate of Parties(Source Allen Hicken)The shift of the nature of the party system from a two-party into a multi-party system seems to energize given the chance for other parties to evolve and get involved in the system, however, it seems that this change only brought unsteadiness to the birth and death rate of parties in the Philippines. Because of the multi-party system, parties can enter and leave the party system freely, although looking at it in different point, it may seem good fo r the inter-party rivalry basing on the fact that not only a few number of parties can argue and gain seats in the government, it is still not considered good for the institutionalization of the party system for it makes the party competition unstable. The high rate of the death and birth of parties only makes the Philippine party system weaker.View of Political Actors on PartiesThe perception of political actors on political parties is one of the most important factors for a party system to be considered as strongly institutionalized. If the major(ip)(ip) political actors doubt the legitimacy and importance of political parties, then it means that there is a lack of institutionalization. The Philippine people or the normal are part of the government and they are likewise considered as political actors. Their views on political parties are very important in determining whether democracy in the Philippines is working well. Conversely, there seems to be a interval on the principl e of real democracy and on the truth of Filipino democracy. For instance, a great number of Filipino people surveyed (around 55 percent) were inform to have been discontented with the way democracy works in the Philippines (Hicken 2009b). This discontentment is strongly interconnected with the doubt of the Filipino people on the genuineness of Philippine political parties. This survey was just among the ordinary Filipino citizens, that is wherefore there is also a need to analyze the view of the major political actors themselves on the existing Philippine political parties. Major political actors like the forces seems to have been displease with government a lot of times as well, since military interventions and rumored plans of coups have been present in the country for a couple of times, especially during the 1986 and the 2000 elections (Allen Hicken).Electoral volatility, birth and death rate of parties and the perception on political parties show how weakly connected are the parties to the different social interests/groups in the country. Filipino voters do not have specific parties in which they are loyal to, they do not vote candidates coming just from one political party, they often times vote candidates from different political parties and it is not even consistent with their votes in the previous(prenominal) elections. An instance would be during the 1992, 1998 and 2010 presidential elections, the presidents and the vice-presidents voted were from two different political parties. It is also very hard to identify one political party from another based on their party platforms and ideologies, this difficulty in distinguishing one party from another makes the strings connecting Philippine parties and societal interests and social groups very frail. The number of voters who can genuinely identify with any political party is very small. In one SWS 2006 survey, it has been reported that two-thirds of the people surveyed said that no party truly endo rsed their welfare (SWS 2006, Allen Hicken). Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, a professor, summed up the state of Philippine political parties Far from being stable, programmatic organizations, the countrys main political parties are cloudy entities that can be set up, merged with others, split, resurrected, regurgitated, reconstituted, renamed, repackaged, recycled or flushed land the toi permit anytime (Quimpo 2005). What Quimpo wants to point out is that there is no certainty among political parties in the Philippines. They tend to be uneven and impermanent, every election, parties tend to change, both by factions, coalitions or merges-even members of the parties tend to leave their respective parties once they sapidity that their protest interests are not being pursued. In summary, through the different measures (electoral volatility, birth death rates, perception) used, one can conclude that Philippine political parties and the Philippine party system display a low level of instit utionalization, or even, a very weak and fragile institutionalization. The pattern of inter-party rivalry stays fluid and political actors including voters even doubt if political parties are legitimate and necessary for the countrys democracy (Hicken).Analysis of the siamese connection Party SystemPolitical parties and the party system in Thailand, just like those in the Philippines, are also weakly institutionalized. The two characteristics needed for a party system to be considered strongly institutionalized seem to be missing as well in Thailands party system.Stability of Interparty RivalryElectoral VolatilityHaving a weakly institutionalized party system, the electoral volatility of the Thai party system is one of the highest in Asia (Kuhonta 2009). However, it is still celebrated that the electoral volatility of the Thai party system is lesser than that of the Philippine party system (Average volatility of Philippine party system is 37.3, see Table 1 for more details). This means that the interparty rivalry in the Thai party system is more stable compared to that of the Philippines. However, the difference is not that large-minded and, because of the lack of Philippine data, the period measured in the Philippines is only until 1998 charm the period measured in Thailand is until 2005.PeriodNumber ofElectionsVolatility of 1st 2nd electionsVolatility ofLast electionAverageVolatilityThailand1992-2005638.128.035.0With the given electoral volatility, it is clear that just like the Filipino voters, Thai voters also lack the loyalty to parties. The numbers stated indicate that Thai voters do not have enough allegiance to a certain party that they tend to vote different parties every election. The commitment of the following is unsteady and the parties havent established a well grounded support even with the support bases that they claim to have.Birth and Death Rates of PartiesThe history of Thailand will impart evidence that the parties in the Thai party s ystem come and go like that in the Philippines. The birth and death rate of parties is also high, making the pattern of inter-party rivalry, all the more unstable. Parties in Thailand are especially convincible to the influence and power of party factions. Party factions are also present in the Philippine party system, but not as a good deal like in the Thai party system. The Thai party system has more factions, while the Philippine party system has a lot of varieties of identical parties being founded, identical meaning having the same ideologies and platforms. These party factions in Thailand, however, do not bring any excellence to the party system but it even makes the birth and death rates of parties become unsteady each and every election period. The factions made by parties themselves do not have sufficient interest to make the party system and the government work well, these factions merely see parties as just roads to their declare drives and tours for self interests and political power. As an effect, parties in Thailand tend to just come and go every election (Kuhonta 2009). Although it is right to say that there are exceptions, like the Democrat Party which remains as the longest stand party in Thailand, we still cannot presuppose that the constancy of the lives of just a few parties make the inter-party rivalry more stable. The government of Thailand has done things to make up for the unstable inter-party rivalry of Thai politics parties. Constitutional amendments have been enacted, one of which is included in the 1997 Thai Constitution, it is considered as one of the strongest shipway to minimize if not eliminate the practices of party switching. According to the 1997 Constitution, MPs who left(a) their parties within 90 days of registration for a new election would not be able to run in that upcoming election. (Kuhonta 2009). The 1997 constitution seems to have strengthened the party system minimizing the amount of party hopping and switchi ng. However, the amendment only has a limited effect and what needs to be done is to let democracy and the party system take their course in strengthen the government (Kuhonta 2009).View of Political Actors on PartiesElectoral volatility can already indicate how loyal Thai voters are to their supported parties, however, the mensural electoral volatility of Thai political parties would already state that parties do not have constant support bases and that those voters do not have constancy when it comes to their votes. Like political actors in the Philippines, it is also evident that political actors in Thailand do not have the best perception on their political parties. The mere fact that voters switch their support from one party to another, every election, means that the parties have not yet cultivated their own mass support bases. The absence of loyalty to particular parties leads to a shutdown that Thai voters are dissatisfied with their political parties. Moreover, the lack o f ideology and programmatic platforms and goals also makes it harder for parties to maintain their own support bases. The divided constituency returns supply adequate proofs that parties in Thailand lack their social bases, since this implies that voters do not have loyalty to a certain party. From the year 1986 to the year 1996, it has been recorded that more than 50 percent of constituencies had divided votes. This is with the exception of the two dominant parties that time, which are the Democrat Party and the Thai Rak Thai. Parties do not have connections with social groups like struggle unions, womens groups, ethnic communities or other groups who make up most of the take population. This shallow nature of party roots in society mirrors only the superficial aspect of party organizations (Kuhonta 2009). This is one of the problems of Thai political parties-they do not represent social interests which lead social groups to not go on votes and support to any particular party. P olitical actors themselves do not suppose of parties as representatives of their interests and as supporters of their welfare, that is why their perception of parties is not good most of the time. Like in the Philippines, one major political actor that could be considered as an excellent aspect contributing to the view of political actors on parties is the military. The weak connection of the political parties to social groups made them vulnerable to military counteraction. Military often times involved themselves in politics and when they pit the governance or the reign of one political party, they would counterattack the government through coups. The military is very influential and often times, when they are dissatisfied with the system, they resort to using their power to overthrow a regime. However, Thailand has gone through more coups than the Philippines. Thailand has experienced 18 coups since the concept of party politics began in the year 1932 (Kuhonta 2009).