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Interest aggregation is a process that occurs when the shared demands of a groups are organized into a political program.
This leads to the formation of political parties, which create a platform that meets the needs of the partys followers.
The book says that the Patron-Client Network is so essential to comparative politics, it is analogous to the cell in biology.
Nowadays, U.S. and Britain have relatively low levels of Patron-Client Networks, compared to Egypt, India, and Nigeria.
Associational Groups express demands and support a certain political party. For example, Labour Unions coagulate their interests onto one political platform that meets their needs. The process of forming Associational groups brings together people of different subgroups.
Institutional Groups include governmental bureaucracies and militaries. They try to expand their interests by going out and looking for problems that need fixing. Military Institutional groups occur in the same way, except that they force to implement their programs. Military organizations are decisive when their organized government breaks down.
Competitive Party Systems have parties that try to build electoral support in hopes of winning an election. Can be challenged by other parties with different platforms. U.S. has a competitive party system.
Authoritarian Party Systems have parties that want to control society, and nothing else. Are rarely influenced by other Interest Groups.
There are two election setups that allow groups to gain representation in government.
Single-member district plurality election rule, or the Plurality rule, means that the winner of and election needs more votes than the second place candidate. A majority is not necessary to win this type of election.
This process can be called The first past the post, a horse racing term.
Then there is something called proportional representation. A party will offer many candidates for election to a legislative office. The number of votes each party receives is directly proportional to the amount of representation received. More votes = more representation.
Competitive Party Systems and Interest Aggregation
These results, or tendencies, are explained by Duvergers Law. It is named after French political scientist Maurice Duverger.
The plurality systems create a two party system, each party supports one candidate, and the parties compete against each other. The United States uses this system.
Proportional party systems tend to create multiple parties. The smaller parties have a chance to gain representation in a proportional system, but they would be overlooked in a plurality system.
Ideally, the election should allow voters to make a collective choice on government. Voters should be able to change the way their country is run. This is the obvious function. Shifts in voter ideals change the outcomes of elections, allowing for change.
On the other hand, some political systems use the elections to validate their government. Voters are forced to symbolically express their support by voting for a predetermined winner. Egypt has had elections of this caliber.
I choose you.
Citizens do not possess luxury of choosing between party alternativescontrolled elections are commonly held instead.