Martin William Smith wrote:

[...]

>> No, it is an organization.
>
>Yes, it is a government.  the members of the party are governed by the
>party rules.  I assume you mean the party government has no coercive
>power, but in somes places, like Australia, members of parliament are
>required to vote along party lines (I think that's how it is in Oz?).

No. The only coercive power the Australian political party has is the power
to endorse or not endorse the member of parliament as a Labor candidate at
the next election. Since the voters (usually) tend not to vote for
candidates who are not endorsed by a major party, that is a real threat. So
the Labor parliamentarian usually, but not always, toe the party line.

There are some spectacular exceptions. Pauline Hanson was an endorsed
Liberal party candidate in a seat that was un-winnable for the Liberal
Party. She was dis-endorsed in the middle of an election campaign by the
Liberal party (leaving them without a candidate) due to some embarrassing
racist comments.

She won the seat. The Liberal voters still voted for her because they had
no endorsed Liberal candidate and many Labor voters swung to her as well,
since they were really pissed off with their own party. (They would never
have gone as far as to vote Liberal though, but since she wasn't Liberal
any more they felt safe voting for her to teach Labour a lesson.)

Another spectacular example involved the Tasmanian independent member of
federal parliament Brian Harradine. A Labor party rebel who has made a long
political career out of being expelled from the party in the 1970's. That's
a longer story though, involving the Catholic church, the Communist Party,
a split in the Labor party and all sorts of shenanigans in the union
movement. You don't want to know. ;-)

So essentially political parties have no coercive power here. They are one
step ahead of political parties in the US of course, which are completely
irrelevant.

In the US political parties cannot even endorse candidates of their own.
Anyone can vote to select the candidate for the US Democratic party, even
people who are not members of that party, even people who totally reject
the party's platform. So of course there is no point having a platform, if
the party cannot actually influence its (nominal) candidates.

I understand this system was developed early this century to undermine the
growing success of various socialist political parties, like the Debs
party? Obviously a party whose only attraction is an actual platform cannot
do well in a system that excludes serious political ideas.

This is the essential difference between the US system and the system here
(the "party" system). Political parties cannot stand candidates in US
elections, thus they cannot present a cohesive programme to the voters.

Tell me about the electoral system in Norway. I am quite curious about the
legal and electoral system in those countries. Also the welfare system if
anyone knows anything.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell tas