Next week is my midterm, which I don’t know if I should be nervous for. I think I’ll be alright. Anyway, my sixth class was on Tuesday, and like with writing this post I was also a few minutes late. I didn’t really miss anything which is good but I’ve still go some knowledge to share.
This week was focused on the role of political parties and special interest groups. Obviously both are very connected.
I don’t believe I’ll have to go into the basics of what political parties are/what they do, so I’ll skip to the more interesting bits, especially when it comes to my professor’s and fellow students’ comments made throughout class.
So when it comes to classifying what type of party one is we looked at two terms: Missionary parties (also known as ideological parties) and Broker parties (also known as Pragmatic parties). The former having a commitment to a specific ideology with the want to convert people, kinda like Jehovah’s Witnesses hence the “missionary” title (his example not mine). The latter group being less about ideology and more about changing their party positions to maximize votes (they are also called Catch-all parties). I’m sure most of you are already familiar with these but I didn’t know that specific classifications existed.
Next we learned about party systems; one party, two party, you get the gist. So what was interesting here was when we were talking about one party systems, my professor brought up Cuba, North Korea, and China as examples. While I know outside of the classroom setting this isn’t a negative, but he was very negative about one party systems in general and didn’t go into the nuances of how the systems works in Cuba, North Korea (which is a bit difficult considering everything), and how china does have multiple parties, just one is more dominant. Which is what a one party system is, top heavy, again this was his definition.
When China was brought up as an example there was a strange debate on whether China is an aristocracy or oligarchy because most decisions are made by Xi Jinping and a few others. he claimed that Xi Jinping has massive influence on the population. He proceeded to ask the class if they believed the Chinese Communist Party (his words) governs in their own interests or the people’s. Most students said own while I quietly said the people’s…
The terms “de facto” and “de jure” were discussed next. De facto meaning one party is dominant while de jure is only one party being allowed. He used Cuba and North Korea as de jure examples. Again, I know Cuba and North Korea are fine but the way he relayed this information was very biased to the typical Liberal Democracy system and acting like Cuba and North Korea are under some totalitarian dictatorship.
A girl in my class is from Türkiye and she talked about how the current President is in a coalition of sorts with the fascist part of Türkiye. My professor sort of sputtered at her terminology and stated he hates to use the fascist since it’s very heavy, but the girl was insistent on the fact they were fascist and therefore the current president of Türkiye is way more far right than our professor was making him out to be. Germany was brought up because I think they also have a coalition going on, and proceeded they are a fairly left wing government (Green Party). I don’t know much about current day German political parties so I won’t say if I believe it’s true but considering how they’re handling the was I’d say that their principles are a bit all over the place.
Then we talked about no party systems which was easy and self explanatory; Saudi Arabia was used as an example.
We ended the class talking about interest groups and what not, nothing too crazy, and then a five minute debate. Two people were chosen as Pro marijuana and the other two were opposed. It was a weird debate and just kind of frustrating.
Anyway I’ll conclude with a comment my professor made when it came to Joe Biden and Donald Trump: “I’m non-partisan, but I don’t think either are that great. Also make sure to watch the State of The Union address.”
Had to write this quickly because I’ve got a DnD session really soon.
“While I know outside of the classroom setting this isn’t a negative” Where are you from? In America this is pretty typical both inside (especially) and less so recently but still very much outside the classroom as well.
De facto v de jure…Did anyone happen to mention to your propaganda instructor that in effect they are one and the same and the semantics of differentiating the two in this context simply add up to mental gymnastics capitalists and their puppets use to attempt and skirt objective criticism of their undemocratic “democracies”? Lenin explained this best imo, that all governments are (“authoritarian” and) oppressive, it just depends on who the government serves and who is being oppressed but it’s a natural aspect of government. But apparently in clown world science does not apply and so up is down and capitalist dictatorships are democracies where all are free, no one is oppressed, and societies which actually function as democracies are evil dictatorships whereas societies which are labeled as democracies result in mass unemployment, needless starvation and death from preventable disease and the list goes on.
“I’m non-partisan…make sure to watch the State of The Union address” Right, his only alliance is to the capitalist class, or so he believes. Perhaps it is, I don’t know his financials.
Hope DnD was fun. It’s a shame you have to deal with a clown of an instructor but I wish I was surprised…
I should’ve been more specific; by saying “outside the classroom” I meant through the context of learning about one party systems myself, usually with information from here or other forms of media not tethered to corporate influence. I’m from Canada, so similar to the US in being incredibly unfriendly to non-Liberal Democracies.
In a previous class we went over the disadvantages of democracy but it wasn’t super in-depth, a more flippant discussion that went nowhere except Liberal Democracy is the only way. We’re totally doing fine everyone! Very frustrating but surprisingly I’m not burned out yet.
“went nowhere except Liberal Democracy is the only way”
I would expect nothing less. I’m glad you’re hanging in there. It’s extremely insulting and hypocritical but when you push past the shock value it isn’t much of a threat to us in a classroom environment.
Missionary parties (also known as ideological parties) and Broker parties (also known as Pragmatic parties).
Sounds like all liberal democratic parties. They just don’t think they’re ideological because their ideology is of capitalism. This is how they can be ‘pragmatic’ with their policies, because their only commitment is to capital. As Mao observed, liberals stand for unprincipled compromise. When that is the ideology, and when they are operating within a developed liberal system, ‘pragmatism’ becomes a little easier.
At the same time, it also sounds like communist parties, but they’re more honest about it. This is the synthesis of theory and practice: praxis. One without the other will fail – as liberal democratic parties also must fully realise.
You’ll notice this with academic papers. They must be written. It’s publish or perish. And they get more invisible points if they ‘change the paradigm’. Ask your instructor if there’s a paper that explores this distinction between missionary and broker parties. Very likely, someone has written an article or book to demonstrate the two types, to consider how they might operate, and their implications. Then there will be an argument that without this new framework, it is impossible to fully comprehend politics (used in the abstract but referring to electoral politics).
Do you have set reading lists for each class? Or lectures beforehand? If you do, try to look through the reading before the class. Ideally, read the materials before the start of each teacher-led cycle. Or if there’s no recommended reading, then just go through the handout/slides/handbook (in advance) and try to read some of whatever appears to be the most important. Practice an ‘immanent critique’ of the sources. This may help to prepare you in advance for arguments that will come up, and you don’t have to invoke communist writers.
This advice may not solve everything. But you can have some relevant material/thoughts prepared to defend your claims when you go against the class.
The only reading material we have is the textbook, and even then he doesn’t really tell us what passages to read before class. We have to read the textbook on our own time alongside his lectures. I’m sure you can imagine that the textbook material is also fairly anti-communist which is unfortunate but not surprising.
Do you know in advance which topics will be discussed in each class? Maybe it says this in a module handbook or something? Do you get a lecture outline in advance? How do you figure out which parts of the textbook to read?
Somewhat, he actually has recorded lectures from the previous semesters for us to watch on our own time which cover the topics he teaches in class in a similar order. I’ve actually been watching them recently and writing notes to help study for my midterm, when it comes to the textbook there is no guide, my plan is just looking for what sections will most likely cover the topics that have and will be taught. Right now I’m assuming the lessons are in the same order as the textbook, if not I can do a word search to look for the proper sections since I have it in e-book form.
Do they not provide a module handbook with that kind of detail? Do you not get a list of questions to answer before each class? Maybe it’s subject-specific, but it seems strange not to give an indication of what content is coming up.
None of that unfortunately, I have to do it on my own. At most we’ve been told to just read the textbook.
That’s very interesting. Do you have access to an online library? Like JSTOR, etc?
I do! My university gives access to JSTOR
Germany’s government is only left wing on paper. The current incarnation of the Greens is one of the most warmongering bunch of lunatics since the OG Nazi party while the so-called socdems are neoliberal through and through and since the 90s have done more to dismantle and sabotage German social democracy than the actual right wing parties ever did. Also they are basically all puppets of Washington.
I’m unsure as to why he considers the current German government as left wing considering their track record. I will admit wholeheartedly that I’m not well versed in the current state of German politics but with what I’ve seen in regards to the war, they’re far from left.
