Talk:Dominant-party system

UK
NPOV? Article says: "An example of this is, arguably, the United Kingdom between 1979 and 1997 (18 years) where the Conservative party won all four elections in that period."

... but overlooks Labour having been a Dominant party since that time.

POV
I think that this from the first paragraph: "most often through various forms of corruption and constitutional quirks that purposely undermine the ability for an effective opposition to thrive." should be removed or at least edited since it was quite clearly POV. Take for example Venezuela, there is absolutely no evidence to support allegations of corruption, electoral fraud or even a constitution which favours the current president. The legislature was changed yes, but it was changed to a National Assembly elected by proportional representation. The opposition parties have the potential to form a government. It's just that Venezuelans will no longer vote for the traditional parties, it has nothing to do with Venezuela's system of government. There are of course other similar examples of dominant party systems where a single party dominates a government because the majority of the electorate simply prefer that party over all of the other parties, take Sweden and Norway for example.I do realize that the Social Democrats are no longer in office in Sweden, but for the last 60 years they have definately been the dominant political party in office almost all of the time.

Talk carried over from Talk:One party dominant system
It seems to me that by this definition, PRC should be included here, as well as PRI Mexico. Slrubenstein

I've merged this into Dominant-party system. PRI Mexico is included there. However, PRC in my opinion doesn't qualify as a state ruled by a dominant-party. It would fall under the single-party system, as no official opposition parties exist in China as far as I know. --bad_leprechaun 21:57, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Just added the Italian Christian Democrats to the list, thought that was a glaring omission.

USA?
A Dominant party system is one where opposition parties don't have a real chance. There are more than "a few" Democratic states. And, the Democrats have a very real chance of winning elections in 2006 and 2008. Members of the supreme courts are not affiliated with political parties.
 * Besides which, under US Senate rules, you need a 3/5ths majority (60 votes when all senators present) to pass just about anything (with a few exceptions such as the budget.) It has been decades since either party had 60 senators. Jon 19:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

There is one aspect in which the US would qualify in the historical area. Both prior to the rise of and after the fall of the Whig party, the party that we know of as the Democrats was the only major party. In fact, James Monroe won without opposition due to not having an opposing party.--Will 06:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I removed 'All New England members of the US House of Representatives are Democrats as of 2009, and 8 of 12 members of the US Senate are either Democrats or caucus with the party.' because sweeping a single election does not constitute a system. jvol Jvol (talk) 05:15, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I removed 'All New England states since 1988 have voted for Democrats at the presidential level except New Hampshire in 2000, which George W. Bush won with a plurality.'  because *many* states tend to vote consistently. singling out one state or a group without listing all the others seems counterproductive. I won't get into an editing war over it if somebody puts it back, but i don't think its appropriate. If somebody wants to do the research and post a complete listing, I'd support that. Really i think listing subnational examples is a bit picayune. In any democracy, people vote in clumps more often than not, by neighborhood and region. (If they didn't, gerrymandering wouldn't work)     jvol Jvol (talk) 05:15, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

USA Federally
Wareq, you have added that "current conditions are conducive to the emergence of a dominant-party model in Washington". Do you have any good references to support that? Because the way it looks right now is that Democrats are still quite competitive federally, and Republicans are definitely not in danger of dying out. Until your statement can be substantiated by sources, I've removed it for the reasons mentioned here. Ikh (talk) 07:47, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Democrats are not competitive federally. If Venezuela is a dominant-party state based on a regime that's only been in power for six years, so is the United States. 24.22.58.51 10:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Time doesn't define a one-party state. The Democrats have lost the last few elections, but still have at least 45% of support nationwide and a good chance of winning elections in 2006 and 2008. Also, Supreme court justices are non-partisan, and a majority have been republicans for a long time.

Also, the Republicans have not controlled Congress for that long. They have won both houses in two straight elections, and not by high margins.

I feel that the following statements are incongruous. "The Democratic Party in the southern United States from about 1880 until the 1960s." "...the Republican Party from the American Civil War in 1860 through 1932..." Shouta 16:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
 * What was missing in that quote was the phrase "in the northern US" between "Republican Party" and "from the American ..." Jon 19:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Two years later, this question has not been resolved. Canada is listed mentioning Alberta. Therefore, some cases in the U.S. should be mentioned. The longest cases should be mentioned. I will mention one example of one party domination since 1927 (Chicago). I have nothing against Chicago. If there is a longer example in a state or major city, please mention it. Chergles (talk) 21:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Why not mention the Era of Good Feelings? A period of time when the D-R party was dominant to the point that the Presidential elections were conducted more between D-R factions than between the D-Rs and Federalists. 74.132.163.46 (talk) 08:44, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

In 2017 the Republican Party has an unassailable majority in the US Senate, an entrenched majority (due to gerrymandering) in the House of representatives, and a President acting dictatorially. Should the Republican party find ways in which to further marginalize the Democratic Party by establishing voter restrictions upon economically-disadvantaged persons, then the Republican party will have an indefinite lock upon political power in most of the United States. This is worth watching.

The difference between the reality in 2017 and the Gilded Age is that Presidents during the Gilded Age had few powers and the economic role of Congress was much smaller. Pbrower2a (talk) 09:31, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The majority of your first paragraph there is based more on personal opinion than actual fact.2600:1700:EDC0:3E80:75E7:7F3E:E5F3:FC15 (talk) 18:09, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Canada?
I deleted reference to Canada as it is not consistent with the definition of a "dominant-party system" as given in the article: a party system where only one political party can realistically become the government. While the Liberal Party did rule quite a bit in Canada, the Conservative Party (both present and historic versions) are and have been realistically capable of forming the government (for example right now). Ikh 08:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
 * We could probably say that from '93, up until '03 or '04, the liberals were the only party that had any chance of forming a government .. --142.242.2.248 15:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Well... I wouldn't quite say that. If they would have done something quite unpopular, I'm sure that they would have lost any of the elections in that period (and that's actually what brought them down eventually - the sponsorship scandal).  In either case, that is certainly nothing like say Singapore or Malaysia, where the opposition parties are completely disadvantaged by the laws.  Thus, I wouldn't include Canada under Liberal rule as this would be mostly a matter of oppinion, and most likely not be verifiable (and hence bad, as per Verifiability). Ikh (talk) 16:02, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

"(and that's actually what brought them down eventually - the sponsorship scandal).", True, however until the Alliance/PC Merger, no other party had any chance of forming government. Hell, for a while the Bloc was the official opposition! -142.46.140.149 19:42, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Parties go in and out of popularity. Canada has two parties capable of forming a government and just because one dips in popularity doesn't make the other a dominant party.  One could also say that the Conservatives were the only ones capable of forming a government while Macdonald was leader and they only lost in '74 because of the Pacific Scandal.  And while Liberals were in power much longer, the two largest majority governments were both Conservative.  I'm removing the Liberal Party from this list.--Lairor (talk) 20:17, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I deleted the two examples of Canadas provinces. Many countries have states/provinces within them which are homogous in nature and as a direct result end up with one party or the other dominating the state/province for decades between major realignments. Jon 19:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Why not include Alberta?
Why can't you include a semi-autonomous region within another nation? In Alberta the Progressive Conservative Party has dominated the political system with ease since 1971 and is nowhere near the point where they have to even worry about losing power to ANY of the opposition parties.

Zimbabwe
Surely Zimbabwe shouldn't be considered a dominant party state because of the haevy handed tactics used by ZANU-PU and Robert Mugabe to keep another party being elected. 139.168.35.186

Bad examples cut
"Dominant-party systems can occur temporarily. This can often occur when a two-party system is the norm, but one of the two parties sees a massive drop in support, often due to scandal or similar massive upset. An example of this is, arguably, the United Kingdom between 1979 and 1997 (18 years) where the Conservative Party won all four elections in that period. Previously, in the post-war period, the government had rotated from the Labour Party to the Conservative Party five times. This was also the case in Canada between 1993 and 2004, where the demise of the Progressive Conservative Party in the 1993 election meant that opposition to the Liberal Party was divided. This, in part, allowed the Liberals to win three consecutive majority governments. The Canadian province of Alberta has exhibited a dominant-party system for the whole of its history, from 1905 to the present. While the dominant party has changed on three occasions, each governing party has been entirely dominant until its replacement.

Though the United States as a whole is characterized by a competitive two-party system, some individual states, currently and in the past, qualify as a dominant-party system, and some periods in federal election history have also seen dominant-party characteristics, such as the Republican Party from the American Civil War in 1860 through 1932, or the Democratic Party during and after the Great Depression, especially in the South. The state of Georgia, for example was ruled by the Democratic Party for over 130 straight years, from 1872 to 2003." The paragaphs look almost unslavable, so I've cut them and placed them here. Problems I see:
 * UK, in no shape or form was the last few years of the Tory Govt in the UK dominent. I'm not even sure anything past the first Thatcher term was a large enough majority to be considered dominanet. It also neglents Labours dominence from 97 to the previous election. (It lost enough seats in the most recent election to no longer be considered dominent)
 * Canada, again a point could be made about Liberal being dominenant immedately following the 93 election and perhaps after the next one, but in certaintely wasn't domenint the last few years.
 * US, it's probably normal in a two party system for some states to have one party dominent while other states with different demographics have the other one dominent. On a National level; under the Senate rules that allow filibusters, a party has to have enough Senators to pass a closure motion to be considered dominent. This is currently a 3/5ths majority, and a few decades ago was 2/3rds. (Incidently, prior to the 1910s there was no closure motion) Jon

Removed Venezuela, but I'd like to hear what others think.
I don't think Venezuela, with Chavez's Fifth Republic in their 7th year of power, could be called a dominant-party state at this time. I can see the inclination, no doubt, but I think to characterize it as so at this point in time makes an imprudent assumption about Chavez's ambitions (and uses that assumption of future, illegitimate dominance to color the current temporary dominance as something more dark and sinister.) Dawson 07:58, 25 September 2006 (UTC)Dawsong


 * A dominant party system is not dark and sinister. The most progressive, liberal and developped third world countries, India (INC), South Africa (ANC) for instance, have (had) a dominant party system. As have developped western democracies such as Italy, Ireland, Japan and Sweden. If a party wins consequitive elections with majorities like Chavez, his party will dominate the legislature. It's simple mathematics, there's nothing dark or sinister about it. - C mon 08:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * In the USA too, during the era of good feelings there was no realistic opposition party. But I think Venezuela is more like the USA during Washington's rule. There has been only two elections since the new government formed — Venezuela's constitution allowed for 3 terms even when the new government first formed. Chavez was in office since 1999 (12 years), and they have 6 year terms in Venezuela. -- technically he has had 3 terms in Venezuela, because from 1999 until 2000 when they reformed the government was his first term. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.66.61.75 (talk) 18:23, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Granted that a dominant party system is not necessarily dark and sinister, the next question is whether the decisive argument is the period of time during which a given party has been in the driving seat. I rather think the criterium should be how effectively it is in power. In this sense, I am for including Venezuela. -- Aflis (talk) 21:50, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Clarification of concepts?
After a conflict on Single-party system, an informal mediator suggested that part of the problem could be unclear definitions of the concepts we use. I started a discussion about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Single-party_state#Clarification_of_concepts.3F Please join in. --Regebro 01:25, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Some folks, particular those from Singapore, are arguing out there that Singapore is not a single-party state, but having a dominant-party system. Therefore they want to have Singapore excluded from that article. User:Regebro suggests the two terms do somehow overlap (de facto one-party states are having dominant-party systems), and proposes to merge the two articles. &mdash; Instantnood 18:55, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I am wondering what is the purpose of this post. Is this an attempt to single out wikipedians from a particular community?--Huaiwei 00:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * That's a presentation of fact. &mdash; Instantnood 08:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Bavaria?
OK its not a state, but the sheer dominance of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria must surely be a dominant party system. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by CTerry (talk • contribs) 00:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC).


 * True. Dorminant-party system may perhaps be more common at subnational level. &mdash; Instantnood 20:54, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Yep, definitely. In Austria alone, you've got a clear-cut SPÖ dominancy in Vienna and Burgenland, a clear-cut ÖVP dominancy in Lower Austria, Tyrol and Vorarlberg, and only the central states -- Styria, Upper Austria, Carinthia, Salzburg -- are actually interesting as far as regional elections go. However, this can change over time -- before 2000, noone would have considered it even possible that the SPÖ might ever win in Salzburg or Styria, yet they did. The CSU's dominance in Bavaria needn't last forever... &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) 22:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Montenegro
Yes, of course I know about communist dictatorship in that period, but currently ruling party, DPS, is not a sucesor of KPJ(Tito's party)... Sideshow Bob 15:12, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You mean SKJ, KPJ was renamed SKJ in the 1950s. Also, DPS is the successor of the Montenegrin branch of SKJ. --CrnaGora 21:30, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes; in 1952 the Communist Party of Montenegro changed its name to League of Communists of Montenegro and finally to Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro in 1991. --PaxEquilibrium 21:56, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Possible bias against smaller countries
Singapore, a country of about 4 million, is listed on the main article. However, Chicago is about the same size and has been controlled by a Democratic party mayor and Democratic party controlled government since 1931, which is much longer than Singapore. The reader may conclude that Singapore is more corrupt than Chicago when, in fact, Singapore has compartively little corruption (according to the Corruption Perceptions Index).

Similarly, the state of Utah is controlled by people who are members of the Republican Party.VK35 20:49, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I would include Singapore and Malaysia. Hermann Giliomee's "The Awkward Embrace" includes those two cases as one-party dominant systems. PRI in Mexico is negotiable; once they abandoned corrupt electoral schemes, they lost power on the National level. 140.160.49.37 00:54, 5 August 2007 (UTC) Joe in Seattle

Cases and Definitions
The concept of one-party dominance is, I admit, kind of fuzzy, but I think we can come to certain conclusions as to what constitutes a one-party dominant system versus, say, a one-party hegemonic system, or a single-party system. The literature (Pempel, Giliomee, Abedi, etc) tend to require that a case be essentially democratic. A dominant case would be Sweden, or Bavaria, or Botswana in which a party wins consistantly but does not cheat, which is to say that the party does not use the aparatus of the state to intimidate or invalidate potential competitors. The Botswana Democratic Party doesn't mess with the opposition as a competitor in the same way that ZANU-PF does in Zimbabwe, or how PRI did against PAC in Mexico during the 1980s. The PRC and the ROC-Taibei (prior to democratization) were one-party states in which opposition parties were (are) officially banned - no real controversy there. So, when I look at cases like Venezuela, or Egypt, I cringe. No one can really state that these cases are democratic, and they are certainly not liberal. Opposition parties are either banned out right, or de facto. Perhaps we should try to establish some definitional parameters derived from some of the party system literature. T.J. Pempel, Hermann Giliomee, Alan Ware, Amir Abedi, Giovanni Sartori, and even Maurice Duverger have all offered (pre-)dominant party definitions which take democratic and liberal characteristics into account. I think a differentiation needs to be made between cases like Egypt and Botswana, or Venezuela and Singapore in which, qualitatively, one stifles democratic consolidation and the other is more obviously liberal-democratic. 140.160.49.37 01:10, 5 August 2007 (UTC) Joe in Seattle

A system?
I find it odd that this article is refered to as a "system", suggesting there is legislation to support such an electorial outcome. Compare this to Single-party state, which ironically takes the word "state" when the opposite seems more appriopriate (Dominant-party state and Single-party system). Also compare with Two-party system, the title of which would suggest that two particles are legally permitted in the country, when that is actually not the case. And to make things worse, the entire jumble potentially conflicts with Party system, which instead of referring to the various "systems" here as per Template:Party politics, actually talks about the US model of First Party System through the Fifth Party System!--Huaiwei (talk) 18:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Paraguay
Paraguay was removed here, I've added it back as a former here. Seems to be sufficient details to be but I thought I'd leave a note incase anyone wanted to add more Nil Einne (talk) 15:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Apologies: I should have moved it to the "former" section rather than deleting it. Kevin McE (talk) 15:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Ireland
The definition of a dominant party system is "a party system where only one political party can realistically become the government". This is not the same as a situation wherein one party has historically been more successful. Fianna Fail has failed to win more than a third of the general elections since the introduction of the current constitution, and so, while their record as the most successful party can be acknowledged, it is patently untrue to say that they are the only "political party (which) can realistically become the government". Kevin McE (talk) 15:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

North Korea
It seems incongruous to list the same government as both a "dominant-party system" and a single-party state (of course, a "single-party state" is necessarily a "dominant-party system", but we're talking political definitions here, not literal ones). NK has a formal multi-party system, but the non-ruling parties are permanently subordinated to a designated ruling party, as the Constitution specifically places the Workers' Party in the leadership role. In other words, there is no legal mechanism for an "opposition" party to assume control of the government -- as opposed to countries like Singapore or Cambodia, where the ruling party may throw up obstacles to maintain control, but which still have a de jure method for the transfer of power. If North Korea qualifies as a "dominant-party system" then so too do Vietnam, Laos, Syria and China, since similar "united front" arrangements are used there. Josh Martin (talk) 11:14, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Then they should also be noted. As it stands, the DPRK is a dominant-party state. It has to be simply because that's how it operates. The Korean Social Democratic Party and that Christian Socialist party whose name I can never get right both have a few seats in the Supreme People's Assembly. Obviously they have basically no influence, but this makes the DPRK a dominant-party state simply because it has multiple parties, but only one actually has any power. However, do China and such actually have parties? Or do they have Federations (e.g. the Free German Trade Union Federation of the German Democratic Republic, although the GDR also had a dominant-party system which could be viewed as more democratic than the DPRK) and such. So, constitutionally, if the Social Democrats or Christian Socialists won in the DPRK, what would happen? --Mrdie (talk) 01:53, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * However, do China and such actually have parties?


 * China definitely has other legal parties, officially and amusingly known as "democratic parties." I am less familiar with the other countries I mentioned, although Syria certainly appears to have multiple legal parties.


 * So, constitutionally, if the Social Democrats or Christian Socialists won in the DPRK, what would happen?


 * If by "win" you mean "form the government," that can't happen under the DPRK constitution (see the preamble and article 11); if by "win" you mean "achieve the most votes and/or offices," that can't happen either, given that elections are non-competitive (one candidate per office) and the Workers' Party (in fulfillment of its constitutional role) vets and approves all candidates. You may as well ask what would happen "constitutionally" if Kim Jong-il won the U.S presidency: aside from going against the plain language of the U.S. constitution, the political changes required for such an event to be even a bit likely are so great that we'd be looking at a completely different system.


 * Anyway, enough of all that. Even if I add China, Syria, etc., we're still faced with the problem of definitions: the single-party state article says "some single party states only outlaw opposition parties, while allowing subordinate allied parties to exist as part of a permanent coalition such as a popular front," which would still encompass North Korea -- while the opening paragraph of this article links dominant-party systems with "electoralism" and "soft authoritarianism," neither of which describe North Korea (or China, for that matter), which has non-ruling parties but not opposition parties, and is most definitely not halfway "from authoritarian rule toward democratic rule" (as defined in the electoralism article). If North Korea is "soft authoritarian," then I don't think we're even capable of imagining "hard authoritarian." Josh Martin (talk) 10:04, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I concede and will remove the DPRK from the list due to the definition Wikipedia seems to go by for the two systems. --Mrdie (talk) 15:09, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

South Africa 2009 Election
The upcoming general election might end the undisputed dominance of the ruling African national Congress (ANC). A recent split in the ANC led to the emergence of a new opposition party, the Congress of the People. The most widely expected result will be that the ANC's share of parliamentary seats will drop below two-thirds. This threshold is significant because the ANC would lose the ability amend the constitution unilaterally. This potential power has been a source of concern for many commentators and analysts due to the recent shift to the left (increasing influence of orthodox communists and hardline socialist) within the ANC. The emergence of a personality cult around the party leader Jacob Zuma has also caused concern among the opposition and commentators. Some commentators and analysts also predict a possibility that the ANC could lose control of one or two of the nine provinces to an opposition coalition. Roger (talk) 16:38, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Sweden
If a "dominant party system" is a system "where only one political party can realistically become the government", and if the Swedish Social Democratic Party has lost 4 out of the 10 last elections (1976, 1979, 1991, 2006), and is not currently in government, then in what sense is Sweden a dominant party system with the SDP as the dominant party? In fact, what is required for this definition to apply is not just a long stay in power for one single party, but that it wasn't a realistic possibility for any other party to become the government. Considering the fact that some of the Swedish elections 1932-1976 were quite tight, change of government was a realistic possibility for at least some of this time. So where do we draw the line? In the United Kingdom 1997-2005, it was never a realistic possibility that anyone but the Labour Party would form the government. Does that make the UK a dominant party system in this sense? It doesn't seem as if this is quite what this article wants to capture.

Anyway, I'll move Sweden to "former", but I would support a more complex discussion of what it would take for a democratic country to be a DPS in the first place. David ekstrand (talk) 23:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Canada?
Shouldn't the Liberals be added as an example of a dominant party system? The only Conservative PM to have governed for a reasonably long period of time was Brian Mulroney (9 years), with Stephen Harper (3.5 years) potentially added to the list. Shouldn't the federal government of Canada be an example? In Japan, the Democratic Party has formed the government once to from 1993-1996. So if Japan is an example, shouldn't Canada? 99.243.193.64 (talk) 04:22, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * If you cared to check, this was already discussed further on up the talk page (under the exact same heading as you made too)--Lairor (talk) 03:45, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Queensland, Australia
This fact is incorrect. The Labor Government in Queensland has been in power since 20 June 1998. Prior to this date the National Party held Government from 19 February 1996. There does not appear to be any single party dominance, according to the above definition. The recent election in Queensland saw gains in number of seats held by the opposition party. The local media held an interest in the election, as if it was not a forgone conclusion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.12.25.3 (talk) 09:15, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

References needed
This article currently does not cite any references. While the concept and definition of a 'dominant party system' is fairly uncontroversial, the question of which states should be categorised as one is - as shown by the debates further up this talk page. Ideally, every inclusion on this page should be referenced - a state should not be included without some reference describing it as a 'dominant party system'. Otherwise, their inclusion here is essentially original research. Robofish (talk) 23:43, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Sometimes the line between "original research" and "stating the obvious" is not as sharp as we would like it. If a multi-party democratic country has been ruled by one particular party for over 40 years with a parliamentary majority consistently above 70% in what way is it "original research" to list it in this article? IMHO that comes uncomfortably close to demanding a cite for "water is wet". Roger (talk) 13:33, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


 * In those cases (say, Singapore), they will be textbook examples, cited in academic articles and books. Having all inclusions cited as not an 'ideal', but absolutely mandatory, given that political articles are inherently more open to abuse of process.  I will enforce this in two weeks' time. Bastin 23:57, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

standards needed
How long must one party remain in power to be called "dominant"? —Tamfang (talk) 17:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think an arbitrary number would be very useful. A party must not only be in power it must also be the only feasible winner of elections during its period of dominance. However, I'd imagine that at least 3 consecutive terms of office would be needed to establish dominance - winning only two in a row is unremarkable. Roger (talk) 15:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Reasons for sub-national entity dominance
Obviously some sub-national entities are dominated because their demographics/politics are on one end of the spectrum e.g. Hawaii and DC for the democrats. Utah for republicans. Phil Ian Manning (talk) 03:44, 1 June 2011 (UTC) The inclusion and treatment of country subdivisions is problematic. The article discusses parties dominant in a subdivision's own institutions, but also without much distinction parties that are very popular among that subdivision's voters in elections for the larger institutions of the whole country. The latter in no way makes a party dominant in those institutions and so could hardly be called a dominant-party system. --DanTrent (talk) 02:44, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Places polarized by race/ethnic issues
South Africa is dominated partly because the ANC advertises itself as the only party for blacks, i'm sure Namibia and some other countries with race issues in their politics are dominated by one party because of it. should this be added Phil Ian Manning (talk) 03:44, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Nicaragua
Nicaragua from 1937 to 1979 is listed as having had a "dominant-party system," on other pages (e.g. Somoza family) the government of pre-1979 Nicaragua is more accurately described as a hereditary dictatorship. Since other dictatorships (like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union) are not listed here, it seems incongruous to include the Somozas' Nicaragua. --Anschelsc (talk) 21:06, 13 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Since no one responded to this, I'm going to go ahead and remove Nicaragua. --Anschelsc (talk) 02:12, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Canada: 19th century federal parties
In the discussion of Canada having formerly had a dominant party at the federal level (the Liberals), I deleted the reference to the 19th century, as the Liberals were not the dominant party during the 19th century. They formed government twice (in 1874 and again in 1896), while the Conservatives formed government in 1867 (a bit of an exception, since it was sort of a carry-over of the Confederation Great Coalition), in 1872, 1878, 1882, 1887 and 1891. While the Conservatives were clearly more succssful than the Liberals in that period, I'm not sure that the Conservatives deserve to be called a dominant party in the 19th century for the purposes of this article; having two interruptions in office over that period shows that the Liberals were clearly in contention, and the 1872 election was particularly close. See List of Canadian federal elections for details. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 15:34, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Criteria
I think we need some kind of formal criteria for inclusion on the list of examples. Turkey's current ruling party has only been in office 12 years. This is not an extraordinarily long time. Perhaps a good rule of thumb would be that if the same party has been in office for 20 years or more, and has more than say two thirds of the seats in the main legislative house, then it can be included on the list.203.116.246.158 (talk) 06:24, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Are examples really needed?
This article has needed help for a much longer time than the helpbox suggests, take a look at the logs.

Nobody can seem to agree on what are specific examples of the dominant party system, not only on Wikipedia. There is no sign of consensus in sight. There isn't any consensus in the scholarly community as to specific examples of the dominant party system. This is original research. What may seem obvious some isn't obvious to others: to compare the complexities of international politics to "water is wet" is pure silliness, in the nicest way possible. Wikipedia does not contain original research. I'm going to remove the entire example list. Trying to compile a list of examples for this subject for an encyclopedia, while a noble effort, is a fool's errand to allow this to go on in the name of "wasted time" is an insult to the concept of an encyclopedia. NPOV Ninja (talk) 19:03, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The examples all have sources. You shouldn't really delete over 30,000 bytes of an article with NO discussion. Wait until a resolution to the discussion is met and then delete it all. RatRat (talk) 19:14, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Very well, I removed the ones needing citations since 2010. Five years without a source is a long enough time for a deletion without resolution; the amount of data removed really shouldn't matter since it's been so long. I left tags from 2012 and 2013. NPOV Ninja (talk) 20:26, 2 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose removal - The list is actually comprehensive, not merely a few illustrative examples, the problem is the misleading section heading, not the content. BTW when a party has won four or more elections in a row its dominance clearly is at the level of "water is wet" obviousness. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:42, 2 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but these "examples" have been unsourced for >5 years in cases. At some point action has to be taken to ensure the article is of reasonable quality and accuracy. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 23:00, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Scotland, Wales (and Bavaria)
I think it's bizarre to include these entries as separate entities under the "Europe" heading. Yes, some law-making (in the case of Scotland) and administrative powers are devolved, but the devolved governments have minimal economic powers and the governing parties have bare majorities in their respective legislatures. If these are to be included at all, it should be under the heading of their sovereign state (UK for Scotland and Wales), with some explanation of the constraints of devolved government. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 16:59, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Further to the above, the rationale given for restoring these entries "SNP unilaterally changed the name of Scottish Assembly to Scottish Government, federal style devolution settlement makes use of "state" correct.)" is nonsense and riddled with factual errors. It's a Scottish Parliament, not a "Scottish Assembly". The name change, which was stylistic and had no legal effect whatsoever, was from "Scottish Executive" to "Scottish Government". The UK is not a federal state. If it were, there would be a written constitution (there isn't) with equivalent constituent bodies representing England or regions of England (there aren't). Jmorrison230582 (talk) 17:03, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

It's absurd to list the SNP or Labour as being "dominant" parties within the UK structure when the Conservatives are in overall majority government of the UK and therefore have almost total control over the economy and size of the state. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 22:39, 21 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I think it is reasonable to include them because for the forseeable future those parties will remain the dominant ones within their parliaments. The Republicans for example are shown to be dominant in Texas which is a state within the US and though the Welsh and Scottish Parliaments have limited economic powers, I don't see that as a reason to exclude them. I do take your point that it would be reasonable to indicate they are devolved parliaments within the UK set up for example.

United Kingdom

The 🇬🇧 United Kingdom as a whole has a two-party system, with the main parties since the mid-1920s??? being Labour Party and the Conservative Party.


 * Devolved Parliaments

etc

Humongous125 (talk) 22:51, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is the sort of thing I was suggesting above. I think though that the referencing with this sort of thing needs to be very strong. There is a difference between someone being the "natural party of government" (eg Tories in the UK) and actually being a "dominant" party. There are very few real examples of this in Western democracies. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 23:09, 21 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I would agree that alot of stuff wasn't referenced, however I noticed you have suddenly deleted alot of former dominant parties that were actually dominant for decades winning successive elections without any other parties being able to come close to them in strength for years; Labour in Scotland, the SDP in Sweden, Fianna Fáil in Ireland, Democrats in the deep south. Though they didn't have references, (perhaps links would be best to show this) the election pages of these nations show these parties were dominant and I feel it would be wrong to remove them considering the articles description is a party that 'successively won election victories and whose future defeat cannot be envisaged' Humongous125 (talk) 23:32, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Additionally don't do a mass deletion of the article, as I have found some references to show for example Labour were a former dominant party in scotland. I suggest we restore what you have deleted as alot of the information is true, just not with a reference to back it up. Then place a citation required placard so that other users in time can go through them and find references for these statements of dominant and former dominant parties, so unless after going through them a reference cannot be found for ie Irish Labour was once dominant (which is not true) then that can safely be deleted knowing that it was completely false and untrue. Humongous125 (talk) 23:40, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Italy
Personally, I think it's too early( if not wrong) to put in this list Matteo Renzi's Democratic Party...it won overwhelmingly( for Italian use) only an election for Italian members of European Parliament, with a very low turnout- around 50% when in the general election voters percentage is generally around 80 if not higher- and one year later it lost the much more important Regional election...so, based on what I read in the article, I think a party can be added to this list if: 1) it wins numerous election in a row; 2) opposition parties have not realistic chances to win power. Does Renzi DemP fullfill these points? For now it has yet to win a general election, it leads a Government based on a fragile coalition between center-left, Christian Democratic and also center-right splinter parties, and opposition( from populistic M5S to center-right with Northern League and Berlusconi) has surely the possibility to defeat it...in conclusion, for now and at least for many years in front of us, Italian Dems should be removed from here, In My Humble Opinion. Fab8405 (talk) 20:46, 22 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Agreed. European elections, with their typically lower voter turnout and profile than national elections, are a very flimsy basis for claiming dominance of one party or another. Particularly in Italy, which is notorious for not having a dominant party eg1. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 09:29, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

United States not Dominant Party States
A Dominant party state is one where other parties are nominal and have no chance of winning elections and forming a government. In the US when one party is dominant due there being more Democrats than Republicans or vice versa is NOT an example of a Dominant Party State. The reason Republicans are dominant in some states and Democrats in others is because more people are Democrats and exercise their voting rights to vote for Democrats. The same holds true for states that are predominantly Republican. Just because there are many more of one party and they have voted that party for a long time does not mean it's an example of a Dominant Party state.NapoleonX (talk) 01:00, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

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Catalonia is not a country
I don't think it is a valid example as former Dominant-party european country since it is a region from Spain rather than a country of its own but the rest of the examples are indeed countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elrond9999 (talk • contribs) 22:35, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Problems with Russia
Russia is ruled by Vladimir Putin, not by Unified Russia. If Putin resigns, he will probably appoint the new president, who will control Unified Russia. Please find one source which says that Unified Russia will nominate the new president.Xx236 (talk) 07:21, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The same can be said of many other dominant-party countries. Problem is, we are not sure how much Putin relies on his party, or what is going to happen when Putin dies. So we have to look for concrete, objective signs, such as the same party ruling for 18 years and having 2/3 of the seats in parliament. TheImperios (talk) 18:38, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Solid South
This term refers to a past Democrat dominance in the South, yet was used against two states that are now firmly Republican. Removed. - Snori (talk) 03:38, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

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Criteria for a dominant-party country
I found there is lack of agreement over what constitutes a dominant-party country and what doesn't. For some reason, Russia is not called a dominant-party republic on its page, while Kazakhstan is, despite the two countries having almost identical de facto systems of government. Can anyone explain to me how we decide which country is ruled by a dominant-party system and which isn't? TheImperios (talk) 18:42, 28 March 2018 (UTC)


 * It is a contested concept so it varies on your definitions. And by the way, wikipedia can be edited by anyone so slight contradiction/ use of different definitions in different article is normal. Hopefully my reply helps :)--Jarl Sverre (talk) 15:52, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Examples.
Half of the examples listed are outright dictatorships, not dominant-party systems. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 10:46, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Much too much details
Let us delete doubled Austria, etc.

Also subnational units are of little interest to a regular leader. Zezen (talk) 08:50, 18 August 2019 (UTC)


 * You could summarize it on a new page

Braganza (talk) 15:50, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Canada again
Canada was recently added as an example, but I find this addition completely wrong. And if we compare it to other parties mentioned here: I mean... all other 'dominant parties' have a double-digit lead in popular vote, which essentially mean that whose future defeat cannot be envisaged or is unlikely for the foreseeable future. At the same time, Canadian Liberals have lost popular vote and do not have a majority, which is significantly different from all other dominant parties.
 * Liberal Party in the latest election: second place in popular vote (-1.3% lead), minority government
 * United Russia in the legislative election: first place with +40.9% lead, majority government. In the presidential election: won with +64.9% lead.
 * Justice and Development Party (Turkey) in the latest election: first place with +19.9% lead, senior partner in a majority government
 * Serbian Progressive Party in the legislative election: first place with +37.3% lead, majority government. In the presidential election: won with +38.7% lead
 * Fidesz in the latest election: first place with +30.2% lead, majority government.
 * People's Action Party in the latest election: first place in popular vote with +57.3% lead, majority government.
 * African National Congress in the latest election: first place with +36.7% lead, majority government.
 * Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) in the latest election: first place both on party lists (+13.4% lead) and on constituencies popular vote (+27.6% lead), majority government
 * Awami League in the latest election: first place with +66.9% lead, majority government
 * MPLA in the latest election: first place in popular vote with +34.4% lead, majority government.

I would thus suggest to remove it from the list of examples, and keep it in the historic section with an explanation — NickK (talk) 17:13, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Cutting out examples not supported by reliable sourcing
Classifying a state as having a "dominant-party system" is pretty pejorative as it's effectively saying that the country has uncompetitive elections. Since it's generally accepted in the English-speaking world that competitive elections are good, a corollary of that is that uncompetitive elections are bad. Per WP:VERIFIABILITY I'm going to start cutting out some examples that don't have any sources whatsoever. Especially contentious ones like India which I've already removed from the lede. Chess (talk) Ping when replying 05:37, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Should one party states be listed here?
I know I opened another discussion just a few minutes ago, but this is a separate issue from that. Anyways from reading this article it's clear to me that a "dominant party state" is one in which one party dominates the elections within the context of a democratic system, even if flawed. The PAP in Singapore is the textbook case, likewise with the ANC in South Africa and formerly the INC in India. However, some examples on this list aren't really that democratic and could be described better as a "one party state". For example Syria is listed here as a "dominant party state" which is a questionable characterization because from 1972 to 2011 the only legal parties were those in the National Progressive Front led by the Ba'athist party of al-Assad. And obviously the elections from 2011 onwards are meaningless due to the ongoing Syrian Civil War as it's clear the political system is broken down. Likewise with Venezuela where democratic elections are widely considered to no longer occur. Should these examples be removed and put into the one party system article? Chess (talk) Ping when replying 06:16, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

IP edit
Dear IP,

the articles United Russia and Government of Russia, says else as you describe. Please in more detail explain here what do you refer exactly. Thank You.(KIENGIR (talk) 21:55, 20 July 2020 (UTC))


 * Dear KIENGIR,


 * If you insist that UR is ruling party I don't mind. As I wrote, 'sometimes' UR is described that way but her status is in fact rather disputable. For instance, russian wiki page about UR shows that it is anything (the biggest, 'party of power', etc.) but ruling. The articles you put say nothing about the nature of the 'ruling party' except her supporting the president in his decisions.


 * If you're not happy with that part of my revisions you're welcome to edit it, but please don't undo them altogether.


 * --178.140.184.21 (talk) 02:13, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Dear IP,


 * I am sorry, you don't get into the details, it is nor very relevant what is the situation in other WPs. But yes, the first linked article starts with ...is the ruling political party.... I also have to tell you to stop blatant reverting, rather remain on the talk page. Thank You.(KIENGIR (talk) 08:01, 22 July 2020 (UTC))

Sain Vincent&Grenadines
Saint Vincent&Grenadines should be added here.They have a majority in Parliament which belong to United Labour Party since 2001. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.6.128.74 (talk) 15:19, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Original Research
This whole article is a bit of a mess. I think the main problem is that entries are being included based on the opinion and analysis of the wikipedia editors. This is original research and so is not how we should be going about this. I think it would be wise to include entries only if there is a reliable source which describes the political system as a dominant-party system. This would bring this article in line with Wikipedia policy. Perokema (talk) 11:37, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

United States states
These seem really hard to define and other than Maryland aren't that clear for almost any of the states. Like you could argue much of the South is a dominant-party state in the past 10 years, what is the cutoff vs Oregon and Washington? It's kind of a weird choice of them and not well-sourced at all. DemonDays64 (talk) 04:13, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Theory
The Theory section is problematic. No positive criticisms are provided, such as stability of policy, ability for smaller parties to concentrate on issues unsuitable for a ruling party, less lobbying in smaller parties to provide a better reflection of voter interests, the function of smaller parties to constantly shape the ruling party's policies in its struggle to maintain majority. The existing criticism should be categorized for easier reading, and cases of specific countries should be linked to a new article.Geoffrey Trousselot, Japan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2400:2411:EA20:9100:4174:736:3673:2D7A (talk) 10:43, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Critics of dominant-party theory – contradiction?
An excerpt from the first section reads:

> Critics of the "dominant party" theory argue that it views the meaning of democracy as given, and that it assumes that only a particular conception of representative democracy (in which different parties alternate frequently in power) is valid (boldface added).

Isn't the explicit motivation behind dominant-party democracy one which posits that democracy need not have multiple parties alternating in and out of power? This section seems like a mistake Itstooslim (talk) 21:44, 10 March 2023 (UTC)