b) Mention two basic differences between the British party system and American party system.
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Answer:
Two-party systems
A fundamental distinction must be made between the two-party system as it is found in the United States and as it is found in Great Britain. Although two major parties dominate political life in the two countries, the system operates in quite different ways.
The American two-party system
The United States has always had a two-party system, first in the opposition between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists and then in the competition between the Republicans and the Democrats. There have been frequent third-party movements in the history of the country, but they have always failed. Presidential elections seem to have played an important role in the formation of this type of two-party system. The mechanism of a national election in so large a country has necessitated very large political organizations and, at the same time, relatively simplified choices for the voter.
American parties are different from their counterparts in other Western countries. They are not tied in the same way to the great social and ideological movements that have so influenced the development of political life in Europe during the last two centuries. There have been socialist parties at various times in the history of the United States, but they have never challenged the dominance of the two major parties. It can be argued that the main reason for the failure of socialist parties in America has been the high degree of upward mobility permitted by a rich and continually expanding economy. The consequence of this mobility has been that class consciousness has never developed in the United States in a manner that would encourage the formation of large socialist or communist parties.
In comparison with European political movements, therefore, American parties have appeared as two varieties of one liberal party, and within each party can be found a wide range of opinion, going from the right to the left.
The American parties have a flexible and decentralized structure, marked by the absence of discipline and rigid hierarchy. This was the structure of most of the cadre-type parties of the 19th century, a structure that most liberal parties have retained. Federalism and a concern for local autonomy accentuate the lack of rigid structure and the weakness of lines of authority in the parties. Organization may be relatively strong and homogeneous at the local level, but such control is much weaker on the state level and practically nonexistent on the national level. There is some truth to the observation that the United States has not two parties but 100—that is, two in each state. But it is also true that each party develops a certain degree of national unity for the presidential election and that the leadership of the president within a party gives the victorious party some cohesion.
The lack of rigid party structure has historically encouraged bipartisanship between Republican and Democratic members of Congress. Through the 20th century, liberal Republicans and Democrats tended to ally against conservative Republicans and Democrats. Yet neither bloc was stable, and the alignment varied from one vote to another. As a consequence, despite the existence of a two-party system, no stable legislative majority was possible. In order to have his budget adopted and his legislation passed, the president of the United States was forced to carefully gather the necessary votes on every question, bearing the wearisome task of constantly forming alliances. The American two-party system was thus a pseudo-two-party system, because each party provided only a loose framework within which shifting coalitions were formed. Against this general tendency, however, voting has become increasingly partisan since about the first decade of the 21st century.