Organise a Political Party
A political party is a great way to advance a political position, and if none of the currently existing match your political views, you may want to create one. This is not an easy task in itself, and figuring out how the party is best organised makes it even harder! This article will help you organise your party in an efficient and stable way.
Contents
Steps
- Decide on a form of organisation. Note that some countries have laws on how a party has to be organised, so if you want your party to be recognised legally, you should check what requirements there are.
- The party could first debate and decide on an issue, and then require all members to follow this decision and not act against it. This is called democratic centralism.
- The party could allow factions to exist, which disagree with each other on an issue.
- Set the party's positions. You should leave small details to be decided by the party when they become relevant, but if the party has no positions on important issues, potential members will join one that has instead.
- Assign the members tasks that they're good at. If someone is educated and qualified, get them a task that fits their qualifications. If someone has great social skills, they should agitate and convince people to join or support the party. If someone is a good writer and pays attention to detail, they should write the party's documents.
- Do not give too much responsibility to newcomers. They may not actually care about the party's goals or even have the intent to harm it. Or they may have good intentions, but make mistakes because they don't know the correct way to do something.
- Do give newcomers a chance to prove themselves: if the only members the party trusts are the ones that are in it since the beginning, the party will not become popular as those who try to join will be frustrated.
- Pay attention to good management. It may appear like management isn't really important, and members should focus on other tasks. But if the management is bad, the other tasks aren't organized well and the party can't act as well. Bad management can also prevent important issues from being noticed and cause conflicts and misunderstanding. So make sure that the party has good management.
- When your party gets big enough, it's very important to manage all the levels of local and regional organisations. It's important to find a balance: the local organisations shouldn't do whatever they want without checking with the central, but the central also shouldn't have to deal with every minor issue that could even require different solutions in different regions.
- Ensure good communication within the party. This will make sure that work is done more efficiently, and that everyone knows what is going on.
- Let professionals have a word in decisions. While they shouldn't be the ones that finally decide on everything, if a member is a professional in a field, the party should ask them on their opinion on an issue in the field.
- Pay special attention to the concerns of certain groups. It will make the party more popular and can give it some useful ideas.
- Working with the youth is very important, since it will be the future base of the party. If the youth is against your party, it'll have no long-term future when your current members become too old to be active. The youth can also challenge outdated ideas and give new perspectives. Consider creating a dedicated youth organisation.
- Old people often have much experience. So they can have good ideas that help the party. Keep in mind that old people tend to be weaker, so they usually shouldn't do tasks that are physically difficult.
- Dedicated support for the issues of a minority can give you a considerable support among them. While this won't help you help win an election, since they are small in numbers, it can win over some dedicated members.
- Enforce discipline. There will always be some who don't put effort into party work, or behave in a way that is harmful to the party, or violate some other rules. In this case, the party should be able to censure, or in very severe cases, expel them from the party. Make sure to clarify what they did wrong and try to make them change for the better before using such measures.
- Educate party members. If all members have a good understanding of what the party's goals are, it's way easier to make decisions that work towards them. Also, political debates can happen quite spontaneously, and someone in the party should be able to defend its position well in these. To do so, organise workshops or study groups. Consider having a list of recommended reading.
- Make the most trusted and competent members represent the party in important events. These could be meetings, discussions, press conferences or anything else that has a large impact and many people see. This is to make sure that your representatives don't damage your party's reputation, and create the correct impression of its politics.
Tips
- Be logical in decisions. Political leaders are very much debated for poor reasoning.
- Keep ethics. If your party or its members are known for very unethical behaviour, it will get a bad reputation and few will want to join it. So, before doing something that will be considered unethical by a large part of the population, weigh whatever benefits you expect with this disadvantage.
- Keep your people updated. They won't be able to argue the party's position on current events if they aren't informed about these events.
- Don't show haste in this field. Building a successful political party can take decades of dedication and efforts.
Warnings
- Do not involve people who are interested less in social good and more in money.
Related Articles
- Choose a Political Party
- Create a Political Party
- Host a Political Party
