Big tent
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In politics, a big tent party or catch-all party is a political party seeking to attract people with diverse viewpoints. The party does not require adherence to some ideology as a criterion for membership.
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[edit] Definition
The big tent approach argues against any sort of single-issue litmus tests or ideological rigidity, and advocates a Democratic Party with room for conservative as well as liberal Democrats, and a Republican Party with room for liberal as well as conservative Republicans.
This is in contrast to political parties that promote only a specific ideology. Advocates of a big tent believe that people with a broad variety of political ideologies and viewpoints can unite within a single party to advance shared core issues they agree on, even if they disagree on other issues. This way the party can attract a large base of support at the polls. Big tent parties are far more common in first past the post systems with only a few large parties.
[edit] Examples
In the United States, a very good example of this approach was the New Deal coalition which formed in support of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies. This coalition brought together labor unions, southern Dixiecrats, progressives, and others in support of FDR's economic program, even though these groups strongly disagreed on other issues.
In Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada is not strongly ideological or regional, but is instead open to members with a wide range of views. While some criticize the party for lacking in conviction, supporters argue that compromise is an essential feature of democracy.
The Democratic Party and the Republican Party in the United States have liberal and conservative wings and support bases to such an extent that some supporters from each party align themselves with a particular politician or group within the other. Republican President of the United States Ronald Reagan gained support from conservative Democrats, who came to be called Reagan Democrats.
Other famous examples of Catch all parties include the Republic of Ireland's Fianna Fáil, which has variously been categorised as socialist (according to former deputy leader Brian Lenihan) and neo-Thatcherite/neo-Reaganite, a description applied to the economic policies and politics of current Minister for Finance Charles McCreevy. Fianna Fáil served in the coalition from 1989 to 1992 with the right wing liberal Progressive Democrats, then with the socialist Irish Labour Party and is again in government with the Progressive Democrats, Fianna Fáil tailoring its policies accordingly.
India's Congress Party and Italy's now defunct Christian Democrats both attracted such a broad range of support as to make them Catch all parties.
[edit] Ideological parties actually 'big tent'?
In most western democracies, two or three major political parties profess some sort of ideological leaning (for example, social democracy, Christian democracy, liberal democracy, [conservative, labour) but in practice follow a big tent approach. Political parties which allow only a narrow ideology, in general do not perform well at the polls and so remain minor parties. Canada provides two examples of how the adoption of a big tent approach has helped propel a formerly marginal party into broader electoral success, in the Green Party of Ontario and the (now-defunct) Social Credit Party of Canada. In the United States, the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party had its only electoral success to date by allowing a popular figure who did not support the party's secessionist agenda to run for Governor of Alaska on their ballot line.
In the United States, the big tent concept is practiced today (in reality if not in name) within the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the Reform Party. This is in contrast to such political parties as the Libertarian Party, the Constitution Party, the Socialist Party, and various small Communist parties, which seek to advance a single ideology. Historically in the United States, political parties adopting a big tent approach have performed well at the polls. Parties promoting only one narrow ideology have attracted marginal support at best, or have seen their issues adopted by one or both of the major parties in a big tent effort, effectively co-opting the issues and putting an end to the minor party; this happened to the Prohibition Party and the Populist Party.
However even the Democratic, Republican, and Reform parties have vocal factions which advocate that those parties take on a more ideologically rigid character. There are factions in the Democratic Party which would like to make the party purely left-wing or progressive, excluding more conservative constituencies such as the Democratic Leadership Council, Blue Dog Democrats, and social conservatives. There are factions within the Republican Party which likewise seek to make the Republicans strictly an ideologically right-wing or conservative party, and expel those they deem Republicans In Name Only, those socially too liberal, and those holding isolationist foreign policy views (who therefore oppose the Bush administration's foreign policy) such as libertarians and paleoconservatives. There are also those within each party who would like to make certain issues litmus tests for party membership even though there is substantial disagreement on those issues within the parties themselves. Abortion and gun policy are two examples.
[edit] The effects of a move towards 'big tent' politics
When a party that is motivated by ideology begins a shift to a "catch-all" or "big tent" party, it's usually marked by a move to the center of the political spectrum and a very flexible and pragmatic platform. Many believe this is a powerful way to make a party more popular, as it no longer limits itself to a specific ideological sector of the population. Opponents of this tactic argue that this alienates the ideological bases of a party. In the United States, for example, some members of the Democratic party argue that the party should become a more centrist party, such as the DLC. More left-leaning members wish the party to remain a pure centre-left party, to balance out the GOP, an ideologically solid centre-right party.
Not surprisingly, when a country's major parties become "catch-all" parties, this usually leads to the rise in popularity and support for more ideologically extreme parties. For example, in the UK, as the Labour party has moved to the center and turned less ideologically pure, the Liberal Democrat party has risen in popularity, a lot of times being to the left of labour. In the United States, a lot of democrats fear that moving to the center could cause a rise in popularity for far-left leaders from other parties, such as Ralph Nader. So in a two party system, a party must be careful when selecting how ideologically driven to be. Too ideological could mean that the party only appeals to a small portion of the population. Too pragmatic (Or Big-Tent style) can cause the base on your side of the spectrum (which may very well be very ideological) to split off.
[edit] Criticism
Critics of Catch all parties accuse them of populism, adopting whatever policies they need to win without any ideological conviction or clear policy goal. Also, the rise of "catch all" parties can lead to lower voter-participation, as people don't see a consistent idea of what each party stands for.
