Effectiveness of Political Parties in Pakistan; A Cross Party Study to Measure Party Effectiveness and Its Interrelationship With Intra Party Democracy, Political Finance, and Political Communication among Political Parties of Pakistan

Abstract

Existing theories of the political party as an effective political organization focus on its delivering functions. The purpose of this research thesis is to explore and analyses the effectiveness of political parties, and to show the relationship among key variables under study such as, the Political Communication, the Political Finance and the Intra-Party Democracy on the effectiveness of major political parties in Pakistan. This study explores and discusses the way that these variables could create and establish the effectiveness model of the political party which can be best be compared and contrasted on the basis of these significant factors. A theoretically-oriented method was established to measure the impact of key factors like Intra Party Democracy, Political Finance and Political Communication and their contribution in ensuring and bringing the effectiveness of political parties in Pakistan. The primary data was gathered from a sample of 1000 respondents from eight different political parties. The sample consisted of people pertaining to multiple backgrounds and positions from all provinces of Pakistan and Azad Jammu & Kashmir. The instrument was developed and its validity and reliability was ensured. For empirical verification, in-depth statistical tests were applied including the Multiple Regression, the Structural Equation Model (SEM), theOne Sample T-test, the correlation, cluster analysis and discriminant analysis in order to test various assumptions of the study. Ten unstructured interviews were conducted to add in-depth richer insights into the study and support the most conceptual links in the qualitative model and lend support to most of the hypothesized one. Basedon these statistical assumptions, it can be revealed that factors like intra party democracy, political finance, and political communication have a significant impact on party effectiveness. This research revealed that most of the parties are internally less democratic with no defined and structured processes of electing leadership and candidates. Political parties are perceived as organizationally weak, personality-based, less securely rooted in society, ideologically less pragmatic, and institutionally weak. As a political institution , the political party can best aggregate the interest and mobilize the general public when strong institutional practices of electing leadership and candidates are well anchored in the formal processes of political parties. Research also delineates that a major contributory factor to the effectiveness, i.e. Political Finance has significant impact on party effectiveness and lays emphasis on improving civil society oversight in ensuring transparency and accountability in political finance. The research recommends that parties should ensure more inclusiveness in the decision-making process, build formal process and structure of democratic decision-making and strengthen Political Communication and Political Finance mechanisms, that political parties should be more representative, transparent and accountable in decision-making and it also suggests measures to build and enhance party effectiveness.