Ideological Purity and Strategy in Elections

Is a party’s primary aim to win elections or to champion a developed, actionable set of beliefs?

The most fundamental aim of a political party is to win elections.

Political parties can’t do anything without access to power. Winning elections not only allows a party to shape laws in a way they believe is most beneficial for the populace, but allows a party to gauge what kind of support it enjoys in the electorate. If support decreases, this is the best indicator a party has that it needs to change its approach either to governance or to voter outreach.

Or, is advancing ideology the most fundamental aim of a political party?

After all, political power and electoral dominance doesn’t really serve a party if it doesn’t have a clear platform to implement. Parties don’t win if their messages don’t resonate with the voters. And the more strongly one feels an affiliation towards a party’s ideology, the more likely that person is to donate their time, money or effort to the party, helping raise that party’s profile in the electorate and increasing its viability come election day.

This struggle — between party ideology and electoral victory — is one fundamental to party politics. It applies, most pressingly, towards third-parties teetering on the brink of national…