Party platform
A party platform or platform is a list of the actions which a political party, individual candidate, or other organization supports to appeal to the general public for the purpose of having said peoples' candidates voted into political office or the professed opinion(s) proposed as part of law(s) or otherwise made into social policies.
This often takes the form of a list of support for, or opposition to, socially relevant, urgent, controversial, or complicated topics or issues. Individual topics, and a party's, person's, or organization's opinion on them are often called the "planks" of their platform in reference to a basic stage made out of boards or planks of wood, similar to what can be assembled for public speaking or debates to be held on.
A party platform is sometimes referred to as a manifesto[1] or a political platform.
Origins
The first known use of the word platform was in 1535. The word platform comes from Middle French plate-forme, literally meaning "flat form".[2] The political meaning of the word to reflect "statement of party politics" is from 1803, probably originally an image of a literal platform on which politicians gather, stand, and make their appeals.[3]
Famous political platforms
- The Ninety-Five Theses of Martin Luther in 1517, opposed practices of the Catholic Church at that time (both a religion and a political territory), and led to the establishment of Protestantism
- Thomas Paine's 1776 Common Sense (pamphlet) advocated freedom from British rule for the American Colonists, and proposed a constitution for the new nation
- Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx's 1848 Communist Manifesto
- Franklin Roosevelt's 1932 New Deal
- The 1948 United States Democratic Party's platform including civil rights
- Lyndon Baines Johnson's War on Poverty, 1965
- The 1993 Liberal Party of Canada Red Book
- The 1994 Republican congressional Contract with America
- Mike Harris's 1995 Common Sense Revolution
- 100-Hour Plan of the United States Democratic Party in 2006
See also
- Election promise
- Government platform
- List of democracy and elections-related topics
- Mandate (politics)
- Multi-tendency
- Party line (politics)
- Stump speech (politics)
References
- ^ "Manifesto". Merriam Webster. Retrieved 2012-02-07.
- ^ "Platform". Merriam Webster. Retrieved 2012-11-07.
- ^ "Platform". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 2012-11-07.
External links
- Platforms of U.S. political parties, 1840-present from the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara
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