International parties

[Tyr]

This is sort of post 1900 in most of its scope but pre 1800 in what it probally needs...Post 1800 is what it truly is. Its just a thought I had at work-

How could we go about getting true international political parties and what effects could this have?
What I mean is the labour party in Australia is the same party as that in Britain, it just plays its different national candidates in the different places.
Obviously if it goes beyond the close commonwealth links into even further internationaldom it'd be better.

[oberdada]

I can't imagine something like that BEFORE 1900

I try something for the 20th century or FH:

The UN ( or the League of Nations or something like that) is reformed in a way,
that only realy democratic Governments are recognised.
In most 3rd world countries this is not so easy to say.
So parties from the Western world start controlling the internal democracy of parties
in 3rd world countries.
This leads to closer ties, resulting in unification of similar parties.

well I really don't like this, but it is just my first thought.
But I like the question, it is an interesting problem, I have to think about it.


Closest thing in our timeline is probably the European Green Party, founded in 2004 by Green Parties from the EU. One Programm for all countries in the 2004 European Election.

[Max Sinister]

I think the radical left is working at something similar in Europe. And other groups of parties (Social Democrats, Conservatives, Liberals, unfortunately right extremists too) at least cooperate.

But if you want a real international party... although politics are getting similar, even Western countries have differences. How do you make a program that fits both of them? And what do you do in practics? Since there are still national elections, but no international ones, not many good politicians would want to be the international leader - you can't get into a government and thus have less influence than the national leaders of your party.
An international party at the moment would be more symbolic.

[MarkA]

The Internationals all derive from the First International which split because of political differences. The Second International is still an influential organisation and both the British and Australian Labor parties are founding members. Its singular failure to prevent WWI probably meant the end of any meaningful and strong international movement among social democrats.

Max hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that there are no international elctions. While elections to the European Parliament are international, they are conducted within national boundaries and I would expect members to be elected largely on the basis of their domestic polices and performance.