book report of American Political Party And Election(读书报告之《美国政党和选举制度》).docxVIP

Book report of American political parties and elections李祥 国语学院2014级英语02班The book show readers how the American party systems actually work, and how the party system shape the American politics. Also, the book shines a light on some of its flaws.The first part explains the context of American elections and political parties. The government depends on the consent of the people through the electoral process which determined by the institutional framework laid out in the Constitution. “The most important aspects of that framework are the separation of powers, with a single executive separate from and elected separately from the legislature, and the federal system with residual powers left to the states.”(Page 27) We all know that the parties and electorate itself are always changing as the technology important to campaigning has advanced. But at the same time, the electoral process has not changed. It is still about contesting for public support of candidates.The party is organized at each electoral level. What the party functions is to assist their candidates to win the electoral campaign, though the leaders of the party are unable to discipline public officials elected under the party label. Though many Americans are not clear about the American parties, and indeed, many have no formal affiliation. But most citizens have an impression of the two major parties—the Democratic and the Republican—and consider themselves as one part of each party. Whereas an increasingly large number of citizens claim independence from either party and vote other parties.Americans think the presidential election is an apparent represent of American democracy. It seems that the candidates’ ability to appeal to the electorate on television or find the correct nuance in expressing his or her position on controversial and salient issues counts most in the presidential election. And debates will be held between the candidates where they are always trapped in unfair, irrelevant and sti