Editing Single-issue politics (section)

==Political expression==

One weakness of such an approach is that effective [[political party|political parties]] are usually [[coalition]]s of [[Political factions|faction]]s or [[advocacy group]]s. Bringing together political forces based on a single intellectual or cultural common denominator can be unrealistic; though there may be considerable [[public opinion]] on one side of an argument, it does not necessarily follow that mobilizing under that one banner will bring results. A '''defining issue''' may indeed come to dominate one particular electoral campaign, sufficiently to swing the result. Imposing such an issue may well be what single-issue politics concern; but for the most part success is rather limited, and electorates choose governments for reasons with a broader base.

Single-issue politics may express itself through the formation of a single-issue party, an approach that tends to be more successful in [[parliamentary system]]s based on [[proportional representation]] than in rigid [[two-party system]]s (like that of the [[United States]]). Alternatively, it may proceed through political [[advocacy group]]s of various kinds, including Lobby groups, pressure groups and other forms of political expression external to normal [[representative government]]. Within a broad-based party it may be the concern of a '''single-issue [[caucus]]'''.

Very visible as it was in [[Western world|Western]] democracies in the second half of the twentieth century, single-issue politics is hardly a new phenomenon. In the 1880s, the third government of [[William Ewart Gladstone]] made [[British politics]] in practical terms single-issue, around the [[Home Rule Bill]], leading to a split of the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]].