Political Parties and National Identity; Reflection on the Functions and Perspectives

One of the major concepts in political science discipline ispolitical party. The rise of political party in modern countries causes a pervasive & contestable controversy among western scholars. Political and social developments in recent two centuries forged the new concept to party, which unlike the previous traditional concepts such as wing, congregation, sect, and followers based on the principle of collective participation and competitiveness. Presence of political parties as democratic transformation products in the social realm, providing the means necessary for competing ideological backgrounds come in different groups in the political framework is institutionalized. Political Party functions are threefold: first, to define identity by bringing out of the political participation in rational and institutional manner; second, to emphasize, among others, basic ideals of modern norms of freedom, tolerance, law and responsibility; and third, to orient the context of social behavior in such a way as to bring out is dynamic character in the context of the political world. During past decades, scholars have studied political parties from different perspectives including: voting behavior, theories of competition, the structure of party coalitions, policy analysis, formation of centrolization process in party organizatons, the role of parties in the process of democratization. But the study of political party from the identity perspective has been neglected. This article examines the positive relationship between political party and national identity and studies the identity - based cleavages which lead to formation of political parties. In order to understand the supposed relation, the paper first conceptualize the political party and identity, then discusses the identity foundations of political parties and their role in emerging of different structures of political parties, and finally studies the various functions of political parties and obstacles facing the formation and identity functions of political parties in cortemporary Iran.