Design your Own Political Party!

After completing this activity trainees/learners will understand all aspects of designing a political party. They learn how to identify main goals and themes, mission, stakeholders, the environment of the political party, and in part how the public system works.

The goal is for students to establish a political party. To do this, they should start thinking about what they think is important and they present their political party.

1. Teacher explains that the groups (comprising 4-5 students per group) are to design a new political party. Components: name – left/right/middle/main goals – main stakeholders – mission – themes – budget for each theme (e.g. education, health care, army, declining poverty rate, activities for youths)
2. The groups choose a room to discuss with each other on the pivotal themes. They use post its on a big white sheet of paper or a word web to define the themes and the umbrella themes.
3. After 20 minutes, the groups present their new designed political parties. They mention why they chose the name, they argue why they chose the themes and elaborate on the themes and the underlying subjects, the budgets and why these budgets. Afterwards the rest of the group can ask questions.

Instruction for the Leader app:

1. Divide the class into groups. With your group, come up with a new political party!
2. Tips to think of: a creative name; what movement does your party belong to; what topics do you think are important; what is your mission; how do you divide the budgets (20 minutes).
3. Use the materials on the table.
4. After 20 minutes, present to the class your political party. What are your main issues and why (5 minutes per group). After the presentations, decide with the class which party would get the most votes in an election.

Needed for this assignment:

–        Big sheets of white paper

–        (Coloured) pencils

–        Post-its

• How did the collaboration process unfold within your group? Was there a clear distribution of roles and effective communication?
• What challenges did you encounter during the establishment of the political party, and how did you overcome them?
• What were the key decisions in formulating the political party program? How did you arrive at these decisions?
• To what extent were you successful in formulating a clear vision and mission for your political party?
• If given the opportunity to redo this project, which aspects would you approach differently and why
• What steps would you take if you were to actually establish a political party based on this experience?

Watch more on:

What are Political Parties?
Political Parties: Crash Course Government and Politics #40