2. Answer the following questions.

1. What are the functions of political parties?

2. What factors can help in recruiting and motivating party members?

3. How do party organizations and procedures vary in different parliamentary systems?

4. What is the most important function of the election campaigns?

5. How do citizens protest the policies of their govern­ ment or the actions of other groups?

6. What are the goals of different groups of people in direct action?

7. Protests are testing ground for any democracy, aren't they?

8. Can one achieve any balance between freedom of speech and assembly and order?

9. What does this balance depend on?

10) When are democratic societies capable achieving this balance and when they aren't?

3. Complete the following sentences.

1. Ideology may be an important factor in ....

2. Party organizations and procedures ....

3. Political parties are as varied ....

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4. The election campaigns are often ....

5. In a democratic society citizens have ....

6. Direct action traditionally has been used by ....

7. Today, nonviolent protest, often designed to....

8. One special form of direct action is ....

9. Protests are ....

10) There is no magic formula for ....

4. Insert the English equivalents used in the text.

1) Political parties составляют policy programs for the government if they are in the majority.

2) Где-нибудь в другом месте similar economic interests or social outlook may be more important than ideological commitment.

3. In a democratic society, citizens have право собираться peacefully and protest the policies of the government.

4. Today, nonviolent protest encompasses широкий круг вопросов.

5. One special form of direct action is the right of labour unions проводить забастовки.

6. Protests are пробный камень for any democracy.

7. Подавить peaceful protest in the name of order is to invite repression.

8. В конечном итоге it depends on the majority to maintaining the institutions of democracy and the precepts of individual rights.

9) Democratic societies are capable of enduring the bitterest disagreement among the citizens.

10) But the function is deadly serious: обеспечить а peaceful and fair method.

5. Translate paragraphs 3 and 7 in writing.

6. Find the sentences stating the general idea of each paragraph.

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7. Summarize the text in 6 sentences.

8. What do you think concerning

1. political parties;

2. forms of direct action;

3. the legitimacy of democracy itself in Russia.

9. Read the text and answer the following questions:

1. What provisions for political parties does the American Constitution make?

2. What party system does the United States employ at the national level?

3. Why do the Republican and Democratic parties exist for so long?

4. Do other parties play any role in the political life of the country?

Political Parties

Political parties are the basis of the American political system. Curiously, the Constitution makes no provisions for political parties nor for the role as the vehicle by which candidates for public office are proposed to the voters.

At the national level, the United States employs a two-party system that has remained remarkably durable through­out the nation's history, even though rival national parties have appeared and disappeared from the political scene.

The Federalists, for example, who rallied around Presi­dent George Washington, disappeared slowly after 1800; and the Whig Party, which arose in the 1830s in opposi­tion to President Andrew Jackson, a Democrat, collapsed two decades later. Today, the Democratic Party, which traces its origins back to the nation's third president, Thomas Jefferson, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854, continue to dominate politics at the federal, state and local levels.

One explanation for the longevity of the Republican and Democratic Parties is that they are not tight ideological

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organizations, but loose alliances of state and local parties that unite every four years for the presidential election. Both parties compete for the same broad center of the American electorate, and although Republicans are generally more conservative than Democrats, both parties contain relatively liberal and conservative wings that continually vie for influence.

Nevertheless, other parties are also active, and particu­larly at the state and local levels, they may succeed in elect­ing candidates to office and in exercising considerable in­fluence. During the early 20^th century, for example, mem­bers of the Socialist Party were elected to the House of Representatives and as the mayors of over 50 towns and cities. The Progressive Party held the governorship of Wis­consin for a number of years and in 1974 an independent candidate became governor of Maine.

(from «An Outline of American Government»)

10. Give the general idea of the text.

11. Read the following joke and retell it:

A REPUBLICAN AND A DEMOCRAT It is easy to go to Washington now. You can go there by plane from any large city of the USA. There are also fast trains and, of course, you can go by car. But in the old days people had to travel several days to get from New York to Washington. People went then by coaches driven by horses or went on horseback. They stopped at inns to have a rest or to eat there and sleep.

They tell a story about a new congressman who stopped at an inn one night and asked for a place to stay. The inn­keeper wanted to know whether he was a Democrat or a Republican.

• Why do you ask? — said the congressman.

• Well, — said the innkeeper, — I always want to please my guests and I have learned that a Republican likes

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to have good food and a comfortable bed while a Democratis more interested in the care and feeding of his horse.

— Well, it so happens, — said the congressman, — that I am a Republican, but my horse is a Democrat.