The Role of Decision Maker in Designing a Political Party Strategy (Evidence from Pakistan)

Purpose: The aim of this research paper is to find out the reasons for the fall of political parties in Pakistan. For democracy, its importance is highlighted and a model is proposed for designing the strategy of a political party where there are more than two political parties. Research Design: After the literature review, a theoretical model was proposed and various relationships were made. Standardized questionnaires are used which covers all of the aspects a person needs to be in a political party. Correlation analysis is used for making judgments and recommendations. Findings: The research found that the popularity of a political party is affected greatly by civil society, its political strategy, and competition among the parties. Originality/value: The paper investigates the reasons due to which political parties fall and their popularity decrease in the mind of citizens. The finding can be used for strategy formulation and long-term planning of a political party and will be valuable to the political leaders and scientists nationally and internationally. Research Limitations: The paper studies some important elements of the society which have a great relationship with a political party not all. There are many other small factors which were not included in the research. Keywords: Political Party (PP), Information Security (IS), Party Competition (PC) and Political Decision Making (PDM). DOI : 10.7176/IAGS/68-01


Introduction
Most of the countries around the globe have a political system. The structure of the government depends upon the need of society and performance of the political party. Some countries have two political parties while some have many. There are also countries which has no such organizations.
These organization play the role of a bridge between the state and its public. In this paper, the purpose, aim and role of a political party will be discussed and a framework will be presented for finding the reason, why it falls and for designing model for making successful decisions.

Literature Review: 2.1 What is a Political Party?
A political party is defined as "A team of men seeking to control the governing apparatus by gaining office in a duly constituted election" [1]. Political parties are elected by electorates to run a government and are the fundamental element of democracy [2]. A political party brings like-minded people together in a society to endeavor for a goal, which has equal importance for all of them. It also provides ideas and policy for social governance. Political parties identify leaders from their workers and train them to represent the party as leaders in the future. They transmit the voice of people to the government and act as a link between the citizens and the government.
It is a misfortune that more concern is always paid to governmental body's establishment rather than to the development of effective and efficient political parties. The need and importance of both are inevitable and both are the need of one another but without dynamic and strong political parties, survival of democracy will be on the stack [3].
Although doing politics is a noble activity, many people think negatively about it. They think that politicians are corrupt and politics is a grubby business. But the fact is that "It is a process to organize how we live together in society" [4]. Its objectives are to serve the people and improve their lives standards. It is worthy to be noted that politics covers all aspects of life and is unavoidable.
It is an irrevocable fact that a leader or leaders have the key role in a political party, but it should also be also noted that without party members and activists no political party could be successful. Therefore it is irretrievable that both the leader and the workers should understand each other's importance and their role in the political dilemma of a country [5]. Any disrespectful measure towards the party workers will destroy the party if there is any other option … and there is.
In the 68 years since independence, in Pakistan political parties have seen many up and down. Many political parties which were very popular a few years ago are sidelined by other parties and ideologies. Many of them were hijacked by military dictators from time to time when came to power, which not only influence the political and democratic process in Pakistan negatively but also put on the stack the pure political ideological parties. In order to face the challenges of time and respond to changing circumstances, like other institutions, political parties should continuously develop, evaluate and redesign their policies. Otherwise, the strength and popularity of political party will decline with each passing second.

Political Decision Making:
Decision making is a selection process in which an action course is selected from many alternatives. A final choice is produced through the process [6]. It is not necessary that the final choice must be a course of action, but it can be an opinion also. Therefore the process of decision making is defined as "the selection of a choice among two or more alternatives and choices." In a political context, it is a course of action taking for making a good reputation in the public mind. Not only those decisions should be according to the choice of a leader or a group of leaders but it must be acceptable to the general people of a nation or community. Interestingly, political decisions are for the exchange of mind and policy, exchanged by people and party respectively. Therefore it should be clear that how much the decision is good but if not acceptable to the public apparently will cause loss to the party. Goodness and badness of political party decisions are dependent on the acceptance and rejection of the people because usually these decisions are taken when the party is in opposition not on treasury benches. There are many things which have a strong association with political decisions. The following are some of the influential factors.

Experience of Decision Maker:
Experience may also refer to something which is strongly related to mental abilities or something occurred physically i.e. human continuously gain knowledge with growing and when a worker does work, he/she gets to experience [7]. Therefore it should be clear that a political leader must have some political experience when he/she is supposed to make political decisions. Failure of such decisions may cause severe damage to the party existence and future. In other words, experienced leaders will not do any relentless mistake while making their party decisions.

Intelligence of Decision Maker:
Intelligence is defined as the capability of reasoning, planning, thinking, solving complex problems and power of learning in an individual [8]. The definition clarifies those elements which have an apparent and hidden positive relationship with decision making. In a political context, it can be said that if a decision maker lacks the ability and knowledge about reasoning (finding out why some choices are good and why some are wrong), will not make good and suitable decisions. For better political decisions "reasoning power" is necessary. Other important elements which have also a great deal with good decisions are the decision maker's planning power, thinking power etc. intelligence also gives vision which is also important for strategically suitable and long-term political decisions.

Capabilities of political Party:
Capability means ability, ways etc of doing something. In the context of organizational capabilities, it means ways of dealing with daily and long-term problems of an organization [9]. If a political party has no capability to do something, it cannot make good decisions. For example, a nationalist will not be selected in other communities, whatever it wants to do for them. Because the people know that the party is struggling for the interests of a specific nation. Therefore it must be in the mind of the decision maker, for who he/she is making decisions. Parties represent the federation should have to present people that it has the ability to solve there and the federation problems more efficiently than its rivals claim. Nationalists have to raise the voice of their communities according to their choice.

Information Availability:
Availability of information means access to information at the required time by the right person. There may be some interruptions which may disturb the information available but the organizations have to solve them [10]. In the language of the political student, we can say that misguided leaders cannot make suitable and good decisions. A leader must understand the credibility and value of the information; he/she is going to make a decision from. Without enough knowledge about the society, public demands and international political scenario, the decisions are taken by leaders etc will be unacceptable to the people. People want political party decisions according to their own choice not according to the choice of a leader. Therefore it is important for a leader to find out what is needed by the public and what they are expecting from the political parties. Keeping understanding about the country, people and other political party's policy; decisions will be made. In other words, it can be concluded that "from the right information, by the right person/persons, right decisions will come into being."

Research Methodology:
The research methods include hypothesis testing and correlation analysis. After designing the hypothesis, a questionnaire survey was conducted from people having official responsibilities at a district level in a political party. A total of 350 questionnaires were distributed out of which 311 found satisfactory for the study. The data were analyzed through SPSS.

Results and Analysis:
It is mandatory that the data to be used in the research must be reliable. Therefore reliability test was conducted and the value of Cronbach Alpha was found 0.81, which is an acceptable value.

Correlation Analysis: H1: There is a relationship between political party and experience of decision maker
The correlation table below shows that there is positive and significant relationship between political party and experience of decision maker. The correlation value for this relation is 0.445 at a significance level 0.000. Hence the assumption that "there is a relationship between political party and experience of decision maker" is true.

H2: There is a relationship between political party and intelligence of decision maker
The correlation table below shows that there is positive and significant relationship between political party and experience of decision maker. The correlation value for this relation is 0.341 at a significance level 0.000. Hence the assumption that "there is a relationship between political party and intelligence of decision maker" is true.

H3: There is a relationship between political party and capabilities of a political party
The correlation table below shows that there is positive and significant relationship between political party and capabilities of a political party. The correlation value for this relation is 0.322 at a significance level 0.000. Hence the assumption that "There is a relationship between political party and capabilities of a political party" is true.

H4: There is a relationship between political party and information for political decisions
The correlation table below shows that there is positive and significant relationship between political party and information for political decisions. The correlation value for this relation is 0.520 at a significance level 0.000. Hence the assumption that "there is a relationship between political party and information for political decisions" is true.

H5: There is a relationship between experience of decision maker and political decision making
The correlation table below shows that there is positive and significant relationship between capabilities of political party and political decision making. The correlation value for this relation is 0.291 at a significance level 0.000. Hence the assumption that "there is a relationship between experience of decision maker and political decision making" is true.

relationship between intellegence of decision maker and political decision making
The correlation table below shows that there is positive and significant relationship between intelligence of decision maker and political decision making. The correlation value for this relation is 0.432 at a significance level 0.000. Hence the assumption that "there is a relationship between intelligence of decision maker and political decision making" is true.

H7: There is a relationship between capabilities of political party and political decision making
The correlation table below shows that there is positive and significant relationship between capabilities of political party and political decision making. The correlation value for this relation is 0.312 at a significance level 0.000. Hence the assumption that "there is a relationship between capabilities of political party and political decision making" is true.

H8: There is a relationship between information availability and political decision making
The correlation table below shows that there is positive and significant relationship between information availability and political decision making. The correlation value for this relation is 0.433 at a significance level 0.000. Hence the assumption that "there is a relationship between information availability and political decision making" is true.

Conclusion
The popularity of Parties falls due to their misunderstanding that they will obtain votes only upon their development and legislative performance. Most of the party candidates were remained untouched with the party electorate during their term of office. The leaders of course were locked inside their homes by the outside terrorism and threats to their life. They were misguided by the middle-level party and were kept far away from the party workers and voters as well as from their society as a whole. Resultantly, these parties had no attractive slogans and policy for their election campaign to attract people. Or they did not play the game what society wanted from them, they just played their own. Along with many other reasons, they lost the elections on the following grounds: 1. Party authorities contact with the party workers was reduced during their past tenure due to which many members did not participate in the election actively.

2.
Leadership was kept in the misunderstanding that the party will acquire votes upon performance only. 3.
An emotional touch of workers declined due to less or no contact with leadership as they regularly found from the past ideological leaders.

4.
Party strategy was made without the consent of civil society and without looking at the party history.

5.
Office holders of the parties did not care to do the work of party workers preferably. Others were preferred upon them so even the very loyal voters of the party also cast their vote against their own party candidate. They did not offer something new to the public as required always by the civil society. 7.
What they did not consider in designing their strategy, their rivals did and what they did consider in designing their strategy, their rivals did not. 8.
Last but not least, the role of a national and international lobby and the establishment was also proved significant for their loss.