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Certain political parties or positions have become associated with different colours at different times.

Colours

  • Black is primarily associated with anarchism (see anarchist symbolism).
    • In the countries with a history of anti-clericalism in Europe and elsewhere in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the officials of the Catholic Church, because their vestments are often black, were called the Black International.
    • In Germany and Austria, it is the colour historically associated with Christian democrats.
    • Black is sometimes associated with fascism (see blackshirts)
    • In the Islamic world, black flags (often with a white shahadah) are sometimes used by Islamist groups.
  • Blue, particularly dark blue, is often associated with Conservative parties, originating from its use by that party of the UK.
    • Light blue (azure) is used for the field of the flag of the United Nations. Though it was idealistically chosen to represent peace and hope, one use of the colour has appeared that refers to dealings with the UN in realpolitik terms, namely bluewashing.
  • Brown has been associated with working class Nazism, because the Sturmabteilung (commonly known as the SA) were called "brownshirts". In Europe and elsewhere in the twentieth century, fascists were sometimes called the Brown International.
  • Gray was chosen by the German political writer Paul de Lagarde as the symbol of liberals in the nineteenth-century sense (or current European one), which he called the Gray International.
  • White has been linked to pacifism (as in the surrender flag) and to independent politicians like Martin Bell.
    • Historically, it was associated with support for absolutist monarchists, first for supporters of the Bourbon dynasty of France, because it was the dynasty's colour. Later it was used by the Czarist Whites in the Russian Revolution of 1917, because their purpose was similar. In the civil war following the independence of Finland in 1917, white was used by the conservative and democratic forces which stood against the socialist red forces.
    • In Italy it is the colour, with red, of Catholic parties, because of the symbol of the blazon Argent, a cross Gules.

Exceptions and variations

Notable exceptions and variations to the above colour schemes are:

  • In Australia, the Australian Labor Party will typically use red, and the Liberal Party of Australia typically blue, however this does conform to the above colour scheme as the "liberal" party is in reality conservative and the ALP has historically identified itself as a social-democratic party. The use is essentially the same as the use of blue and red by the British Conservative and Labour Parties. The Australian Greens use green, while a green-and-gold combination is used both by the National Party of Australia and the Australian Democrats. The colours of the former, however, are not ideological in nature, but are derived from the fact that Australia's national colours are green and gold.
  • For much of the nineteenth century, the 'blues' in both France and Italy were moderate reforming conservatives, while the absolutist monarchists were whites.
  • In Mexico, the leftist PRD uses yellow. The Right-Wing PAN uses blue and white, the colours of the Virgin of Guadalupe, symbol of Mexican Catholicism.
  • In the UK (excluding Northern Ireland), where electoral rosettes are commonly worn for campaigns, the Conservatives use royal blue; Labour, red; and the Liberal Democrats gold, or amber in Scotland. The Labour Party has recently used bold red with yellow lettering in areas of majority Labour support but also more purple tones in marginal Conservative areas. With many other smaller parties choosing their own colour schemes, Independents unsurprisingly use white. The right-wing and eurosceptic UK Independence Party has chosen to use the non-aligned colour purple with yellow. Far right parties such as the British National Party are noted for using the colours of the Union Jack.
    • Additionally some of the established political parties use or have used colour variations in their own locality. For instance the traditionally colour of the Penrith & the Border Conservatives is yellow, and not dark blue. Also the traditionally colour of the Warwickshire Liberals was green, and not orange/yellow.
  • In the United States there is no official association between political parties and specific colours. The two major political parties use the national colours — red, white, and blue — to show their patriotism. The only common situation in which it has been necessary to assign a single colour to a party has been in the production of political maps in graphical displays of election results. In such cases, there has historically been no consistent association of particular parties with particular colours. In the weeks following the 2000 election, however, there arose the terminology of blue states and red states, in which the conservative Republican Party was associated with red and the liberal Democratic Party with blue. Political observers subsequently latched on to this association, which resulted from the use of red for Republican victories and blue for Democratic victories on the display map of a television network. This association has certainly not been consistently applied in the past: during previous presidential elections, about half of the television networks used the opposite association. In 2004, the association was mostly kept.
    There is some historical use of blue for Democrats and red for Republicans — in the late 19th century and early 20th century, Texas county election boards used colour coding to help Spanish speakers and illiterates identify the parties. However, this system was not applied consistently in Texas and was not picked up on a national level.
    Maps for presidential elections produced by the U.S. government use the opposite system, with red for Democrats and blue for Republicans — for example, see U.S. presidential election, 1992. Nevertheless, since the 2000 election the news media have tended to use red for Republicans and blue for Democrats, especially as it relates to the electoral majority in each state, informally calling them the Red states and Blue states. The colour green is often used for the Green Party, and the colour yellow is often used for the Libertarian Party. A February 2004 article in the New York Times examined this issue..

List of colours associated with different parties in various countries

Austria

Australia

Bahrain

Belgium

Bulgaria

Republic of China

Pan-blue coalition (blue):

Pan-green coalition (green):

Canada

Colombia

Denmark

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Guinea

  • PUP: Green
  • RPG: Yellow
  • UFP: Blue

Hungary

India

Italy

  • Communists and socialists (Rifondazione Comunista, Party of Italian Communists, etc.): red.
    • Socialists traditionally had the dianthus and Radicals the rose.
  • Fascists (historical, still used by neo-fascist groups): black.
  • Catholic parties: white (secondly, red).
    • Catholic and moderate parties are considered nor leftist nor rightist, but centrist.
  • Neo Liberals (Forza Italia, etc.): light blue.
  • Lega Nord (autonomist) and Verdi (environmentalist): green.

Republic of Ireland

Israel

Lebanon

Luxembourg

Republic of Macedonia

Mexico

  • PRI Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Revolutionary Institutional Party): Red, white and Green
  • PRD Partido de la Revolución Democrática (Democratic Revolution Party)Yellow and Black
  • PAN Partido Acción Nacional (National Action Party) Blue and White
  • PT Partido del Trabajo (Labour Party) Red
  • PVEM Partido Verde Ecologista de México (Ecologist Green Party of Mexico) Green
  • PCD Partido Convergencia para la Democracia (Democratic Convergence Party) Orange and Blue

Netherlands

Norway

New Zealand

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Sierra Leone

Scotland

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Turkey

Ukraine

United Kingdom

United States

Venezuela

Yugoslavia

Shirts associated with right-wing parties

In the first half of the twentieth century, various fascist and other right-wing groups adopted political uniforms and were often nicknamed according to the colour of their shirts:

See also

References

  1. ^ Véronique Bénéï (2005). Manufacturing Citizenship: education and nationalism in Europe, South Asia and China. Routledge. ISBN 0415364884.
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