Political colour
Political colours are colours used to represent a political stance, a political ideology, or — in a telling use of terminology — a position on the political spectrum. While previously competing factions wore colours based on coats of arms or even, in Ancient Rome, racing colours, many colours have now become associated with ideology rather than personality.
Main colour links
- Red is historically associated with socialism or communism.
- Green is linked to two groups:
- Blue is often associated with Conservative parties. However, for much of the 19th century the 'blues' in France and Italy were moderate reforming conservatives, while the absolutist monarchists were whites. In addition, blue is associated with the left-wing Democratic Party of the United States.
- Black has been associated with both anarchism and fascism (one could postulate 'flat black' as the tincture of Fascism, and 'gloss black' for that of Anarchism, (from the Latin "áter" and "negro," respectively). The Italian Fascists dressed in the famous 'black shirts' while the Nazi Swastika was a black emblem on a white background.
- 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 - for instance the Czarist Whites in the Russian Revolution.
- Yellow is often used for liberalism.
Exceptions
Political parties vary the shades of their colours depending on the situations. Most U.S. politicians use red, white and blue together. In the UK, 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.
Other notable exceptions and variations to the above colour schemes are:
- In the Netherlands, conservative Liberals (VVD) are blue, Liberal Democrats (D66) use green as well as the Christian Democrats. Green Left uses both green and red to represent its blend of ecologism and leftism.
- In Portugal, the liberals (Social-Democrat Party, whose name may cause confusion, since it is not a traditional social-democrat party, but much more right-leaning) are orange and the socialists are pink.
- In the UK (excluding Northern Ireland), where electoral rosettes are commonly worn for campaigns, the Conservatives uses dark blue; Labour, red; and the Liberal Democrats, yellow. With many other smaller parties choosing their own colour schemes, Independents unsurprisingly use white. Notably the single issue UK Independence Party has chosen to use the non-aligned colour purple with 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 left-wing Republican Party was associated with red and the left-wing 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. It remains to be seen whether the "red state/blue state" terminology will solidify in the 2004 presidential year and beyond.
(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 the 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
Australia
Canada
France
Germany
Netherlands
New Zealand
Republic of Ireland
United Kingdom
United States
See above for a discussion of "blue states" and "red states" in U.S. presidential elections.
See also
Political symbolism |
Political_party#Colors_and_emblems_for_parties
