Party discipline is the ability of a parliamentary group of a political party to get its members to support the policies of their party leadership. In liberal democracies, it usually refers to the control that party leaders have over its legislature. Party discipline is important for all systems of government that allow parties to hold political power because it determines the degree to which the governmental infrastructure will be affected by legitimate political processes.
The term has a somewhat different meaning in Marxist-Leninist political systems such as the People's Republic of China. In this case it refers to administrative sanctions such as fines or expulsion that the Communist Party can impose on its members for actions such as corruption or disagreeing with the party.
Breaking party discipline in actual parliamentary votes is called crossing the floor.
Famous quotes containing the words party and/or discipline:
“In every party there is one person who, through his dotingly credulous enunciation of party principles, incites the other members to defection.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“A philosophy can and must be worked out with the greatest rigour and discipline in the details, but can ultimately be founded on nothing but faith: and this is the reason, I suspect, why the novelties in philosophy are only in elaboration, and never in fundamentals.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)