Caucus

"Caucuses" redirects here. For the Eurasian geographic region, see Caucasus.

A caucus is most generally defined as a meeting of supporters or members of a political party or movement. The exact definition varies among political cultures.

caucus in the United States

Main article: Congressional caucus

In U.S. politics and government, caucus has several distinct but interrelated meanings.

One meaning is a meeting of members of a political party or subgroup to coordinate members' actions, choose group policy, or nominate candidates for various offices. The term is frequently used to discuss the procedures used by some states to select presidential nominees, such as the Iowa caucuses, the first in the modern presidential election cycle. Since 1980 such caucuses have come to comprise, in the aggregate, an important component of the nomination process. A practice version of such a caucus – arguably a necessity, given their infrequency and organizational complexity– is called a maucus, a portmanteau of mock caucus.

Along these same lines, in early American history, the Congressional nominating caucus and legislative caucus were influential meetings of congressmen to decide the party's nominee for President and party platforms. Similar caucuses were held by the parties at state level.

Another meaning is for a subgrouping of officials that meet on the basis of shared affinities or ethnicities, usually to affect policy. At the highest level, in Congress and many state legislatures, Democratic and Republican members organize themselves into a caucus (occasionally called a "conference"). There can be smaller caucuses in a legislative body, including those which are multi partisan or even bicameral in nature. Of the many Congressional caucuses, one of the best-known is the Congressional Black Caucus, a group of African-American members of Congress. Another prominent example is the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, whose members voice and advance issues affecting Hispanics in the United States, including Puerto Rico. In a different vein, the Congressional Internet Caucus is a bipartisan group of Members who wish to promote the growth and advancement of the Internet. Other congressional caucuses such as the Out of Iraq Caucus, are openly organized tendencies or political factions (within the House Democratic Caucus, in this case), and strive to achieve political goals, similar to a European "platform," but generally organized around a single issue.

Among American left-wing groups, a caucus may be an openly organized tendency or political faction within the group, equivalent to a European "platform." Examples would include the "Debs," "Coalition" and "Unity" Caucuses of the Socialist Party of America in its last years.

Caucuses in Commonwealth nations

In some Commonwealth nations, a caucus is a regular meeting of all Members of Parliament who belong to a political party. In a Westminster System, a party caucus can be quite powerful, as it has the ability to elect or dismiss the party's parliamentary leader. The caucus also determines some matters of policy, parliamentary tactics, and disciplinary measures against disobedient MPs. In some parties (for example this is traditionally the case in the Australian Labor Party and the New Zealand Labour Party), caucus also has the ability to elect MPs to Cabinet when the party is in government. The term is rarely used in the UK.

November 24 2007 election of Kevin Rudd to the office of Prime Minister in Australia, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) caucus will not play a direct role in choosing the cabinet, but rather this responsibility has been assumed by Kevin Rudd himself, the leader of the ALP.

In New Zealand and in the Australian Labor Party, the term "caucus" can be used to refer to the collective group of the MPs themselves, rather than merely the meeting of these MPs. Thus, the (Australian) Federal Parliamentary Labor Party is commonly called "the Labor Caucus." The word was introduced to Australia by King O'Malley, an American-born Labor member of the first federal Parliament in 1901, and presumably entered into New Zealand politics at a similar time. In New Zealand, the term is used by all political parties, but in Australia, it is restricted to the Labor Party. In the Liberal and National parties, and for all parties in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland (not a Commonwealth country), the usual term is the parliamentary party.

The usage of caucus in Canada is similar to that of New Zealand; caucus refers to all members of a particular party in Parliament, including senators, or a provincial legislature. In Canada, these members elect among themselves a caucus chair who presides over their meetings and is an important figure when the party is in opposition and an important link between cabinet and the backbench when the party is in government.

The word can also be used to mean all the deputies in an assembly who come from a certain geographical or other background, for example "the Antarctic caucus."

Caucuses in alternative dispute resolution

The term "caucus" is also used in mediation, facilitation and other forms of alternate dispute resolution to describe circumstances when, rather than meeting at a common table, the disputants retreat to a more private setting to process information, agree on negotiation strategy, confer privately with counsel and/or with the mediator, or simply gain "breathing room" after the often emotionally-difficult interactions that can occur in the common area where all parties are present. The degree to which caucuses are used can be a key defining element, and often an identifier, of the mediation model being used; "facilitative mediation", for example, tends to discourage the use of caucuses and tries to keep the parties talking at a single table, while "evaluative mediation" may allow the parties to separate more frequently and rely on the mediator to shuttle information and offers back and forth.

Origin of the term

Lewis Carroll mocked the complexity of caucuses in Chapter 3, "A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale," of Alice in Wonderland. Here, after handing out prizes to others, Alice receives a thimble (her own) from a Dodo as her prize from the caucus race.

The origin of the word "caucus" is debated, although it is generally agreed that it came into use in English in the United States. According to some sources, it comes from the Algonquin word for "counsel," 'cau´-cau-as´u', and was probably introduced into American political usage through the Democratic Party in New York known as Tammany Hall, which liked to use Native American terms. Other sources claim that it derived from Medieval Latin caucus, meaning "drinking vessel", and link it to the Caucus Club of colonial Boston.