Political colour

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Hogarth's The Polling, depicting a 1754 election to the British parliament, includes a blue flag representing the Tories and an orange flag representing the Whigs.

Political parties often, both officially and unofficially, become associated with different political colors which are used to represent them. Internationally there is a tendency for parties with similar ideologies to use similar colors. An example of this is the color red, which is synonymous with left-wing ideologies (c.f. Red Flag, Red Army, Red Scare). Such associations are not absolute, for example red is also the color associated with the right-wing U.S. Republican Party.

General trends

Colours are listed here in alphabetical order.

• Black is primarily associated with anarchism (see anarchist symbolism) and fascism (see blackshirts).
  • Anti-clerical parties in the late 19th and early 20th centuries sometimes used the colour black in reference to the officials of the Catholic Church, because their vestments are often black.
  • In Germany and Austria, black is the colour historically associated with Christian-democratic parties.
  • In the Islamic world, black flags (often with a white shahadah) are sometimes used by Islamist groups. Black was the colour of the Abbasid caliphate.
• Blue, particularly dark blue, is usually associated with conservative parties, originating from its use by that party of the United Kingdom.
  • The field of the flag of the United Nations is light blue, chosen to represent peace and hope. It has given rise to the term bluewashing.
  • In the United States, since the year 2000, the mass media have associated blue with the Democratic Party, even though the Democratic Party is a liberal-leaning party. In 2010, the party unveiled a blue official logo.^[1]
• Brown has been associated with Nazism, because the Sturmabteilung (SA) were called "brownshirts." In Europe and elsewhere, the colour brown is sometimes used to refer to fascists in general.
• Grey is sometimes used by parties that represent the interests of pensioners and senior citizens, such as "The Grays" in Germany. It can also be used to refer to reactionary movements, due to its association with the Confederate States of America.
• Green is the colour for green parties and the environmental movement worldwide.
  • Sea green was used as a symbol by members of the Levellers in 17th century Britain; for this reason, it is occasionally used to represent radical liberalism.
  • Irish Nationalist and Irish Republican movements have used the colour green.
  • Green has sometimes also been linked to agrarian movements, such as the Populist Party in the US in the 1890s, and the modern day Nordic Agrarian parties.
  • Green, considered the holy colour of Islam, is also used by some Islamists, such as Hamas.
  • Fern Green is occasionally used by political organizations and groups who advocate the legalisation of Medicinal use of Marijuana.
• Orange is the traditional colour of the Christian democrats, and it can also represent various kinds of populist parties. Such is the case in Germany, France, Switzerland, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Bolivia.
  • In Canada, orange is the colour of the New Democratic Party (NDP), a social-democratic party. Most social-democratic parties around the world use red or pink, but in Canada the colour red was already long associated with the Liberals when the NDP was formed.
  • In Ukraine, orange was the colour of liberal groups that participated in the "Orange Revolution". This gave the colour orange a certain association with radical anti-authoritarian politics in some countries, and it has been used as such by groups and organizations in the Middle East – for example in Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Bahrain and Israel.
  • In Colombia orange is unofficially associated with Social Party of National Unity, a liberal conservative Uribist party.^[2]
  • In Northern Ireland, orange is associated with Unionism and the Orange Order.
  • In the United Kingdom, orange was the colour of the historical Liberal Party and their Whig predecessors.
  • In Israel, orange is linked to anti-disengagement rallies and other right wing and pro-settlement activity.
  • In New Zealand, orange cannot be used by any political party; it is exclusively used by Elections New Zealand.^[3]
• Pink is sometimes used by Social Democrats, such as in France and Portugal. The more traditional colour of social democracy is red (because social democracy is descended from the democratic socialist movement), but some countries have large social democratic parties alongside large socialist or communist parties, so that it would be confusing for them all to use red. In such cases, social democrats are usually the ones who give up red in favour of a different colour. Pink is often chosen because it is seen as a softer, less aggressive version of red, in the same way that social democracy is more centrist and less militant than socialism.
  • In some European nations (as well as in the United States), pink is associated with homosexuality and the pink flag is used as a symbol in support of civil rights for LGBT people. This goes back to the Nazi German policy of assigning pink triangles to homosexual prisoners.
• Purple is the most prominent colour that is not traditionally connected to any major ideology. As such, it is sometimes used to represent a mix of different ideologies, or new protest movements that are critical of all previously-existing parties.
  • In Europe, purple has been used to represent the 'Purple governments' of Belgium and the Netherlands, formed by an alliance of 'red' social-democratic and 'blue' liberal parties.
  • Purple is also the colour of the original Swedish Pirate Party and several of its international sister parties.
  • Purple is also unofficially used in the United States to denote a "swing state" (i.e., one contested frequently between the Republican Party, whose unofficial colour is red, and the Democratic Party, whose unofficial colour is blue.) It has also been used to reference Purple America, a term used in contrast to "blue" or "red", noting the electoral differences nationwide are observed more on discrepancies instead of unity.
• Red is traditionally associated with socialism and communism. The oldest symbol of socialism (and, by extension, communism) is the Red Flag, which dates back to the revolutions of 1848. The colour red was chosen to represent the blood of the workers who died in the struggle against capitalism. All major socialist and communist alliances and organisations – including the First, Second, and Third Internationals – used red as their official colour. The association between the colour red and communism is particularly strong. Communists use red much more often and more extensively than other ideologies use their respective traditional colours.
  • In Europe and Latin America, red is also associated with parties of social democracy, and often their allies within the labour movement. Sometimes these parties use pink instead, as a "moderate" colour instead of the more "radical" red.
  • In the United States, since the year 2000, the mass media have associated red with the Republican Party, despite the fact that the Republican Party is a conservative-leaning party. Since at least 2010, the party has adopted an all red logo.
• White is today mainly linked to pacifism (as in the surrender flag) and in politics of the United Kingdom to independent politicians such as Martin Bell.
  • Historically, it was associated with support for absolute monarchy, starting with the supporters of the Bourbon dynasty of France, because it was the dynasty's colour. Later it was used by the Czarist Whites who fought against the communist "Reds" in the Russian Civil War, because the Russian "Whites" had similar goals to the French "Whites" of a century earlier.
  • Because of its use by anti-communist forces in Russia, the colour white came to be associated in the 20th century with many different anti-communist and counter-revolutionary groups, even those that did not support absolute monarchy (for example, the Finnish "Whites" who fought against the socialist "Reds" in the civil war following the independence of Finland). In some revolutions, red is used to represent the revolutionaries and white is used to represent the supporters of the old order, regardless of the ideologies or goals of the two sides.
  • In Italy a red cross on a white shield (scudo crociato) is the emblem of Catholic parties, from the historical Christian Democracy party.
• Yellow is the colour associated with liberalism and sometimes libertarianism, particularly in Europe. It is the official colour of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.
  • Yellow is also associated with Judaism and the Jewish people (see also Yellow badge).
• Saffron represents Hindutva.^[4]

Exceptions and variations

In this map of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election results the states are color-coded by the political color of the party whose candidate won their electoral college votes. The political meanings of red and blue in the United States are different from their meanings in most of the world.

Notable exceptions and variations to the above colour schemes are:

• In Belgium, the liberal parties (Open VLD and MR) use blue and the Christian Democrats (CD&V and cdH) use orange. The colour of the Flemish nationalist party New-Flemish Alliance (N-VA) is yellow.
• In Canada, in federal-level politics, the official colour for the social-democratic New Democratic Party is orange, the Liberal Party of Canada uses red, the Conservative Party of Canada uses blue. The Bloc Québécois uses a light blue, as in the flag of Quebec.
• In Czech Republic, the centre-left Czech Social Democratic Party changed its official colour in 2006 from red/green to orange.
• In Germany, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) uses black and orange, but its Bavarian counterpart, the Christian Social Union, uses light blue.
• In the Republic of Ireland, the conservative Fianna Fáil uses green, Fine Gael uses blue and the Labour Party uses red.
• In Mexico, the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) uses yellow. The right-wing National Action Party (PAN) uses blue and white, the colours of the Virgin of Guadalupe, symbol of Mexican Catholicism.
• In Moldova, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party uses green, the social-democratic Democratic Party of Moldova uses dark blue, and the Liberal Party pale blue.
• In the Netherlands, four parties use green: the social-liberal Democrats 66 use light green and both the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and animal-rights party Party for the Animals (PvdD) use a darker green. GreenLeft uses a combination of green and red, although green is used more often. Blue is used by the conservative-liberal VVD.
• In Northern Ireland, the Unionist parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly are called the "orange block" and the Nationalist parties are the "green block".
• In Portugal, the centre-right Social Democratic Party (PSD) use orange, and the centre-left Socialist Party (PS) use pink.
• In South Korea, the ruling conservative party Saenuri Party (New Frontier Party) uses red as its colour, even though red is considered a leftist colour in Korea. In this case it's kind of political strategy, emphasize change and evolution.
• In Taiwan, the leading groups of parties are the more Chinese nationalist Pan-Blue Coalition and the more Taiwanese independence Pan-Green Coalition. The New Party uses yellow as its party colour even though its policies are conservative; the Democratic Progressive Party uses green even though its international alignment is with the Liberal International and not the Green parties.
• In the United Kingdom (excluding Northern Ireland), the right-wing and eurosceptic UK Independence Party has chosen to use the non-aligned colour purple. Far-right British nationalist parties such as the British National Party are noted for using the colours of the Union Jack, as did the centrist Social Democratic Party (SDP). The nationalist Plaid Cymru and Scottish National Party both use gold.
  • Some of the established political parties use or have used colour variations in their own locality. The traditional colour of the Penrith and the Border Conservatives was yellow, rather than dark blue. The traditional colour of the Warwickshire Liberals was green, rather than orange.
• In the United States the two major political parties use the national colours – red, white, and blue. Historically, 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 had been no consistent association of particular parties with particular colours. In the weeks following the 2000 election, however, there arose the terminology of red states and blue states, in which the conservative Republican Party was associated with red and the liberal Democratic Party with blue. Political observers 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. In 2004, the association was mostly kept. However, maps for presidential elections produced by the U.S. government use red for Democrats and blue for Republicans.^{[citation needed]} In September 2010, the Democratic Party officially adopted an all-blue logo.^[1] Around the same time, the official Republican website began using a red logo.
  This association has potential to confuse foreign observers in that, as described above, red is traditionally a left-wing colour, while blue is typically associated with right-wing politics.
  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,^[5] however, this system was not applied consistently in Texas and was not picked up on a national level; for instance, in 1888, Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison used maps that coded blue for the Republicans, the colour Cleveland perceived to represent the Union and "Lincoln's Party" and red for the Democrats.^[6]

See also

• Political uniform
• List of political party symbols

References