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What kind of impact do centre parties have in parliamentary democracies? How does the existence and growth of centre parties affect party system polarization, electoral competition and government stability? This text reassesses the perception of centre parties as a force of moderation. The author argues that this intuitive judgement, which has become accepted by political scientists is dubious, if not incorrect. He examines contemporary centre parties in Europe and asserts that the opposing tendency of centre parties contributes to party system polarization.
How popular democracy has paradoxically eroded trust in political systems worldwide, and how to restore confidence in democratic politics In recent decades, democracies across the world have adopted measures to increase popular involvement in political decisions. Parties have turned to primaries and local caucuses to select candidates; ballot initiatives and referenda allow citizens to enact laws directly; many places now use proportional representation, encouraging smaller, more specific parties rather than two dominant ones.Yet voters keep getting angrier.There is a steady erosion of trust in politicians, parties, and democratic institutions, culminating most recently in major populist victories in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Frances Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro argue that devolving power to the grass roots is part of the problem. Efforts to decentralize political decision-making have made governments and especially political parties less effective and less able to address constituents’ long-term interests. They argue that to restore confidence in governance, we must restructure our political systems to restore power to the core institution of representative democracy: the political party.
This book investigates how liberal parties have evolved over time as a party family, in a comparative perspective. Through a discussion of the applicability of the concept of party family to liberal parties, it gives a better picture of the development, challenges, and opportunities for liberal parties in Europe. The history of liberal parties in Europe is peculiar and the origins of the liberal family are not clearly defined. Liberal parties are still quite heterogeneous given the various meanings embraced in the idea of liberalism, including economic liberalism, cultural liberalism, progressivism, social-liberalism. Bringing together the best specialists engaged in the study of liberal parties, and with a two-levels perspective (comparative and case study), this book renews and expands our knowledge on the liberal party family in Europe. Four major themes are developed, linked to the four approaches of the concept of party family: electoral performances, participation to power, ideology and political program, and party organization. These themes are systematically developed in case studies, and in comparative chapters. Primarily aimed at scholars and students in comparative politics, this book should especially appeal to scholars in the fields of political parties and party systems, representation and elections, voting behavior, and public opinion.
An original investigation of the nature of the forces that make members and representatives both loyal and beneficial to a contemporary political party, this book combines theoretical reflection with interview and archive material to provide a unique perspective on power, arguing that it is more complex and nuanced than is frequently assumed.
First Published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
This book provides an up-to-date account of extreme right parties in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. It seeks to explain why these parties have grown in support, and in Denmark and Norway reached positions of direct political influence. Following an analytical framework, in which explanatory factors on the demand- as well as supply-sides are identified, the book investigates a wide range of possible such factors. The account covers economic conditions, immigration and political trust, as well as the extent of the fascist and Nazi legacy in Scandinavia. Each of the three countries is then subject to an in-depth study. The origins, historical development, ideology, organisation and leadership of the relevant extreme right parties in each country are analysed thoroughly. The analysis draws on party documents and publications, such as party manifestos, as well as media sources, biographies and academic literature. The main argument of the book is that internal supply-side factors, that is factors within the parties themselves, are indispensable in order to understand variations in the success of extreme right parties. External conditions are not unimportant, but account for very little if the parties do not provide a political package that can tap the potential demand.
This book focuses on the rise of new challenger parties and the magnitude of their impact on political systems and the existing political order in Southern Europe in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Examining Podemos (Spain), SYRIZA (Greece), and M5S (Italy), it highlights the differences and commonalities between them and their voters. The book reveals whether these parties were effectively able to change the status quo represented by mainstream parties and, secondly, whether they created novel organizational structures capable of “bring the people in”, that is, of re-mobilizing disenfranchised voters and of re-inventing the concept of participation within the political party. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of party politics, representation, leadership, political elites, public opinion, populism, and more broadly to comparative politics, European studies, and contemporary European history.
How have Europe′s mainstream political parties responded to the long-term decline in voter loyalties? What are the consequences of this change in the electoral markets in which parties now operate? Popular disengagement, disaffection, and withdrawal on the one hand, and increasing popular support for protest parties on the other, have become the hallmarks of modern European politics. This book provides an excellent account of how political parties in Western Europe are perceiving and are responding to these contemporary challenges of electoral dealignment. Each chapter employs a common format to present and compare the changing strategies of established parties and party systems in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, and Ireland. The result is an invaluable portrait of the changing electoral environment and how parties are interacting with each another and voters today. Political Parties and Electoral Change is essential reading for anybody seeking a deeper understanding of contemporary electoral politics and of the challenges facing west European party systems. Peter Mair is Professor of Comparative Politics at Leiden University. Wolfgang C. M ller is Professor of Political Science at the University of Mannheim and previously taught at the University of Vienna. Fritz Plasser is Professor of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck.
The 2006 elections constitute a major redrawing of the political map in Israel due to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s exit from the Likud party and his creation of a new centre party, Kadima. Following Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, Sharon formed Kadima taking many former Likud MKs, and prominent members of the Labour party with him. Focusing particularly on the various political parties, the election campaign in the media and the main issues at stake in the election including: foreign and defence policies, social and economic issues, as well as, the issue of corruption, this book examines the impact of this reorganization of the political map. The impact of events in the Palestinian Authority and other external factors are also discussed, as well as the challenges for the new government, in the wake of the election results. This book was previously published as a special issue of Israel Affairs.
Both parties and interest groups matter to democracy. Historically, examples of close relationships between the two abound. But perhaps the best known because it was supposedly the most intimate and politically important is the relationship between left-of-centre parties and trade unions. Whether rooted in a shared history, culture and ideology or more a 'marriage of convenience', it is widely believed that their relationship helped socialist, social democratic, and labour parties win power and ensured the working class achieved huge gains in terms of full employment, the welfare state and labour market regulation in the post war period. In recent decades, however, it has been widely argued that the links between left-of-centre parties and trade unions have declined as their collaboration has become less mutually beneficial, not least as a consequence of structural changes in the economy and labour market. This volume interrogates, qualifies, and even challenges that widespread assumption. Based on a brand new dataset, including organizational data gathered by a cross-national team of experts, it uncovers and explores what turns out to be considerable variation in the strength of contemporary organizational links between left-of-centre parties and unions in twelve different countries that have been democracies since at least the mid -to late-1940's. Testing a series of hypotheses on the importance and the impact of particular political systems and socio-economic factors, and on the costs and benefits for both parties and unions, detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis suggests that left-of-centre party-trade union links are stronger where trade unions are larger, denser, and more unified and where parties are less able to rely on the state to finance their organizational activities and electoral campaigns. Traditional partners that still have fairly strong links with each other seem to have greater incentives than others to maintain those links. Moreover, it remains the case that the links between parties and unions matter in policy terms.