scholarly journals Comparison of agrarian political  parties in selected Central European states after 1989

2012 ◽  
Vol 48 (No. 12) ◽  
pp. 544-553
Author(s):  
P. Blažek ◽  
M. Kubalek
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Agriculture Modernization ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Communist Countries ◽  
The City

This study deals with the founding and development of agrarian political parties and movements in selected postcommunist states (with the emphasis put on the Czech party system in the early 1990‘s). The topic is discussed from the point of view of classic political science theories, namely the historical conflict approach of Stein Rokkan and Seymour Martin Lipset, complemented with Derek Urwin’s theory regarding emergence of agrarian parties as a means of defense of country against urbanization. The results of research into the urban – rural cleavage and its influence on the genesis of agrarian political parties in selected post-communist countries after 1989 seem to support the above mentioned theories (even though those were originally formulated for a much earlier period when the Western party systems were first coming into existence. These can be applied also to the Czech environment, where several profession-based political parties were established in the early 1990’s, some of which were concerned with the defense of peasants’ and farmers’ interests. The attempts to create profession-based parties in the Czech political system were destined to fail for several reasons. The first was a striking ideological profiling of the bipolar party spectrum, causing general parties to pick up the themes and voters concerned with economic recession, and radicalization of electorate. The second reason lied in the diminishing numbers of potential voters, a result of agriculture modernization and general urbanization of society, which caused that the city-country conflict was reflected in the election results only marginally. The result was similar to other post-Soviet states, with a specific exception of Poland: agrarian parties and movements lost their former influence.

Ghana's political parties: how ethno/regional variations sustain the national two-party system

2006 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 623-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minion K. C. Morrison ◽  
Jae Woo Hong
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
National Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Party Organisation ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Fourth Republic ◽  
Complex Varieties ◽  
Election Results

This paper analyses Ghanaian electoral geography and its accompanying political party variations over the last decade. After re-democratisation in the early 1990s, the Fourth Republic of Ghana has successfully completed multiple elections and party alternation. Due to its single-member-district-plurality electoral system, the country has functioned virtually as a two-party system, privileging its two major parties – the NDC and the NPP. However, close examination of election results in the last parliamentary and presidential elections reveals that notwithstanding the two-party tendency, there is a dynamic and multilayered aspect of electoral participation in Ghanaian politics. Ethnic-based regional cleavages show much more complex varieties of electoral support for the two major parties, especially in light of fragmentation and concentration. Electoral support in the ten regions varies from strong one-party-like to almost three-party systems. Yet this lower, regional level tendency is not invariable. Regional party strengths have shifted from election to election, and it was just such shifts that made the party alternation possible in 2000. Employing traditional and newly designed indicators, this paper illustrates the patterns of electoral cleavage and regional party organisation, and how these ultimately sustain the party system at the national level in Ghana.

scholarly journals The Evolution of the Party System and Cleavages in Post- Communist Hungary

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 37-55
Author(s):  
Crina Samarghitan ◽  
Victor Cioara ◽  
Sergiu Gherghina ◽  
Adrian Muica
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Continuous Change ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Communist Countries ◽  
Political Economic

The post-Communist countries suffered many transformations in a short period of time; their political, economic and social system is in a continuous change. All the countries from Central and Eastern Europe try to cope with the Western political systems, try to avoid the third wave of authoritarianism, wave that usually comes after a democratization one. One country’s political system is impressing and interesting in many ways. We decided to approach and to analyze only a part of the political system in a country that relatively succeeded on its way towards democracy – Hungary. The evolution of Hungarian cleavages allows us to identify the emergence of parties and from that point on to deeply analyze the party system from 1990 until now. One main advantage of our study is that we make a dynamic evaluation of the party system, using some variables that were applied in the case of other party systems. The variables and indicators were used by well-known scholars to observe some variations in the Western party systems and to realize some categories. The conclusions obtained have a degree of specificity; they cannot be entirely applied to the countries in the region. The research can be improved by analyzing the electoral system and by searching new indicators for the already used variables.

Partis et systèmes politiques: interactions et fonctions

1969 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georges Lavau
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
The Political ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Centrifugal Forces ◽  
Function Integration ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Rule Out

It is no longer in style to develop typologies of political regimes based on their party systems. Systematic studies today are interested in parties only in terms of their role in the functioning of the political system as a whole. No doubt it is an insoluble problem to determine whether parties and the party system are variables which are independent or dependent in relation to the political system. Besides, without being able to rule out a relationship of interdependence, the two terms display a certain degree of independence and are not in a relationship of co-variance. Thus it is that the political system is shaped to a certain extent by the opposition of the parties to the system, the parties in turn having been conditioned by three other kinds of forces.The problem of specifying the functions of parties remains a central one, even though there is much confusion in the use of the language of functionalism. It is therefore important to clarify the notion of the functions of political parties. If one defines the political system as a set of processes and mechanisms which bring about the convergence or neutralization of irresistible social pluralisms without exploding the balance of these pluralist forces, then one can distinguish three functional requirements: (1) the legitimation-stabilization function; (2) the tribunician function (integration or neutralization of centrifugal forces); (3) the function of providing governmental alternatives.Where there is interaction between parties and the political system, one can discern an aspect of non-dependence between the two terms. In the first place, the parties (and not only the anti-system or revolutionary parties) do not develop solely in accordance with their relationship to the political system. Secondly, the system too has a certain degree of self-determination, even when confronted with anti-system parties.

Bipartisanship as Possible Alternative of Russian Political System Evolution

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 256-265
Author(s):  
Konstantin V. Simonov ◽  
Stanislav P. Mitrakhovich
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Complex Structures ◽  
Practical Advice ◽  
Simultaneous Separation

The article examines the possibility of transfer to bipartisan system in Russia. The authors assess the benefits of the two-party system that include first of all the ensuring of actual political competition and authority alternativeness with simultaneous separation of minute non-system forces that may contribute to the country destabilization. The authors analyze the accompanying risks and show that the concept of the two-party system as the catalyst of elite schism is mostly exaggerated. The authors pay separate attention to the experience of bipartisan system implementation in other countries, including the United States. They offer detailed analysis of the generated concept of the bipartisanship crisis and show that this point of view doesn’t quite agree with the current political practice. The authors also examine the foreign experience of the single-party system. They show that the success of the said system is mostly insubstantial, besides many of such systems have altered into more complex structures, while commentators very often use not the actual information but the established myths about this or that country. The authors also offer practical advice regarding the potential technologies of transition to the bipartisan system in Russia.

scholarly journals Political mediation and participation in the Czech rural areas

2008 ◽  
Vol 54 (No. 12) ◽  
pp. 575-581
Author(s):  
J. Čmejrek
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Rural Community ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Fragmented Population ◽  
Rural Municipalities ◽  
Election Results ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Municipal Election

The objective of this paper is to show the mediation between citizens and political power by political parties in Czech rural areas. The position of political parties in rural municipalities is demonstrated in two perspectives. The top-down perspective is based on the distribution of several tens of thousands mandates in local municipal councils between political parties. The opposite perspective provides the bottom-up point of view – from the level of the individual municipalities, their party systems and party organisational structures. The analysis of the municipal election results reveals clearly that the role of political parties in local politics depends namely on the size of the given municipality. In this sense, the Czech Republic represents a very interesting example as it is characterised by a dense and heavily fragmented population settlement with a large number of small rural municipalities. In rural municipalities, we encounter incomplete party spectra and the absence of political parties in the smallest municipalities. Besides, the lists of candidates in rural municipalities reveal the weakness of the local party organisations that cannot avoid cooperating with the independent candidates. The small distance between the citizen and the elected body in a rural community significantly determines the forms of the local politics; the ideological and party mediation is superfluous, in fact, it is often seen as something harmful which divides the rural community.

Party Realignment in the United States and Britain

1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Williams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Party Realignment ◽  
History Of

Realignment theory is a recent but flourishing sub-branch of the study of American political parties. Over the last thirty years, the original suggestions of its inventor, V. O. Key, have been elaborated and refined in several directions and through several phases, gradually being modified to take variations in historical circumstances more carefully into account. Problems of the same kind often occur, and are likely to prove even less manageable, when efforts are made to apply the theory to another political system and culture as authors from both countries (and from neither) have in recent years tried, more or less explicitly, to use it to explain developments in the British party system. Some techniques travel quite well, and some useful insights can be obtained by looking afresh at familiar patterns in the light of similar experiences elsewhere. But the differences between the two nations and states preclude any rigorous attempt to apply a theory derived from the history of one country with a view to explaining the experiences of the other.

Mexico: New Democracy with Old Parties?

Politics ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 172-180
Author(s):  
Carlos E. Casillas ◽  
Alejandro Mújica
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Party System ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Election Results ◽  
New Democracy

Mexico's 2000 presidential election was one of the most important political events in the nation's contemporary history. The victory of the National Action Party (PAN) and Vicente Fox, the first ‘non-official’ candidate ever to win a Mexican presidential election, surprised both local and world observers. This article comprises four parts. Part I very briefly places the election in historical perspective. In Part II, each of the three front-runners in the contest is profiled. Part III includes a systematic analysis of the general election results by constituencies or other territorial units, and features tabulated data. Part IV addresses the development of political parties and the party system before and after the elections.

Radical Party Politics and Mobilization Against It in the Slovak Parliamentary Elections 2020

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-352
Author(s):  
Oľga Gyárfášová ◽  
Peter Učeň
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Popular Support ◽  
Main Research ◽  
The People ◽  
Election Results

This article reviews certain trends in popular support for political parties – especially new ones – as they manifested themselves prior to and during the 2020 parliamentary elections. It summarizes the ways in which demand for change was expressed before and during the election through the election results and the data on party supporters. It concludes that the thesis on the radicalization of new generations of party-political challenges in the Slovak polity did not hold true in 2020. The main research question regards the possibility of conceptualizing the rise of two new moderate political parties, PS/Together and For the People, as a counter-mobilization against the previous emergence of radical anti-establishment and anti-systemic challengers within the party system.

The Labor Party in Ulster: Opposition by Cartel

1967 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 526-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard F. Rutan
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Socialization ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Society ◽  
Political Beliefs

Almost thirty years ago Nicholas Mansergh concluded that the political parties in Northern Ireland did not fulfill the needs of the political system: that (to put his statement in more contemporary terms) the input functions, particularly that of political socialization, were enfeebled to the extent that one party constituted a permanent government while the other became an equally permanent opposition. What is more, underlying the party system and within the political society itself there existed no consensus on fundamentals: “There is no residue of political beliefs—as in Great Britain and the Free State—acceptable to both parties.”

Voting, or a Price System in a Competitive Market Structure

1970 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Shubik
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Competitive Equilibrium ◽  
Price System ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
Simple Majority ◽  
Simple Manner ◽  
Background Material

In this brief note it is demonstrated that if all the conditions for the existence of a competitive equilibrium are satisfied, then simple majority voting to determine the distribution of goods may be less efficient than a price system.The argument here may be somewhat cryptic for those not familiar with the work of Anthony Downs. A considerably more discursive presentation of the background material is given in “A Two Party System, General Equilibrium and the Voters' Paradox.” The tax and public goods aspect of the voting problem have been discussed elsewhere in “Notes on the Taxonomy of Problems Concerning Public Goods.” The result presented here, nevertheless, stands by itself, hence is presented in this brief form.The political system is modeled at its simplest. We assume the existence of two players called “political parties.” The goal of each player is to win an election by as large a vote as possible. A strategy for each player is to name a policy that it will carry out if it is elected. A policy is any point in the set of feasible distributions of final product. It follows immediately that, although any policy may be considered as a strategy, any non-Pareto optimal policies are dominated by some policy that is optimal. A discussion of the reasons for modeling a party in this simple manner is given in detail elsewhere. It is assumed that all voters are passive or “mechanistic,” i.e., they do not form groups but merely vote individually, selecting optimally between the two policies offered.

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