Support for the Party System by the Mass Public

1966 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 600-615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Dennis

Compared with most political institutions, the American party system has endured for a long time. The parties as organizations and symbols have become so much a part of our thinking about politics that we generally overlook the possibility of their eventual decline. One of the parties indeed has existed nearly as long as the republic itself; it thus antedates all but a few of the modern nations of the Western world. The basic form of the party system—two major, decentralized, ideologically diffuse parties—has remained generally intact throughout its lifespan. The system of parties as a principle of political organization has been extended in some form to every level and branch of government. When the persistence of the party system has been most in jeopardy—as in the period of the Civil War—it has managed always to reestablish itself. On the criteria of duration, constancy of form, degree of penetration of other political institutions and response to stress, the record of the party system has been one of marked success.This is not to say that there has been no variability in this performance. Constraints were present from the very beginning of party life in this country and have continued—with changing levels of severity—over the years. The failure of the parties to become part of the formal constitutional structure reflects a lack of full legitimation which has proved difficult to overcome.

Author(s):  
Ruslana Klym

The article defines that political institutions are integral elements of the political system of society, important subjects of politics and carriers of the political process, that regulate the political organization of society, ensuring its stable and long-term functioning. It is stated that the main scientific approaches to understanding the phenomenon of political communication is positivism, behaviorism, structural functionalism, institutionalism and the attention is drawn to the fact that the mass media perform several functions in modern society – communicative, informational, relay, through the implementation of which, media affects all spheres of society and play an important role in the process of interaction between the government and the public. It was noted that the authorities of the Republic of Bulgaria took advantage of the historical moment when the European Union member states were interested in cooperation and were able to convince the Bulgarian society that membership in the EU is a way to solve economic problems, which will further contribute to the economic well-being of the country. The article mentions that an important role in the European integration process of interaction between the authorities and the public was played by Bulgarian journalists, who conducted an extremely intensive and important information campaign, which resulted in 76% of support for the Republic’s membership in this international organization by the Bulgarian society The experience of the Republic of Bulgaria shows that effective work of the mass media is extremely important for establishing communication interaction between government and civil society at a crucial moment for the country. However, the modern Bulgarian media environment is subject to intense criticism for the poor quality of the media product, the media’s dependence on oligarchs, and corruption.


Author(s):  
M. V. Bratersky ◽  
G. I. Kutyrev

The article analyzes Russia’s policy from the point of view of goals formulated by the government in response to challenges in international politics, economics and security, as well as challenges associated with the threat of losing the status of a great power, maintaining territorial integrity and independence. Russia’s dissatisfaction with the existing order of things – when its interests were not taken into account, and the West did not set any limits for itself, advancing its geopolitical interests –had been growing for a long time, however, most clearly manifested itself in the landmark 2014 when Western sanctions after the Crimean events pushed the Russian authorities and business to more active in the Asia-Pacific.The authors formulate a number of signs of the new regional order of the Asia-Pacific countries, which may develop into a new international (global) order. This type of system, according to the authors, will be more competitive and less hierarchical, within its framework there will not be a single dominant force or ideology, it will be based on a multitude of centers of power. Such a world order is more attractive for Russia than the unipolar Atlantic order. It will give the country the opportunity to use its own comparative advantages, such as territory, resources, hard power, a fairly rigid political organization and the ability to mobilize resources for strategic purposes. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that the modern non-Western world is still very amorphous, its future contours are blurred, and Asian business is still weakly responding to the Russian “turn to the East”.


Author(s):  
Paul D. Kenny

This chapter deals with the origins of India’s contemporary political institutions. The crisis conditions of the 1970s and the turn to populism had their roots in the late colonial period but these conditions remained latent until the mid-1960s. This chapter shows how India’s infamous patronage-based “Congress system” was first established and how political organization along horizontal socioeconomic lines was choked off in the process. It shows how the party system was brought under centralized control in the early 1950s and how this in turn brought a measure of political stability. India’s hybrid federal structure meant that state brokers had significant potential autonomy from the center; this autonomy remained latent as long as Nehru controlled both the party organization of the Congress and the fiscal powers of the central government. Case studies of a number of states support the analysis.


2018 ◽  
pp. 5-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. M. Grigoryev ◽  
V. A. Pavlyushina

The phenomenon of economic growth is studied by economists and statisticians in various aspects for a long time. Economic theory is devoted to assessing factors of growth in the tradition of R. Solow, R. Barrow, W. Easterly and others. During the last quarter of the century, however, the institutionalists, namely D. North, D. Wallis, B. Weingast as well as D. Acemoglu and J. Robinson, have shown the complexity of the problem of development on the part of socioeconomic and political institutions. As a result, solving the problem of how economic growth affects inequality between countries has proved extremely difficult. The modern world is very diverse in terms of development level, and the article offers a new approach to the formation of the idea of stylized facts using cluster analysis. The existing statistics allows to estimate on a unified basis the level of GDP production by 174 countries of the world for 1992—2016. The article presents a structured picture of the world: the distribution of countries in seven clusters, different in levels of development. During the period under review, there was a strong per capita GDP growth in PPP in the middle of the distribution, poverty in various countries declined markedly. At the same time, in 1992—2016, the difference increased not only between rich and poor groups of countries, but also between clusters.


Author(s):  
Mathew Whiting

When Sinn Féin and the IRA emerged in Northern Ireland in 1969 they used a combination of revolutionary politics and violence to an effort to overthrow British rule. Today, the IRA is in a state of ‘retirement’, violence is a tactic of the past, and Sinn Féin is a co-ruler of Northern Ireland and an ever growing political player in the Republic of Ireland. This is one of the most startling transformations of a radical violent movement into a peaceful political one in recent times. So what exactly changed within Irish republicanism, what remains the same, and, crucially, what caused these changes? Where existing studies explain the decision to end violence as the product of stalemate or strategic interplay with the British state, this book draws on a wealth of archival material and interviews to argue that moderation was a long-term process of increasing inclusion and contact with political institutions, which gradually extracted moderate concessions from republicanism. Crucially, these concessions did not necessitate republicans forsaking their long-term ethno-national goals. The book also considers the wider implications of Irish republicanism for other cases of separatist conflict, and has significance for the future study of state responses to violent separatism and of comparative peace processes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 87-95
Author(s):  
D.L. TSYBAKOV ◽  

The purpose of the article is to assess the nature of the evolution of the institution of political parties in post – Soviet Russia. The article substantiates that political parties continue to be one of the leading political institutions in the modern Russian Federation. The premature to recognize the functional incapacity of party institutions in the post-industrial/information society is noted. It is argued that political parties continue to be a link between society and state power, and retain the potential for targeted and regular influence on strategic directions of social development. The research methodology is based on the principles of consistency, which allowed us to analyze various sources of information and empirical data on trends and prospects for the evolution of the party system in the Russian Federation. As a result, the authors come to the conclusion that in Russian conditions the convergence of party elites with state bureaucracy is increasing, and there is a distance between political parties and civil society.


This survey of research on psychology in five volumes is a part of a series undertaken by the ICSSR since 1969, which covers various disciplines under social science. Volume Five of this survey, Explorations into Psyche and Psychology: Some Emerging Perspectives, examines the future of psychology in India. For a very long time, intellectual investments in understanding mental life have led to varied formulations about mind and its functions across the word. However, a critical reflection of the state of the disciplinary affairs indicates the dominance of Euro-American theories and methods, which offer an understanding coloured by a Western world view, which fails to do justice with many non-Western cultural settings. The chapters in this volume expand the scope of psychology to encompass indigenous knowledge available in the Indian tradition and invite engaging with emancipatory concerns as well as broadening the disciplinary base. The contributors situate the difference between the Eastern and Western conceptions of the mind in the practice of psychology. They look at this discipline as shaped by and shaping between systems like yoga. They also analyse animal behaviour through the lens of psychology and bring out insights about evolution of individual and social behaviour. This volume offers critique the contemporary psychological practices in India and offers a new perspective called ‘public psychology’ to construe and analyse the relationship between psychologists and their objects of study. Finally, some paradigmatic, pedagogical, and substantive issues are highlighted to restructure the practice of psychology in the Indian setting.


Author(s):  
Anthony Sparacino

Abstract This article examines the origins and early activities of the Democratic and Republican Governors Associations (DGA and RGA, respectively) from the RGA's initial founding in 1961 through the 1968 national nominating conventions. I argue that the formations of these organizations were key moments in the transition from a decentralized to a more integrated and nationally programmatic party system. The DGA and RGA represent gubernatorial concern for and engagement in the development of national party programs and the national party organizations. Governors formed these groups because of the increasing importance of national government programs on the affairs of state governments and the recognition on the part of governors that national partisan politics was having critical effects on electoral outcomes at the state level, through the reputations of the national parties. To varying extents, the governors used these organizations to promote the national parties and contributed to national party-building efforts and the development of national party brands.


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