Why Not Parties in Russia?

Why Not Parties in Russia? PDF Author: Henry E. Hale
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781139447874
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Russia poses a major puzzle for theorists of party development. Whereas virtually every classic work takes political parties to be inevitable and essential to democracy, Russia has been dominated by non-partisan politicians ever since communism collapsed. This book mobilizes public opinion surveys, interviews with leading Russian politicians, careful tracking of multiple campaigns, and analysis of national and regional voting patterns to show why Russia stands out. Russia's historically influenced combination of federalism and super-presidentialism, coupled with a post-communist redistribution of resources to regional political machines and oligarchic financial-industrial groups, produced and sustained powerful party-substitutes that have largely squeezed Russia's real parties out, damaging Russia's democratic development.

Why Not Parties in Russia?

Why Not Parties in Russia? PDF Author: Henry E. Hale
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781139447874
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
Russia poses a major puzzle for theorists of party development. Whereas virtually every classic work takes political parties to be inevitable and essential to democracy, Russia has been dominated by non-partisan politicians ever since communism collapsed. This book mobilizes public opinion surveys, interviews with leading Russian politicians, careful tracking of multiple campaigns, and analysis of national and regional voting patterns to show why Russia stands out. Russia's historically influenced combination of federalism and super-presidentialism, coupled with a post-communist redistribution of resources to regional political machines and oligarchic financial-industrial groups, produced and sustained powerful party-substitutes that have largely squeezed Russia's real parties out, damaging Russia's democratic development.

Responsible Parties

Responsible Parties PDF Author: Frances Rosenbluth
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300241054
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
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.

The Parties Versus the People

The Parties Versus the People PDF Author: Mickey Edwards
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300186029
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
“An urgent and engaging look at how American politics have become the founding fathers’ worst nightmare” (The Daily Beast). America’s political system is dysfunctional. We know it, yet the problem seems intractable—after every election, voters discover yet again that political “leaders” are simply quarreling in a never-ending battle between the two warring tribes. As a former congressman, Mickey Edwards witnessed firsthand how important legislative battles can devolve into struggles not over principle but over party advantage. He offers graphic examples of how this problem has intensified and reveals how political battles have become nothing more than conflicts between party machines. In this critically important book, he identifies exactly how our political and governing systems reward intransigence, discourage compromise, and undermine our democracy—and describes exactly what must be done to banish the negative effects of partisan warfare from our political system and renew American democracy. “Overcoming tribalism and knee-jerk partisanship is the central challenge of our time. Mickey Edwards shows why and how in this fascinating book filled with sensible suggestions.” —Walter Isaacson, New York Times–bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci “Many Americans, whether Democrats, Republicans, independent or otherwise, would welcome a few more like [Edwards] in office.” —The Boston Globe

Why Parties Matter

Why Parties Matter PDF Author: John H. Aldrich
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022649540X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Since the founding of the American Republic, the North and South have followed remarkably different paths of political development. Among the factors that have led to their divergence throughout much of history are differences in the levels of competition among the political parties. While the North has generally enjoyed a well-defined two-party system, the South has tended to have only weakly developed political parties—and at times no system of parties to speak of. With Why Parties Matter, John H. Aldrich and John D. Griffin make a compelling case that competition between political parties is an essential component of a democracy that is responsive to its citizens and thus able to address their concerns. Tracing the history of the parties through four eras—the Democratic-Whig party era that preceded the Civil War; the post-Reconstruction period; the Jim Crow era, when competition between the parties virtually disappeared; and the modern era—Aldrich and Griffin show how and when competition emerged between the parties and the conditions under which it succeeded and failed. In the modern era, as party competition in the South has come to be widely regarded as matching that of the North, the authors conclude by exploring the question of whether the South is poised to become a one-party system once again with the Republican party now dominant.

Parties and Party Systems

Parties and Party Systems PDF Author: Giovanni Sartori
Publisher: ECPR Press
ISBN: 191025908X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
In this rich and broad-ranging volume, Giovanni Sartori outlines what is now recognised to be the most comprehensive and authoritative approach to the classification of party systems. He also offers an extensive review of the concept and rationale of the political party, and develops a sharp critique of various spatial models of party competition. This is political science at its best – combining the intelligent use of theory with sophisticated analytic arguments, and grounding all of this on a substantial cross-national empirical base. Parties and Party Systems is one of the classics of postwar political science, and is now established as the foremost work in its field.

Political Parties and Democracy

Political Parties and Democracy PDF Author: Larry Diamond
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801868634
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Political parties are one of the core institutions of democracy. But in democracies around the world—rich and poor, Western and non-Western—there is growing evidence of low or declining public confidence in parties. In membership, organization, and popular involvement and commitment, political parties are not what they used to be. But are they in decline, or are they simply changing their forms and functions? In contrast to authors of most previous works on political parties, which tend to focus exclusively on long-established Western democracies, the contributors to this volume cover many regions of the world. Theoretically, they consider the essential functions that political parties perform in democracy and the different types of parties. Historically, they trace the emergence of parties in Western democracies and the transformation of party cleavage in recent decades. Empirically, they analyze the changing character of parties and party systems in postcommunist Europe, Latin America, and five individual countries that have witnessed significant change: Italy, Japan, Taiwan, India, and Turkey. As the authors show, political parties are now only one of many vehicles for the representation of interests, but they remain essential for recruiting leaders, structuring electoral choice, and organizing government. To the extent that parties are weak and discredited, the health of democracy will be seriously impaired. Contributors: Larry Diamond and Richard Gunther • Hans Daalder • Philippe Schmitter • Seymour Martin Lipset • Giovanni Sartori • Bradley Richardson • Herbert Kitschelt • Michael Coppedge • Ergun Ozbudun • Yun-han Chu • Leonardo Morlino • Ashutosh Varshney and E. Sridharan • Stefano Bartolini and Peter Mair.

When Movements Become Parties

When Movements Become Parties PDF Author: Santiago Anria
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110842757X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Provides a new way of thinking about parties formed by social movements, and their evolution over time.

Voting for Policy, Not Parties

Voting for Policy, Not Parties PDF Author: Orit Kedar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521764572
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
This book develops an institutionally embedded framework for analyzing voter choice, examining three electoral arenas: parliamentary, presidential, and federal.

Democracy Against Parties

Democracy Against Parties PDF Author: Brandon Van Dyck
Publisher: Pitt Latin American
ISBN: 9780822946946
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Around the world, established parties are weakening, and new parties are failing to take root. In many cases, outsiders have risen and filled the void, posing a threat to democracy. Why do most new parties fail? Under what conditions do they survive and become long-term electoral fixtures? Brandon Van Dyck investigates these questions in the context of the contemporary Latin American left. He argues that stable parties are not an outgrowth of democracy. On the contrary, contemporary democracy impedes successful party building. To construct a durable party, elites must invest time and labor, and they must share power with activists. Because today's elites have access to party substitutes like mass media, they can win votes without making such sacrifices in time, labor, and autonomy. Only under conditions of soft authoritarianism do office-seeking elites have a strong electoral incentive to invest in party building. Van Dyck illustrates this argument through a comparative analysis of four new left parties in Latin America: two that collapsed and two that survived.

Why Not Parties?

Why Not Parties? PDF Author: Nathan W. Monroe
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226534944
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Recent research on the U.S. House of Representatives largely focuses on the effects of partisanship, but the strikingly less frequent studies of the Senate still tend to treat parties as secondary considerations in a chamber that gives its members far more individual leverage than congressmen have. In response to the recent increase in senatorial partisanship, Why Not Parties? corrects this imbalance with a series of original essays that focus exclusively on the effects of parties in the workings of the upper chamber. Illuminating the growing significance of these effects, the contributors explore three major areas, including the electoral foundations of parties, partisan procedural advantage, and partisan implications for policy. In the process, they investigate such issues as whether party discipline can overcome Senate mechanisms that invest the most power in individuals and small groups; how parties influence the making of legislation and the distribution of pork; and whether voters punish senators for not toeing party lines. The result is a timely corrective to the notion that parties don’t matter in the Senate—which the contributors reveal is far more similar to the lower chamber than conventional wisdom suggests.