Examining the Green Party Taiwan (GPT) since its establishment through the aftermath of the most recent national elections in January 2020, this book focuses on Taiwan's most important movement party over the last two and a half decades. Despite its limited electoral impact, its leaders have played a critical role in a range of social movements, including anti-nuclear and LGBT rights campaigns. Plotting the party's evolution in electoral politics as well as its engagement with the global green movement, this volume analyses key patterns of party change in electoral campaign appeals, organisation and its human face. The second half of the volume concentrates on explaining both the party's electoral impact and why the party has adjusted ideologically and organisationally over time. Based on a wide range of material collected, including focus groups, interviews and political communication data, the research relies heavily on analysis of campaign material and the voices of party activists and also considers other Green Parties, such as the splinter Trees Party and GPT-Social Democratic Alliance. Applying a wide range of theoretical frameworks to plot and explain small party development, this book will appeal both to students and scholars of Taiwan's politics and civil society but also to readers with an interest in small parties and particularly environmental parties and movements.

The Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (TDFR) was a unique, bottom-up, and a fleeting display of political unity and federalism among the main Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian political factions between 22 April 1918, when it declared its independence, and 26 May 1918, when it was dissolved and replaced by the three nation-states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Focusing on a crucial but poorly understood moment in the modern history of the Caucasus at the end of the First World War, this book offers a systematic, contextually-rich, and multi-perspectival-Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Ottoman, German, British, American, Italian, Bolshevik, Ukrainian and North Caucasian-account of the TDFR, drawing on contributions (with the new material from archives in Tbilisi, Grozny, Yerevan, Baku, Istanbul, Berlin, London, Washington D.C.) by a new generation of historians and scholars working on the region. The book argues that despite its month-long existence in this geopolitically volatile region, the TDFR, with and its federative nature and the various discussions about federalism and federation that it provoked, continued to have an appeal for Georgians, Azerbaijanis, Armenians as well as for the Great Powers well beyond its dissolution. Moreover, the experience of the TDFR reifies federalism as a key political concept in the modern history of the Caucasus. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Caucasus Survey.

Turkey is ninty-nine per cent Muslim, its ruling party, Justice and Development Party (JDP), comes from but denies its Islamist pedigree and has a very secular feel. However, the deeply secular regime distrusts the JDP with regard to its 'true' colours. This book makes sense of these paradoxical perceptions which have characterized Turkey's politics since the JDP has come to power in 2002. The key momentum for shaping the nature and trajectories of the ruling party of Turkey since 2002, the JDP, has been the 'identity' question. The JDP's commitment to transform Turkey's politics was part of its engagement to remake its own identity. The JDP's adoption of a conservative-democrat identity has rested on a new understanding of Westernization, secularism, democracy and the role and relevance of Islam in politics. The book's central problematic is to explain both the politics of change the JDP initiated and sustained in the first three years in office and the politics of retreat it has made from its reformist discourse since 2005. The book analyzes not just the catalysts for its reformist discourse of the first 3 years but tries to explain its reversal to an inward-looking conservative nationalist course. By approaching this topical debate from the conceptual stance rather than a party-centered approach, UEmit Cizre identifies that the change the JDP has initiated within Turkey's political Islam and in Turkish politics is the product of an interactive process between many levels, actors, forces and historical periods. The forces and actors covered include: global forces of Islam the secular establishment and its popular extensions the past and present Islamic actors in political and non-political spheres the changing balance of forces in the region which frame the EU and the US policies toward the JDP. Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey is a valuable contribution to the study of globalization and 'change' in contemporary political Islam, the relationship between religion and politics, and secularism and political Islam. As such, it will be of interest to students and researchers alike in the area of Islamic politics, democratization, European Union and political Islam, and globalization.

Questions of war were not central to the founding of the Labour Party, yet questions of war - specifically, under what circumstances the party would support the dispatch of British military forces to fight abroad - have divided and damaged the party throughout its history more deeply than any other single issue.

The Labour Party, War and International Relations, 1945-2006 opens by identifying and examining the factors that have influenced the party's thinking about war, before considering the post-1945 Cold War context and analyzing a range of cases:

• the Korean War
• the party's response to the 1956 Suez crisis
• the Wilson government's approach to the Vietnam War
• Labour's response to the 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands
• the crisis over the August 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, culminating in the 1991 war
• the wars of the 1990s over Bosnia and Kosovo
• the case for war in Iraq developed by the Blair government during 2002-03.

This is a timely book that both illuminates approaches to past wars and helps us understand the basis of current military commitments. As such it will be of great interest to students across courses in politics, history, and war studies.

Questions of war were not central to the founding of the Labour Party, yet questions of war - specifically, under what circumstances the party would support the dispatch of British military forces to fight abroad - have divided and damaged the party throughout its history more deeply than any other single issue. The Labour Party, War and International Relations, 1945-2006 opens by identifying and examining the factors that have influenced the party's thinking about war, before considering the post-1945 Cold War context and analyzing a range of cases: the Korean War the party's response to the 1956 Suez crisis the Wilson government's approach to the Vietnam War Labour's response to the 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands the crisis over the August 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, culminating in the 1991 war the wars of the 1990s over Bosnia and Kosovo the case for war in Iraq developed by the Blair government during 2002-03. This is a timely book that both illuminates approaches to past wars and helps us understand the basis of current military commitments. As such it will be of great interest to students across courses in politics, history, and war studies.

It is not possible to understand the nature and functioning of post-communist political parties without understanding their relationship with the state. On the one hand, few parties in the region would be able to survive and perform without state resources as they lack strong roots within the wider society. On the other hand, the relatively weak states inherited from the communist period offer parties and elites opportunities for various forms of rent-seeking within state institutions. But how can we understand the relationship between parties and the state? How do the party-state links work in practice and do they exhibit any cross-national or cross-party variation? Are there any discernible patterns of party-state linkages among the post-communist democracies? Previously published as a special issue of The Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, this volume addresses these questions. The party-state linkages are analyzed alongside three analytical dimensions: state financing of parties, their legal regulation, and party patronage within the state institutions. The contributors bring together case studies of post-communist countries, as well as cross-country comparative analysis, each addressing at least one of these analytical dimensions. Besides providing a framework within which studies of party-state relationship can be undertaken, the book brings comparative evidence on the extent and the manner in which parties in the region use the state for their own purposes.

Analyzing Turkey's electoral geography, this volume evaluates the geographical repercussions of the elections in Turkey since the establishment of multiparty politics in 1950. The book focuses on the last two decades, examining the interaction between electoral behavior and regional dynamics. Various issues related to the geographical connotations of Turkish electoral politics are qualitatively and quantitatively addressed by scholars with diverse backgrounds in social sciences. The chapters herein examine how Turkey's electoral geography has been shaped over the years to correspond with a certain aspect of multiparty politics, such as voting behaviors, political parties and party systems, nationalization and regionalization, redistricting, gender issues, identity dynamics, or ideological polarization. This comprehensive work contributes to the theoretical debates in electoral geography in general. Utilizing notions from electoral geography literature, this book develops new concepts through the Turkish case. Filling an important gap in the literature on Turkish politics, this contemporary analysis will be a key resource to policymakers, students, and scholars interested in political science, Turkey, and the Middle East.

Over the years, America's national elections have become focused almost exclusively on Democrats and Republicans; other parties exist but rarely rise to prominence. Elections at the state level, on the other hand, offer a livelier history, with successful candidates from political parties of all stripe, including Free Soil, Abolitionist, Anti-Monopoly, Farmers Alliance, War Democrat, Anti-Masonic, Socialist, and many more. This book lists the party affiliation of state legislatures beginning in 1796 through the elections of 2006. Information on each state includes a summary of how its electoral process developed, including the origins and stipulations of each state's constitution, the terms and size of the legislature, and other details pertaining to the history of the state's legislative branch. Each state's chapter closes with a list of sources. In all, the book documents over 100 different party affiliations.

This book analyzes the operational dimension of the Chinese communist party's ideology and reveals the complex relationship between ideology, language, governance, and political power in the broader context of China's economic reforms. The book questions state-centric, legitimacy-focused, and content-based approaches to party ideology and analyzes its practice. Conceptualizing public discourse as a 'language game' played by the rules set by the party, the book examines how party ideology is operationalized by multiple state and non-state actors as political rhetoric for persuasion in contentious reform discourses. Through the case studies of the policy discourses over state-owned enterprise reforms under Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Xi Jinping, the book highlights ideology's double-edged operational functions (consensus-inducing and conflict-inducing) and claims that ideology can be a double-edged sword for rulers: It is a vital resource to legitimate and sustain their rule; yet, it potentially destabilizes their rule as well. The book proposes new angles to study ideology, legitimacy, and governance and is aimed at political scientists who study authoritarian governance, policy process, and political communication. Its multi-disciplinary approach also appeals to sociologists, media/communication scholars, and linguists who work on rhetoric, political language, and media discourses.

The Nazi Party and the German Foreign Office explores the struggle between entrenched diplomats in the Foreign Office and Party loyalists, who presumed that with the assumption of power in 1933 total state control was theirs.

Coalition government among different political parties is the way most European democracies are governed. Traditionally, the study of coalition politics has been focused on Western Europe. Coalition governance in Central Eastern Europe brings the study of the full coalition life-cycle to a region that has undergone tremendous political transformation, but which has not been studied from this perspective. The volume covers Bulgaria, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. It provides information and analyses of the coalition life-cycle, from pre-electoral alliances to coalition formation and portfolio distribution, governing in coalitions, the stages that eventually lead to government termination, and the electoral performance of coalition parties. In Central Eastern Europe, few single-party cabinets form and there have been only a few early elections. The evidence provided shows that coalition partners in the region write formal agreements (coalition agreements) to an extent that is similar to the patterns that we find in Western Europe, but also that they adhere less closely to these contracts. While the research on Western Europe tends to stress that coalition partners emphasize coalition compromise and mutual supervision, there is more evidence of 'ministerial government' by individual ministers and their parties. There are also some systems where coalition governance is heavily dominated by the prime minister. No previous study has covered the full coalition life-cycle in all of the ten countries with as much detail. Systematic information is presented in 10 figures and in more than one hundred tables. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The series is edited by Emilie van Haute, Professor of Political Science, Universite libre de Bruxelles; Ferdinand Muller-Rommel, Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University; and Susan Scarrow, John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Political Science, University of Houston.

Well-reputed political scientists residing and teaching in ten countries, five in Asia and five in Europe, comparatively examine the place of political parties in democracy, and provide an empirically rigorous, up-to-date, comprehensive synthesis of the organization of political parties and their links with citizens in a democracy.

This book is an analytical study of secularism in contemporary Turkey by tracing its historical trajectory within the context of political transformation in a country that experienced a social and cultural rupture in its formative years. Its principal focus is on the policies and practices of the current ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (JDP), which has influenced the process of change, evolution, and transformation with regard to secularism and state policies toward religion. Following its foundation in 2001, the JDP developed a unique approach to conceptualising the relationship between state and religion. In contrast to other mainstream parties and political positions both in the past and present, it offers an alternative vision and model to that of inherited Kemalist secularism, as formulated by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (the founder of modern Turkey) and refined by his close associates in the formative period of the Republic. The project draws its findings from in-depth interviews with members of political parties, civil society activists and religious leaders.

This book examines the representativeness of party membership and analyses the potential consequences of changing representativeness. Parties with high membership ratios, as well as those experiencing severe decline, are compared and examined across countries with varying constitutional arrangements and party systems. The book discusses whether changing representative capacities lead to declining political representation of (group) interests, less representative party candidate selection processes and declining legitimacy for the political system. The book bridges two subareas that are usually not in conversation with each other: literature on the decline of party membership and that on group representation (gender, ethnic minorities and other social groups). This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of party politics, political parties, representation and elections, and more broadly to people interested in European and comparative politics.

Building on a comprehensive theoretical framework that draws on discursive and ideational approaches to populism, this volume offers a comparative mapping of the Populist Radical Left in contemporary Europe. It explores the novel discursive, political and organisational features of several political actors, as well as the conditions of their emergence and success, while being alert to the role of relevant social movements. Chapters feature case studies of the Greek party Syriza, the Spanish Podemos, the German Die Linke, Jean-Luc Melenchon and France Insoumise, the Dutch Socialist Party and the Slovenian Levica. Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of Labour in the UK and 'Momentum', the movement that supports him is also examined. A separate chapter is devoted to recent grassroots social movements that can be seen as instances of progressive populism, such as the 'squares movement' in Spain and Greece. This book fills a crucial gap in the literature on radical left politics and populism in Europe, contributing to the rapidly burgeoning field of populism studies.

In the parliamentary system of government, manifestos constitute and represent an important aspect of the democratic electoral politics as statements of a party's ideology, response and policy. This book offers an examination of election manifestos of different political parties in India at the national level. It explores the manifesto as an input to the policy process and presents a comparative perspective and understanding on the issues and approaches of the national political parties on key affairs. The book traces the evolution of the electoral system, political parties and party manifestos in India as they emerged and developed over time. It looks at the Statutes of 1909, 1919 and 1935 along with the party manifestos and elections until 1945-46. The author further analyses Constituent Assembly debates on the electoral system and the stances of political parties on national reconstruction through documents from parties, including the Indian National Congress, the Communist Party of India, the Socialist Party, Jana Sangh and the All India Scheduled Castes Federation. Covering manifestos of sixteen Lok Sabha Elections (from the first general election of 1952 to 2014), this book provides a comprehensive overview of how major political parties think on significant social, economic, political, foreign and defence-related issues. It will be useful to scholars and researchers of political science, election studies, modern Indian history, public administration, law and governance, sociology, media and journalism as also to legislators and policymakers.

This comprehensive volume provides crucial insights from contemporary academics and practitioners into how positive interventions might be made into post-secular political spaces that have emerged in the wake of the economic, political, and social upheavals of the 2008 global financial crisis. The failure of liberal democracy to deal effectively with such challenges has led to scapegoating of the poor, immigrants, and Muslims, and contributed to the populist electoral success of, among others, the Leave campaign during the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, and Donald Trump's Presidential campaign. These shocks have highlighted contemporary political spaces defined by what has been termed 'all the posts': postmodern, post-Christendom, post-liberal, post-political, and post-secular. This collection examines emerging attempts to understand and advance the cause of wellbeing within this context. The authors address a variety of key issues including: (re)configuring mythologies for the common good; deploying love and friendship politically; motivating new social movements; valuing the other; recovering displaced and devalued political narratives; finding alternatives to the previously dominant neo-liberalism; listening deeply for social transformation; and overcoming adversarial party politics. This book was originally published online as a special issue of the journal Global Discourse.

Political parties have only recently become a subject of investigation in normative political theory. Parties have traditionally been studied by political scientists in their organizational features and in relation to the analysis of related topics such as party systems and electoral systems. Little attention, however, was paid until recently to the normative assumptions that underlie partisanship and party politics. Are parties desirable for democratic politics? How should liberal democracies deal with extremist and/or anti-democratic parties? Do religious parties undermine the secular distinction between religion and politics and is that bad for liberal democracies? These are only some of the many questions that political theorists had left unanswered for a long time. The chapters in this collection aim to provide a twofold contribution to the normative analysis of partisanship. On the one hand, they aim to offer a first much needed 'state of the art' of the existing research in this area. Many of the contributors have already done extensive research on partisanship and their chapters partly reflect their research expertise and individual approaches to this topic. On the other hand, all chapters move beyond the authors' existing work and represent significant additions to the normative literature on partisanship, thus setting the standards for future research in this area. This book was published as a special issue of Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.

First published in 1999, this volume is based on interviews and research from previously unavailable party, state and private archives, this insightful volume reflects on the interaction between institutional structure and world-view that we call political culture. Using Labour's post-war welfare policy, this informative study makes three key points: The need to break down distinctions between the 'symbolic' and the 'substantial' in politics. The potential of 'Grid-Group' or 'Cultural' Theory as a way of understanding party political culture. The crucial but self-defeating role that welfare policy has played in Labour's efforts to manage itself, win support and govern competently. The well-documented research leads to the conclusion that New Labour's much-heralded desire to 'think the unthinkable' about welfare is largely rhetorical if one recalls what Labour did in office rather than promised in opposition. The Government's welfare reforms, rather than constituting a serious attempt to confront new social realities, are in fact par for the course. Political scientists cannot ignore the new government's past. Political historians need to appreciate the patterns woven in a welter of detail and social democratic defensiveness. By fusing a realist conception of statecraft, an 'interpretavist' interest in symbols and a predictive comparative model of the interaction between ideology and organisation, this authoritative work will enable readers to do just that.

This book traces the beginnings of democracy in the three Himalayan kingdoms of Sikkim, Nepal and Bhutan. Charting the mobilisations and political experimentations that took place in the former buffer states under monarchies to establish democratic regimes, this book investigates their varying degrees of success, and offers a critical commentary on the consequent socio-political histories of this region. The volume sheds light on the nuances of their different geo-political contexts of the three Himalayan states, while tracing the social origins of the movements. It also undertakes a close analysis of the political participation and leadership involved to understand their achievements and limitations. A comprehensive analysis of a hitherto unexplored chapter in South Asian history, it will be of an immense interest to scholars and researchers of international relations, modern history, sociology and social anthropology, politics, South Asian studies, area studies, especially Nepal and Himalayan studies, as well as policy makers and government think tanks.

This volume looks at the impact of the landmark 2014 elections and the consequent Assembly elections which have transformed the ideological discourse of India. It discusses a variety of topical issues in contemporary Indian politics, including the Modi wave, Aam Aadmi Party and the challenges it is confronting today, Hindutva and minorities, the decline of the Congress party, changes in foreign policy, as well as phenomenona like 'love jihad' and ghar wapsi. It also draws together political trends from across the country, especially key states like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Seemandhra, West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir, and Meghalaya. The volume will be of great importance to scholars and researchers of Indian politics, public policy, sociology, and social policy.

Over the past seven decades and more, political parties have become an essential feature of the political landscape of the South Asian subcontinent, serving both as a conduit and product of the tumultuous change the region has experienced. Yet they have not been the focus of sustained scholarly attention. This collection focuses on different aspects of how major parties have been agents of - and subject to - change in three South Asian states (India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka), examining some of the apparent paradoxes of politics in the subcontinent and covering issues such as gender, religion, patronage, clientelism, political recruitment and democratic regression. Recurring themes are the importance of personalities (and the corresponding neglect of institutionalisation) and the lack of pluralism in intraparty affairs, factors that render parties and political systems vulnerable to degeneration. This book was published as a special issue of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics.

Presents a brilliant, persuasive case that American political parties, so often dismissed as immature or ineffective compared with their European counterparts, are in fact old and durable political organizations, seriving well the needs of a pluralistic society. What chiefly distinguishes this work is the inclusion of considerable material on American partics in a comparative context to the analysis of British, Scandinavian, European, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand political parties.

This book explores the Democratic and Republican Party platforms from 1840 to 2016. As the only official, institutionally sanctioned document espousing the parties' views on the state of the nation, the platforms present to the party faithful a diagnosis of what ails the country and the promise of possessing the necessary cure. In doing so, they offer more than a listing of specific issues in need of redress through legislative action, and moreover serve as a form of national storytelling through which political parties forge their vision of America and of what it means to be an American. Using topic modeling as an entry point into the documents, the author moves to consider more closely two related themes: those of how the platforms narrate the "American" self and individual freedom. With consideration of the extent to which the parties envision the self as an isolated economic actor or as an individual with a range of duties and obligations to a broader community, the spheres of action that they consider focal points for individual autonomy, and the extent to which they view liberty as freedom from restraint or freedom to act, this book sheds light on the historical trajectory of the growing fracture in American politics as well as the points of convergence across the two parties. Moreover, positing that behind their divisive rhetoric, both share a fundamental vision of what it means to be a "person," the author argues that perhaps their seemingly intractable differences are more a matter of degree than kind.