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 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.

Why Liberals and Conservatives Clash offers an explanation for the extreme polarization between liberal and conservative that is the hallmark of the American political landscape today. It suggests that liberal thought is intrinsically different from conservative thought, and that each constitutes a self-subsistent world-view with its specific qualities and rules. The book offers a set of guidelines to predict a person's views based on other views s/he holds, given that each world-view is what it is for structural reasons, and is more than merely a sum of discrete positions. It explains, for example, why people who support gay marriage also typically support the woman's right to an early-term abortion, and why people who demand that citizens "support the military" understand this as meaning, support putting members of the military in harm's way. Because liberal thought and conservative thought each constitutes a closed world-view, neither side will ever convince the other in an argument. The most we can hope for is an acknowledgment by each side of the usefulness of the other, a goal Fleming proposes as the most reasonable one for our times.
Why Liberals and Conservatives Clash makes logical the most striking, and hitherto puzzling feature of the contemporary American political landscape: its acrimony, its air of being an argument between the deaf: neither side understands the other. Fleming suggests this is so because neither side accepts the bases underlying the other's particular positions. We can, however, understand that they are different, and that trying to force the other side into submission won't work. We need to go beyond liberals dismissing conservatives with horror andconservatives dismissing liberals with disgust. Conservatives aren't merely imperfect liberals, they're something else entirely. Liberals aren't merely potential conservatives, they actually think differently.

Why Liberals and Conservatives Clash offers an explanation for the extreme polarization between liberal and conservative that is the hallmark of the American political landscape today. It suggests that liberal thought is intrinsically different from conservative thought, and that each constitutes a self-subsistent world-view with its specific qualities and rules. The book offers a set of guidelines to predict a person's views based on other views s/he holds, given that each world-view is what it is for structural reasons, and is more than merely a sum of discrete positions. It explains, for example, why people who support gay marriage also typically support the woman's right to an early-term abortion, and why people who demand that citizens "support the military" understand this as meaning, support putting members of the military in harm's way. Because liberal thought and conservative thought each constitutes a closed world-view, neither side will ever convince the other in an argument. The most we can hope for is an acknowledgment by each side of the usefulness of the other, a goal Fleming proposes as the most reasonable one for our times.
Why Liberals and Conservatives Clash makes logical the most striking, and hitherto puzzling feature of the contemporary American political landscape: its acrimony, its air of being an argument between the deaf: neither side understands the other. Fleming suggests this is so because neither side accepts the bases underlying the other's particular positions. We can, however, understand that they are different, and that trying to force the other side into submission won't work. We need to go beyond liberals dismissing conservatives with horror andconservatives dismissing liberals with disgust. Conservatives aren't merely imperfect liberals, they're something else entirely. Liberals aren't merely potential conservatives, they actually think differently.

This new collection examines the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India and the ways in which its Hindu nationalist agenda has been affected by the constraints of being a dominant member of a coalition government. Religious influence in contemporary politics offers a fertile ground for political-sociological analysis, especially in societies where religion is a very important source of collective identity. In South Asian societies religion can, and often has, provided legitimacy to both governments and those who oppose them. This book examines the emergence of the BJP and the ways in which its Hindu nationalist agenda has been affected by the constraints of being a dominant member of a coalition government. The collected authors take stock of the party's first full term in power, presiding over the diverse forces of the governing NDA coalition, and the 2004 elections. They assess the BJP's performance in relation to its stated goals, and more specifically how it has fared in a range of policy fields - centre-state relations, foreign policy, defence policies, the 'second generation' of economic reforms, initiatives to curb corruption and the fate of minorities. Explicitly linking the volume to literature on coalition politics, this book will be of great importance to students and researchers in the fields of South Asian studies and politics.

This book studies the rollercoaster first year in office of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), which for many Europeans constituted the hope for a different Europe, beyond austerity and national egocentrism. Through a collection of sharp and short articles and interviews that critically chronicle the rapid rise of SYRIZA, the author argues that SYRIZA is not so much a new European phenomenon, but rather a rejuvenated form of an old Greek phenomenon, left populism, which overpromises and seldom delivers. By putting the phenomenon of SYRIZA within a broader Greek and European context, in which political extremism and populism are increasingly threatening liberal democracy, Mudde argues that Greece is neither a new Weimar Germany nor the future of Europe. As SYRIZA has failed to bring the change it promised, the only remaining question now is whether it can establish itself in the Greek party system. This book will be of use to students and scholars interested in Greek politics, comparative politics, populism, and extremism.

The African National Congress was founded over a hundred years ago, in January 1912. But the roots of the ANC run even deeper in South African history. In fact, the ANC’s founding was the culmination of more than sixty years of organisation by a new class of African modernisers. These were men and women educated in local mission schools and in universities abroad, who sought a place for themselves in the new South Africa emerging at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.

Much of their history is unknown but their story has been painstakingly recovered by André Odendaal, who has pieced together the astonishing achievements of this new class and the broad vision they proposed for a new society. Today, only a few of the founders of the ANC are still well known – John Dube and Sol Plaatje among them. But they were only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, for, across the length and breadth of the country, educated Africans were emerging in numbers and claiming their rightful place in the new South Africa. This is the epic story of that development. Many of the individuals and families who were prominent at that time are the forebears of leading African politicians and political families today. This is their story too.

When the Union of South Africa was finally formed in 1910, Africans found themselves largely excluded from the new society. In protest, Africans from throughout the country came together in Bloemfontein in 1912 and formed their own organisation to represent their interests and advance their claims. It would take another eighty years before they achieved their aims. When he cast his vote in 1994, Nelson Mandela is reported as saying at the nearby memorial to John Dube, first ANC president: “Mission accomplished, Mr President.

Published in 1997, This book offers an up-to-date guide to the Green parties of Western Europe as the optimism of the 1980s confronts the 'Green fatigue' of the 1990s. The approach is both thematic and comparative. Green politics in Europe is located in its historical and cultural context. There is a comparative analysis of the principal ideological questions , policy issues and strategic dilemmas that have confronted the European Greens. There are national profiles of Green politics throughout the European Union. The conclusion addresses the critical issue of political change in post industrial societies. It discusses the contribution of Green parties to the 'New Politics' and assesses their likely impact on post-modern politics

Contrary to the expectations of many people, China's recent economic growth has not led to the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party. In fact, the Party has recently carried out a peaceful and orderly transition to the so-called fourth generation of leadership, has revitalised itself, and created a new, younger and better trained cadre corps. Despite this successful transformation, there continue to be many problems that the Party will need to overcome if it is to remain in power, including pressures for democratization in both urban and rural areas, widespread corruption, the emergence of new social groups, and increasing dissatisfaction among workers who seem to be losing out in the present transition process. The Chinese Communist Party in Reform explores the current state of the Chinese Communist Party and the many challenges that it faces. It considers the dynamics of development in China, the Party organization, recruitment and management, and the Party's role in society more widely. It concludes by examining the prospects for the future of the Party, including whether it will continue to be able to accommodate socio-economic changes within China and pressures from abroad, and the likely nature of its evolution. Overall, this book provides a comprehensive assessment of the internal dynamics of the Chinese Communist Party and its role in Chinese society.

Marxism in Britain has declined, almost to the point of oblivion, since the Second World War. The Communist Party of Great Britain had more than 50,000 members in the early 1940s, but less than 5,000 when it disbanded in 1991. Dissenting and Trotskyist organizations experienced a very similar decline, although there has been a late flowering of Marxism in Scotland.
Based on the Communist Party archives at Manchester, "Marxism in Britain" examines the decline over the last sixty years. The book deals with the impact of the Cold War upon British Marxism, looking at how international events such as the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia affected the Communist Party of Great Britain. The issues of Marxism and Britain's withdrawal from the Empire are also addressed, as are the Marxist influence upon British industrial relations and its involvement in the feminist movement. Keith Laybourn focuses very much on the current debate in British Marxist history which divides historiansover the influence of Moscow and Stalinism on the Communist Party, and he explores the ways in which this undermined Marxism in Britain.

Presenting a detailed explanation of party politics in the European Union, this new book uses the Party of European Socialists (PES) as a key case study, and tests the relevance of existing theoretical work on the meaning, significance, and prospects for realising other 'Europarties'. This analysis operates from the assumption that the PES's main goal is to influence the outcome of EU public policy, rather than the more traditional party goals of vote maximisation or office seeking. Secondly, by subjecting the PES to careful scrutiny in two specific policy areas (employment and environment) and for specific treaties (in particular the Treaty of Amsterdam), it tests the PES's ability to construct policy to influence actual policy outcomes. Finally, it shows that whilst the PES was able to play a role in co-ordinating policy amongst the member parties since its formation in 1992, its influence has been exaggerated and the strength of the factors that limit its effectiveness have been underestimated. It argues that domestic policy imperatives and ideological differences between the member parties have hindered the development of the PES, thereby advancing our knowledge of Europarties and contributing to the literature on the Europeanization of political parties. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the European Union and party politics in general.

Authority and Participation in a New Democracy focuses on the changes undergone by Mapai, Israel's first ruling party, during Israel's first years of independence, then analyzes the effects of these changes in relation to Israeli political culture. Bareli's main claim is that it was only during this period that a hierarchically-organized group of leaders succeeded in imposing its dominance, fostering obedience within the party and creating oligarchic characteristics in Israel's democracy. The influence of the kibbutz movement, the moshavim movement and of urban intelligentsia-- who represented the opposite political view of participatory democracy--was reduced to a minimum. This process would have a profound impact on issues of equality, on the relations between veteran Israelis and immigrants from both European and Islamic countries, and on social and civic norms.