This key volume explores how party and campaign finance in post-communist countries have influenced the development of the party system. Based on an analysis of nine case studies, the work examines how the implementation of public finance affects the pattern of party competition and the role of money in elections. One of the lessons from the post-communist experience is that, no matter how well-designed, public finance systems are subject to constant revision as parties, politicians and business elites exploit loopholes which can undermine the integrity of the entire system. Party and campaign finance systems must therefore be considered in a larger discussion involving party regulation and electoral rules.

The period between 1918 and 1945 witnessed dynamic social and economic developments in Britain as the notion of a government controlled economy and welfare state took root. In order to be understood, this shift in the political landscape needs to be seen in context of the growth of mass political movements and the implementation of fuller democratic processes in the aftermath of the Great War. But whilst much has been written on the rise of the Labour Party, the decline of the Liberals and the domination of the Conservatives in the sphere of high politics, much less research has been done on the local or regional experience of Britain's main political parties between the wars. This volume brings together ten essays that together provide an introduction to the role, influence and effectiveness of Labour Party activists across Britain. Taking a systematic and comparative approach that examines a range of representative areas, this volume is more than simply a collection of local studies. Instead it utilises the local to develop and illuminate the wider dynamics at work inside the Labour Party. By emphasising the role of the party membership, Britain's social and political evolution can be reconstructed from grass-roots level, taking into account the priorities and expectations of the people who sustained and cultivated the nation's social-political base. By addressing reoccurring issues of interest to labour historians, such as gender, nationalism, the co-operative movement and trade unionism, through the locus of regionalism and local party activity, this volume will not only provide scholars with a better understanding of the Labour Party, but should stimulate similar much needed research into other political parties and organisations.

The history of British political parties tells of change and continuity. But, how and why? This textbook continues to provide the best introduction currently available on the British political party system, explaining the history, structure, actors and policies of both the main political parties and the minor parties. Substantially revised and updated, this fourth edition contains new material on the: political party system in post-devolution Scotland and Wales media and political parties emergence of minor parties onto the British political landscape replacement of party ideology with political pragmatism. Stephen Ingle argues that in order to meet formidable national and international challenges the British party system is once more in need of fundamental change, to a less confrontational style of politics. The British Party System is the ideal book for students of British politics wanting a topical and accessible text on political parties in the UK.

Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies brings together insights from the worlds of party politics and public administration in order to analyze the role of political parties in public appointments across contemporary Europe. Based on an extensive new data gathered through expert interviews in fifteen European countries, this book offers the first systematic comparative assessment of the scale of party patronage and its role in sustaining modern party governments. Among the key findings are: First, patronage appointments tend to be increasingly dominated by the party in public office rather than being used or controlled by the party organization outside parliament. Second, rather than using appointments as rewards, as used to be the case in more clientelistic systems in the past, parties are now more likely to emphasize appointments that can help them to manage the infrastructure of government and the state. In this way patronage becomes an organizational rather than an electoral resource. Third, patronage appointments are increasingly sourced from channels outside of the party, thus helping to make parties look increasingly like network organizations, primarily constituted by their leaders and their personal and political hinterlands. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers 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.essex.ac.uk/ecpr The Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University, Marburg.

Party literature has to a large extent been focused on the explanation of the rise and success of new parties and their effects on the party systems and on the older parties. This book explores the dramatic status change of new parties, not as marginal outsider parties but as governing or potentially governing parties in their party systems.

This book analyses and compares parties that have previously been in the opposition and that make the move towards government for the first time. Some of these parties can be old parties that have been locked into the opposition for a long time, some might be new parties that move from their challenging position towards a cooperative position and some might simply be new parties in new party systems. The authors seek to answer how and why their role has changed? And what are the consequences of this change? What explains the evolution from principled opposition to loyal opposition and eventually to participation in the executive? Which characteristics of the parties can be held responsible? Which characteristics of the parties' context (electoral system, structure of the state) should be brought into the picture? And what have been the effects of the status change on the party organization, on the party ideology, on its electoral results?

This book will be of interest to scholars and students interested in new parties (including Greens, radical right, and regional parties), party organization, institutionalization and change, political parties and party systems more generally and comparative politics.

Based on extensive original research and interviews with a wide variety of key players, this is a compelling assessment of the Labour Party in power.

Beginning with a detailed account of the development of New Labour, including the ideological tensions within the party, Eric Shaw provides a sophisticated analysis of the Labour Government during an unprecedented period of power.

Offering the most detailed examination yet published of the actual performance of the party in several key social and economic policy areas, Losing Labour 's Soul? will be of enormous interest to students of British politics, labour history and party politics.

The decade commencing with the great crash of 2008 was a watershed period for Italian politics, involving fundamental and dramatic changes, many of which had not been anticipated and which are charted in this book. This comprehensive volume covers the impact of the Eurozone crisis on the Italian economy and its relationship with the European Union, the dramatic changes in the political parties (and particularly the rise of a new political force, the Five Star Movement, which became the largest political party in 2013), the changing role of the Trade Unions in the lives of Italian citizens, the Italian migration crisis, electoral reforms and their impact on the Italian party system (where trends towards bipolarisation appear to be exhausted), the rise of new forms of social protest, changes to political culture and social capital and, finally, amidst the crisis, reforms to the welfare state. Overall, the authors reveal a country, which many had assumed was in quiet transition towards a more stable democracy, that suffers an immense shock from the Eurozone crisis and bringing to the fore deep-rooted structural problems which have changed the dynamics of its politics, as confirmed in the outcome to the 2018 National Elections. This book was originally published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

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.

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.

Democratic theory considers it fundamental for parties in government to be both responsive to their electorate and responsible to internal and international constraints. But recently these two roles have become more and more incompatible with Mair's growing divide in European party systems between parties which claim to represent, but don't deliver, and those which deliver, but are no longer seen to represent truer than ever. This book contains a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the behaviour of the opposition parties in eleven European democracies across Western and East Central Europe. Specifically, it investigates the parliamentary behaviour of the opposition parties, and shows that the party context is increasingly diverse. It demonstrates the emergence of two distinct types of opposition: one more cooperative, carried out by the mainstream parties (those with government aspirations), and one more adversarial focusing on government scrutiny rather than on policy alternatives (parties permanently excluded from power). It systematically and analytically explores the sources of their behaviour, whilst acknowledging that opposition is broader than its mere parliamentary behaviour. Finally, it considers the European agenda and the economic crisis as two possible intervening variables that might have an impact on the opposition parties' behaviour and the government-opposition relations. As such, it responds to questions that are major concerns for the European democracies of the new millennium. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of political parties, European politics, comparative politics and democracy.

Reflecting current understanding of the complexities of sexual activity among persons with chronic mental illness, the text draws upon the collective wisdom and experience of experts from a variety of settings. Clinicians, advocates, consumers, researchers, legal experts, and administrators all contribute to document the concerns about sexual behavior and the consequent health risks for this at-risk population. The research presented here is particularly timely in view of recent emphases on patient choice, recovery, and advocacy, and can be used to provide guidance to clinicians, mental health administrators, policymakers, advocates, and researchers.

Published in 1998. Was the Italian Communist Party (PCI) a typical Social Democratic party in tune with the programmatic principles of the Second International? What is the appropriate context within which the strategies of 'historic compromise' and Eurocommunism in the 1970s can be analyzed and understood? In what form and to what extent has the process of European integration and the crisis of Keynesianism contributed to the transformation of the party in 1989-91? What caused the collapse of the ruling political class of the First Italian Republic? Why did the transformed PCI, the PDS (Democratic Party of the Left), fail to lead the transition to the Second Italian Republic between 1992 and 1996? Is there any link between the party's historical factions and the current divisions in the Italian Left? Is it possible to theorize and speculate upon these divisions? Italy, Europe, the Left seeks to answer these questions, debating conventional views and examining the extent to which the end of the Cold War has contributed to a redefinition of the Left's identity in Italy and Europe. The exemplary methodological framework and the wider European perspective adopted throughout, make the book an indispensable reading in the field of Italian and European politics.

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.

This book examines how democratic communities resolve dilemmas posed by anti-system parties or, more specifically, the question of why democracies take the grave decision to ban political parties. On the one hand, party bans may 'protect' democracies, usually from groups deemed to undermine the democratic system or its core values, territorial integrity or state security. At the same time, banning parties challenges foundational democratic commitments to political pluralism, tolerance and rights to free speech and association. The book probes the deliberative processes, discursive strategies and power politics employed when democratic communities negotiate this dilemma. It examines discourses of securitization and desecuritization, preferences of veto-players, anti-system party orientations to violence, electoral systems and the cordon sanitaire as alternatives to party bans, and incentives for mainstream parties to cooperate, rather than ban, parties to achieve office and policy goals. It does so with reference to case studies of party bans, legalizations and failed ban cases in Spain (Herri Batasuna and successors), the United Kingdom (Sinn Fein and Republican Clubs) and Germany (Socialist Reich Party and National Democratic Party of Germany).

Across Western Europe, the global financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath not only brought economic havoc but also, in turn, intense political upheaval. Many of the political manifestations of the crisis seen in other Western and especially Southern European countries also hit Spain, where challenger parties caused unprecedented parliamentary fragmentation, resulting in four general elections in under four years from 2015 onwards. Yet Spain, a decentralised state where extensive powers are devolved to 17 regions known as 'autonomous communities', also stood out from its neighbours due to the importance of the territorial dimension of politics in shaping the political expression of the crisis. This book explains how and why the territorial dimension of politics contributed to shaping party system continuity and change in Spain in the aftermath of the financial crisis, with a particular focus on party behaviour. The territorial dimension encompasses the demands for ever greater autonomy or even sovereignty coming from certain parties within the historic regions of the Basque Country, Catalonia and, to a lesser extent, Galicia. It also encompasses where these historic regions sit within the broader dynamics of intergovernmental relations across Spain's 17 autonomous communities in total, and how these dynamics contribute to shaping party strategies and behaviour in Spain. Such features became particularly salient in the aftermath of the financial crisis since this coincided with, and indeed accelerated, the rise of the independence movement in Catalonia.

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.

Extremist movements aren't new, but the tragic events in Oklahoma City, New York City, and elsewhere have awakened Americans to this frightening reality within our borders. What sorts of fringe groups exist? Who joins up and why? What do they want and what are they willing to do to accomplish their goals? How serious is the danger? In response to these questions, noted experts John George and Laird Wilcox have teamed up to examine the frayed edges of human behavior.
Beginning with a summary of pre-1960 movements, they then discuss conspiracy theories and what motivates extremists. Their thoroughly documented and detailed tour of contemporary groups on the "far left" and the "far right" includes recent militia groups making headlines. Included as well is an in-depth appendix on the use of fake quotes and fabricated documentsa staple of many extremist organizations.

Party systems are crucial elements for the functioning of political systems and representative democracies. With several European countries experiencing significant changes recently, it is necessary to update our knowledge. This volume analyses party system changes in Europe in the 21st century by considering several dimensions such as interparty competition, the cleavage structure, electoral volatility and the emergence of new actors. The book describes the principal continuities and changes in party systems in Europe; analyzes the main explanations for these trends; and assesses the impact of the crisis on the patterns observed. By considering a wide range of Western and Eastern European countries, and focusing on the 'parameters' of party system change, this book seeks to fill an important gap in the literature through a comparative analysis of the evolution of party systems in Europe over the last decades. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political parties, party systems and politics, electoral behavior as well as more broadly to European politics, comparative politics. political representation and the quality of democracies.

From Austria to New Zealand, coalition governments often pave the road to foreign policy. In Western Europe, nearly 90 percent of postwar governments include two or more political parties. Israel, the Middle East's only consolidated democracy according to many, has never experienced single-party rule in its history. Even the United Kingdom, known for its long streak of single-party rule, now navigates multiparty cabinets. Coalitions are everywhere, but we still have little understanding of how they act in foreign affairs. History shows that coalitions can sometime engage in powerful international commitments such as participating in military operations, but at other times, they postpone their decisions, water down their policy positions, or promise to do less than they otherwise would. What explains these differences in behavior?Governing Abroad unpacks the little-known world of coalition governments to find out. Oktay argues that the specific constellation of parties in government explains why some coalitions can make more assertive foreign policy decisions than others. Building on the rich literatures in political science on coalitions, legislatures, and voting behavior, the book weaves together sophisticated statistical analyses of foreign policy events across thirty European countries alongside in-depth case studies from Denmark, the Netherlands, and Finland. It brings political parties back into the study of foreign policy, demonstrating that the size of the coalition, the ideological proximity of the governing parties, and their relationship with the parliamentary opposition together influence the government's ability to act in the international arena. This book challenges our existing perceptions about the constraints and weaknesses of coalition governments. It sheds new light on the conditions that allow them to act decisively abroad.

The authors of this book have joined together for a third time to produce a book on Japanese political parties and elections. The first two books under the title of The Japanese Party System were also published by Westview Press in 1986 and 1992. This book, Japan's New Party System, has a different purpose than the previous volumes. The first two books had as their task the presentation of a vast amount of material on the various parties of the 1955-1993 party system. Since 1955, Japanese politics and parties had been rather uneventful and predictable; consequently, many Japanese political scientists preferred to study other nations. Decade after decade, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ruled Japan while the permanent opposition party, the Japan Socialist Party GSP) revolved around it but could never even come close to replacing it in power on the national level. All of this changed in 1993 after the LOP split, new parties emerged and formed a non-LOP government, and a new party system began. This book is about the Second Party System and how Japanese politics has changed from the old LOP-dominated First Party System.

Selecting candidates for elections is a major goal of political parties and a major function of political regimes in democratic systems. With the negative effects of the economic crisis being seen to translate into changes in voting patterns, and citizens using elections to punish parties in government for their roles in economic mismanagement or lack of response to the global economic crisis, a broad examination is required. This book is presented as the first comparative study of the effects of the political crisis on candidate selection covering a large number of countries. Using an integrated framework and unified strategy, it examines how new relevant political actors are really implementing participative ways of candidate selection, whether they are being innovative in their political environments and the extent to which traditionally mainstream parties are changing selection procedures to have more open and inclusive mechanisms as part of internal, or intra-party, democracy. The book illuminates these issues through empirically driven chapters explaining changes in the way candidates for parliaments are selected in countries where new parties have emerged and consolidated, or where traditional mainstream parties have adopted new mechanisms of selection affecting (if not challenging) traditional politics. Additionally, therefore, this work will serve as a response to some current debates in the discipline on the consequences of the democratization of party life, relating political participation and representation. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of political parties, organizational change, social and political elites and more broadly to comparative politics and sociology.

The Web plays an increasingly important role in the communication strategies of political parties and movements, which increasingly utilize it for promoting ideas and ideologies as well as mobilization and campaigning strategies. This book explores the role of the Web for right-wing populist political parties and movements across Europe. Analyzing these groups' discourses and practices of online communication, it shows how social media is used to spread ideas and mobilize supporters whilst also excluding constructed 'others' such as migrants, Muslims, women or LGBT persons. Expert contributors provide evidence of a shift in the strategies of mainstream parties as they also engage in 'Internet populism' and suggest ways that progressive movements can and do respond to counter these developments. Topics are explored using a cross-country analysis which does not neglect the particularities of the national contexts. This work will appeal to researchers and students working in the fields of media and communication studies, political theory, policy analysis, studies of populism, racism and nationalism, gender, LGBT, migration, Islam and welfare.

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.

The period between the two World Wars saw the emergence of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes in most European countries, and the development of powerful communist and fascist movements in most others. This book examines the reasons why such movements did not flourish in Britain.