Hamas won an overwhelming electoral victory in January 2006, overturning many assumptions regionally and globally. Branded as terrorist by Israel and the West, it is the largest Palestinian militant Islamist organization, formed fifteen years ago at the beginning of the first intifada. Its short-term objective is to drive Israeli forces from the West Bank and Gaza, an aim it hopes to realize through attacks on Israeli troops and settlers in the Occupied Territories and - more controversially - civilians. It also has the long-term aim of establishing an Islamic state on all of historic Palestine. In the post-Oslo world, Hamas gained power and influence as Israel steadily destroyed the power structure of the avowedly secular Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority. A grass-roots organization that commands wide respect among Palestinians for its incorruptibility, Hamas is divided into two main sections, one responsible for establishing schools, hospitals and religious institutions, the other for military action and terror attacks carried out by its armed underground wing the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades. This book charts the origins of Hamas among the Muslim Brotherhood, details the influence of its exiled leadership in Syria and elsewhere, and sets out its internal structure and political objectives. This new edition includes an additional chapter covering events since the book's original publication in November 2006.

Party Structure and Organization in East-Central Europe focuses on the origin and development of new political parties within different countries in East-Central Europe. The book has a clear focus on party structure and organization. It is one of the first books to present empirical studies of the development of political parties in Eastern Europe. Whilst making a distinctive contribution, it also feeds into the broader debate about party development and links with other issues of political theory. The book fills a major gap in our understanding of developments within political parties and their structural evolution. It raises questions about the status and role of a modern political party - not least in East-Central Europe - and the links that can be drawn between developments within the parties and their changing position within the political system as a whole. All those with an interest in comparative party development and the processes of post-communist change in Eastern Europe will welcome this well focused empirical study.

The Conservatives have been the most successful party in British politics since the arrival of a mass electorate following the Reform Acts of 1885 and 1918. Although identified with the elite, the Conservatives have consistently been able to mobilize a mass popular support. This has involved more than just a narrow defence of privilege and property, or negative anti-socialism. The essays in this volume explore the relationship between the Conservative Party and the mass of the British people from the 1880s to the Thatcher and Major era. Several focus on the party's sources of support and the ways in which it has sought to broaden these through shifts in policies, presentation and organization.

2021 marks the 40th anniversary of the Limehouse Declaration and the launch of the Social Democratic Party in the UK, which was later to merge and form the Liberal Democrats. To mark this important milestone, this book brings together prominent politicians from across the spectrum of social democracy to reflect on its history and the challenges it faces in the coming decades. With an introduction by Sir Vince Cable describing the current state of social democracy across the world, leading figures including Sarah Olney, Roger Liddle and Chris Huhne explore a wide range of contentious policy areas such as the economy, housing and globalisation. Together, they set out a vision for the country and for the Liberal Democrats that has social justice at its core.

In 2012 Narendra Modi became the first Hindu nationalist politician thrice elected to lead a state of the Indian Union, his stewardship as Chief Minister of Gujarat being the longest in that state’s history. Modi and his BJP supporters explained his achievement by pointing to economic growth under his leadership, yet detractors point out that Modi has been more business-friendly than market-friendly—to the benefit of large industrial corporations, and at the cost of great social polarisation. In 2002, an anti-Muslim pogrom of unparalleled ferocity occurred in Gujarat, leading to the biggest number of Muslim deaths since Partition. The state’s Hindu majority immediately rallied around Modi. No serious riot has occurred in Gujarat since, but polarisation was key to Modi’s strategy there, and he has deployed that strategy again and again since he became Prime Minister of India in 2014. For Modi has cultivated a communal image. A marketing genius, his messaging combines the politics of Hindutva with economic modernisation, to the clear appreciation of Gujarat’s middle class. Christophe Jaffrelot’s revealing book shows how Modi’s Gujarat served as the laboratory of Modi’s India, not only in terms of Hindu majoritarianism and national populism, but also of caste and class politics.

Barack Obama is quickly becoming America's most popular politician, and his run for the presidency has brought huge crowds at home and an unprecedented wave of international attention as well. Much more than a biography, this book is a political tour of Obama's legislative experience as well as his ideas about race, religion, and politics. Political writer John K. Wilson, author of four previous books including a study of Newt Gingrich, explores the reaction Obama has received from the left, the right, and the media. As the first presidential candidate from Generation X, Obama has generated an exciting movement of young people to support his campaign as he defines a new kind of broadly popular progressive politics. As improbable as such a quest may be this fresh new candidate may be just the right one to bridge not only generations but ideologies that often divide. Amid all the hype surrounding Obama, this book provides the first in-depth look at what he believes, what he represents, and how he might transform American politics.

This volume of essays constitutes the first history of Labour and left-wing politics in the decade when Margaret Thatcher reshaped modern Britain. Leading scholars explore aspects of left-wing culture, activities and ideas at a time when social democracy was in crisis. There are articles about political leadership, economic alternatives, gay rights, the miners' strike, the Militant Tendency and the politics of race. The book also situates the crisis of the left in international terms as the socialist world began to collapse. Tony Blair's New Labour disavowed the 1980s left, associating it with failure, but this volume argues for a more complex approach. Many of the causes it championed are now mainstream, suggesting that the time has come to reassess 1980s progressive politics, despite its undeniable electoral failures. With this in mind, the contributors offer ground-breaking research and penetrating arguments about the strange death of Labour Britain. -- .

This volume brings together some of the foremost scholars of European party politics to discuss the challenges currently faced by western European political parties. Each contributor provides a concise, critical review of the theoretical and methodological 'state of the art' in respect of a specific aspect, and also reviews the latest empirical findings in that area.

Political parties provide continuity at the elite level and among the mass electorate in times when "populist" forces threaten the stability of many western democracies. The parties, however, have experienced turbulent times with declining memberships among the established parties, volatile electorates and the emergence of new parties. This edited collection aims to make an analytical contribution to what "party democracy" means, how to study it and add to our knowledge of who the party members are, what they do and how influential they are in policy-making processes. Clearly, elections provide linkage at regular intervals. Does party membership, even after membership decline, provide a supplementary, representative linkage that supports democracy and stability in "post-cleavage" societies? Nordic party systems have kept central elements of their old "five party systems", with (mostly) large social democratic parties and a variable geometry of the conservative, liberal, agrarian and left socialist forces. They have experienced the electoral rise of new parties and - in particular - the increasing strength of vote-catching, anti-establishment parties; in most countries nurtured by anti-immigration sentiments. In contrast to much recent scholarship, this book investigates the stable element in Nordic mass politics, namely the parties as membership organisations: How many members? Why do they join parties? How much do they participate? Do they experience political influence? The overall question is to what extent the party organizations, which have been heavily "statified" by public subsidies, keep up linkage to civil society through their membership.

Tony Blair was the political colossus in Britain for thirteen years, winning three elections in a row for New Labour, two of them by huge majorities. However, since leaving office he has been disowned by many in his own party, with the term 'Blairite' becoming an insult. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader in 2015 seemed to be, if not an equal, at least an opposite reaction to Blair's long dominance of the centre and left of British politics. Drawing on new contributions from most of the main players in the Blair government, including Tony Blair himself, Jon Davis and John Rentoul reconsider the history and common view of New Labour against its record of delivering moderate social democracy. They show how New Labour was not one party but two, and how it essentially governed as a coalition, much like the government that followed it. This book tells the inside story of how Tony Blair worked out, late in the day, his ideas for improving the NHS and school reform; how he groped towards, and was eventually defined by, a foreign policy of liberal interventionism; how he managed a difficult relationship with his Chancellor for ten years; and how Gordon Brown finally took over just as the boom went bust and the New Labour era came to an end. Rentoul and Davis reveal how the governing tribes dealt with each other in the New Labour years: not simply the 'Blairites' and the 'Brownites', but the 'temporary' ministers and the 'permanent', under-reported civil servants who worked alongside them. Many of the arguments that raged within and around the Blair government of 1997-2007 remain very much alive: reform of public services; the right course for the divided Labour Party; and the Iraq war. The Blair Government Reconsidered aims at a balanced account of how decisions were made, to allow the reader to make up their own mind about controversies that still dominate politics today.

South Africa’s democracy is in trouble. The present situation is, in objective terms, a house divided; a house that is tottering on rotten foundations. Despite the more general advances that have been made under the ANC’s rule since 1994, power has not only remained in the hands of a small minority but has increasingly been exercised in service to capital. The ANC has become the key political vehicle – in party and state form as well as application – of corporate capital: domestic and international, black and white, local and national, and constitutive of a range of different fractions. As a result, ‘transformation’ has largely taken the form of acceptance of, combined with incorporation into, the capitalist ‘house’, now minus its formal apartheid frame.

What has happened in South Africa over the last 22 years is the corporatisation of liberation, the political and economic commodification of the ANC and societal development. Those in positions of leadership and power within the ANC have allowed themselves to be lured by the siren calls of power and money, to be sucked in by the prize of ‘capturing’ institutional sites of power, to be seduced by the egoism and lifestyles of the capitalist elite.

This book tells that ‘story’ by offering a critical, fact-based and actively informed holistic analysis of the ANC in power, as a means to: better explain and understand the ANC and its politics as well as South Africa’s post-1994 trajectory; contribute to renewed discussion and debate about power and democracy; and help identify possible sign-posts to reclaim revolutionary, universalist and humanist values as part of the individual and collective struggle for the systemic change South Africa’s democracy needs.

This book examines why people vote in the newly consolidated democracies of Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and Central and Eastern European countries. It addresses the question of how well models or theories of electoral participation, initially developed in established democracies, "travel" to new democracies. Based on recent cross- national survey data, it provides the first systematic and comparative evaluation of this topic. Drawing on political science, sociology, and psychology approaches, it reveals what is distinctive about voting in new democracies and how they compare between themselves and with more established democracies. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political participation, public opinion, voting behaviour, electoral politics, and political parties as well as to international organisations and NGOs working in the field of democracy promotion and in emerging democracies.

The Syrian Social Nationalist Party devoted itself to reviving and unifying the Syrian nation and establishing this nation's complete independence over its historical homeland, Greater Syria. It continues its struggle today, influencing and shaping Lebanese and Syrian society and politics. Yet, the party remains largely unknown and misunderstood, a condition that stems from the lack of any comprehensive study of it. This book fills this gap. Syrian nationalism and nationalist movements, generally speaking, have been largely neglected and ignored by historians, scholars, and observers of the Middle East. So, too, has the SSNP. The lack of detailed and nuanced analyses has left significant gaps in the party's rich history unaddressed and enabled the perpetuation of inaccuracies and misperceptions regarding its past. Given this and the party's ongoing relevance in Lebanon and Syria, a thorough examination of the early history of the SSNP, the political organization and movement that embodied Syrian nationalism's most explicit, most cogent expression is even more necessary. Based on an extensive and thorough examination of Arabic, French, and English primary sources, the monograph is the first comprehensive, systematic history of the SSNP to date, detailing its struggle to fulfill its nationalist vision and establish a secular, independent state in Greater Syria through a thorough analysis of its formation, evolution, and political activities in Lebanon and Syria.

Elections ought in theory to go a long way toward making democracy 'work', but in many contexts, they fail to embody democratic ideals because they are affected by electoral manipulation and misconduct. This book undertakes an analytic and explanatory investigation of electoral malpractice, which is understood as taking three principal forms: manipulation of the rules governing elections, manipulation of vote preference formation and expression, and manipulation of the voting process.
Electoral Malpractice--which is comparative in nature--starts out by providing a conceptual definition and typology of electoral malpractice, before considering evidence for the causes of this phenomenon. The principal argument of the book is that factors affecting the costs of electoral malpractice are crucial in determining whether leaders will, in any given context, seek to rig elections. Among the most important factors of this sort are the linkages between elites and citizens, and in particular the balance between relations of the civil-society and clientelist types. These linkages play an important role in determining how much legitimacy leaders will lose by engaging in electoral manipulation as well as the likely consequences of legitimacy loss.
The study also shows how electoral malpractice might be reduced by means of a variety of strategies designed to raise the cost of electoral manipulation by increasing the ability of civil society and international actors to monitor and denounce it.
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.

This title describes the history of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa in the three decades following its banning. There are many myths surrounding the ANC: some of them are harmless, the product of enthusiastic supporters; others are malicious, disseminated by those in South Africa abroad who did their best to prevent the victory of the ANC and still cannot accept that victory as a reality. The belief is that the comprehensive history of the ANC should and will be written by South Africans. However, of non-South African historians, it is perhaps Soviet Russian scholars who are best placed to undertake such a study. This is because of the multifaceted relationship that developed between Moscow and the South African liberation movement. Inevitably, that relationship occupies a significant place in this title.

This volume considers the emergence and development of modern retailing from an historical and management perspective in the period 1750-1950. The history of retail business development is an under researched area and these studies address the need for further research and provide examples of current research activity. the book considers, the early emergence of retail forms in the late 18th century, the evolution of retail forms in the 19th century and the late adaptation of retail innovation in the early 20th century.
This work brings together the literature from retail management as well as history. In this, it bridges the gap between the two disciplines. this gap in the understanding of the historical dimension within retail management studies and the understanding of retail management issues in history has hindered the development of valuable research in this area.

Providing comprehensive insights into the parties and party systems of post-communist EU member states within the framework of each country's specific conditions and developments, this volume examines in particular the cases of Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. The book concentrates on three main themes: ideological cleavages between parties, party system competition, and party organization. Analytically competent and highly informative, it is suitable for courses on party systems and EU politics.

The general perception of modern Latin American political institutions emphasizes a continuing and random process of disorder and crisis, continually out of step with other regions in their progress toward democracy and prosperity. In "History of Political Parties in Twentieth-Century Latin America," Torcuato S. Di Tella demonstrates that this common view lacks context and comparative nuance, and is deeply misleading. Looking behind the scenes of modern Latin American history, he discerns its broad patterns through close analysis of actual events and comparative sociological perspectives that explain the apparent chaos of the past and point toward the more democratic polity now developing.

Di Tella argues that although Latin America has peculiarities of its own, they must be understood in their contrasts--and similarities--with both the developed centers and undeveloped peripheries of the world. Latin American societies have been prone to mass rebellions from very early on, more so than in other regions of the world. He analyzes, as well, such significant exceptions to this pattern as Chile, Colombia, and, to a large extent, Brazil. Turning to the other side of the social spectrum, he shows how the underpriviledged classes have tended to support strongman populist movements, which have the double character of being aggressive toward the established order, but at the same time repressive of public liberties and of more radical groups. Di Tella provides here a necessary examination of the concept of populism and divides it into several variants. Populism, he maintains, is by no means disappearing, but its variants are instead undergoing important changes with significant bearing on the region's near-term future.

"History of Political Parties in Twentieth-Century Latin America" is rich in historical description, but also in its broad review of social structures and of the strengths and weaknesses of political institutions. "Choice" commented that "this heavily documented volume with an extensive bibliography would prove valuable to researchers and advanced students of Latin America."

Through a unique dataset covering half a century of policy-making in Britain, this book traces how topics like the economy, international affairs, and crime have changed in their importance to government. The data concerns key venues of decision-making - the Queen's Speech, laws and budgets - which are compared to the media and public opinion. These trends are conveyed through accessible figures backed up by a series of examples of important policies. As a result, the book throws new light on the key points of change in British politics, such as Thatcherism and New Labour and explores different approaches to agenda setting helping to account for these changes: incrementalism, the issue attention cycle and the punctuated equilibrium model. What results is the development of a new approach to agenda setting labelled focused adaptation whereby policy-makers respond to structural shifts in the underlying pattern of attention.

New Labour is the most innovative and powerful political movement in Britain today. However, New Labour: A Critique argues that its apparent pragmatism disguises an ideological commitment to particular forms of social science, deploying new institutionalism and communitarianism to respond to the New Right.
Bevir traces the impact of these forms of social science on the ideas and policies of New Labour, paying particular attention to the welfare state and the economy. New Labour, the new institutionalism and communitarianism typically objectify aspects of the social world to sustain claims to expert knowledge. Bevir defends and enacts an alternative, interpretive approach to social science. This interpretive approach inspires a critique of New Labour as a contingent reworking of a particular socialist tradition rather than the necessary or pragmatic response that it portrays itself as.

This book traces the economic ideology of the UK Labour Party from its origins to the current day. Through its analysis, the book emphasises key crises, including the 1926 General Strike, the 1931 Great Depression, the 1979 Winter of Discontent and the 2007/2008 economic crisis. In analysing this history, the ideology of the Labour Party is examined through four core themes: * the party's definition of socialism; * the role of the state in economic decision making; * the party's understanding of inequalities; and * its relationship with the trade union movement. The result is a systematic exploration of the drivers and key ideas behind the Labour Party's economic ideology. In demonstrating how crises have affected the party's economic policy, the book presents a historical analysis of the party's evolution since its formation and offers insights into how future changes may occur.

The recent global expansion of Protestant Christianity, and the increase in multiparty democracies, has led to the multiplication of Protestant political parties. One cannot talk of Protestant parties today without mentioning countries as diverse as Norway, Latvia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Zambia and Nicaragua. Whilst the well-established parties of the Netherlands and Scandinavia have long been studied, Paul Freston's groundbreaking book is the first global survey of this phenomenon. After looking at the traditional Protestant heartlands of Europe and the English-speaking world, Freston traces the spread of the Protestant party model to post-communist countries, the Pacific, the Muslim world, southern Africa and Latin America. He examines the circumstances favouring such parties, and the political projects they represent. The conclusion analyses the diversity of Protestant parties due to different interpretations of Christian politics and varied contexts. This unique book will interest specialists and non-specialists, across disciplines and in many parts of the world.

In 2016 Labour burst into new life. The Westminster beltway of political insiders, pollsters, commentators and newspaper proprietors were left with egg all over their faces. Few took the trouble to ask how or why Labour, almost alone amongst parties on the left in Europe, had re-grouped, revived and successfully turned its back decisively on Tony Blair and Bill Clinton's 'third way'; how it had four times as many members as it had a few years before, and at last was appealing to the young. Labour England wasn't dead. It had been sleeping. For thirty years it had been kicked into near oblivion, first by Margaret Thatcher and then by Tony Blair. That strange, sentimental, almost mystical mix of the trade unions, adult education institutes, powerful Labour councils, the local comprehensive school and the local Co-op that sustained Labour governments for thirty years from the 1940s to the 1970s had been in full retreat. Now, against all the odds, it was back. Francis Beckett and Mark Seddon have been around Labour politics too long to be blind to the downsides of Corbynism. But they say that the Corbyn phenomenon has revived the spirit of Labour when it was on the brink of extinction and that Corbyn will be a Prime Minister in the best traditions of Labour England. And that those, in the Labour Party and elsewhere, who want only for an end to it, are on the wrong side of history. In this book they chart the forty-year decline of the Labour Party, and its extraordinary revival.

1970 to 1974 was a pivotal period in the history of the Labour Party. This book shows how the Labour Party responded to electoral defeat in 1970 and to what extent its political and policy activity in opposition was directed to the recovery of power at the following general election. At a point in Labour's history when social democracy had apparently failed, this book considers what the party came up with in its place. The story of the Labour Party in opposition, 1970-1974, is shown to be one of a major political party sustaining policy activity of limited relevance to its electoral requirements. Not only that, but Labour regained office in 1974 with policies on wages and industrial relations whose unworkability led to the failure of the Labour government 1974-1979, and the Labour Party's irrelevance to so many voters after 1979. Using primary sources, the author documents and explains how this happened, focusing on the party's response to defeat in 1970 and the behaviour of key individuals in the parliamentary leadership in response to pressure for a review of policy.