Transforming the transformation? The East European Radical Right in the Political Process examines the significance of radical right parties, along with other organizations, in terms of their involvement in the political process of new democracies. This groundbreaking study highlights firstly the radical right's interaction with other political actors, such as parties, governments and interest groups, in their respective countries. Secondly, the contributors analyze the effects of such interaction with regard to agenda setting and policies in "loaded" policy fields, namely minorities and immigration, law and order, religion, territorial issues and democratization. Through an examination of the role of radical right actors in political processes and an assessment of the resulting measurable outcomes, this book shows how policies, election results and regime changes indicate shifts away from the liberal-democratic order institutionalized in the course of post-Communist transformation. Offering a unique cross-national comparison of particular facets and themes, as well as in-depth analysis of country cases, this book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as scholars, of European politics and far right studies.

This book traces the positions of national partisan actors towards the development of the European polity in an in-depth comparative analysis covering all member states of the European Union over a period of 60 years. The author examines the approach of the social democratic, radical left, liberal, Christian democratic and radical right party families, eliciting a comprehensive analysis of partisan positions on European integration. Demonstrating that attitudes and programmatic changes towards European integration must be understood both as the product of long-term ideological traditions and domestic opposition or incumbency-seeking strategies, this book examines how far common ideological traditions lead to the emergence of convergent European policies. Based on an interdisciplinary approach that encompasses political science, history and area studies, this book provides background and analysis, and develops theory in an open and accessible style that expands the understanding of party behaviour. Using party programmes and quantitative data, the book reveals considerable cross-family variations regarding the extent to which parties' genetic origins shape partisan responses to Europe. The Impact of European Integration on Political Parties will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, European integration, comparative politics and political parties.

The history of the Conservative Party during the first half of the twentieth century was marked by crisis and controversy, from Joseph Chamberlain's tariff reform campaign through the Lloyd George coalition and the National Government between the wars to the defeat of 1945 and the post war recovery. This study provides a lucid account of this turbulent and formative period in the history of the most durable and adaptive force in modern British politics.

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.

Presidential transitions offer the chance for new ideas, policies, and people to inhabit the White House. Transitions have triggered policy change for decades and eager interest groups have sought ways to capitalize on this often chaotic phase of US politics. President-Elect Barack Obama declared that lobbyists would be forbidden from serving his transition and issued stiff regulations and rules to limit their access to the planning for his White House. Yet even though Obama's efforts mirror previous Presidents anti-lobbyist efforts, all Presidential transitions provide certain channels of influence, and Obama himself chose the head of a powerful and politically oriented think tank, the Center for American Progress, to run his transition. New Presidents need the information, ideas, and political capital that groups possess. Thus a curious paradox. Using an innovative mixed methodology integrating a historical analysis of original documents, original interviews with over 40 interest group leaders and transition leaders, a survey of 300 interest groups and content analysis of 300 interest group letters, Lobbying the New President uncovers the politics of interest group influence during Presidential transitions. In doing so, Heath Brown asks: Was the role played by Heritage in 1980 and CAP in 2008 indicative of a pattern of influence during the transition phase? Or have Presidents effectively shielded themselves from outside influence at the earliest point of their time in office? What can we learn about the larger study of interest groups and the Presidency from a focus on the transition phase? This book is a valuable resource that goes beyond the field of presidency studies which American politics scholars as well as public policy specialists should not go without.

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.

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.

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 1981, The Communist Parties of Italy, France, and Spain presents a comparative and integrative overview of the development of three Communist parties in the postwar Europe. Through the systematic presentation of the most important documents of the Communist parties, the book provides an access to the basic declarations and positions to illustrate the strategic and ideological evolution of these three parties in the advanced industrial democracies. Eurocommunism, the editors argue cannot be usefully understood as a phenomenon which suddenly appeared and equally as rapidly disappeared, in the 1970s. Rather it is a process of adaptation and change which characterizes the development of all three parties since World War II. The explicitly comparative organisation of the documents into five basic themes -general strategy, alliances, party organization, international policy, policy toward the communist movement, allows the reader both to follow any single party in a specific policy area or to compare the parties in response to major domestic or international events of significance. Rich in archival material, this book will be an invaluable resource to scholars and researchers of European Politics, comparative politics, comparative communism and modern European history. .

The Socialist Revolutionary party, which had been the largest and most popular party in Russia in 1917, did not after the October Revolution just disappear into the "dustbin of history," as Trotsky hoped, but led by its leadership in exile in the 1920s and 1930s continued to observe and comment on developments in Russia.

In emigration, the Socialist Revolutionary (SR) party often put forward policy proposals on a wide range of topics: policies which, based on a shrewd understanding of the real situation in Russia, offered realistic alternatives to the policies being pursued by the Marxist Bolshevik regime. This book fills a gap in examining one of the most significant Russian political parties, and is based on extensive original analysis of SR party materials, shows how it operated; how it formulated and disseminated its ideas; what these ideas were, and how the party's ideas developed in response to changing circumstances in Russia and Europe more widely. Far from being the agrarian Slavophile romantics as they are often portrayed, this book shows the SRs were energetic European modernisers who contributed vigorously to the leading debates of their day; it also shows how the SR vision of a populist, socialist regime failed to materialise as state control, dictatorship and the collectivisation of agriculture took hold."

Can twenty-first century global challenges be met through the limited adaptation of existing political institutions and prevailing systemic norms, or is a more fundamental reconstitution of governing authority unavoidable? Are the stresses evident in domestic social compacts capable of undermining the fundamental policy capacity of contemporary governments? This book, inspired by the work of the distinguished scholar Peter J. Katzenstein, examines these important and pressing questions. In a period of complex political transition, the authors combine original research and intensive dialogue to build on Katzenstein's innovative insights. They highlight his seminal work on variations in domestic structures, on the role of ideologies of social partnership, on the regionally differentiated foundations of political legitimation, on diverse conceptions of "civilization," and on the idea and practice of power in a tenuous American imperium. Together, the chapters map the complex terrain upon which legitimate political authority and effective policy capacity will have to be reconstituted to address twenty-first-century global, regional and state-level challenges. The book will be of great interest to students and scholars in international organization, global governance, foreign policy analysis, and comparative politics.

The dominant view concerning the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is that it is simply a matter of time before it comes to an end. This view has been dominant since the pro-democracy protests in 1989 and has only been strengthened by the increasing number of protests in recent years. However, the Chinese Communist Party has continued to remain in power throughout this period and its rule appears to be secure in the short-to medium-term. As the twentieth anniversary of the military suppression of the pro-democracy demonstrations approaches, this book explains how the Chinese Communist Party has maintained its authority since 1989. It provides a detailed analysis of the Party's discourse emphasising stability in the post-Tiananmen period, analysing the government's propaganda in order to show how this discourse has been used by the Party to legitimate its authority. The interdisciplinary nature of this book makes it relevant to a number of different academic disciplines including Asian studies, China studies, international relations, politics and sociology.

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.

In the Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (1992), John Zaller set out one of the most influential models of opinion formation: he presented the public as a pliable instrument of political elites, who are able to garner support simply by sending "cues" through the mass media telling Republicans or Democrats, for example, what "the" Republican or Democratic position is on a given issue. Contributors to this volume critically examine Zaller s model and its implications, empirical and normative. The introduction contrasts two different strands in Zaller s book, one of which confines the impact of media messages to politicians cues, the other of which emphasizes the impact of journalists interpretive frames. Other chapters examine whether elite domination of public opinion is desirable and assess how well Zaller s model has withstood two decades of research. Zaller himself contributes a long retrospective in which he modifies some claims, defends others, and sets out a bold new research agenda.

This book was published as a special issue of Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society."

This book examines the Conservative party's responses to the problems of fascism from 1935 - 1940.
Crowson provides the historical context for the foreign policy of the period and examines the historiography of the Conservative party. He offers a new perspective on its policies and the reaction of its various elements to the deepening international crisis.

Ruth First and Joe Slovo, husband and wife, were leaders of the war to end apartheid in South Africa. Communists, scholars, parents, and uncompromising militants, they were the perfect enemies for the white police state. Together they were swept up in the growing resistance to apartheid, and together they experienced repression and exile. Their contributions to the liberation struggle, as individuals and as a couple, are undeniable. Ruth agitated tirelessly for the overthrow of apartheid, first in South Africa and then from abroad, and Joe directed much of the armed struggle carried out by the famous Umkhonto we Sizwe. Only one of them, however, would survive to see the fall of the old regime and the founding of a new, democratic South Africa. This book, the first extended biography of Ruth First and Joe Slovo, is a remarkable account of one couple and the revolutionary moment in which they lived. Alan Wieder's deeply researched work draws on the usual primary and secondary sources but also an extensive oral history that he has collected over many years. By weaving the documentary record together with personal interviews, Wieder portrays the complexities and contradictions of this extraordinary couple and their efforts to navigate a time of great tension, upheaval, and revolutionary hope.

Decentralization is a curious policy for a central government to pursue. If politics is essentially about the struggle for power, why would anyone want to give away the power that one struggled for and won? This book argues that it is precisely party competition in search of power that propels decentralization. Koichi Nakano develops his core argument through in-depth, qualitative research on the politics of reform in France and Japan. Introducing the concept of oppositional policy, he traces the process through which parties in opposition reinvent their ideologies and policy platforms in an attempt to present themselves as the voice of the governed, broaden popular support through the advocacy of enhanced democratic control of government, and proceed to implement some of these oppositional policies after capturing power. This book, thus, takes the role of political parties in the democratic process seriously - parties take up certain issues and espouse certain solutions actively as weapons in the power struggle both on the electoral front and in the policy process. Party competition is not merely a formal condition of democracy; it is also a mechanism with substantive policy impact on its evolution. Party Politics and Decentralization in Japan and France will be of interest to students of Japanese and French politics and comparative politics in general.

Providing an ethnographic account of the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) and its Youth Wing (Dewan Pemuda PAS), this book analyses the genesis and role of Islamic movements in terms of their engagement in mainstream politics. It explores the party's changing approach towards popular culture and critically investigates whether the narrative of a post-Islamist turn can be applied to the PAS Youth. The book shows that in contrast to the assumption that Islamic marketization and post-Islamism are reinforcing each other, the PAS Youth has strategically appropriated and integrated Islamic consumerism to pursue a decidedly Islamist - or 'pop-Islamist' - political agenda. The media-savvy PAS Youth elites, which are at the forefront of implementing new outreach strategies for the party, categorically oppose tendencies of political moderation among the senior party. Instead, they are most passionately calling for the establishment of a Syariah-based Islamic oder for state and society, although these renewed calls are increasingly expressed through modern channels such as Facebook, YouTube, rock music, celebrity advertising, branded commodities and other market-driven forms of social movement mobilization. A timely and significant contribution to the literature on Islam and politics in Malaysia and beyond, this book sheds new light on widespread assumptions or even hopes of "post-Islamism". It is of interest to students and scholars of Political Religion and Southeast Asian Politics.

This book traces the development of modern Syria focusing on the contribution of the Ba'th party and Ba'thist ideology. It examines the roots of the Ba'th in the intellectual ferment of the 1940s and charts its growing influence on Syrian politics. Special attention is devoted to the crucial Sixth Congress of the Ba'th Party in 1963 and the key ideological document, the Muntalaqat, produced by Michel Aflaq. After 1963 the military became increasingly dominant until Hafiz al-Asad came to power in 1970. Since then the Party has been less dominant internally but Syria itself has established a pivotal position in regional affairs. The book concludes by reviewing the prospects for Syria after Asad and the potential for a Ba'thist revival.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.