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.""

16 to 20 December 2017 saw most South Africans and political pundits closely observing the African National Congress’s 54th National Elective Conference at Nasrec. There were plenty of international observers and local and foreign press who were closely tracking the ANC top brass and branch delegates as they jostled for political power and position. The air was thick with anticipation and high with suspicion.

Former student activist, member of the then Mitchells Plain Student Congress (Mipsco), COSAS national leader and now ANC member in good standing, Oscar van Heerden once again found himself doing duty in the resolutions drafting team at the ANC’s National Conference. What he witnessed in the period leading up to the conference and then the five days of high drama at Nasrec make for an enthralling and insightful insider’s view. Van Heerden’s observations lay bare a governing party that is at war with itself. At the heart of this struggle is deception, corruption and power-hungry politicians flexing their muscles. Factional infighting, money in bags exchanging hands in the dead of night, spies on duty and a political party in the clutches of state capture are some of the political moves that Van Heerden witnesses and now shares in his book. Van Heerden’s assertion after the first two days of the conference is that the Cyril Ramaphosa camp, also known as CR17, did not stand a chance of winning. To him they seemed disorganised, at times not understanding the modalities of election politics at the conference, and had arrived at the gun fight with a knife.

How then did the tide turn against the obvious pro-Jacob Zuma camp to favour CR17? What really happened behind closed doors to secure the narrow margin of victory?

Walk this journey with Van Heerden and see why, with the upcoming ANC National General Council in June 2020, the fight for our country’s leadership is far from over, begging the question: Will Ramaphosa’s ANC survive?

Affairs of party, Jean Baker asserts, were a central feature of public life in nineteenth-century America. In this book she explores the way in which the Northern Democrats of the mid-eighteen hundreds lived their public lives. She begins with a psychobiographical explanation of how people became Democrats, weighing the importance of such influences as education and family life. She then discusses two major elements that set Democrats apart from members of other political organizations: a modified Republican ideology tailored to the circumstances of the Civil War, and a mordant racism conveyed most strikingly through minstrelsy. Finally, Baker studies the neglected subject of partisan behavior, concentrating on the significance of parades, voting, and other rituals. In Affairs of Party Jean Baker brings together the three basic components of a political cultureaeducation, thought, and behavioraand provides an understanding of the collective values of Northern Democrats and an insight into the elusive meaning of party experience. In her new preface, Professor Baker places her book in the context of both recent scholarship and recent political and cultural developments.

Directly, with the candour of a well informed old friend, Dr Wafik Moustafa shares an insight into the remarkable situation Egypt finds itself in today. This authoritative commentary on Egyptian affairs casts an eye back over Egypt's modern history, taking the reader through the landmark events that have formed the modern nation, and brings the reader to a close and impartial understanding of the current political climate in Egypt.

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 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.

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."

Many conservative extremists have argued that Obama was advancing a socialist agenda, immersing himself in African-American radicalism, and pushing big government liberal policies during his first term. The Republican Party, we once knew, has been pushed to the extreme right and has rendered itself unwilling to compromise with the first African American president in order to credit him with any degree of success. The Party's chief goal was to take back the White House in the 2012 presidential election by any means necessary to push their radical agenda, as some have boldly stated. With the help of Republican governors in certain swing states, the Republican Party knew it had a chance to win the White House by passing voter suppression ID laws. Consequently, from white church pulpits to the political arena, conservative radicals have divided the American electorate and have played on the irrational apocalyptic fears of many that Obama will destroy the exceptional nature of America. Conservative radicals have shaped our national debate and have driven our discourse with eliminationist and racialized rhetoric against the Obama presidency. Consequently, many anti-Obama narratives have hit the bookstores and have consumed the intellectual life of an overly suspicious, low information general public where many lack the critical and political thought about ways they need to know to emancipate themselves from destructive prevailing ideologies. Obama's Political Saga serves as a counter-narrative to the paranoid politics of anti-intellectual and anti-science radicals and hopefully provides a reasonable discussion about Obama's political saga in his first term. These anti-Obama narratives have resurrected themselves from the Jim Crow era, influencing a segment of the conservative base to believe that equal rights for African Americans, other Americans of color, and women would threaten the social order by diminishing white (male) privilege. Therefore, we need counter-narratives to help us engage in genuine political and intellectual debate about the first African American president and his legacy.

How do individual legislators in the European Parliament (EP) make decisions on the wide variety of policy proposals they routinely confront? Despite a flourishing literature on the European Union's only directly elected institution, we know surprisingly little about the micro-foundations of EP politics. Who Decides, and How? seeks to address this shortcoming by examining how individual legislators make policy choices, how these choices are aggregated, and what role parties and committees play in this process. It argues that members of the EP lack adequate resources to make equally informed decisions across policy areas. Therefore, when faced with policy choices in policy areas outside their realms of expertise, members make decisions on the basis of perceived preference coherence: they adopt the positions of their expert colleagues in the responsible EP committee whose preferences over policy outcomes they believe to most closely match their own. These preferences are difficult to determine, however, which is why legislators rely on a shared party label as stand-in for common preferences. This results in cohesive parties, despite the inability of EP parties to discipline their members.
Who Decides, and How? relies on the respective strengths of quantitative and qualitative data to shed new light on the inner workings of the EP. It illustrates how legislators make broadly representative decisions under conditions of resource scarcity, informational uncertainty, and problematic policy preferences, and how structurally weak EP parties can act in an internally cohesive and externally competitive manner when carrying out their policy commitments to Europe's citizens.

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.

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.

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.

Interest groups form an important part of the development of political and social systems. This book goes beyond current literature in examining the survival and careers of such groups beyond their formation.

The author introduces the concept of organizational form and develops a framework to describe and evaluate organisations, and uncover how they adapt to survive. Using example case studies from the UK, US and Australia, the book presents extensive historical analyses of specific groups, to better understand the organisation and position of such groups within their political system. It analyses how groups differentiate themselves from each other, how they develop differently and what impact this has on policy implementation and democratic legitimacy.

The Organization of Political Interest Groups will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, comparative politics, public representation, and public policy.

This biography tells the extraordinary story of Mary Turner (1938- 2017), the Brent dinner lady and trade union activist who rose to become president of the GMB union and chair of the Labour Party. Proud, fiery and determined when it came to standing up to exploitative employers, the privileged and the powerful; practical, compassionate and nurturing when it came to her members, the disadvantaged, or the victims of injustice: Mary Turner (1938-2017) was president of the GMB union for twenty years. This book tells the story of her life and, through it, charts the recent history of the British labour movement: from the People's Marches for Jobs in 1981 and 1983, through the miners' strike, to more recent struggles against cutbacks in local government, the depredations of multinational corporations, and the scourge of austerity. The book outlines Mary Turner's instrumental role in the survival of the GMB as an independent union, and its unprecedented growth in membership after 2005 . This is an essential text for those interested in trade union history and the British labour movement, and will be of interest to anyone seeking inspiration from the life of this committed activist and campaigner - a woman whose first thought and prime concern was always the happiness, security and betterment of her members and all those whom she served.

This book examines how inter- and intra-party coalition-building affects governability in South Korea. Focusing on the Kim Dae-jung administration (1998-2003) as a case study in the failure of a government to turn electoral success into stable governability, or ability to implement reform policies, the book's research draws on two bodies of literature which, though focusing on the same dependent variable (cabinet or government stability), have rarely been used in tandem: coalition research on parliamentary systems and studies of divided government in presidential systems. Youngmi Kim argues that a weak institutionalization of the ruling party and the party-system accounts for political instability and inefficient governability in Korea and in doing so her study makes a number of key contributions to the field. Theoretically it proposes a framework which integrates a rationalist approach with one that acknowledges the role of political culture. It further enhances the understanding of factors affecting governability after coalition-building across regime types and aims to build on recent demands for broader cross-regime analysis of minority/divided government and of the determinants of governability. This has important comparative implications as coalition-building within (semi-) presidential systems has occurred in other post-authoritarian contexts. The book finally provides a new dataset which fills a gap in a field where Western cases constitute the main focus of research. The Politics of Coalition in Korea will be of interest to students and scholars of Korean studies, Korean politics, Asian studies and Asian politics. Youngmi Kim is Assistant Professor at the Departments of Public Policy, and International Relations and European Studies at Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.

The study of international relations, has traditionally been dominated by Western ideas and practices, and marginalized the voice and experiences of the non-Western states and societies. As the world moves to a "post-Western" era, it is imperative that the field of IR acquires a more global meaning and relevance. Drawing together the work of renowned scholar Amitav Acharya and framed by a new introduction and conclusion written for the volume, this book exposes the narrow meaning currently attached to some of the key concepts and ideas in IR, and calls for alternative and broader understandings of them. The need for recasting the discipline has motivated and undergirded Acharya's own scholarship since his entry into the field over three decades ago. This book reflects his own engagement, quarrels and compromise and concludes with suggestions for new pathways to a Global IR- a forward-looking and inclusive enterprise that is reflective of the multiple and global heritage of IR in an changing and interconnected world. It is essential reading for anyone who is concerned about the history, development and future of international relations and international relations theory.

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.

Linking Citizens and Parties addresses familiar questions about political representation: Are parties responsive to their core supporters or to the public in general? Do parties that adopt centrist policy positions benefit in elections? Does proportional representation encourage party extremism? These fundamental questions about democracy are paired with the empirical observation of Western European democracies during the last thirty years. The study highlights the pathways (mainstream and niche) through which citizens' political preferences are expressed by their political parties. It concludes with a positive evaluation of these democracies as their citizens have access to at least one, and possibly both niche and mainstream pathways.

Managing Transitions examines the history and roles of China's minor parties and groups (MPG's) in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) united front between the 1930's and 1990's using Antonio Gramsci's principles for the winning and maintaining of hegemony. Gramsci advocated a "war of position," the building of political alliances to isolate existing state powers and win consent for revolutionary rule and transform society. Economic reform is now creating new socio-economic groups and the CCP is adjusting the united front and the MPGs to co-opt their representatives and deliberately forestall the evolution of an autonomous civil society and middle class which could challenge CCP rule. This has resulted in a new and expanding role for the united front, the MPGs and organisations representing the new interest groups.

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.

This book examines the ways in which Confucian political culture operates in contemporary Chinese politics and influences its development. The author argues that the authoritarian political culture performs functions similar to the democratic political culture, drawing on a wide range of data-surveys, interviews, archives, Public Hearing Meeting records, and the Party Congress Reports of the Chinese Communist Party-to substantiate and illustrate these arguments. In an authoritarian political system, the "legitimating values" of the authoritarian political culture persuade the public of their government's legitimacy and the "engaging values" equip individuals with a set of cultural dispositions, resources, and skills to acquire political resources and services from the state. In the context of Chinese politics, personal connections infused with affection and trust-the Social Capital in the Confucian culture-facilitate political engagement. Despite the country's continuous advocacy for the "rule of law," state and public perceptions of legal professionals and legal practices, such as mediation and lawyer-judge relations, are fundamentally moralized. A new "people ideology," which originated in the Confucian political culture, has been re-appropriated to legitimate the Party's hegemonic governing position and policies.

This study presents 13 articles interrogating themes likely to impinge on India's 15th general elections in 2009. These were written following intense discussion between the contributors and use available data as well as original data and analysis. The significance of the analyses goes beyond how much these questions find place in the campaign, or how much they would impact the electoral results. These have and would continue to be essential themes in Indian politics for some time. They would influence the country's politics, its leaders, parties and institutions and would be interrogated in political, policy and social science circles in the foreseeable future. They would in turn be impacted, redefined and perhaps transformed by political dynamics and social pressure. The first attempt of its kind to analyse the impact of certain emerging trends in politics on upcoming elections anywhere in the world, this book will be a useful addition to election studies and policy making in general.

Julius Evola's writing covered a vast range of subjects, from a distinctive and categorical ideological outlook and has been extremely influential on a significant number of extreme right thinkers, activists and organisations. This book is the first full length study in English to present his political thought to a wider audience, beyond that of his followers and sympathisers, and to bring into the open the study of a neglected strand of contemporary Western thought, that of traditionalism. Evola deserves more attention because he is an influential writer. His following comes from an important if largely ignored political movement: activists and commentators whose political positions are, like his, avowedly traditionalist, authoritarian, anti-modern, anti-democratic and anti-liberal. With honourable exceptions, contemporary academic study tends to treat these groups as a minority within a minority, a sub-species of Fascism, from whom they are held to derive their ideas and their support. This work seeks to bring out more clearly the complexity of Evola's post-war strategy, so as to explain how he can be adopted both by the neo-fascist groups committed to violence, and by groups such as the European New Right whose approach is more aimed at influence from within liberal democracies. Furlong also recognises the relevance of Evola's ideas to anti-globalisation arguments, including a re-examination of his arguments for detachment and spontaneism (apolitia).