This volume features key political issues for 1990s Britain: the reform of the Labour party; the use of opinion polls; the impact of the media; European integration; Scotland and regional trends; and the bases of party support.

The tenth edition of this acclaimed text continues to provide a lively, comprehensive and up-to-date account of British political institutions, of the way in which they operate, and of the society in which they developed. It includes new sections on the following key areas:
* the monarchy and the House of Lords
* the 1997 general election
* the transformation of the Labour party and the demise of the Tories
* the European Union
* devolution
* the judicial system
* Northern Ireland.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203024397

The first book to provide a much-needed analysis of the current state of the party and insight into longer term trends, "New Labour in Power" helps readers to explore both past and present in order to better understand the future.
The book explores Tony Blair's victory through both its historical context and the words of contemporary media commentators, journalists, economists and politicians, including Austin Mitchell, Peter Shore, Peter Jay, A. H. Halsey and Vernon Bogdanor. It combines historical, political and practical approaches to the questions raised by the Labour election victory and addresses core themes such as Europe, the economy, welfare, education, defense and the constitution.

Bomberg argues the 'greening' of European politics and the advancement of European integration are inextricably linked and that the EU presents a strategic dilemma to Green parties. In short, how can Greens reconcile their radical, alternative politics with the EU's mainstream, traditional institutions and practices? Bomberg's analysis is based on over 100 interviews with leading green politicians, NGO members, environmental and industrial lobbyists, EU officials and MEPs. She includes appendices showing profiles of green parties in European countries, and key policy-making institutions

From the time of the Abyssinian crisis through to the outbreak of World War II in western Europe, the British government was marked by very diverse attitudes with regard to, and adopted diverse policies towards, the fascist dictators of Europe. This work provides a complete history of the Conservative Party from 1930 to 1940 and explores its responses to the problems of fascism. It details the historical context for the foreign policy of the period and examines the historiography of the Conservative Party. The author also includes a chronological outline of the international situation between Hitler's rise to power in 1933 and the outbreak of war. Drawing on neglected sources, including little known diaries, memoirs and minutes, this book gives a new perspective on the Party's policies focusing on members of the government aside from just Chamberlain and highlights important aspects such as the controversy over national service. By exploiting new evidence and archives, the author provides alternative and original interpretations of the reactions of various elelments of the Conservative Party to the deepening international crisis.

Bomberg argues the 'greening' of European politics and the advancement of European integration are inextricably linked and that the EU presents a strategic dilemma to Green parties. In short, how can Greens reconcile their radical, alternative politics with the EU's mainstream, traditional institutions and practices? Bomberg's analysis is based on over 100 interviews with leading green politicians, NGO members, environmental and industrial lobbyists, EU officials and MEPs. She includes appendices showing profiles of green parties in European countries, and key policy-making institutions

Explores the impact interparty conflicts have on a party's coalition bargaining. Focusing on Denmark, Norway, the UK, Italy and France, the text investigates whether organizational imperatives of political parties play a role in interplay competition. The author challenges traditional views to show that the degree of centralization or decentralization of a party and the nature of the interparty conflict affects the party's elite to neutralize and pacify internal opposition. He argues that decentralized models provide a variety of ways to manage such conflict without members leaving the party or voicing dissent outside the party.

An electoral system is the most fundamental element of representative democracy, translating citizen's votes into representatives' seats. It is also the most potent practical instrument available to democratic reformers. This systematic and comprehensive study describes and classifies the 70 electoral systems used by 27 democracies - including those of Western Europe, Australia, Canada, the USA, Costa Rica, India, Israel, Japan, and New Zealand - for 384 national legislative and European Parliament elections between 1945 and 1990. Using comparative and statistical analyses of these systems, Arend Lijphart demonstrates the effect of the electoral formula used, the number of representatives elected per district, electoral thresholds, and of five other key features of electoral systems on the proportionality of the election outcome, the degree of multipartism, and the creation of majority parties. In the process he reveals that electoral systems are neither as diverse nor as complex as is often assumed. Electoral Systems and Party Systems represents the most definitive treatment of the subject since Rae's classic study in 1967, based as it is on more accurate and comprehensive data (covering more countries and a longer time-span), and using stronger hypotheses and better analytical methods. The unique information and analysis it offers will make it essential reading for everyone working in the field.

Gennady Andreevich Zyuganov is the leader of Russia's resurgent Communist Party and was Boris Yeltsin's strongest challenger in the summer 1996 presidential elections. Although his face became familiar to the world at that time, his ideas and his program were mainly a subject of speculation. This book makes Zyuganov available to American readers for the first time -- in his own words.

A former village teacher from Orel Province, Zyuganov came to Moscow in the 1980s to work in the ideology department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and to complete doctoral work in philosophy at Moscow State University. He is a prolific writer who has rebuilt the Communist party on his vision of a Russian socialist great power. Today he leads the Communist faction in the Duma and is chairman of the united opposition movement -- the National Patriotic Union.

This volume is a compilation of Zyuganov's writings on Russia's past and present and her place in the world; Russia's fate under the leadership of Gorbachev and Yeltsin; his own vision of Russia's future under a new Communist leadership; and his reflections on the 1996 presidential election.

In this introduction to the theme of political parties, attention is given to those theoretical works that have the most direct bearing on the subject. To illustrate these theoretical ideas, the book applies comparative approaches to the British case. The book focuses on concepts which highlight various "trade offs" confronting party leadership and their impact on party behaviour. It addresses concepts that relate to competitive parties - party institutionalization, organizational models, intra-party competition, and the impact of intra-party conflicts on party behaviour. The latter aspect takes the reader through to the second part of the book, namely competitive party systems. Here, notions that pertain to multiparty electoral competition, the impact of regional integration on a party's behaviour, issue orientation, and party system change are discussed. Students taking courses on political parties should find this book a useful introduction to the basic conceptual paradigms and salient theories of the topic.

After winning the vote in 1918, many thousands of working class women joined the Labour Party and Co-operative Movement. This book is about their struggle to find a place in the male world of organised labour politics. In the twenties, labour women challenged male leaders to give them equal status and support for their reform programmes, but the ideas were rejected. For most labour women, dedication to the class cause far outweighed their desire for power, and the struggle for 'women-power' was abandoned. Consequently, despite the common reform agendas of labour women and the middle class feminists of the era, a working alliance was never achieved. Labour Women uses oral and questionnaire testimony to draw a portrait of grass-roots activists. It contrasts labour women's failure to win power in the national organisations with their great achievements in community politics, poor law administration and municipal government.

The patent disconnection between the institutions of the European Union and the citizens of Europe has been widely attributed by political leaders and scholars to a 'communications gap', that is, to the way EU affairs are mediated by the media, and to the apparent lack of interest by national elites in conveying the importance of Europe. This book challenges this 'mediation theory' and suggests instead a cultural and systemic explanation for the distant and bureaucratic character of the European Union. Apportioning the blame for the communication gap to the media and national politicians neglects two real deficits which prevent Europe from enjoying a vibrant public sphere: a deficit of domesticisation, a popular disconnection with the idea of the EU, and a deficit of politicisation with European politics, it being difficult to categorise as through traditional methods of 'left vs. right'. This book suggests that popular disengagement with the EU is a consequence of the fact that Europe as a cultural community is an interdependent continent rather than a nation and that, as an political institution, the EU is a pseudo-confederation full of anti-publicity bias, elite-driven integration, corporatism and diplomacy. The result is a book that is an essential read for students and scholars of political communication and of the European Union.

Emerging as a formidable opposition party in Taiwan in 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is now a major challenger on the island's political scene. This text presents a dialogue between DPP's policy-makers and the leading critics from the international scholarly community.

Emerging as a formidable opposition party in Taiwan in 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is now a major challenger on the island's political scene. This text presents a dialogue between DPP's policy-makers and the leading critics from the international scholarly community.

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.

The first book of its kind to provide an accessible overview of the changes Citizens United brought to political campaigns and political representation, it combines rigorous academic research with many examples of ongoing trends from the campaign trail. Even though campaign finance involves complex legal issues, the book is set up to be engaging for both students of political campaigns and American politics, as well as civically engaged citizens who want to learn more about outside groups and their impact on campaigns and public policy. The book makes the case that Super PACs and dark money groups qualify as game changers of political campaigns not only because of what these groups can do independently from candidates and their increasing ability to match or even exceed candidates' financial resources, but because their actions influence the political incentives and strategies of candidates and political parties. We also point out evidence that those changes go beyond campaigns-they affect how legislators represent their constituents; how donors put pressure on lawmakers to adopt certain legislation after outside groups supported them; how the regulatory environment can benefit donors as a result of actions taken by federal agencies to repeal or dismantle existing laws; and how extreme positions by politicians can be incentivized and progress stalled when megadonors and outside groups reward political ideologues. Our hope is that this text inspires readers to draw their own conclusions about the effects the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision has had and continues to have on the inner workings of American democracy. Some may even feel moved to take action that will empower ordinary citizens who want to have more of a voice in the democratic process. Given the high stakes associated with elections and the political changes they can bring due to the highly polarized political environment we live in, we believe that this book will add value to not only courses focusing on campaigns, elections, interest groups, and political communication, but also other courses such as introductory American Government courses.

Fourteen general elections have been held in Britain in the post-war period, from Clement Attlee's surprise sweep to power in 1945 to the Conservatives' fourth consecutive victory in 1992. Several of these fourteen landmark events in British political history had unexpected results; all had far-reaching consequences.

In this fully revised and updated edition of "British General Elections Since 1945" David Butler chronicles the demeanor and result of each post-war election. He also draws on the most recent research to examine how much the way in which elections have been staged and fought has altered, with press conferences, advertizing, opinion polls and media events transforming the electoral process. In considering these issues alongside other aspects - the law, the constituencies, the electoral system itself, voter behavior - Dr Butler provides an invaluable guide to the continuities and change which have characterized British general elections for two generations.

Party Formation in East-Central Europe is one of the first books to present detailed studies of politics in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria during the initial three years of post-communist rule. International scholars have collaborated to produce a volume which examines the first steps in regime change and the opportunities for a successful transition to democracy. As well as examining the creation of new party systems after the end of communist rule in each country, the papers in this volume adopt a comparative perspective which highlights the regional dimension. In particular, the authors place the post-communist experience in the context of the earlier transitions from authoritarian rule in Southern Europe. They discuss whether the experience of Portugal and Spain in the 1970s and Italy in the 1940s might serve as a framework for the analysis of East-Central Europe in the 1990s.

A major new edition of this introductory survey of the two main political parties, from the rise of the Liberal Party under Gladstone until the period of Conservative domination under Salisbury in the late nineteenth century. As well as assessing the impact of major political landmarks such as the Great Reform Acts, it also describes the nineteenth century political scene.

Industrialization has meant sweeping social transformations across Asia. Some political commentators have predicted that an expansion of civil society and rapid development of liberal democracy will necessarily follow. This text book dissects the extent of political opposition in Asia, and analyzes the nature of new social movements outside institutional party politics which are contesting the exercise of state power. Nine case studies open up the varieties of political oppositions across Asia, while an analysis of the problems of current political theorizing in relation to Asia sets the case studies firmly in the midst of wider debates about democratisation. The author challenges complacent assumptions about the progress of liberal democracy.

Industrialization has meant sweeping social transformations across Asia. Some political commentators have predicted that the expansion of civil society and the rapid development of liberal democracy will necessarily follow. The contributors to this volume dissect the extent of political opposition in Asia and analyze the nature of new social movements outside institutional party politics which are contesting the exercise of state power.
Nine original case studies explore the variety of political oppositions across Asia, from non-governmental organizations and the formal opponents of the PAP in Singapore to Chinese dissidents based outside the People's Republic of China. All take up the challenge of looking at political opposition in the light of the new social phenomenon of the rising middle class or "new rich" of Asia. Garry Rodan's hard-hitting analysis of the problems of current political theorizing in relation to Asia sets the case studies firmly in the midst of wider debates about democratization. "Political Oppositions in Industrialising Asia" shatters complacent assumptions about the progress of liberal democracy.

This volume looks at the political events and discusses the major issues of 1994, most notably the European parliament elections.

How has the economic and financial crisis that started in 2007 affected European integration? Observers have been speculating about whether the crisis will ultimately lead to a strengthening or weakening of the European Union. This book studies the effects of the crisis on EU policy-making and institutional arrangements on one hand, and citizens' EU attitudes and political parties' electoral strategies on the other. It concludes that, at least in the short run, the crisis has overall created an opportunity for European integration rather than an obstacle. First, it has triggered events of proposed and actual far-reaching policy and institutional change. Second, negative effects on public opinion have not (yet) systematically translated into tendencies of stagnation or disintegration. The book brings together established scholars of European integration whose diverse research expertise contributes to an improved theoretical and empirical understanding of how the economic and financial crisis has affected EU policies, institutions and citizens. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Integration.

Many people today feel that something has gone wrong with British society and British politics. The quality of like seems to be declining. Crime soars. Traffic and pollution spiral. Mass unemployment is undiminished, while many people experience insecurity and stress at work. Growing poverty and inequality have left many of Britain's citizens excluded from mainstream society. Everywhere, the sense of community seems to be breaking down. In the world as a whole, poverty and conflict cause immense suffering and threaten the security of nations. Global environmental degradation - from the greenhouse effect to the destruction of rainforests - makes the very future of the planet uncertain. Yet the political system seems barely to register what is happening. It is hardly surprising that public disillusionment with politicians and Parliament has never been higher. The Politics of the Real World addresses these interlocking crises. Setting out the issues clearly, it explains how conventional economic and social policies are creating the problems we face, not solving them. Arguing that the British political system itself needs rejuvenating, it proposes a new direction for the UK in an increasingly globalised world.

Contents:
Introduction: The New Italian Republic I Context 1. Explaining Italy's Crisis 2. Electoral Reform and Political Change in Italy 1991-94 II The Old Party System 1. Political Catholicism and the Strange Death of the Christian Democrats 2. Italian Communism in the First Republic 3. The Rise and fall of Craxi's Socialist Party 4. The Fate of the Secular Centre: The Liberals, Republicans and the Social Democrats III The "New Parties" 7. The Northern League from Regional Party to Party of Government 8. Forza Italia: The New Politics and Old Values of a Changing Italy 9. towards a Modern Right: Alleanza Nazionale and the "Italian Revolution" 10. The Great Failure? The PDs in Italy's Transition 11. The "Left Oppossition" and the crisis: Rifondazione Comunista and La Rete IV Politics and Society 12. A Legal Revolution? The Judges and the Tagentopoli 13. The Mass media and the Political Crisis 14. The System of Corrupt Exchange in Local Government 15. The Resistable Rise of the New Neopolitan Camorra 16. The Changing Mezzogiorno: Between Representations and Reality V Economic Aspects of the Crisis 17. The Economic Elites and the Political System 18. Excesses anf Limits of the Public Sector in the Italian Economy 19. Industrial Relations and the Labour Movement VI Conclusion 20 Italian Political Reform in Comparative Perspective