Party Competition

This book examines how social cleavage lines shape issue voting and party competition. Based on a study of German elections between 1980 and 1994, it analyses whether cleavage group members put more w

For thirty years, Northern Ireland was riven by sustained ethnonationalist conflict over the issue of whether the territory should remain part of the United Kingdom or reunify with the Republic of Ire

Migration represents one of the key issues in both Italian and European politics, and it has triggered EU-wide debates and negotiations, alongside alarmist and often sensationalist news reporting on t

In Central and Eastern Europe, radical right actors significantly impact public debates and mainstream policy agenda. But despite this high discursive influence, the electoral fortune of radical right

Ever since the Congress system finally collapsed and the post-Congress polity emerged in 1989, state has arisen as the most crucial terrain at which electoral outcomes are shaped. This book presents a

When political parties make policy decisions they are influenced by the competition they face from other parties. This book examines how party competition and party systems affect reforms of social pr

"Explores electoral changes in Pennsylvania since 1960, finding that the recent "culture-wars realignment" has significantly altered the old New Deal party system, especially since the early 1990s. Co

When political parties make policy decisions they are influenced by the competition they face from other parties. This book examines how party competition and party systems affect reforms of social pr

Party competition for votes in free and fair elections involves complex interactions by multiple actors in political landscapes that are continuously evolving, yet classical theoretical approaches to

Party competition for votes in free and fair elections involves complex interactions by multiple actors in political landscapes that are continuously evolving, yet classical theoretical approaches to

Wallace (emeritus, political science, U. of Missouri, US) and Roy (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, India) present 17 papers analyzing the 2009 national elections in India. Thematic paper

Recently there has been a convergence of party funding regimes across many states of Western Europe. The driving force behind this process has been the introduction of state funding to political parti

Uneasy Alliances is a powerful challenge to how we think about the relationship between race, political parties, and American democracy. While scholars frequently claim that the need to win elections

Why do some political parties flourish, while others flounder? In this book, Meguid examines variation in the electoral trajectories of the new set of single-issue parties: green, radical right, and ethnoterritorial parties. Instead of being dictated by electoral institutions or the socioeconomic climate, as the dominant theories contend, the fortunes of these niche parties, she argues, are shaped by the strategic responses of mainstream parties. She advances a theory of party competition in which mainstream parties facing unequal competitors have access to a wider and more effective set of strategies than posited by standard spatial models. Combining statistical analyses with in-depth case studies from Western Europe, the book explores how and why established parties undermine niche parties or turn them into weapons against their mainstream party opponents. This study of competition between unequals thus provides broader insights into the nature and outcome of competition between poli

This volume is an empirical, comparative analysis of the funding of political parties in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Ita

Why do some political parties flourish, while others flounder? In this book, Meguid examines variation in the electoral trajectories of the new set of single-issue parties: green, radical right, and ethnoterritorial parties. Instead of being dictated by electoral institutions or the socioeconomic climate, as the dominant theories contend, the fortunes of these niche parties, she argues, are shaped by the strategic responses of mainstream parties. She advances a theory of party competition in which mainstream parties facing unequal competitors have access to a wider and more effective set of strategies than posited by standard spatial models. Combining statistical analyses with in-depth case studies from Western Europe, the book explores how and why established parties undermine niche parties or turn them into weapons against their mainstream party opponents. This study of competition between unequals thus provides broader insights into the nature and outcome of competition between poli

Why do some governing parties limit their opportunistic behaviour and constrain the extraction of private gains from the state? This analysis of post-communist state reconstruction provides surprising answers to this fundamental question of party politics. Across the post-communist democracies, governing parties have opportunistically reconstructed the state - simultaneously exploiting it by extracting state resources and building new institutions that further such extraction. They enfeebled or delayed formal state institutions of monitoring and oversight, established new discretionary structures of state administration, and extracted enormous informal profits from the privatization of the communist economy. By examining how post-communist political parties rebuilt the state in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, Grzymala-Busse explains how even opportunistic political parties will limit their corrupt behaviour and abuse of

Investigating public and elite skepticism in Eastern Europe towards the European Union, this important book examines how citizens and parties responses to integration has been affected by economic, so

A consultant, lecturer in Virginia political history, and occasional member of state and national governments, Atkinson chronicles the rise of the Republican Party as a competitive force in the state'

"Details the legal and political history of redistricting since the inception of one person-one vote, documenting its impact on competition, polarization, and partisan fairness, and analyzes options f

Pradeep Chhibber and Ken Kollman rely on historical data spanning back to the eighteenth century from Canada, Great Britain, India, and the United States to revise our understanding of why a country's

In countries with multiparty political systems, we assume--if the system is going to work--that parties have relatively stable positions on policy, that these positions diverge, and that voters make c

"To discover who rules, follow the gold." This is the argument of Golden Rule, a provocative, pungent history of modern American politics. Although the role big money plays in defining political outc

Maurice Duverger is arguably the most distinguished French political scientist of the last century, but his major impact has, strangely enough, been largely in the English-speaking world. His book, P

This book examines the role played by the parties themselves in two-party systems. It rejects the argument that the behavior of the parties is determined largely by social forces or by the supposed lo

Despite its democratic structure, Japan's government has been dominated by a single party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 1955. This book offers an explanation for why, even in the face of great dissatisfaction with the LDP, no opposition party has been able to offer itself as a credible challenger in Japan. Understanding such failure is important for many reasons, from its effect on Japanese economic policy to its implications for what facilitates democratic responsiveness more broadly. The principal explanations for opposition failure in Japan focus on the country's culture and electoral system. This book offers a new interpretation, arguing that a far more plausible explanation rests on the predominance in Japan of clientelism, combined with a centralized government structure and electoral protection for groups that benefit from clientelism. While the central case in the book is Japan, the analysis is also comparative and applies the framework cross-nationally.