Intraparty Democracy and the Selection of Parliamentary Candidates: the Belgian Case

1974 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Obler
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Selection Of

Leaders and activists in most Western political parties, appreciating Schattschneider's adage1 that parties are controlled by those who control nominations to public offices, jealously guard their right to choose parliamentary candidates. They realize that candidates play a crucial role in shaping voters’ images of the parties as well as in formulating the party policies. Not surprisingly, candidates are usually recruited through rather oligarchical procedures. Extra-parliamentary party leaders normally pick the nominees in closed private meetings and then submit their choices to rank-and-file party members and/or delegates who nearly always grant their approval. Such procedures reduce the role of party members to one of docile acquiescence, and completely exclude party voters.

Turnout Rates in Closed Party Leadership Primaries: Flash and Fade Out?

2014 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bram Wauters
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Learning Theory ◽  
Motivation Theory ◽  
Participation Rates ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Mobilization Theory ◽  
Party Members ◽  
First Time ◽  
Selection Of

The organization of primaries in which all party members can participate is increasingly used by political parties to select their leader. We focus here on one of the consequences of these procedures – participation rates. Based on general participation theories (mobilization theory, instrumental motivation theory and learning theory) in combination with insights into the introduction and functioning of leadership primaries, we expect that the first time a party organizes leadership primaries, participation rates will be high, but that they will decline gradually afterwards. We have focused on direct member votes for the selection of party leaders in Belgium, Israel and Canada. Our results show that participation rates are not influenced by how many times such a contest is held in a party (only first-time participation tends to be higher), but mainly by how competitive the contest is.

Personal leaders and party change: Italy in comparative perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fortunato Musella
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Change ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
New Procedures ◽  
Selection Of

IntroduzioneParty leaders have become more powerful and autonomous actors in recent years by developing a direct and personal relationship with citizens. As anticipated in the United States (Lowi, 1985), the rise of the ‘personal leader’ seems to have occurred in many European democracies, both in old parties and in more recently formed parties, with a widespread tendency for them to be promoted and controlled by individual leaders. Nevertheless, party leadership remains quite a neglected theme in political science. Through a data set including ~500 party presidents in 13 democracies, this article focusses on the personalization of party leadership by comparing Italy with other Western countries. More particularly, new procedures for the selection of party chairs, the centralization of power in political parties, and the new role of party leaders in the legislative/governmental arena are analysed, given their importance to such a process. The article summarizes new data on the party leaders’ characteristics, with regards to their political backgrounds, how they are elected, how long they stay in office, and whether they become prime minister or enter the executive. In this way, we are able to see how some new parties are created from the outset as highly personalized and centralized parties (Forza Italia being the paradigmatic case), whereas other older parties have also evolved in a personalized direction.

scholarly journals Refractory Frontier: Intra-party Democracy in the Zambian Polity

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
John Bwalya ◽  
Owen B. Sichone
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
National Development ◽  
Democratic Consolidation ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Leadership Positions ◽  
Leadership Transitions ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Selection Of

Despite the important role that intra-party democracy plays in democratic consolidation, particularly in third-wave democracies, it has not received as much attention as inter-party democracy. Based on the Zambian polity, this article uses the concept of selectocracy to explain why, to a large extent, intra-party democracy has remained a refractory frontier. Two traits of intra-party democracy are examined: leadership transitions at party president-level and the selection of political party members for key leadership positions. The present study of four political parties: United National Independence Party (UNIP), Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), United Party for National Development (UPND) and Patriotic Front (PF) demonstrates that the iron law of oligarchy predominates leadership transitions and selection. Within this milieu, intertwined but fluid factors, inimical to democratic consolidation but underpinning selectocracy, are explained.

Unis and Bna: the rôle of ‘Traditionalist’ parties in Niger, 1948–60

1975 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Finn Fuglestad
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Traditional Culture ◽  
Institutional Framework ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Party Leaders

The institutional framework imposed upon Niger in 1946, tended to function according to traditional political concepts, norms, notions and values. Hence the distinction established in this paper between ‘traditionalist’ (UNIS/BNA) and ‘modern’ political parties, refers to the degree of reliance upon this traditional culture and also to the degree to which party-leaders were able to manipulate the norms, notions, etc., of the traditional political systems, in order to gain influence within the new institutional framework. The French Administration, functioning largely as an indigenous chieftaincy, was to a certain extent forced to interfere in politics, since an electoral victory for a ‘modern’ political party (i.e. the évolués) would have to be interpreted—according to the logic of traditional political theory—as a loss of the ‘force’, ‘power’ or ‘luck’, without which the French could no longer be regarded as the legitimate rulers of Niger.If the French finally decided to collaborate with the évolués (and in the process disentangled themselves from the ‘chieftaincy-model’), it was because the évolués constituted the only group capable of grasping the intricate problems of economic development and of running a modern state.

How Indian Parties Connect Voters to Leaders

Asian Survey ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 55 (5) ◽  
pp. 969-990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Kushner
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Uttar Pradesh ◽  
Interview Data ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Party Platforms

How do political parties in developing countries, without access to accurate polling data, understand their voters? I examine the role that various sources of information play in political party platforms, and how the method of data collection affects parties’ policy and political efforts, primarily by using interview data from 2012 and 2013 with workers from four leading parties in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. I theorize the role of party workers as a key conduit for information between party leaders and the voters they represent.

12. Political parties

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard S. Katz
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Party Government ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
New Millennium

This chapter examines the role that political parties play in the working of democracy. Political parties are among the major actors in democratic politics. Whether or not in power as the result of victory in free and fair elections, the governments of most countries have effectively been in the hands of party leaders. When governments were not in the hands of party leaders, most often because party government was interrupted by a military takeover. The chapter first considers various definitions of a political party before tracing the origins of political parties. It then describes the functions of parties and the ways in which parties are organized, regulated, and financed. It concludes with an analysis of the role of parties in the stabilization of democracy in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, as well as challenges confronting parties in the new millennium.

scholarly journals Politics of the Nobility: The Study of Growing Capital Andi in the Mayor`s Election of Palopo 2013-2018

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Samsul Samsul ◽  
Zuli Qodir
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Community Organizations ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Economic Capital ◽  
Community Leaders ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City ◽  
Selection Of

The purpose of this research is to find out what causes the weakening of the capital of Andi's nobility in Palopo City in the selection of candidates for mayor and what is the role of Andi's nobility in political contestation. This type of research is descriptive qualitative. The results showed that the capital owned by Andi's aristocracy in Palopo City was. First, the social capital built by Andi's nobility had not been carried out in a structured way from relations with the general public, community leaders, with community organizations, to officials in the bureaucracy and most importantly, Political parties. Second, economic capital is an important thing that used in the Mayor Election contestation in the City of Palopo, Bangsawan Andi figure who escaped as a candidate for mayor does not yet have sufficient capital in terms of funds. Third, the cultural capital owned by Bangsawan Andi, who escaped as a candidate for mayor, still lacked a high bargaining value in political contestation in Palopo City. Fourth, the Symbolic Capital is a capital that sufficiently calculated in the mayor election dispute in Palopo City, namely the title of nobility obtained from the blood of the descendants of the Luwu kings, only it must be accompanied by other capital to elected in political contestation.

The Role of Money in Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 245-264
Author(s):  
Robert E. Mutch
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Government Regulation ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Party Members ◽  
To Come ◽  
Modern Sense ◽  
Money In Politics

Money in some form has always been needed to finance politics, even in the eighteenth century, before there were any political parties or election campaigns in the modern sense. The ways of raising and spending that money have changed many times since then, as have opinions about how it should be raised and spent. As long as that money was raised and spent inside the parties, and as long as it came from politicians themselves and from rank-and-file party members, regulation of campaign funds was minimal. That began to change toward the end of the nineteenth century, when political money began to come from rich donors outside the parties. Government regulation began when opinions about how campaign funds should be raised and spent became legitimate questions of public policy. This chapter reviews how campaign finance practices and the laws regulating them have changed over the course of American history.

Les changements en Belgique de 1980 à 2000 : La vue d'un président de parti

Res Publica ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-96
Author(s):  
Philippe Busquin
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Specific Situation ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Hard Time ◽  
Soft Drugs ◽  
The Ideal

Several reforms were brought into force in Belgium in the last twenty years.  First of all, Belgium has become a federal state with its typical characteristics of assymetry and complexity: it consists of three regions and three communities which do not coincide completely. The federalisation process has led to linguistic agreements between the Flemish and the French community taking largely into account the specific situation of Brussels. Also budgettary agreements concerning the financing of the communities and the regions are a product ofthe federalisation process.  In these decades Belgian government has also significantly taken care of its public finances: The deficit has decreased and Belgium now finds itself in the European average but it has given Belgium governments a hard time. Today Belgium has reached the objectives necessary to participate at the european monetary union.Fundamental changes in society have put ethical questions on the political agenda. This has led to arrangements in one way or another on subjects like abortion and made discussions on euthanasie and the use of soft drugs at least possible.Last but not least new rules were adopted concerning democracy and the functioning of political parties.  Especially the way political parties will befinanced has been take care of but also measures increasing equality between men and women and procedures for more direct democracy. The reform of the judiciary has been tackled.These changes put forward that the role of the party leaders altered considerably. At the interface of political convictions and the management ot the state, the position is loaded multifunctionally due to the several levels of policymaking and the various ways of political expression. "One bas to strive for the ideal without overlooking the real".

Finland

2021 ◽  
pp. 329-350
Author(s):  
Corentin Poyet ◽  
Tapio Raunio
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Significant Variation ◽  
Constitutional Reform ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Party Control ◽  
Constitutional Reforms

This chapter analyzes plenary debates in the Eduskunta, the unicameral legislature of Finland. Recent constitutional reforms have strengthened the role of the Eduskunta, which the findings also reflect. Access to the floor is relatively unconstrained in Finland, but there is also a strong element of party control involved. The chapter shows that opposition MPs, small parties, and party leaders make active use of plenary speeches. The constitutional reform increased the likelihood of frontbenchers and experienced MPs to deliver speeches. Gender and partially seniority have little effect on who gets to speak in the plenary, but there is also quite a significant variation between political parties. Overall, our results indicate that the plenary has become a more important arena in Finnish politics, both for the cabinet and the opposition.

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