scholarly journals Allies among Enemies: Political authority and party (dis)loyalty in Bangladesh

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
DAVID JACKMAN ◽  
MATHILDE MAÎTROT
Keyword(s):  
Political Competition ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Party Discipline ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Local Character ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Member Of Parliament ◽  
Ruling Party

Abstract The authority of political leaders in Bangladesh rests on diverse qualities, not least of which are the muscle and finance they can mobilize, and the relationships they can craft with senior party members. These are utilized to confront rivals both within and outside their own party. In some instances, the intensity of intra-party competition can be so severe that a further quality emerges: the capacity to find allies among enemies. Building local inter-party alliances can bolster the authority of politicians, yet be to the detriment of party coherence. This argument is developed through an analysis of mayoral and parliamentary elections held in the past decade in a small Bangladeshi city, where a ruling party member of parliament (MP) and opposition mayor appear to have developed such a relationship. This has thwarted the electoral ambitions of their fellow party members and has posed a serious challenge to party discipline. While political competition is often seen as being either inter- or intra-party, here it is focused around inter-party alliances. This portrayal suggests we need to give greater emphasis to the decentralized and local character that political authority can take in Bangladesh.

Nationalism and political competition in Central Europe: The case of Poland

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Vermeersch
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Public Concern ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Constant Flux ◽  
The Creation

To explain nationalist politics in Poland, researchers and observers have sometimes speculated about the dispositions of the electorate, popular sentiments, public fears for the loss of sovereignty, the people's historically ingrained preference for nationalist rhetoric, and their feelings of discontent about the economy. This article argues that hypotheses about the existence of nationalist sentiments within the electorate have tended to eclipse an important question about the main producers of nationalist rhetoric: Why do certain mainstream parties at certain points in time decide to frame their program as nationalist, even when there is no objective reality that seems conducive to the creation of great public concern about typically nationalist issues? This article explores this question by looking at various campaigns for Polish parliamentary elections since 1997. My argument is that when seeking to explain the motivations behind major campaign turns toward nationalism we should not merely understand them as responses to voter sentiment and voting behavior. Instead, we should see them as crucially driven by the transactional logic of inter-party competition in a party system that is in constant flux.

Political Competition and One-party Dominance in Zambia

1969 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Minor Parties ◽  
National Congress ◽  
The One ◽  
Party Dominance ◽  
Ruling Party ◽  
Party State

This article concerns two important arenas of political competition in Zambia: on the one hand, between parties and, on the other, within the ruling party itself. Competition between political parties exists especially between the United National Independence Party (U.N.I.P.) and two small party rivals, the African National Congress (A.N.C.) and the United Party (U.P.). Many U.N.I.P. officials at various levels have looked forward to the establishment of a one-party state in Zambia, on the familiar grounds that minor opposition parties appeal to parochial loyalties: that they oppose constructive programmes irresponsibly and hamper their implementation: and that political opposition is a luxury which diverts time, energy, and money away from the important tasks of development. In pursuit of its objective of eliminating inter-party competition, U.N.I.P. has generally employed two different sets of tactics, based on different assumptions about the strength and potential of the two minor parties.

Party System

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zaad Mahmood
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Group Analysis ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Intermediate Variable ◽  
Labour Market Flexibility ◽  
Labour Market Reforms ◽  
The Impact

The chapter discusses the party system in the macro context of politics. It highlights the limitations of political party and interest group analysis without reference to the political competition that shapes behaviour in politics. The chapter discusses theoretically the impact of party system on labour market flexibility and proceeds to show the interrelation between party competition and the behaviour of political parties, composition of socio-economic support bases, and the behaviour of interest groups that influence reform. In the context of labour market flexibility, the party-system operates as an intermediate variable facilitating reforms. The chapter contradicts the conventional notion that party system fragmentation impedes reform by showing how increasing party competition corresponds to greater labour market reforms. It shows that increases in the number of parties, facilitates labour market reforms through marginalization of the issue of labour, realignment of class interests within broader society and fragmentation of trade union movement.

scholarly journals Corruption, Campaigning, and Novelty: The 2020 Parliamentary Elections and the Evolving Patterns of Party Politics in Slovakia

2021 ◽  
pp. 088832542110127
Author(s):  
Tim Haughton ◽  
Marek Rybář ◽  
Kevin Deegan-Krause
Keyword(s):  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
General Trend ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Forward Movement ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The Impact

Party politics across Central and Eastern Europe has become less structured. Many of the divides that anchored political competition have waned in recent years, weakening the attachment of voters to the existing palette of parties and making them more likely to be attracted to new and non-traditional electoral vehicles. But for such parties to succeed at the ballot box, they need to be able to frame elections and campaign effectively. Drawing on data from a specially commissioned survey, we find that the success of Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO) led by Igor Matovič in the 2020 parliamentary elections in Slovakia owed much to the crafting of an anti-corruption appeal combined with an effective campaign. Both mobilization and conversion of voters, particularly through television and the leaders’ debates, in the months leading up to election day ensured OĽaNO won a quarter of the vote. OĽaNO stands in stark contrast to other parties whose leaders failed to craft as effective a message, miscalculated the impact of electoral rules and in some cases were unable to distance themselves enough from their past actions. The success of OĽaNO underlines that themes related to anti-corruption and good governance have become central to party politics and political contestation. More broadly, the election and its aftermath continued a general trend of forward movement of voters from old parties to new to newer still, indicating the churn of party politics in Slovakia is likely to continue.

scholarly journals The Death of May’s Law: Intra- and Inter-Party Value Differences in Britain’s Labour and Conservative Parties

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172199563
Author(s):  
Alan Wager ◽  
Tim Bale ◽  
Philip Cowley ◽  
Anand Menon
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Value Differences ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Significant Disagreement ◽  
Party Members ◽  
First Time

Party competition in Great Britain increasingly revolves around social or ‘cultural’ issues as much as it does around the economic issues that took centre stage when class was assumed to be dominant. We use data from surveys of members of parliament, party members and voters to explore how this shift has affected the internal coalitions of the Labour and Conservative Parties – and to provide a fresh test of ‘May’s Law’. We find a considerable disconnect between ‘neoliberal’ Conservative members of parliament and their more centrist voters on economic issues and similarly significant disagreement on cultural issues between socially liberal Labour members of parliament and their more authoritarian voters. We also find differences in both parties between parliamentarians and their grassroots members, albeit that these are much less pronounced. May’s Law, not for the first time, appears not to be borne out in reality.

Party placement in supranational elections

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 333-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Garzia ◽  
Alexander Trechsel ◽  
Lorenzo De Sio
Keyword(s):  
Iterative Method ◽  
Longitudinal Research ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Policy Statements ◽  
Data Collection Procedure ◽  
Voting Advice Applications ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Cross National

Throughout the years, political scientists have devised a multitude of techniques to position political parties on various ideological and policy/issue dimensions. So far, however, none of these techniques was able to evolve into a “gold standard” in party positioning. Against this background, one could recently witness the appearance of a new methodology for party positioning tightly connected to the spread of Voting Advice Applications (VAAs), i.e. an iterative method that aims at improving existing techniques using a combination of party self-placement and expert judgement. Such a method, as pioneered by the Dutch Kieskompas, was first systematically employed on a large cross-national scale by the EU Profiler VAA in the context of the 2009 European Parliamentary elections. This article introduces the party placement datasets generated by euandi (reads: EU and I), a transnational VAA for the 2014 EP elections. The scientific relevance of the euandi endeavour lies primarily in its choice to stick to the iterative method of party positioning employed by the EU Profiler in 2009 as well as in the choice to keep as many as 17 policy statements in the 2014 questionnaire in order to allow for cross-national, longitudinal research on party competition in Europe across a five-year period. This article provides a brief review of traditional methods of party positioning and contrasts them to the iterative method employed by the euandi team. It then introduces the specifics of the project, facts and figures of the data collection procedure, and the details of the resulting dataset encompassing 242 parties from the whole EU28.

Does Economic Growth Pay Political Dividends in India?

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 166-169
Author(s):  
Vasant V. Bang ◽  
Alok Kumar Mishra
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Growth Rates ◽  
Regression Equations ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Growth Data ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
Economic Development And Growth ◽  
Bharatiya Janata Party ◽  
Ruling Party

Since independence in 1947, India has witnessed several changes in economic policies of governments. Economic reforms were started in India in 1984 and were accelerated later in 1991. It is believed that Bharatiya Janata Party won the 2014 parliamentary elections on the promise of economic development and growth. In this article, an attempt has been made to investigate the link between economic and electoral performances in Indian elections. The data for 1951–2014 period has been analysed by establishing regression equations using vote percentage received by a ruling party as dependent variable and sectoral economic growth during the ruling tenure as independent variables. Comparisons have been made between the pre- and post-1984 eras. An important contribution of this article is that it highlights the fact that electoral performances can be better explained using sectoral growth data as compared to overall GDP growth rates. The article also highlights a significant role played by volatility in growth rates.

Adjustment to Stagflation and Neoliberal Reforms in Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States

1998 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 602-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
NOBUHIRO HIWATARI
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Japanese Politics ◽  
Neoliberal Reforms ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Ruling Party

This article explains why the stagflation and neoliberal reforms that reinforced party polarization in the United Kingdom and the United States instead led to party convergence in Japan. In Japan, industry-centered adjustment and bureaucratic coordination distributed the costs of policy changes across societal groups and facilitated party convergence, whereas the lack of such societal and state institutions in the United Kingdom and the United States led to policy changes with polarizing consequences. Focusing on industry-centered adjustment brings the unions back into Japanese politics and provides an alternative to the pluralism-neocorporatism dichotomy of organizing societal interests. Bureaucratic coordination not only includes the opposition in the framework but also provides a more nuanced view than is assumed in the debate over whether the ruling party of the bureaucracy dominates the Japanese state. When combined, these conceptualizations of market and state go a long way toward explaining the dynamics of party competition.

Het uiteenvallen van de Volksunie en het ontstaan van de N-VA en Spirit : Een chronologisch en morfologisch overzicht (juni 1999 - juli 2002)

Res Publica ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 44 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 397-471
Author(s):  
Jo Noppe ◽  
Bram Wauters
Keyword(s):  
Political Context ◽  
First Year ◽  
Party Member ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Nationalist Party ◽  
The Social ◽  
Morphological Picture ◽  
The Future ◽  
Party Members

At the Belgian parliamentary elections in June 1999, the Flemish nationalist party 'Volksunie' (VU) which formed an alliance with the social-liberal ID21 progressed slightly.  On July 10, 1999, the party decided to participate in the purple-green-yellow Flemish government, but at the same time they decided to stay out of the federal Belgian government. Two years later, the VU-Party Bureau decided that due to deep divisions within the party it had become impossible for the party to continue. The 15.000 party members were asked to judge about the future of the party. Because no party project managed to obtain a 50 %-majority in the party member referendum, the VU dissappeared. Two new parties - the 'Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie' (N-VA) and 'Spirit' - emerged from the ruins of the VU.  The collapse of the VU can be seen as the most far-reaching change in the Flemish party political context of the last decade.  This article focusses on the last two and a half years of the VU and on the first year of the N-VA and Spirit (from June 1999 until July 2002). In a first part, achronological overview is build up. This part provides an overview «from day to day» of the events that played a role in the collapse of the VU and the creation of the N-VA and Spirit. The second part of the article draws amore morphological picture of the VU, the N-VA and Spirit: data are presented about the internal organisation of these parties (info about party meetings, the composition and competences of the leading party structures, internal elections, party mandates, the party employees and numbers of party members). By offering an extensive overview of facts and figures, it is the intention of the authors to provide a solid guidelinefor further investigation.

Virtuous Movements and Dirty Politics

2018 ◽  
pp. 113-134
Author(s):  
Miriam Wenner
Keyword(s):  
State Government ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Leaders

This chapter is concerned with the relationships between virtue, immorality, and politics as they are contested and negotiated within the space of a statehood movement. It explores how political leaders in Darjeeling present themselves as virtuous despite being involved in ‘politics’, which is associated with morally despicable behaviour such as selfishness and corruption. At the heart of such camouflage stands the blurring of the boundaries between what counts as moral and immoral. Yet, leaders’ attempts to respond to idealist imaginations of the movement as untouched from ‘dirty’ politics prove difficult, not only because the constituents perceive their leaders to exploit the movement for private gain, but also because the need to distribute patronage forces them to make compromises with the very state government from which they demand autonomy. Whether the border between virtue and immorality has been transcended is subject to a continuous struggle over political authority and legitimacy.

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