Regionalism and the Rise of the Populist Far Right in India

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Kenny
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Indian Politics ◽  
National Office ◽  
System P ◽  
Heads Of State

This chapter addresses India’s more recent experience of populism at the national level. While India has avoided a return to authoritarianism since the Emergency, populism has been a recurrent feature of Indian politics. The persistence of divided party rule between the national and subnational levels has meant an uneasy tension between two different modes of political mobilization for national office. National–subnational coalitions based on the distribution of pork have undergirded several Congress party governments. However, such coalitions remain inherently unstable given the autonomy of India’s subnational unit, and they are vulnerable to outflanking by populist appeals over the heads of state governments. The electoral success of the BJP under Modi in 2014 illustrates the appeal of populist mobilization in a vertically fragmented patronage-based system.

Tensions between tiers of Bolivian government may grow

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
Far Right ◽  
La Paz ◽  
Gubernatorial Elections ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Modus Vivendi ◽  
El Alto ◽  
The Government

Significance The MAS’s national-level appeal tends not to translate into support in localised elections, and a poor choice of candidates, particularly in El Alto, has proved self-defeating. Impacts Second-round gubernatorial elections will probably take place in six out of nine departments. Camacho, a far-right businessman turned politician, will use his newly gained legitimacy to harry the government. The Arce government will seek a modus vivendi with opposition mayors such as those of La Paz and Cochabamba.

scholarly journals Political and ideological normalization: quality of government, mainstream-right ideological positions and extreme-right support

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Christos Vrakopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Extreme Right ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
Post War ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Party Family ◽  
Extreme Right Parties

Abstract This article aims to explain the variation in the electoral support for extreme-right parties (ERPs) in Europe. The extant literature on the far-right party family does not answer this question specifically with regard to the extreme-right variants for two main reasons. Firstly, theories did not expect the electoral success of these parties in post-war Europe due to their anti-democratic profiles and association with fascism. Secondly, despite the fact that they acknowledge the differences between the parties under the far-right umbrella – namely, the extreme and the radical – they normally do not take these differences into account, and if so, they focus on the radical-right parties. This article shows that electoral support for ERPs is associated with low quality of government and highly conservative mainstream-right parties. The former creates political legitimization for anti-democratic parties and the latter ideological normalization of extreme right.

De provincieraadsverkiezingen van 24 november 1991

Res Publica ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-262
Author(s):  
Marleen Brans
Keyword(s):  
Regional Differences ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Far Right ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Green Is ◽  
Comparison Of The Results

On the 24th of november 1991 the Belgian voters elected the 716 members of the nine provincial councils.The socialists are the biggest losers of this election, with the Volksunie as a close second. Also the Christian Democrats suffered a serious decline, mainly caused by the loss of the CVP in Flanders. The electoral gain of the Flemish Liberals is neutralized by the decline of the Liberal party in Wallonia. The Greens gain 32 seats, the Far Right 35. These national aggregates hide striking regional differences. The national success of the Green is mainly due to the spectacular growth of Ecolo in the Walloons. The success of the Far Right is the sole result of a multiplication of votes for Vlaams Blok in Flanders.  These results show that both the Flemish and the Walloon voters have sanctioned the traditional parties in a similar way. They opted, however, for totally different alternatives: the Flemish for the Far Right, the Walloons for the ecologists.The outcome of the provincial elections in the bilingual province of Brabant neatly mirrors these tendencies.In 1991 the outcome of the provincial elections showed a profile quite different from that of the national elections which were held on the same day. This is explained by the fact that the Flemish party Rossem, which won 3.2% of the votes, only ran for the national elections and not for the provincial elections. Hence, a considerable difference in voting behaviour on the national versus the local level. The comparison of the results of the national elections with those of the provincial confirms the claim that smaller parties generally score better at a lower level. In 1991 it can, however, not be said that the bigger parties did better on the national level.

Epilogue

2019 ◽  
pp. 303-318
Author(s):  
Rebecca Tarlau
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Resource Base ◽  
The Core ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Internal Capacity

The Epilogue reflects on the future of the MST’s political struggle—and that of the Brazilian left more broadly—in the context of the 2016 ousting of the Workers’ Party (PT) from the federal government and the 2018 presidential election of ultra-right conservative Jair Bolsonaro. Although Bolsonaro’s rise to power is a serious setback for the movement, the core argument of the book still holds: the MST’s thirty-five-year strategic engagement with the Brazilian state significantly expanded its internal capacity, including its organizational structure, resource base, and collective leadership, and the movement is unlikely to disappear in the near future. This long march through the institutions was only possible because activists engaged in contentious political mobilization, while also prefiguring their social and economic vision within a variety of state spheres and under a diversity of political regimes. Even in the new political context, activists will be able to defend many of their institutional gains, helping the movement withstand, if not fully deflect, this far-right resurgence.

scholarly journals Digital Ecosystems of Ideology: Linked Media as Rhetoric in Spanish Political Tweets

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512092663
Author(s):  
Vanessa Ceia
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
General Elections ◽  
External Sources ◽  
Popular Party

That Twitter is a major form of political mobilization and influence has been well documented. But what is the role of linked media—references to newspapers, photos, videos, and other external sources via URLs—in political Twitter messaging? How are linked references employed as campaign tools and rhetorical devices in messages published by political parties on Twitter? Is there a quantifiable relationship between a party’s ideology and linked media in tweets? With the spread of fake news, threats to a free press, and questioning of the legitimacy of political messaging on the rise globally, the sources on which parties draw to convince voters of their online messaging deserve critical attention. To explore the above questions, this article examines uses of linked media in tweets generated by the official accounts of Spain’s top five political parties during, in the lead-up, and in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish General Elections held on April 28, 2019. Grounded in a corpus of 10,038 tweets collected between March 1 and May 15, 2019, this study quantifies, compares, and critiques how linked media are integrated and remixed into tweets published by the left-leaning Spanish Workers’ Socialist Party (@PSOE), right-wing Popular Party (@populares), left-wing Podemos (@ahorapodemos), neoliberal Citizens (@CiudadanosCs), and far-right Vox (@vox_es) parties. Evidence reveals that each party links to media from somewhat homophilic groups of news outlets, journalists, and public figures, an analysis of which can shed light on how parties construct their digital self-representations, ideological networks of information, and attempt to sway voters.

scholarly journals The Electoral Success of the Radical Left: Explaining the Least Likely Case of the Communist Party in Graz

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manès Weisskircher
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
National Level ◽  
Current Strength ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
Party Family ◽  
Radical Left

Recently, scholars have shown a growing interest in radical left parties (RLPs). In terms of electoral success, the rise of the KPÖ Graz, the Communist Party in Austria’s second biggest city, represents perhaps the most counterintuitive case in Western Europe. Adding to previous studies, the rise of the KPÖ Graz contradicts many of the claims made and patterns found about the conditions for the electoral success of RLPs. While the national KPÖ was voted out of parliament in 1959, the Graz branch has been a member of local government since 1998. Since then, the party has managed to gain 20 per cent of the vote in three out of four elections. In 2017, the KPÖ defended its place as the second largest party in local legislature and stayed ahead of the radical right FPÖ, on the rise at the national level. In stark contrast to the Communists’ current strength, however, they did not gain even 2 per cent of the vote in 1983. This analysis shows how the party has managed to ‘own’ the issue of housing and to exploit local political opportunities in order to be electorally successful. The findings point to the importance of agency and the subnational level for RLPs, and highlight more general questions in the study of this party family.

scholarly journals What Does It Take to Get Elected in a Post-Communist Democracy?

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siim Trumm
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Campaign Spending ◽  
Vote Share ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
Party Organisation ◽  
Electoral Performance ◽  
Local Party

The literature on post-communist democracies has traditionally suggested that organisational strength is considerably less important for electoral success than extensive media-based campaigns. Recent studies on party-level electoral dynamics, however, indicate that this might not be the case any longer. Building on these insights, this study goes beyond the party-level analyses of electoral success and failure by focusing on the electoral fortunes of individual candidates in a post-communist democracy. Using original data from the 2011 Estonian Candidate Survey, this article looks at the comparative impact of candidates’ campaign spending and the strength of their local party organisation, alongside other potentially relevant characteristics, on their likelihood of getting elected and vote share. The findings suggest that candidates’ electoral performance in Estonia is still first and foremost shaped by their own campaign spending. In addition, I find evidence that candidates fare better if they have prior local-level and national-level political experience, conduct more personalised campaigns, and are positioned higher up on their party’s district-level list.

US state votes mean Republican advantages

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Drug Policy ◽  
Environmental Regulations ◽  
National Level ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
State Level ◽  
State Governments ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Positive Results

Significance Control of state legislatures is vital to the process of electoral redistricting, triggered by the 2020 census, which will last for the next ten years. Several states also voted on questions of drug policy and the minimum wage; such changes often percolate to the national level. Impacts Democrats will find it difficult to unify their message given divisions between progressives and centrists. State-level politics will influence national politics, such as California de facto setting US emissions policy. Republican state governments will litigate Democratic federal measures, such as reintroducing environmental regulations. Democrats will try to deepen their engagement with state organisations, but positive results will take time.

Bamboo Shoots and Weak Roots: Organizational Expansion of New Parties in Japan

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 270-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
KEN HIJINO
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Local Organizations ◽  
Organizational Stability ◽  
Regional Elections

AbstractRecent research claims that local party organizations are essential for new parties seeking organizational stability and national-level electoral success. Yet new parties which emerged in Japan since the 1990s have failed in building nation-wide networks of local organizations. The article asks how these parties sought to expand locally and why their attempts have been largely unsuccessful. It finds evidence that under certain conditions (in urban areas and multi-member districts, or when controlling local chief executive offices and endowed with inherited resources) new parties have been more successful in standing and winning seats in regional elections. Regions with these favorable conditions are few, however, resulting in the overall weakness of the new parties’ local organizations. The study also disconfirms expectations that a party's control of national government should result in their improved representation at the local level. The article contributes to elucidating the incentives and dynamics of building party organizations in terms of local elected offices for newcomer parties in Japan. It hints at similar challenges for entrepreneurial parties with few social roots in other established democracies.

scholarly journals Conferences of Minister Presidents of the German States in 1948—1949 and Their Political Significance

2021 ◽  
pp. 371-391
Author(s):  
I. D. Popov
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
German States ◽  
Heads Of State ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Military ◽  
Political Compromises

The activity and political significance of the conferences of the Minister Presidents of the German states during the years of the institutionalization of the Federal Republic of Germany (1948—1949) are considered. It is concluded that in the absence of a number of significant central authorities, it was the conferences of the heads of state governments that played a coordinating role to fill them up on the German side. It is noted that the Minister Presidents also served as a converging point between the allies, the regional elite, political parties and bizone authorities. It is shown that various formats of work of heads of state governments at the interzonal level allowed them to take part in the discussion of almost all key problems of the western zones of occupation. It is emphasized that the two-zone meetings of the Minister Presidents with the military governors and the three-zone conferences of the Minister Presidents themselves, which in fact became the main instruments for reaching political compromises, had a particular impact. It is pointed out that this was especially clearly manifested during the discussion of the “Frankfurt Documents”. It is concluded that, at the same time, the dependence on the military administrations of the allies, the party elite and bizone authorities at the same time did not allow these conferences to evolve into something more than a platform for building consensus, and thereby pursue a full-fledged independent policy.

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