The Party System

Author(s):  
Conor Little ◽  
David M. Farrell

This chapter focuses on the attributes and development of the Irish party system, describing its structure and where it sits in comparative perspective. As well as examining party size and ideology, the chapter applies Peter Mair’s conceptualization of the party system as the structure of competition for control of the executive to the Irish case. In doing so, it explores the relationship between electoral change and party system change, arguing that the systemic changes that have been emerging since the 2011 election are an extension of a longer-term trend in the opening up of the Irish party system. This incremental change was accelerated by the economic crisis that began in 2008 and its aftermath. The chapter suggests that the Irish party system is potentially at a critical juncture: a moment of uncertainty that provides opportunities for agency (by voters, party leaders, and others) to shape a durable future path.

Author(s):  
Pradeep K. Chhibber ◽  
Rahul Verma

Data drawn from the National Election Studies going back to 1967 and two surveys of political elites conducted in 1971 and the 1993 show that the ideological divide is quite stable. Activists, members, and supporters of the main political parties hold clearly distinct views on the two ideological dimensions that define the party system in India. The changes in the Indian party system since independence have occurred with movement of political parties within the ideological space defined by statism and recognition. This led to the end of the Congress led one party dominant system, its replacement by the rise of regional parties in many states and finally to a BJP led fourth party system.


Author(s):  
Liam Weeks

This chapter comprises an analysis of Independents’ electoral history from three aspects. The first is the comparative performance of independents in countries outside of Ireland, with particular attention given to Australia and Japan, the two other established democracies where independents have had been prominent at national parliamentary elections. As well as placing Irish independents in an international context, the comparative dimension also assists an analysis of the factors behind their significance. The second focus is on the Irish case, with an outline and analysis of independents’ history at Dáil elections back to 1922. The final section is a cursory enquiry into the geography of their electoral history. This chapter finds that independents are an established norm in the Irish political system and that support for them is related to developments in the party system.


Author(s):  
OLIVER HEATH ◽  
YOGENDRA YADAV

This chapter explores the relationship formed between the social structure of India and its contemporary patterns. It tries to show how this relates to the theories of social cleavage alignment, and examines change in the cleavage structure of party competition. The chapter also discusses how different contemporary patterns of political conflict in India are from those of the past.


Author(s):  
Royce Carroll ◽  
Monika Nalepa

Abstract When do candidate-centred electoral systems produce undisciplined parties? In this article, we examine party discipline under open-list proportional representation, a system associated with MPs cultivating personal constituencies. We present a model explaining how legislators’ preferences and support among voters mediate political leaders’ ability to enforce discipline. We show that disloyalty in candidate-centred systems depends on parties’ costs for enforcing discipline, but only conditional on MP preferences. MPs who share the policy preferences of their leaders will be loyal even when the leaders cannot discipline them. To test the model’s implications, we use data on legislative voting in Poland’s parliament. Our empirical findings confirm that disloyalty is conditioned on party leaders’ enforcement capacity and MP preferences. We find that legislators who contribute more to the party electorally in terms of votes are more disloyal, but only if their preferences diverge from the leadership. Our results suggest that the relationship between open lists and party disloyalty is conditional on the context of the party system.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastián Lavezzolo ◽  
Luis Ramiro

In the wake of the 2008 Great Recession, new and challenger parties have enjoyed electoral gains in some European countries. Political and economic disaffection have been pointed out as the main drivers of their electoral support. This article proposes voter’s stealth democracy attitudes, as defined by Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, as an additional driving force to account for this electoral change. We examine the case of Spain with a survey conducted after the far-reaching transformation of the party system, which has led to the emergence of two new parties:Ciudadanos(on the center-right) andPodemos(on the radical-left). We find that stealth democracy attitudes are positively related to the support for the former and negatively related to the support for the latter. Additionally, we provide evidence of this relationship being conditional on voters’ ideology. The study illustrates how an unexplored attitudinal dimension contributes to party system change, and how the relevance of these attitudes might go beyond the temporary political discontent caused by the economic crisis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 330-343
Author(s):  
Fabio Camilletti

It is generally assumed that The Vampyre was published against John Polidori's will. This article brings evidence to support that he played, in fact, an active role in the publication of his tale, perhaps as a response to Frankenstein. In particular, by making use of the tools of textual criticism, it demonstrates how the ‘Extract of a Letter from Geneva’ accompanying The Vampyre in The New Monthly Magazine and in volume editions could not be written without having access to Polidori's Diary. Furthermore, it hypothesizes that the composition of The Vampyre, traditionally located in Geneva in the course of summer 1816, can be postdated to 1818, opening up new possibilities for reading the tale in the context of the relationship between Polidori, Byron, and the Shelleys.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Evans

This paper considers the relationship between social science and the food industry, and it suggests that collaboration can be intellectually productive and morally rewarding. It explores the middle ground that exists between paid consultancy models of collaboration on the one hand and a principled stance of nonengagement on the other. Drawing on recent experiences of researching with a major food retailer in the UK, I discuss the ways in which collaborating with retailers can open up opportunities for accessing data that might not otherwise be available to social scientists. Additionally, I put forward the argument that researchers with an interest in the sustainability—ecological or otherwise—of food systems, especially those of a critical persuasion, ought to be empirically engaging with food businesses. I suggest that this is important in terms of generating better understandings of the objectionable arrangements that they seek to critique, and in terms of opening up conduits through which to affect positive changes. Cutting across these points is the claim that while resistance to commercial engagement might be misguided, it is nevertheless important to acknowledge the power-geometries of collaboration and to find ways of leveling and/or leveraging them. To conclude, I suggest that universities have an important institutional role to play in defining the terms of engagement as well as maintaining the boundaries between scholarship and consultancy—a line that can otherwise become quite fuzzy when the worlds of commerce and academic research collide.


Author(s):  
Michael Laver ◽  
Ernest Sergenti

This chapter extends the survival-of-the-fittest evolutionary environment to consider the possibility that new political parties, when they first come into existence, do not pick decision rules at random but instead choose rules that have a track record of past success. This is done by adding replicator-mutator dynamics to the model, according to which the probability that each rule is selected by a new party is an evolving but noisy function of that rule's past performance. Estimating characteristic outputs when this type of positive feedback enters the dynamic model creates new methodological challenges. The simulation results show that it is very rare for one decision rule to drive out all others over the long run. While the diversity of decision rules used by party leaders is drastically reduced with such positive feedback in the party system, and while some particular decision rule is typically prominent over a certain period of time, party systems in which party leaders use different decision rules are sustained over substantial periods.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Lindsay ◽  
P. Trimby ◽  
J. Goulden ◽  
S. McCracken ◽  
R. Andrews

Abstract The results presented here show how high-speed simultaneous EBSD and EDS can be used to characterize the essential microstructural parameters in SnPb solder joints with high resolution and precision. Analyses of both intact and failed solder joints have been carried out. Regions of strain localization that are not apparent from the Sn and Pb phase distribution are identified in the intact bond, providing key insights into the mechanism of potential bond failure. In addition, EBSD provides a wealth of quantitative detail such as the relationship between parent Sn grain orientations and Pb coarsening, the morphology and distribution of IMCs on a sub-micron scale and accurate grain size information for all phases within the joint. Such analyses enable a better understanding of the microstructural developments leading up to failure, opening up the possibility of improved accelerated thermal cycling (ATC) testing and better quality control.


Author(s):  
Paul D. Kenny

This final chapter draws out the two main conclusions from the book. First, it discusses the policy implications of its findings. It suggests caution in the decentralization of political authority as a remedy for democratic underperformance in patronage-based democracies. Rather than making government more accountable, it may instead exacerbate principal–agent conflicts between center and periphery. More important than decentralization in the short term may be institutional reforms at the center that make parties more programmatic and responsive to citizens. Second, it sets out some of the implications of the book’s findings for the study of populism and party-system change more generally. It shows that the varied ways in which voters and parties are linked creates different pathways to the decline of establishment parties and the success of populist alternatives. Further comparative research across party systems might contribute positively to institutional reform and political change.


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