Political Parties — The Resilience of the One-Party Dominant State

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-47
Res Publica ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-188
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Jagodzinski ◽  
Jürgen Friedrichs ◽  
Hermann Dülmer

During the last years immigration has aggravated the socialproblems in many disadvantaged urban districts. High proportions of foreigners are concentrating in those areas which suffer from unemployment and bad housing conditions. The accumulation of social problems has created a climate of insecurity, social prejudices, and political dissatisfaction. Since political discontent presently is not remedied by the established political parties, it results in low voting participation and increasing proportions of right wing votes. The close connection between the intensity of social problems on the one side, low voter turnout and high success of right extremist parties on the other side, is empirically established by an ecological analysis of the recent state elections in Hamburg.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 705-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pepijn van Eeden

This article assesses the referendums in Hungary in 2004, 2008, and 2016 diachronically. The review is framed by two competing liberal parliamentary approaches to direct democracy: A useful democratic corrective to the distortions of particracy, or a risky option leading to tyranny of the majority? Rather than choosing sides, this article shows how the conundrum conceals another, more interesting question: Which are the constraints under which the liberal parliamentary viewpoint shifts from the one to the other? Theorizing on post-democracy and populism provides a provisional answer: A consensualized, “post-political” parliament is key, as this, in combination with widening social-economic disparities, incentivizes illiberal populist parties to harness referendums, which prompts liberal parliamentarianists to change their minds. The referendums in 2004, 2008, and 2016 in Hungary substantiate this suspicion. Taken together, they offer a step-by-step blueprint for how, in a thoroughly postpolitical situation, a referendum evolves into a perfect catalyst for populists on their road to power, enabling them with (a) agenda-setting; (b) an explosive emphasis on popular legitimacy; (c) arousing voluntarism, while luring opponents into campaigning for boycott and political apathy; (d) combining social equalitarianism with identarian protectionism, and most importantly; (e) bypassing parliament itself. This article is part of the special cluster titled Political Parties and Direct Democracy in Eastern Europe, guest-edited by Sergiu Gherghina.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wojciech Rafałowski

In recent years, a significant amount of research has been devoted to theorising and explaining parties’ vote-seeking behaviours with regard to emphasising certain policy domains and ignoring others. These strategies are largely determined by the parties’ issue ownership and the context of the competition. In this article, I explore the interaction between these two groups of factors, that is, how a given party type and its role within the party system moderate the political actor’s responsiveness to various unfolding events. The study uses a collection of Facebook posts published by the official profiles of some of the Polish political parties. I demonstrate that the competitors develop distinct strategies of issue emphasis in accordance with the incentives coming from the events that occur on the one hand and their strengths and weaknesses related to certain issue domains on the other.


1983 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Sant Cassia

If proverbs are sociologically significant the one quoted encapsulates the theme of this paper: the extreme fluidity and uncertainty of post-Independence Greek Cypriot politics; the tension between individual strategies and collective action in Greek culture; secrecy, and the use of violence for political purposes (what Aristotle had called stasis). In this paper I want to examine the patterns of covert politics in Cyprus by tracing the evolution of the cultural phenomenon of omadhes (small secret groups of armed men activated for political purposes), and examining their relationship to political parties. Although there has been some literature on omadhes (Loizos, 1975; Markides 1977) I shall offer a different interpretation to Loizos who sees them merely as ‘action sets’ by showing that they became something more substantial and were strongly influenced by the overall political framework within which they operated; I shall also take a different line to Markides who treats them as an expression of discontent.


2011 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 264-276
Author(s):  
María Virginia Quiroga

The emergence of social movements in the public arena had to do with neoliberalism´s negative consequences. Different actors with different interests worked together against the system, which became their “common antagonist”.  On the one hand, after years of autonomous organization, these social movements won social recognition and increased their power. On the other, political parties and trade unions lost legitimacy.  In December 2005, a faction of the Bolivian social movements won the general elections, and Evo Morales (the cocalero movement´s leader) became the first Aymara president in Bolivian history. How to manage this government it is one of the majors challenges the social movements confront in today’s Bolivia. La emergencia de movimientos sociales en la esfera pública está ligada a las consecuencias negativas del neoliberalismo.  Actores sociales provenientes de distintos sectores y con intereses distintos unieron fuerzas contra un sistema que se convirtió en el “antagonista común”.  Después de años de organización autónoma, estos movimientos lograron reconocimiento político e incrementaron su poder de gestión, mientras los partidos políticos y los sindicatos perdían legitimidad.  En diciembre 2005 una facción de los movimientos sociales ganó las elecciones generales y Evo Morales (líder del movimiento cocalero) se convirtió en el primer Presidente aymara de la historia de Bolivia. Cómo gestionar este gobierno constituye hoy día uno de los mayores retos que enfrentan los movimientos sociales.


2016 ◽  
pp. 37-53
Author(s):  
Jerzy Łazor ◽  
Wojciech Morawski

The political discourse in Poland in the final years before the fall of communism in 1989, was based on a strong opposition between the authorities and the rest of society. Even then, however, support for the opposition was not unanimous, and it was even less so in previous years. Most Poles considered the communist system forced, exogenous, oppressive, unacceptable, and supported by the Soviet threat. Still, individual reactions were varied: there were different paths to be taken through communism. The authors of the paper discuss how these paths contributed to differing recollections of the period. They focus on the collective memory of political parties and politicians, particularly on the controversial question of collaborating with the communist regime and the rights to veteran status among the former opposition members. It is a story of two types of memory: the one stressing reconciliation and the other pushing the distinction between former regime representatives and democratic opposition members


Author(s):  
Ardhana Ulfa Azis ◽  
Mia Siscawati

The implementation of affirmative quota policies by political structures, especially political parties as one of the elements of the political infrastructure, has provided the widest possible opportunity for women to be directly involved in the political process, such as becoming members of parliament to carry out over sight, budgeting, and legislative functions: the making and policymaking and political decisions. This research examines how women in the family path of the 2019’s election results, on the one hand, their faces are seen as political representatives of women in parliament, but on the other hand, they are also seen as representatives of the interests of party oligarchy in parliament. We explored the filling of affirmative quotas for female parliamentary candidates from the family line by political parties which allowed us to identify women parliamentarians from the family line as having two faces, namely as women's political representatives as well as party political representatives. In a stronger party oligarchy, we argue that filling the affirmative quota of female parliamentary candidates from the family line apart from being urged by the affirmative quota policy for 30%women's political representation, is also motivated by the interests of party oligarchy. We adopt the thoughts of Anne Phillips (1991) about the politics of presence which sees that women's representation in parliament starts from the number, not from the policies they produce.


Res Publica ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-129
Author(s):  
Johan Ackaert

Due to the financial crisis of the Belgian central administration and the financial difficulties of local government, municipal taxes are gradually taking a higher place in the rank of municipal income sources. One could expect a differentiation between the presence of some political parties in the board ofmayor and aldermen (the local majority) on the one hand and the burden of taxation (and its amount of increase) on the other hand. Concerning this amount of increase, the data showed no evidence to prove that differentiation in the Flemish municipalities.  Still we noticed a small variation in the burden of taxation according as to theweight of the socialist group within the local majority. Nevertheless factors as population and the level of mean income in the municipalities were more important to explain the burden of taxation. The results of the municipal-council elections of 1988 are not affected by the increase of the local burden of taxation.


2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 72
Author(s):  
Ulla Fionna
Keyword(s):  

This article reviews and summarises the trends in the development of theories on political parties. In particular, the inherent and overwhelming trend of Western-focused will be addressed. Through the discussion on the contemporary trends in theories of political parties, the article describes the one-sidedness of the theories and the oversight against parties from other regions. However, because of the establishment of these theories, the trend will continue as the theories will be used as benchmark for the development of parties in other parts of the world.


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