From the ground up: The challenge of indigenous party consolidation in Latin America

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Rice
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Mixed Support ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Municipal Election ◽  
Base Of Support

To predict the electoral fate of the new cohort of indigenous-based political parties in Latin America, and the impacts on their respective party systems, we need to understand their prospects for consolidation. The central task of this article is to determine whether indigenous peoples’ parties are developing solid party roots in society or if they are merely benefiting from a protest vote against the system. The study of political party consolidation requires an examination of local level successes and failures. Based on a quantitative analysis of municipal election results in Ecuador (1996—2004) and Bolivia (1999—2004), the author finds mixed support for indigenous party consolidation. Clearly, the governing indigenous-based Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party in Bolivia has solidified its base of support. Ecuador’s indigenous-based Pachakutik (MUPP) party, however, has lost its support at the national level, though it continues to make impressive gains at the local level. As such, it represents a case of incomplete consolidation.

Ghana's political parties: how ethno/regional variations sustain the national two-party system

2006 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 623-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minion K. C. Morrison ◽  
Jae Woo Hong
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
National Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Party Organisation ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Fourth Republic ◽  
Complex Varieties ◽  
Election Results

This paper analyses Ghanaian electoral geography and its accompanying political party variations over the last decade. After re-democratisation in the early 1990s, the Fourth Republic of Ghana has successfully completed multiple elections and party alternation. Due to its single-member-district-plurality electoral system, the country has functioned virtually as a two-party system, privileging its two major parties – the NDC and the NPP. However, close examination of election results in the last parliamentary and presidential elections reveals that notwithstanding the two-party tendency, there is a dynamic and multilayered aspect of electoral participation in Ghanaian politics. Ethnic-based regional cleavages show much more complex varieties of electoral support for the two major parties, especially in light of fragmentation and concentration. Electoral support in the ten regions varies from strong one-party-like to almost three-party systems. Yet this lower, regional level tendency is not invariable. Regional party strengths have shifted from election to election, and it was just such shifts that made the party alternation possible in 2000. Employing traditional and newly designed indicators, this paper illustrates the patterns of electoral cleavage and regional party organisation, and how these ultimately sustain the party system at the national level in Ghana.

scholarly journals Political mediation and participation in the Czech rural areas

2008 ◽  
Vol 54 (No. 12) ◽  
pp. 575-581
Author(s):  
J. Čmejrek
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Rural Community ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Fragmented Population ◽  
Rural Municipalities ◽  
Election Results ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Municipal Election

The objective of this paper is to show the mediation between citizens and political power by political parties in Czech rural areas. The position of political parties in rural municipalities is demonstrated in two perspectives. The top-down perspective is based on the distribution of several tens of thousands mandates in local municipal councils between political parties. The opposite perspective provides the bottom-up point of view – from the level of the individual municipalities, their party systems and party organisational structures. The analysis of the municipal election results reveals clearly that the role of political parties in local politics depends namely on the size of the given municipality. In this sense, the Czech Republic represents a very interesting example as it is characterised by a dense and heavily fragmented population settlement with a large number of small rural municipalities. In rural municipalities, we encounter incomplete party spectra and the absence of political parties in the smallest municipalities. Besides, the lists of candidates in rural municipalities reveal the weakness of the local party organisations that cannot avoid cooperating with the independent candidates. The small distance between the citizen and the elected body in a rural community significantly determines the forms of the local politics; the ideological and party mediation is superfluous, in fact, it is often seen as something harmful which divides the rural community.

Can Civil Society Organizations Solve the Crisis of Partisan Representation in Latin America?

2008 ◽  
Vol 50 (02) ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Hochstetler ◽  
Elisabeth Jay Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Political Outcomes ◽  
Recent Representation

AbstractThis article takes up the question of whether civil society organizations (CSOs) can and do act as mechanisms of representation in times of party crisis. It looks at recent representation practices in Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil, three countries where political parties have experienced sharp crises after several decades of mixed reviews for their party systems. At such moments, any replacement of parties by CSOs should be especially apparent. This study concludes that the degree of crisis determines the extent that CSOs' representative functions replace partisan representation, at least in the short term. Where systems show signs of re-equilibration, CSOs offer alternative mechanisms through which citizens can influence political outcomes without seeking to replace parties. Where crisis is profound, CSOs claim some of the basic party functions but do not necessarily solve the problems of partisan representation.

scholarly journals Med begom pred sovjetsko preteklostjo in vračanjem vanjo. Stranke in volitve v Ukrajini in Belorusiji med leti 1989 in 2013

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2019) (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleš Maver ◽  
Darko Friš ◽  
Gorazd Bajc
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Scientific Paper ◽  
English Summary ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Before And After ◽  
History Of ◽  
Base Of Support

Category: 1.01 Original scientific paper Language: Original in Slovene (Abstract in Slovene and English, Summary in English) Key words: history of Ukraine, history of Belarus, party systems, political parties, Yulia Tymoshenko, Rukh movement, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Communist parties in post-Soviet countries, politics of the post-Soviet environments Synopsis: The development of respective party systems in Ukraine and Belarus immediately before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union could hardly be more different. In Ukraine a solid party system was slow to emerge. Different historical experiences and cultural features in various parts of the country as well as strong linking of political groupings to particular personalities or rather economic power groups prevented formation of stable parties with firm base of support in all regions of Ukraine. The divide between east and west, established already in 1994 and reinforced during the presidential election in 2004, has remained the main feature of Ukrainian politics until today. Belarus, on the other hand, can be seen as a country where political parties exert the weakest influence in all Europe. Animosity towards party politics has been rooted in Soviet traditions, but it has also been systematically encouraged by the president Alyaksandr Lukashenka's regime.

scholarly journals Comparison of agrarian political  parties in selected Central European states after 1989

2012 ◽  
Vol 48 (No. 12) ◽  
pp. 544-553
Author(s):  
P. Blažek ◽  
M. Kubalek
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Agriculture Modernization ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Communist Countries ◽  
The City

This study deals with the founding and development of agrarian political parties and movements in selected postcommunist states (with the emphasis put on the Czech party system in the early 1990‘s). The topic is discussed from the point of view of classic political science theories, namely the historical conflict approach of Stein Rokkan and Seymour Martin Lipset, complemented with Derek Urwin’s theory regarding emergence of agrarian parties as a means of defense of country against urbanization. The results of research into the urban – rural cleavage and its influence on the genesis of agrarian political parties in selected post-communist countries after 1989 seem to support the above mentioned theories (even though those were originally formulated for a much earlier period when the Western party systems were first coming into existence. These can be applied also to the Czech environment, where several profession-based political parties were established in the early 1990’s, some of which were concerned with the defense of peasants’ and farmers’ interests. The attempts to create profession-based parties in the Czech political system were destined to fail for several reasons. The first was a striking ideological profiling of the bipolar party spectrum, causing general parties to pick up the themes and voters concerned with economic recession, and radicalization of electorate. The second reason lied in the diminishing numbers of potential voters, a result of agriculture modernization and general urbanization of society, which caused that the city-country conflict was reflected in the election results only marginally. The result was similar to other post-Soviet states, with a specific exception of Poland: agrarian parties and movements lost their former influence.

Japanese Lower House Campaigns in Transition: Manifest Changes or Fleeting Fads?

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Koellner
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Voter Mobilization ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Lower House ◽  
House Election ◽  
The Media

Electioneering for the Japanese Lower House has undergone significant changes in recent years. While voter mobilization strategies still figure prominently in the local-level campaigns of individual candidates, political parties increasingly use voter-chasing strategies at the national level. Such chasing strategies, whose manifestations in Japan have so far included the manifesto and the media-spin approach, target in particular the growing number of independent voters. The concurrence of elements of continuity and change in electioneering has led to a “hybridization” of Lower House election campaigns. The article examines this phenomenon in the light of newer conceptual and theoretical approaches to electoral politics in democratic settings.

scholarly journals Party system nationalization in Estonia

Baltic Region ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-31
Author(s):  
Dmitry A. Lanko ◽  
Irina S. Lantsova
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Political Party System ◽  
Integration Project ◽  
Local Levels

This article explores the Estonian ‘integration’ project, which was launched in the early 1990s to bridge the differences between ethnic Estonians and ethnic Russians by assimilating the latter with the former. Since the project will soon turn thirty, it is timely to ask whether it has been a success. This article employs Grigorii Golosov’s index of political party nationalization to understand whether the ‘integration’ project has helped to narrow the ideological divide between ethnic Estonians and ethnic Russians. In other words, the study asks whether ethnic Estonians and ethnic Russians vote for the same political parties in comparable proportions or there are ‘Estonian’ and ‘Russian’ parties in the country. The analysis of the outcomes of four local and four parliamentary elections that took place in Estonia in 2005—2019 shows that by the mid-2000s Estonia achieved a considerable level of political party system nationalization at both national and local levels. At the national level, political party system nationalization remained high in 2007—2019 despite significant changes in the country’s political party system. At the local level, however, political party system nationalization has been diminishing since 2013, leading one to conclude that the Estonian ‘integration’ project has failed to close the ideological divide between ethnic Estonians and ethnic Russians.

Parties and Party Systems

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florence Haegel
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
French Literature ◽  
English Language ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
International Work ◽  
Sociocultural Approach ◽  
Alternative Approaches

International work on political parties and party systems is presented first in this chapter, and then the French scholarship which is largely ignored by international party scholars. The analysis argues the gap between the English-language and French literature is actually widening because of the French penchant for the sociocultural approach. It identifies the need for both French and international communities to better connect in order to avoid isolation and fossilization on both sides. While the micro and qualitative French work challenges some of the tenets of international models, like the catch-all model, and presents important empirical knowledge about French political parties at the local level, French scholars should take a broader perspective on political parties by embracing alternative approaches and examining new objects of study outside the purview of the sociocultural paradigm to address the persistent and widening gap between French and international work on party systems and parties.

Political Parties, Party Systems, and Democracy in East Asia

2001 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
HANS STOCKTON
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
South Korea ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Curvilinear Relationship ◽  
National Comparison ◽  
Cross National

Institutionalized parties and party systems have traditionally been viewed as necessary conditions for democracies to function effectively. Although this area of research is germane to all democracies, most analyses have been divided by regional investigation. Seeking to bridge the gap, this article applies concepts and measures of institutionalization from the study of Latin America to Pacific Asia's two most prominent cases of democratic transition, South Korea and Taiwan. An effort is made to apply the approaches of Dix and Mainwaring and Scully on party and system institutionalization in Latin America to South Korea and Taiwan. Cross-national comparison reveals a curvilinear relationship between institutionalization and consolidation. Taiwan's path to consolidation has been predicated on a pattern very similar to those taken by Latin American cases, whereas South Korea, theoretically, should not be as close to consolidation as it is.

scholarly journals Jammu & Kashmir’s Repeated Reaffirmed Faith in the Democratic Setup of India: A Study of the State’s Public Participation in the General Elections of India (1967-2014)

2015 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 125-138
Author(s):  
Ramesh Pandita
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Jammu And Kashmir ◽  
The Public ◽  
General Elections

Purpose: - The up-rise of social unrest in the state of Jammu & Kashmir (the federal constituent of the Union of India) towards the end of the 20th century with the demand to secede from the union of India has somewhere earned the Jammu & Kashmir as a conflict zone in the South Asia. The present study has been conceived to examine the public participation of the Jammu & Kashmir state in the democratic process of the country, by participating in the general elections of India (A referendum or plebiscite of its own kind, whereby people of the state, time and again have reaffirmed their faith in the democratic process of the country) since its accession with the union of India. Some of the aspects evaluated in the present study include, electoral participation, participation of national and local level political parties, participation and performance of national level political parties, representation given to women candidates, etc.Scope: - The study is confined to the state of Jammu & Kashmir, India and the findings have direct bearing with the state, which has altogether a different geopolitical setup, where public interests stand safeguarded by the constitution of India under article 370. There is every need to observe caution, while generalizing the findings of the study.Methodology/Approach: - The study is empirical in nature, undertaken on the secondary data, retrieved from the official website of the Election Commission of India on August 02, 2014.Findings: - The state of Jammu and Kashmir has so far undergone through 12 general elections in the country. The average voter turnout during these elections from the state remained about 46.76%. At gender level the average voter turnout percentage among males remained 60% & for females 39.90%, which compared to voter turnout at national level during the same period at gender level remained 62.39% and 55.45% respectively. The voter turnout percentage from the state remained far better than various other states of the country for the same period. The threat perception to not to participate in the electoral process of the country that prevailed over state populace post 1989 got reflected in the subsequent 7 general elections held in the state, especially among female folk, resulting decline in their turnout percentage, when compared to their male counterparts.Social Implications: - The study is an eye opener to the public at large and to those, who are abetting the Jammu & Kashmir’s secession movement by crying that the state is devoid of democracy. The secession movement which is being backed by the money & the munitions questions its own credibility & justification.

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