Party Fragmentation, the Proportional System and Democracy in Slovenia

2021 ◽  
pp. 147892992110594
Author(s):  
Danica Fink-Hafner ◽  
Meta Novak
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Recent Trend ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Parliamentary System ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Near Future

In Slovenia, political parties have been the key actors in opting for a proportional electoral system and constitutional choice of a parliamentary system, both of which are believed to help to develop a consensual type of democracy. However, a vicious circle involving a fragmented party system and a proportional electoral system has not only led to polarisation within the party system, but has also contributed to problems of democratic governability and legitimacy. The destabilisation of the party system since 2011 has not only caused a crisis of political legitimacy and accountability, but has also contributed to a recent trend of de-democratisation. At the moment, there does not appear to be a realistic alternative to the existing electoral rules in the near future, in spite of recurring calls by an anti-communist party (Slovenian Democratic Party) to introduce a majoritarian system.

Electoral Systems in Context

2017 ◽  
pp. 920-942 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Allen
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Political Outcomes ◽  
The Face ◽  
Over Time

This chapter examines the evolution of the Indonesian electoral system and its effects on political outcomes. Although Indonesia has repeatedly chosen to conduct elections using proportional representation, electoral rules have changed considerably over time. The chapter traces two trajectories of reform in the post-Suharto era: one restricting opportunities for small parties and the other restricting the power of party leadership. Efforts to shape party system outcomes using electoral rules have succeeded in some areas, particularly in preventing the formation of regional partisan cleavages. Yet the proliferation of political parties in the face of reforms meant to consolidate the party system underline the limits of institutional design.

Electoral Systems in Context

2017 ◽  
pp. 698-720
Author(s):  
Adam Ziegfeld
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Historically Disadvantaged

Throughout its history, India has employed first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral rules for nearly all of its legislative elections. Though India uses a relatively common set of electoral rules, three features of India’s FPTP electoral system stand out. First, India’s election constituencies exhibit persistent malapportionment, even after a recent redrawing of constituency boundaries. Second, India mandates representation for historically disadvantaged ethnic groups—and, more recently, women at the local level—by setting aside, or “reserving,” seats in which only members of certain groups may compete for office. Third, political parties often form pre-election alliances in which multiple parties agree not to field candidates against one another. As a result of frequent pre-election alliances, India’s party system exhibits a number of characteristics rarely found in countries using FPTP rules.

The Electoral System and Japan's Partial Transformation: Party System Consolidation Without Policy Realignment

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan Scheiner
Keyword(s):  
Policy Change ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Partial Transformation ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Liberal Democratic

Japan's electoral system, which emphasizes first-past-the-post, single-member district rules, has led the country's party system to become consolidated around the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). At the same time, Japan's electoral rules also made it likely that the two parties would not differ markedly in their policy positions, as well as hinder the emergence of new partisan alignments that could offer more clearly distinct policy options. Put differently, Japan's electoral rules have encouraged the development of what is essentially a two-party system, but one in which party alternation in power need not produce sharp policy change.

Activity of modern right-wing radical parties in the Czech Republic

2019 ◽  
pp. 164-173
Author(s):  
Tetiana Fedorchak
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Political Radicalism

The author investigates political radicalism in the Czech Republic, a rather heterogeneous current considering the structure of participants: from political parties to the extremist organizations. The peculiarity of the Czech party system is the existence, along with typical radical parties, of other non-radical parties whose representatives support xenophobic, nationalist and anti-Islamic statements. This is primarily the Civil Democratic Party, known for its critical attitude towards European integration, and the Communist party of the Czech Republic and Moravia, which opposes Czech membership in NATO and the EU. Among the Czech politicians, who are close to radical views, analysts include the well-known for its anti-Islamic position of the Czech President M. Zeman and the leader of the movement ANO, billionaire A. Babich. Voters vote for them not because their economic or social programs are particularly attractive to the electorate, but because of dissatisfaction with the economic situation in the state. Almost all right populist parties oppose European integration, interpreting it as an anti-national project run by an elite distorted by a deficit of democracy and corruption. Keywords: Czech Republic, right-wing radical political parties, European integration, nationalism.

Pre-Electoral Coalition Formation in Parliamentary Democracies

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
SONA NADENICHEK GOLDER
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Electoral Coalitions ◽  
Vast Literature ◽  
Coalition Size ◽  
Government Coalition

Political parties that wish to exercise executive power in parliamentary democracies are typically forced to enter some form of coalition. Parties can either form a pre-electoral coalition prior to election or they can compete independently and form a government coalition afterwards. While there is a vast literature on government coalitions, little is known about pre-electoral coalitions. A systematic analysis of these coalitions using a new dataset constructed by the author and presented here contains information on all potential pre-electoral coalition dyads in twenty industrialized parliamentary democracies from 1946 to 1998. Pre-electoral coalitions are more likely to form between ideologically compatible parties. They are also more likely to form when the expected coalition size is large (but not too large) and the potential coalition partners are similar in size. Finally, they are more likely to form if the party system is ideologically polarized and the electoral rules are disproportional.

Slovenia

2019 ◽  
pp. 475-521
Author(s):  
Alenka Krašovec ◽  
Tomaž Krpič
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Dropping Out ◽  
The Political ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
The Government

Under the proportional representation (PR) electoral system in Slovenia, after elections, coalition governments have formed. However, the coalition partners have also adopted a ‘dropping out from government’ strategy between elections, which in some cases has led to minority governments. This has occurred despite a frequent use of several conflict-prevention and conflict-resolution mechanisms. One such mechanism, coalition agreements, are mostly understood in terms of policy agreements. After each election in the period 1992–2000, the leading party, the LDS, signed a coalition agreement with each coalition partner. Since 2013, such coalition agreements include a mechanism of explicitly stating in coalition agreements that certain issues are to be avoided. Regardless, governments termination in majority cases happened due to different (policy or personal) conflicts within the government. Early in the period, government coalitions were ideologically mixed. This was characteristic for governments under LDS leadership from 1992 to 2004, while after the 2004 elections, the governmental coalitions were much more ideologically homogenous. Alternation between like-minded ideological coalitions (centre-left or centre-right) took place. Simultaneously, the main lines of conflict changed. In the 1990s, initially a mostly ideological cleavage between ‘transformed’ and ‘newly established’ political parties was present, while after the 2004 elections, the economic cleavage became more salient. All parliamentary parties, except the Slovenian National Party, have at least briefly participated in governments, while the Democratic Party of Retired Persons have been since the mid-1990s the party with the biggest coalition potential. Since 2011, small parties have received pivotal roles in coalition formation. Generally speaking, participation in the government has not been electorally rewarding for the political parties.

scholarly journals Hacia el estudio de lo preocupante en nuestro régimen de partidos = The worrying state of our party system

2015 ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Óscar Alzaga Villaamil
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Full Control ◽  
El Sistema ◽  
Siglo Xix ◽  
Party Funding ◽  
Sociological Studies ◽  
Spanish Legislation

Noting that in sociological studies at European level Spain is almost at the bottom of civic appraisal of its democracy and its political, the study explores the historical roots of poor political representation in the nineteenth century Spanish with management from the Crown Decrees of dissolution of parliament and full control by governments shift elections based on small districts and on a rooted cacique system. The 1977 Law for Political Reform conditioned the electoral system for the Parliament, distorting proportional representation in terms that have come down to us and who have devoted bipartisanship when none of the major parties has a majority depends on the Nationalist forces, they have made great revenues as unique representative map. The Spanish legislation regulating political parties with great precision how the upcoming ban terrorism forces, but hardly develops the constitutional requirements regarding the organization and internal functioning must be democratic, nor on party funding, for what you need to consider the reform of the parties Act 2002.Tras constatar que en los estudios sociológicos de ámbito europeo España se sitúa prácticamente a la cola de valoración ciudadana de su democracia y de sus políticos, el estudio profundiza en las raíces históricas de la mala representación política durante el Siglo XIX español con manejo desde la Corona de los Decretos de disolución de las Cortes y pleno control por los gobiernos del turno de unas elecciones basadas en distritos pequeños y en un arraigados sistema caciquil. La Ley de 1977 para la Reforma Política condicionó el sistema electoral para las Cortes, distorsionando la representación proporcional en términos que han llegado a nuestros días y que han consagrado un bipartidismo que cuando ninguno de los principales partidos tiene mayoría absoluta depende de las fuerzas nacionalistas, que han obtenido grandes réditos de tan singular mapa representativo. La legislación española de partidos políticos regula con gran precisión la forma de prohibir las fuerzas próximas al terrorismo, pero prácticamente no desarrolla los imperativos constitucionales en cuanto a que la organización y el funcionamiento interno deben ser democráticos, ni sobre la financiación de los partidos, por lo que procede abordar la reforma de la Ley de partidos de 2002.

scholarly journals Electoral incentives, policy compromise, and coalition durability: Japan's LDP–Komeito Government in a mixed electoral system

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam P. Liff ◽  
Ko Maeda
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Japanese Politics ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Coalition Politics ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Mixed Electoral System

AbstractPolitical parties’ behavior in coalition formation is commonly explained by their policy-, vote-, and office-seeking incentives. From these perspectives, the 20-year partnership of Japan's ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its pacifistic Komeito junior coalition partner is an anomalous case. The longevity, closeness, and nature of their unlikely partnership challenges core assumptions in existing theories of coalition politics. LDP–Komeito cooperation has sustained for two decades despite vastly different support bases and ideological differences on fundamental policy issues. LDP leaders also show no signs of abandoning the much smaller Komeito despite enjoying a single-party majority. We argue that the remarkable durability of this puzzling partnership results primarily from the two parties’ electoral incentives and what has effectively become codependence under Japan's mixed electoral system. Our analysis also demonstrates that being in a coalition can induce significant policy compromises, even from a much larger senior partner. Beyond theoretical implications, these phenomena yield important real-world consequences for Japanese politics: especially, a far less dominant LDP than the party's Diet seat total suggests, and Komeito's remarkable ability to punch significantly above its weight and constrain its far larger senior partner, even on the latter's major national security policy priorities.

scholarly journals Japan Under the DPJ: The Paradox of Political Change Without Policy Change

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Y. Lipscy ◽  
Ethan Scheiner
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Policy Coherence ◽  
Rural Regions ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Liberal Democratic

In 2009, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) brought an end to the long reign of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). However, despite high expectations, this politically transformative event has not unleashed significant policy change in Japan. We highlight five electoral factors that have acted as important constraints on policy change under DPJ rule. First, majoritarian electoral rules have led to a convergence in the policy positions of the two major political parties. Second, as the parties' policy positions have become more similar, voters have increasingly cast ballots based on “valence” (i.e., nonpolicy) evaluations. Third, large national vote swings have limited the tenure of young, inexperienced candidates who might otherwise serve as the instigators of reform. Fourth, Japan's electoral rules permit inconsistency across policy positions within parties and discourage greater policy coherence. Fifth, the continuing influence of rural regions has limited the scope of policy reform under the DPJ.

Beyond representativeness? Trends in political representation

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
RUDY B. ANDEWEG
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
General Trend ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Popular Control

The ascendancy of proportional representation as the electoral system of choice, and pervasive concerns with the demographic representativeness of parliaments, both testify to the importance that is attached to ‘descriptive’ or ‘microcosmic’ representation in politics, despite persistent doubts about its desirability. This paper makes three points. First, representation as representativeness presupposes the existence of stable and meaningful social or political collectivities, which can be reflected in the composition of parliament, and this condition is undermined by the general trend towards individualization, which can be observed throughout Western Europe. Second, this trend necessitates a conceptualization of political representation not as a state, but as a dynamic relationship between the citizen and the representative. This relationship can be characterized both by its direction (from below or from above), and by the moment at which popular control is exercised (before or after the representative's period in office). Third, it is argued that both growing uncertainty about citizen preferences and the transformation of political parties into para-statal agencies push towards representation from above; and that both growing unpredictability of the political agenda and European integration push towards ex-post popular control. These developments call for greater attention to mechanisms of accountability in representative democracies.

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