scholarly journals All Different, Yet All the Same? The Place of New Parties in Lithuanian Party System

Politologija ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 102 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-115
Author(s):  
Paulius Skirkevičius

One of the prominent feature of the Lithuanian party system is constant success of new parties. Based on political parties’ programmatic stances, this article investigates the place of these new parties in the Lithuanian party system. Using three different metrics (place in two-dimensional political spectrum, programmatic differences, nicheness), article aims at locating new parties in the party system as well as finding common denominators in party programmatic stances, which could let to assign new parties to the specific type of political parties. Analysis reveals that even though one cannot say, that all new parties are totally the same, there are common features that defines these parties (central position in the political spectrum, lack of clear programmatic niche, stressing common political issue, which separates them from traditional parties).

2018 ◽  
pp. 8-15
Author(s):  
Іvan Pobochiy

The level of social harmony in society and the development of democracy depends to a large extent on the level of development of parties, their ideological and political orientation, methods and means of action. The purpose of the article is to study the party system of Ukraine and directions of its development, which is extremely complex and controversial. The methods. The research has led to the use of such scientific search methods as a system that allowed the party system of Ukraine to be considered as a holistic organism, and the historical and political method proved to be very effective in analyzing the historical preconditions and peculiarities of the formation of the party system. The results. The incompetent, colonial past and the associated cruel national oppression, terror, famine, and violent Russification caused the contradictory and dramatic nature of modernization, the actual absence of social groups and their leaders interested in it, and the relatively passive reaction of society to the challenges of history. Officials have been nominated by mafia clans, who were supposed to protect their interests and pursue their policies. Political struggle in the state took place not between influential political parties, but between territorial-regional clans. The party system of Ukraine after the Maidan and the beginning of the war on the Donbass were undergoing significant changes. On the political scene, new parties emerged in the course of the protests and after their completion — «Petro Poroshenko Bloc», «People’s Front», «Self-help»), which to some extent became spokespeople for not regional, but national interests. Pro-European direction is the main feature of the leading political parties that have formed a coalition in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Conclusion. The party system of Ukraine as a result of social processes is at the beginning of a new stage in its development, an important feature of which is the increase in the influence of society (direct and indirect) on the political life of the state. Obviously, there is a demand from the public for the emergence of new politicians, new leaders and new political forces that citizens would like to see first and foremost speakers and defenders of their interests.


Author(s):  
N. G. ROGOZHINA

On the threshold of elections designed to be held in February 2019,  the first after the military junta seized power in 2014, it is important  to define the role of parties in the political process of Thailand, which  as other developing countries of Asia, faces  challenges in democratic state building. The contemporary political  history of kingdom represents the confrontation of two tendencies –  authoritarianism and democracy what has a reverse impact on  political parties, their character, structure and ability to represent  interests of the society as a whole. The author analyses the process  of party evolution in the historical retrospective in the context of  transformation of political system – from bureaucratic to  semidemocratic subjected to economic modernization and changes in  socio structure of society where traditional form of organization patron-client is persisted. The author defines three  stages of evolution of party system in Thailand The first is  characterized by the full control of civil-military bureaucracy over  parties. The second stage is closely related to the formation of provincial political clientele groups. The third stage marks the  evolvement of party of “power” with the implication for  strengthening the parliamentary democracy in the beginning of XXI  century. And as the result of it – to the destabilization of political  system, based on the relative balance of power between two main  political forces – bureaucracy and army interested in reservation of authoritarian government, and bourgeoisie supporting the  liberalization of political institutes. With the emergence of party of “power” supported by the majority of population advocating  parliamentary democracy political spectrum has changed. The arising conflict of interests subjected to collision of positions  regarding the model of political governance was overcome by  military coup. Analyzing the political spectrum on the threshold of  elections the author comes to conclusion that the restoration of  compromised model of political governance sample of 80-90 years of  XX century is the most likely option of political development of  Thailand in the near future. Though it differs in one aspect – the  social structure has changed, there is the rise of that groups of population that intend to participate in the political process, what  will force the power to be more transparent and social oriented. These challenges face the political parties as well.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
HIROFUMI MIWA

AbstractThe prevailing theory states that either Japanese voters have stopped ideologically distinguishing parties or that the main political parties in Japan have become more centrist in recent years. These arguments are based on survey questions asking citizens to locate parties on an ideological scale. However, these questions may suffer from noise caused by respondents who misinterpret the question wording or answer the questions inappropriately to mask their misunderstanding of the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’. To address this problem by extracting only the views of those who know the meaning of left–right terms, this article develops a mixture model. Applying the model to an opinion poll conducted after the 2012 Japanese general election, I confirm that those who comprehend the left–right terminology – slightly over half of all voters – largely perceived parties’ ideologies in the same way as experts. Additionally, I find that even these voters face difficulties in placing ambiguous or new parties on the political spectrum. This study has implications not only for understanding trends in Japanese political ideology, but also for survey design and analysis of heterogeneous survey responses.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-179
Author(s):  
Luljeta Hasani

Abstract During the years 1991-1992, according to the authors Albanian political parties coexist modern concepts of party politics and organization with the concepts of local tradition imposed by mentality, inheritance and local circumstances. Throughout 1992- 1998 we have an increase in the number of political parties, of which two were major in 1990 in 1996, we have 65 political parties, of which 12 had representation in the parliament of the time. This increase in the number of parties by authors has come as a result of problems and internal conflicts in political parties, leading to factions and the creation of new parties in both sides of the policy. At the end of the first decade of transition, the political parties SP and PD as the two most influential parties in Albanian political life, after holding their National Assemblies, and other parties began to look to improve the public image by reforming statutes and programs leaving room for greater transparency and greater critical space for the public during the second decade of transition, in addition to the "multi-value" developments "in the political behavior of party leadership, there is a positive element of how political parties abandoned extreme ideological programs and reached compromise Important political issue. A very important feature that political parties pose is that they feature the features of having a "strong" leader.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-137
Author(s):  
Matevž Malčič ◽  
Alenka Krašovec

AbstractWhile no stranger to new political parties, Slovenia’s party system became much more unstable after 2008 with the constant arrival of electorally very successful parties. Further, while the citizens’ satisfaction with democracy and trust in political institutions has never reached the heights seen in Western Europe, the crisis years saw them drop to historical lows. In these circumstances, one may expect successful new parties to assure greater responsiveness, or a balance between responsible and responsive politics, and to bring improvements to citizens’ opinion on their satisfaction with democracy and trust in political institutions. In addition, new parties are usually more prone to democratic innovations, which can be associated with the popular idea of introducing stronger intra-party democracy in their internal functioning. The analysis shows that in 2014 Slovenia experienced both the nadir of public opinion on democracy and the political system, and the most electorally successful new party. Nevertheless, improvements in satisfaction with democracy and the political system only slowly emerged after 2014, to a considerable extent coinciding with the return to economic prosperity, while even these improvements left enough room for yet another successful new party at the 2018 elections. Concerning innovations in intra-party democracy, we are only able to identify some smaller democratic innovations. Given this, it seems that the new parties themselves have had a relatively limited impact on democracy in Slovenia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 44-62
Author(s):  
Pieter Labuschagne

This article investigates new political party formation in South Africa within the broader context of voter volatility. The political party system has displayed high levels of stability, but the unrestrained and rampant formation of new political parties that contest in each election could destabilise the system. The number of entrants rose to an unprecedented 28 before the 2019 elections and contradicts the support for older, established parties in each election since 1994. In theory, the within-system stability in South Africa, with an on average 90% voter share between established parties, impedes the scope for the formation of new smaller parties. In reality, support for new parties remains low. This article explores why this does not serve as a deterrent for the formation of new parties. The article shows that despite the increasing number of new entrants, their impact on stability and consolidation in the country is negligible.


Author(s):  
Harry Nedelcu

The mid and late 2000s witnessed a proliferation of political parties in European party systems. Marxist, Libertarian, Pirate, and Animal parties, as well as radical-right and populist parties, have become part of an increasingly heterogeneous political spectrum generally dominated by the mainstream centre-left and centre-right. The question this article explores is what led to the surge of these parties during the first decade of the 21st century. While it is tempting to look at structural arguments or the recent late-2000s financial crisis to explain this proliferation, the emergence of these parties predates the debt-crisis and can not be described by structural shifts alone . This paper argues that the proliferation of new radical parties came about not only as a result of changes in the political space, but rather due to the very perceived presence and even strengthening of what Katz and Mair (1995) famously dubbed the "cartelization" of mainstream political parties.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v7i1.210


Author(s):  
Benjamin von dem Berge ◽  
Thomas Poguntke

This chapter introduces a new, two-dimensional way of measuring intra-party democracy (IPD). It is argued that assembly-based IPD and plebiscitary IPD are two theoretically different modes of intra-party decision-making. Assembly-based IPD means that discussion and decision over a certain topic takes place at the same time. Plebiscitary IPD disconnects the act of voting from the discussion over the alternatives that are put to a vote. In addition, some parties have opened up plebiscitary decision-making to non-members which is captured by the concept of open plebiscitary IPD. Based on the Political Party Database Project (PPDB) dataset, indices are developed for the three variants of IPD. The empirical analyses here show that assembly-based and plebiscitary IPD are combined by political parties in different ways while open party plebiscites are currently a rare exception.


Tripodos ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 83-104
Author(s):  
María Díez Garrido ◽  
Eva Campos Domínguez ◽  
Dafne Calvo

El escenario digital ha impulsado pro­fundos cambios en el entorno político, entre los que se puede distinguir el im­pulso de la transparencia informativa. La transparencia se ha convertido en uno de los valores democráticos que los políticos quieren demostrar de cara a la ciudadanía, ya que es un signo de le­gitimidad, evolución y lucha contra la corrupción. Los partidos políticos han introducido la transparencia en sus dis­cursos y argumentarios. Precisamente las formaciones tienen una reputación baja en cuanto a apertura informativa. Este artículo pretende estudiar la intro­ducción de la transparencia en el dis­curso electoral de los partidos políticos. Para ello, se estudia la presencia de la transparencia en los programas elec­torales de las principales formaciones políticas españolas durante las últimas Elecciones Generales (2015 y 2016). A continuación, se realiza un análisis de contenido de sus páginas web, que pretende conocer su nivel de apertura informativa. Esta metodología nos per­mite descubrir si lo que promocionan las formaciones en los programas se relaciona con el desarrollo en sus pá­ginas web. Los resultados muestran las diferencias entre los nuevos partidos y los tradicionales, así como la evolución entre unos comicios y los siguientes.   Political Parties’ Transparency As an Electoral Strategy. An Evaluation of Their Promises and Their Websites The digital scenario has produced pro­found changes in the political environ­ment, and transparency is part of this transformation. Transparency has become one of the most valued aspirations that politicians want to demonstrate to the public, as it is a sign of legitimacy, evolution, and the fight against corrup­tion. Political parties have introduced transparency in their speeches and ar­guments. At the same time, political for­mations have a low reputation in terms of informative openness. This article aims to study the introduction of trans­parency in the political parties’ electoral discourse. To this end, we explore the presence of transparency in the electo­ral programs of the main Spanish poli­tical parties during the last two General Elections (2015 and 2016). Next, we carry out a content analysis of their web sites, which aims to gain deeper insight into their level of informative openness. This methodology allows us to determine if Spanish political parties promote in their programs the same ob­jectives that they put forward on their web sites. The results also show the di­fferences between the new parties and the traditional ones, as well as their evolution between the General Elections in 2015 and 2016.


2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Formisano

During the 1980s and 1990s in countries across the globe, new populist protest movements and radical political organizations emerged to challenge traditional parties, ruling elites, and professional politicians, and even long-standing social norms. The revolts against politics-as-usual have arisen from many kinds of social groupings and from diverse points on the political spectrum. Through the 1980s, in Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and North America, populist discontent erupted intermittently. But the end of the Cold War, particularly in Europe, unleashed a torrent of popular movements and political parties opposed to what the discontented perceived as the corruption and deceitfulness of the political classes and their corporate patrons. Some protest movements promoted more democracy, pluralism, and economic opportunity; some expressed intolerance, bigotry, and xenophobic nationalism.


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