scholarly journals VOX Spain: The Organisational Challenges of a New Radical Right Party

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 240-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid Barrio ◽  
Sonia Alonso Sáenz de Oger ◽  
Bonnie N. Field
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
National Party ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Party Organisation

This article examines the organisation of VOX, a new radical right party in Spain. It shows that the party has taken early and uneven steps to build a mass organisation and initially opted for open membership recruitment with participatory organisational elements. Also, the party’s rapid growth and quick entrance into political institutions at different state levels led the party leadership to establish more centralised control and limit members’ prerogatives, though recruitment continued. Centralisation in part responds to organisational needs given the party’s quickly acquired political relevance, but also to the desire of the central party leadership to forestall the articulation of territorial interests, or prevent them from escaping their control. Today, VOX exhibits elements of mass party organisation and highly centralised decision-making in the hands of national party leaders.

scholarly journals Agenda Setting and Intra-Party Deliberation: Who gets represented at party national meetings?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zac Greene ◽  
Javier Sajuria
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Sharing ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
National Party ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Legislative Agenda ◽  
Automated Text Analysis ◽  
Broad Theory

National party meetings provide members with opportunities to express distinct preferences and issue priorities that guide the party’s future policies. Although scholars recognize that party leaders dominate the structure and content of meetings, little empirical research examines the extent of their agenda setting role. Who gets to speak and whose preferences get represented? Adapting theories of legislative agenda setting to the intra-party context, we hypothesize that party candidates are less likely to be chosen as speakers at party conferences when the party’s leadership most demands unity due to their incumbency status. Using self-placements from candidate surveys, we predict the likelihood that MPs and leaders speak at parties’ national meetings in the U.K. We then link candidates’ self-placements to the content of speeches using automated text analysis. These results add to a broad theory of party decision-making which perceives parties’ national meetings as a forum for information sharing, intra-party competition and deliberation. More broadly, evidence in line with this approach suggests that treating parties as unitary actors in a range of settings overlooks important intra-party divisions.

The Priority of Democracy

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Knight ◽  
James Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Federal Reserve ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Institutional Choice ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Strong Case ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

Pragmatism and its consequences are central issues in American politics today, yet scholars rarely examine in detail the relationship between pragmatism and politics. This book systematically explores the subject and makes a strong case for adopting a pragmatist approach to democratic politics—and for giving priority to democracy in the process of selecting and reforming political institutions. What is the primary value of democracy? When should we make decisions democratically and when should we rely on markets? And when should we accept the decisions of unelected officials, such as judges or bureaucrats? This book explores how a commitment to pragmatism should affect our answers to such important questions. It concludes that democracy is a good way of determining how these kinds of decisions should be made—even if what the democratic process determines is that not all decisions should be made democratically. So, for example, the democratically elected U.S. Congress may legitimately remove monetary policy from democratic decision-making by putting it under the control of the Federal Reserve. This book argues that pragmatism offers an original and compelling justification of democracy in terms of the unique contributions democratic institutions can make to processes of institutional choice. This focus highlights the important role that democracy plays, not in achieving consensus or commonality, but rather in addressing conflicts. Indeed, the book suggest that democratic politics is perhaps best seen less as a way of reaching consensus or agreement than as a way of structuring the terms of persistent disagreement.

The AfD as a ‚Leaderless’ Right-Wing Populist Party. How the Leadership-Structure Dilemma Left an Imprint on the Party’s Leadership

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-60
Author(s):  
Gregor Zons ◽  
Anna Halstenbach
Keyword(s):  
Party Competition ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Leadership Structure ◽  
Consolidation Phase ◽  
Leadership Turnover ◽  
Party Institutionalization

AbstractDespite its right-wing populist character, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) shows no signs of a strong party leadership. We ascribe this state of the party leadership to the AfD’s institutionalization as a new party and show how organizational features interact with the skill set and goals of the party leaders. At the party level, we, firstly, outline the organizational change at the top of the party and the party leader selection rules. Secondly, we depict leadership turnover and competitiveness. At the leader level, we investigate the failure of Bernd Lucke, the key founder and one of the initial party leaders, as a manifestation of the leadership-structure dilemma of new parties. Embedded in a leadership team and faced with a growing extra-parliamentary party structure, Lucke tried to secure his initial autonomy and position of power by an attempt to become the sole party leader. His subsequent exit from the AfD laid bare the fact that he was not able to manage the challenges of the organizational consolidation phase, in which a new party needs a coordinator and consensus-builder. The AfD itself has proven its organizational autonomy from its initial leaders and its distaste for a strong and centralized party leadership. The barriers for the latter remain in place while, at the same time, the party institutionalization is still on-going, especially regarding its place in the German party competition.

scholarly journals The Perception of the Legitimacy of Citizens’ Assemblies in Deeply Divided Places? Evidence of Public and Elite Opinion from Consociational Northern Ireland

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
John Garry ◽  
James Pow ◽  
John Coakley ◽  
David Farrell ◽  
Brendan O'Leary ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Elite Interviews ◽  
Support Decision Making ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract How much public and elite support is there for the use of a citizens’ assembly – a random selection of citizens brought together to consider a policy issue – to tackle major, deadlock-inducing disagreements in deeply divided places with consociational political institutions? We focus on Northern Ireland and use evidence from a cross-sectional attitude survey, a survey-based experiment and elite interviews. We find that the general public support decision-making by a citizens’ assembly, even when the decision reached is one they personally disagree with. However, support is lower among those with strong ideological views. We also find that elected politicians oppose delegating decision-making power to an ‘undemocratic’ citizens’ assembly, but are more supportive of recommendation-making power. These findings highlight the potential for post-conflict consociations to be amended, with the consent of the parties, to include citizens’ assemblies that make recommendations but not binding policy.

Sharing is caring: the role of voter-candidate similarities in intra-party electoral competition

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick F. A. van Erkel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Supply Side ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Underrepresented Groups ◽  
Candidate Characteristics

AbstractPrevious studies have found similarities with presidential candidates or party leaders to be an important factor in explaining voting behaviour. However, with the exception of gender, few studies have structurally studied voter-candidate similarities in intra-party electoral competition. This study investigates the Belgian case and argues that voter-candidate similarities play a role in the decision-making process of citizens when casting preferential votes. Moreover, it investigates whether underrepresented groups, and especially women, are more guided by these voter-candidate similarities than overrepresented groups. To achieve this aim voter and candidate characteristics are modelled simultaneously. This enables an investigation of the decision-making process of voters while taking into account structural inequalities at the supply side. The results demonstrate that citizens are indeed more likely to cast preferential votes for candidates similar to themselves and that these effects are stronger for underrepresented groups. Hence, preferential voting could ultimately pave the way for better descriptive representation.

scholarly journals The Importance Of Cooperation Between Local Representatives And Public Institutions In Management Decision-Making

2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (09) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Makhsad Isabayev Bakhodirovich ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Management Decision ◽  
Scientific Article ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Management Decision Making ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Elected Representatives ◽  
Political Decision Making

In this scientific article, international and national legislation on citizens decision-making processes has been investigated, to what extent is the importance of public control in the process of political decision-making, the implementation of citizens' participation in local government directly by itself or through elected representatives (political institutions). Also, practical proposals aimed at increasing the participation of public structures in decision-making were made.

Party Brands and the Democratic and Republican National Committees, 1952–1976

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris Heersink
Keyword(s):  
Service Providers ◽  
National Minority ◽  
National Committee ◽  
National Party ◽  
White House ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Minority Party ◽  
Party Brands

Political scientists have traditionally dismissed the Democratic and Republican National Committees as “service providers”—organizations that provide assistance to candidates in the form of campaign funding and expertise but otherwise lack political power. I argue this perspective has missed a crucial role national committees play in American politics, namely that national party organizations publicize their party's policy positions and, in doing so, attempt to create national party brands. These brands are important to party leaders—especially when the party is in the national minority—since they are fundamental to mobilizing voters in elections. In case studies covering the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) in the period 1952–1976, I show that minority party committees prioritize their branding role and invest considerably in their publicity divisions, inaugurate new publicity programs, and create new communication tools to reach out to voting groups. Additionally, I show that in cases where the party is out of the White House, the national committees have considerable leeway in deciding what party image to publicize. Rather than being mere powerless service providers, I show that party committees have played crucial roles in debates concerning questions of ideology and issue positioning in both parties.

Facing a Changing Party

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schickler
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
National Party ◽  
Party Leaders

This chapter analyzes the battle for control of the national Democratic Party as the players empowered by the coalitional and ideological changes after 1937 battled not just against southern Democrats but also against national party leaders desperate to hold together the fragile North–South coalition. The bland national platforms that Democrats adopted in the 1940s and 1950s belied the vigorous efforts by the liberal civil rights coalition to push for a strong platform plank, which became a regular focal point of dispute starting in 1944. The national platform fights exemplify both the much stronger push for civil rights on the part of important Democratic constituencies (compared to Republicans) and the efforts of national party leaders to avoid a clear stand. A survey of convention delegates from 1956 shows that despite the two parties' similar national platforms, the distribution of delegate preferences was decidedly more pro-civil rights among Democrats.

De moeilijke voorwaarden voor een democratisch partijcongres

Res Publica ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-34
Author(s):  
Wilfried Dewachter
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
World War ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
Natural Tendency ◽  
Participatory Observation

Although communication and discussion between rank and file members and the party leadership are at the heart of party congresses, most parties meet a lot of difficulties in organising truly democratie party conferences.The party leadership has a natural tendency to try to influence the decision-making process. In this article, we identify thirteen conditions fora democratic party conference. They vary from the decision whether or not to organise a conference, over the conference' s theme and the designation of the chair of the conference on to the electoral formula to accept amendments to the proposed resolutions (e.g.simple majority or two-third majority). The thirteen conditions stem from avery long and extensive participatory observation, combined with the analysis of numerous party conferences in Belgium, over the last couple of decades. This enables also to point out some shifting tendencies in the Belgian party congresses since World War II.

The Portuguese ‘New State’ and the Diffusion of Authoritarian Models in Interwar Latin America

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942110660
Author(s):  
António Costa Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Political System ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
System Model ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Power Capacity ◽  
Reform Processes

As an authoritarian ‘gravity centre’ in the interwar period, the Portuguese New State was not the product of strong propaganda or power capacity. Its force of attraction derived, essentially, from having an international means of diffusion: important segments of the Catholic Church's organizations, its associated intellectual politicians, and particularly from having led a corporatist and authoritarian political system model. How and why did Salazar's New State inspire some of the new political institutions proposed by radical right-wing elites or created by many of these regimes? This article tackles this issue by adopting a transnational and comparative research approach, paying particular attention to the primary mediators of its diffusion and analyzing institutional reform processes in selected processes of crises and transitions to authoritarianism in Latin America.

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