scholarly journals Democracy, Islam and Party System in Indonesia: towards a consensus-oriented model?

PCD Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Pal Istvan Gyene

This paper argues that the impact of “Islam” on the Indonesian political system is worth studying on three different levels: 1. society’s political divisions; 2. the party system 3. parliamentary politics. I contend that there is a specifically Indonesian “consensus-oriented” democracy model involved in the process—which is not, however, without Western predecessors—wherein political Islam and Islamist parties act not as destabilising factors but rather as “Muslim democratic” forces that strengthen democratic consensus in a manner similar to some “Western” Christian democratic parties. This research is based partly on a historical and, implicitly, comparative approach. It builds strongly on the theoretical framework and methodology of Sartori’s classic party system typology, Lijphardt’s “majoritarian” and “consensus-based” democracy model, and the so-called neo-institutionalist debate on the possible advantages and disadvantages of parliamentary and presidential governments.  

2021 ◽  
pp. 019251212096737
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Baldini ◽  
Edoardo Bressanelli ◽  
Emanuele Massetti

This article investigates the impact of Brexit on the British political system. By critically engaging with the conceptualisation of the Westminster model proposed by Arend Lijphart, it analyses the strains of Brexit on three dimensions developed from from Lijphart’s framework: elections and the party system, executive– legislative dynamics and the relationship between central and devolved administrations. Supplementing quantitative indicators with an in-depth qualitative analysis, the article shows that the process of Brexit has ultimately reaffirmed, with some important caveats, key features of the Westminster model: the resilience of the two-party system, executive dominance over Parliament and the unitary character of the political system. Inheriting a context marked by the progressive weakening of key majoritarian features of the political system, the Brexit process has brought back some of the traditional executive power-hoarding dynamics. Yet, this prevailing trend has created strains and resistances that keep the political process open to different developments.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-276
Author(s):  
Michał Wawrzonek ◽  
Oliwia Kropornicka

The aim of the paper is to scrutinize activities related to the commemoration of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. There were three main goals of the research. The first one was to identify the most important actors of the commemorative activities. The second goal was to reconstruct the strategies applied by these agents. Thirdly, this research aimed to consider current processes in the Ukrainian political system. In particular, the question was what we can know about the evolution of these commemorative activities after the Euromaidan based on relations between different agents in the mnemonic field. Special emphasis was placed on Sheptytsky’s attitude during the Holocaust and on the impact of this topic on the commemorative activities. As a theoretical framework of the research, Jan Kubik and Michael Bernhard’s theory of the politics of memory was applied. The research enabled verification of some elements of Kubik and Bernhard’s concept. Inter alia it was an issue of a set of presumptions regarding interrelations between strategies applied by mnemonic actors, the structure of mnemonic regime, and prospects for democratization of a political system.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Mahmoud Mahgoub

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of using proportional representation system on the fragmentation of the party system in the Algerian political system within the period from 1997 to 2017, in which Algeria has experienced five legislative elections regularly every five years by testing a hypothesis about adopting the proportional representation system on the basis of the closed list during the foregoing legislative elections has obviously influenced the exacerbation of the Algerian party system’s fragmentation, compared to other factors. Design/methodology/approach The essence of the theoretical framework of this study is to address the effect of the electoral system as an independent variable on the party system as a dependent variable. The starting point for that framework is to reassess the “Duverger’s law,” which appeared since the early 1950s and has influenced the foregoing relationship, and then to review the literature on a new phase that tried to provide a more accurate mechanism for determining the number of parties and their relative weight, whether in terms of electoral votes or parliamentary seats. This means that researchers began to use a measure called the effective number of parties (ENP) for Laakso and Taagepera since 1979. The study elaborates the general concepts of the electoral system and the party system. It used Laakso, Taagepera index of the “ENP” to measure the phenomenon of fragmentation party during the five legislative elections from 1997 to 2017 in Algeria. Findings The results of the study reveal that the proportional representation electoral system – beside other factors – had clear impacts on the fragmentation of the Algerian party system by all standards, whether on the level of the apparent rise in the number of the parties represented in the Algerian parliament from 10 parties in 1997 election to 36 parties in 2017 election or according to the index of Laakso and Taagepera (ENP). The average number of effective number of electoral parties in the five elections was around 7.66, and the average number of effective number of parliamentary parties in the five elections was around 4.39, which puts Algeria in an advanced degree of the fragmentation of the party system. Originality/value This study about the phenomenon of the fragmentation of the party system, which is one of the new subjects in the field of comparative politics – globally and in the Arab world. Hence, the value of this study aims to shed light on this mysterious area of science, the fragmentation of the party system in the Algerian political system during the period from 1997 to 2017.


1970 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan C. Cairns

Analysis of the Canadian political system has suffered from a relative paucity of competing interpretations of the same phenomena. Too many interpretations of our polity have gone unchallenged, probably on the assumption that our scarce academic resources should not be wasted on internecine controversy while virgin fields remain untapped. Professor Lovink's article is a hopeful indication that this stage of disciplinary immaturity is ending. His sophisticated dissection of my previous article is a helpful contribution to the discussion of the effects of the electoral system on the party system. These comments, by concentrating on some of the problems raised by Lovink, are designed to contribute to a further clarification.Initially, it can be noted, that the disagreement between us is not over the data dealing with votes and seats, but with the interpretation to be given the data. It was perhaps in the very nature of a somewhat polemical article attacking the “conventional wisdom” that I stressed the effects as I saw, or deduced, them, and in the nature of Lovink's rejoinder that the possible effects are minimized.This difference is noteworthy in our respective treatment of the electoral system's systematic bias against Conservative Quebec voters. The data indicate that the ratio of 5.6 Liberals to 1 Conservative mp resulted from a ratio of 1.9 Liberals to 1 Conservative voter. This struck me as pregnant with consequences for the party system, some of which I tried to suggest.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-174
Author(s):  
S.A. NIKONENKO ◽  
◽  
V.F. PENKOV ◽  

The purpose of the article is to consider the ongoing systemic transformations after the adoption of amendments to the Constitution of the country at the all-Russian Vote on July 1, 2020. In the course of reasoning, the processes under study were analyzed not from the legal side, but from the position of a political forecast of the vectors of development of civil society and the party-political configuration. The object is the process of changes in the party-political system of Russia and the development of civil society. The subject is the impact of the 2020 constitutional reform on civil society and the institutional development of partogenesis. Amendments to the Constitution adopted at the all-Russian Vote were a response to new challenges and prevention of potential social splits. The authors, using the method of electronic polling of twenty regional experts and the hardware of the program "Google-Form", received answers to questions covering important aspects of the development of society, the party system and state power. It can be argued that the 2020 constitutional reform laid the foundations for preventing divisions in civil society.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilona Pálné Kovács

The paper examines the role of meso-level governance in the Hungarian political system focusing on the county self-governments. The objective of the author is to introduce the consequences of the lack of meso-level politics for the backslide of the democratic system. The paper focusing on Hungarian counties seeks to explore the three-decade-long process leading to the progressive elimination of these bodies from the public power arena. The Hungarian case demonstrates how the overall administrative and political centralisation process has contributed to the hollowing-out of meso-level political actors. The Hungarian case study underlines the complex interrelations between the macro-political system, and the territorial political governmental arenas from the aspect of the centre and periphery power relations. Many European regional governments are not only platforms for territorial interest representation but also a counterweight to the central level contributing to the quality and stability of democratic governance. The study reviewing the situation of Hungarian counties draws on the author’s previous empirical research experiences and is a part of the ongoing research on governance issues of peripheral areas1. The results of the analyses discuss the implications of the hollowing-out of county governments on the electoral and party system, the modification of the institutional channels of interest representation. The Hungarian example appears to corroborate the analogy with the theory of second order elections. The theory of second order elections recognized the impact on the turnout and electoral preferences based on the changing role of different governance levels, by the same token, it seems that the weakening power position of the meso contributes to the decline of political competition and publicity by minimizing the interest of the public in general. The objective of the present study is to enrich the assessment of the relationship between territorial governance and democracy with some analytical options by demonstrating the implications of the “second order nature” of the meso.


Author(s):  
Kent Eaton

In addition to conceptualizing the two types of subnational policy challenges that are examined in the book, this introductory chapter explores the distinctive possibilities and limitations of subnational neoliberalism and subnational statism as two prominent types of subnational policy regimes. It also examines the causes that have made subnational policy challenges more common around the world today and specifically within Latin America, including globalization, democratization, decentralization, party system collapse, and indigenous mobilization. Next, the chapter assesses the importance of the shift toward greater territorial heterogeneity by analyzing the possible advantages and disadvantages of this shift, including when it results in cases of policy regime juxtaposition. The chapter ends with a brief overview of the theoretical framework, which stresses the importance of structural, institutional, and coalitional factors to explain variation in the success of subnational policy challenges.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Ockey

AbstractStudies of political families in the West focus on political inheritance, or the pattern of children following the careers of their parents. In contrast, studies of political families in other parts of the world focus on nepotism, corruption, and capturing of the political system in a particular area. In this study of political families in Thailand, I seek to distinguish between political inheritance and capturing a local political system. I then focus on political inheritance, finding that it is much more common than capturing a locality in Thailand. Working with a database of all members of the Thai parliament since 1932, I find that political inheritance benefits younger candidates and female candidates, with members of political families able to enter parliament at a younger age, and with women members of parliament more likely to come from a political family than men. I find further that political inheritance is found in all regions of Thailand, including Bangkok, and is not associated with different levels of development or regional cultures. With the strengthening of political parties and a declining birth rate, the number of families in the Thai parliament has declined, but has stabilised at a lower level. This indicates that political families are adapting to change, and can be expected to continue to play an important role in Thai politics.


1988 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Gene Frankland

This article deals with the evolving role of the Greens (Die Grünen) in the West German political system. It focuses on the “parliamentarization” of the Greens in the Bundestag (federal parliament) and in the Landtage (state parliaments) of Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, and Hamburg. Utilizing personal interviews, parliamentary archives, opinion polls, and party documents, it considers both the impact of the Greens upon the parliamentary system and the impact of the system upon the Greens. The study finds that, despite serious situational and organizational constraints, the Greens in these parliaments have generally been a “creative” oppositional force. However, parliamentary learning experiences have contributed inevitably to the classical dilemma confronting the Greens: How can the “alternative” party become more influential in parliamentary politics without also becoming more like the established parties?


Author(s):  
Maria Giulia Ballatore ◽  
Ettore Felisatti ◽  
Laura Montanaro ◽  
Anita Tabacco

This paper is aimed to describe and critically analyze the so-called "TEACHPOT" experience (POT: Provide Opportunities in Teaching) performed during the last few years at Politecnico di Torino. Due to career criteria, the effort and the time lecturers spend in teaching have currently undergone a significant reduction in quantity. In order to support and meet each lecturers' expectations towards an improvement in their ability to teach, a mix of training opportunities has been provided. This consists of an extremely wide variety of experiences, tools, relationships, from which everyone can feel inspired to increase the effectiveness of their teaching and the participation of their students. The provided activities are designed around three main components: methodological training, teaching technologies, methodological experiences. A discussion on the findings is included and presented basing on the data collected through a survey. The impact of the overall experience can be evaluated on two different levels: the real effect on redesigning lessons, and the discussion on the matter within the entire academic community.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document