The Single Party as a Subordinate Movement: The Case of Egypt

1973 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iliya Harik
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Direct Interaction ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Limited Degree ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
Formal Contract

The single-party system of Nasser's Egypt belongs to a political genre widespread in Africa. It is a collaboration movement in which a nationally dominant leader enters into an “alliance” with regionally and locally influential persons; the party organization serves as a kind of “formal contract” between them. As a rule, the alliance is tacit in nature, based on each side's reading of political realities, and therefore tending both to be ad hoc and to involve a limited degree of direct interaction. The collaboration movement may be described as a transcendental organization with which individuals willing to deal with and support the regime may affiliate without necessarily making a total commitment to the movement.

New Perspectives on British Local Government

1973 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-138
Author(s):  
Howard A. Scarrow
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Pressure Group ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
Party Cohesion ◽  
American Party

It is both humbling and encouraging to recall notions that Americans once entertained of the British political system. Critics of F.D.R. looked enviously at the British Parliament for its reputed ability to hold the executive firmly accountable for its actions. Somewhat later, observers on both sides of the Atlantic supposed that Britain was blessed with an absence of pressure groups. Would-be reformers of the American party system further implied that British voters cast their ballots according to the content of party programs, and that party cohesion was the result of discipline imposed by a centralized party organization able to deny renomination to recalcitrant M.P.'s. Careful analyses of intra-party workings, pressure-group activity, and voting behavior have now dispelled these and other mistaken impressions, and it seems likely that the contours of our understanding of these subjects have now been established. However, additional frontiers of knowledge of the British political system remain to be charted; one of these is government at the local level.

Creation, Institutionalization, and Development of Public and Confidential Special Procedures

2020 ◽  
pp. 7-34
Author(s):  
Elvira Domínguez-Redondo
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Positive Outcome ◽  
Change Of Direction ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fact Finding ◽  
Key Events ◽  
Political Realities

The history of how Special Procedures were first envisaged, considered, mooted, negotiated, and created impacted the evolution of the internationalization of human rights under the auspices of the UN Commission on Human Rights. The trajectory of these mechanisms provides key insights into both the overall direction and the conduct of politics concerning not only human rights but also development and issues concerned with peace and security at the United Nations. They correspondingly serve as a backdrop to many contemporary global concerns in how they are articulated, defended, and responded to by multilateral organizations. This chapter outlines the key events leading to the birth of the first public and confidential Special Procedures as a positive outcome of what was a highly politicized process. The first section explains the rationale underpinning the polar change of direction of the Commission on Human Rights, from a position where it initially denied its own competence to address human rights violations, to its decision to create subsidiary fact-finding bodies with exactly such purpose. The ad hoc nature of their establishment—from which their derive their denomination as “Special”—against political realities of the time led to a non-linear history that explains many of their current features.

International Environmental Law-Making1

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bharat H. Desai
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Critical Time ◽  
Scientific Uncertainty ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
Law Making

The article seeks to make a modest effort in making sense of the international environmental law-making process. It comprises the subtle normative process currently at work, including ‘global conferencing’ technique resorted to by the UN General Assembly, how it draws upon the basic legal underpinnings of international law, the unique treaty-making enterprise at work, and what this enormous legal churning process portends for the protection of the global environment at this critical time of perplexity in the Anthropocene epoch. It calls for taking serious cognizance of mass destruction of plant and animal species, heavy pollution of fresh water resources, choking of the oceans with plastic and other litter, and alteration of the atmosphere, among other lasting impacts that imperil our only abode Earth. International environmental law-making process is ad hoc and piecemeal and is generally understood to be the product of a lack of a single, central specialized institution having expertise on the subject, scientific uncertainty on many environmental issues, and the hard-headed economic interests of sovereign states. Still, the international environmental law-making process with its inherent resilience could possibly be able to adapt to the vagaries of scientific assessments and the political realities of in the future.

Types of Primary and Party Responsibility

1965 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ira Ralph Telford
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Government School ◽  
Party Government ◽  
Party Members ◽  
American Party ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Responsible Party

A chief criticism of the American party system is the lack of party responsibility. In the view of some students, one characteristic of our political system that contributes to this irresponsibility is the practice in some states of allowing individuals to vote in primaries without regard to their partisan allegiances. In such an open primary Republicans may, if they wish, vote in the Democratic primary, and vice versa. The contrasting, and more common, practice is the closed primary, in which participation is restricted to party “members.” Some political scientists think that the closed primary, by subjecting legislators to the presumed discipline of periodic scrutiny by their party's members, induces a greater measure of party regularity than the open primary, in which the official has to satisfy a more motley clientele. This position was taken in the best-known statement of the “party government” school, the 1950 report of the APS A Committee on Political Parties:The closed primary deserves preference because it is more readily compatible with the development of a responsible party system…. on the other hand, the open primary tends to destroy the concept of membership as the basis of party organization.Other political scientists have expressed doubts about this presumed relationship between primaries and party responsibility, but there has been no systematic empirical evidence on the point. This paper will examine the relationship between primaries and party responsibility by comparing the party regularity of senators from open primary and closed primary states.

Change in the Italian party system

Res Publica ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-294
Author(s):  
Luciano Bardi
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Party System ◽  
System Change ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Organizational Adaptation ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
System Characteristics

The article attempts to trace the origins and to assess the extent ofparty-system change in Italy in the 1990s. It also examines some hypotheses on the possible causes of such changes. Building on research on anti-party sentiment and on changes in party organization the paper begins with an analysis of the evolution of the party system in the last 30 years which identifies organizational adaptation as a delaying factor in party system change. This is followed by a description of the party system after the 1994 elections based on generally accepted party system characteristics and indicators (volatility, number ofparties, ideological distance) . The assessment is made difficult by the, perhaps temporary, coexistence of two party-systems, respectively relevant for electoral and inter-election competition. The evidence however, suggests, that party-system transformation is under way, while it might still be inappropriate to talk about structural change. Degeneration of parties and a deep institutional crisis appear to be the factors leading to the explosion of pent-up alienation and antiparty sentiments, and to demands for institutional and constitutional change that preceded and appeared to be the immediate causes of party system transformation.

scholarly journals Party System Institutionalization Without Parties: Evidence from Korea

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olli Hellmann
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Party System ◽  
Current Practice ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
General Argument ◽  
Linear Fashion ◽  
Single Scale ◽  
Party System Institutionalization

Formally institutionalized party organization is usually considered a prerequisite for the development of programmatic linkages between parties and voters. However, in this article I show that political parties in South Korea have succeeded in stabilizing interparty competition through programmatic linkages without making any significant efforts to build a formal organizational base. In fact, it could be argued that South Korea is a “partyless” democracy, as political parties get easily captured by the interests of ambitious politicians, thus failing to establish themselves as independent actors. I therefore make a more general argument about the concept of party system institutionalization: we need to rethink the current practice of aggregating the different attributes of party system institutionalization into a single scale, as these attributes do not seem to be connected in a linear fashion.

The 1938 Elections and the American Party System

1939 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-211
Author(s):  
F. A. Hermas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Constructive Work ◽  
The Government ◽  
American Party

Political parties have been subjected to more vigorous criticism than any other institution of modern democracy. It is charged that their divisions split a country artificially. It is further contended that the line-up into the two camps of government and opposition makes it impossible for a country to avail itself of all its political talent, since those belonging to the opposition party are, temporarily at least, unavailable for constructive work, and are instead making every effort to obstruct the government in power. In the United States the point has frequently been made that the two major parties are no longer justified because neither of them contains anything which it could consider characteristic of itself. “The party term Republican isn't definitive any more. It isn't even descriptive. No more so is the party term Democrat. They are labels on empty bottles, signs on untenanted houses, cloaks that cover but do not conceal the skeletons beneath them.” More recently a similar charge has been made by Dr. Mortimer Adler, a writer who brilliantly combines his analysis of the present with a knowledge of the past. He directs attention to the fact that parties, instead of responding to issues, tend to create them. According to Dr. Adler, parties would be justified if they served only the purpose for which they have been created and then dissolved; of course, in reality, they perpetuate their existence. On somewhat similar lines the famous biographer of the modern party organization, Ostrogorski, proceeded from theoretical criticism to practical suggestions. His plan was to replace existing parties by “leagues,” which were to respond to one issue only, and be dissolved as soon as that issue should be settled.

The New American Political Party

1985 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 1152-1169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Schlesinger
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Realistic Theory ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
Competitive Relations

To understand changes taking place within political parties we must work from a realistic theory, one that accepts these parties as office-seeking coalitions. On that premise I lay out three interacting sets of variables: 1) The structure of political opportunities, or the rules for office seeking and the ways they are treated, and 2) the party system, or the competitive relations among parties, define the expectations of politicians, and thus lead them to create 3) party organizations, or the collective efforts to gain and retain office. Hypotheses derived from the relations among these variables allow us to examine changes in American parties in the twentieth century. They explain why the Progressive era reforms, in tandem with the post-1896 party system, produced an uneven distribution of party organization and weak linkages among candidates and officeholders. The same theory also explains why changes taking place since the 1950s are producing greater organizational effort and stronger partisan links among candidates and officeholders.

Some Soundings in the Party System: Rural Precinct Committeemen

1940 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-84
Author(s):  
Leon Weaver
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Party System ◽  
Objective Analysis ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Systematic Survey ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject

Students of political phenomena have shown an increasing interest, during the past few years, in objective analysis of the functioning of party machinery and of the men who make up that machinery. If the publications on the subject which have come to the writer's attention are typical, the existing literature on party organization practically ignores such organization in rural areas and contains no systematic survey of the opinions and sentiments of organization politicians. The present study is designed as a contribution toward remedying this situation.

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