scholarly journals Does Novelty Necessarily Mean Change? New Political Parties within the Polish Party System

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-113
Author(s):  
Beata Kosowska-Gąstoł ◽  
Katarzyna Sobolewska-Myślik

AbstractThe aim of the paper is to assess new political parties in Poland and to examine the question of their perceived novelty and influence on the party system. We employ Barnea and Rahat’s analytical framework to evaluate the newness of Polish parties in three party facets: party-in-the-electorate, party-as-organisation, party-in-government. This multi-dimensional analysis allows one to identify those fields in which any novelty may occur. Among the analysed factors is the new parties’ electoral base that enables one to assess whether the parties managed to mobilise a new electorate or rather attracted supporters from existing parties instead. Last but not least, we study the changes caused by these parties within the whole party system. In our research we include parties that entered the parliament for the first time after the last two elections: in 2011 and 2015. Before that time the parliamentary scene in Poland seemed to be firmly closed with a nearly constant set of actors. Both in the 2005 and 2007 elections no new parties entered parliament. Hence the 2011 election is considered to be an opening for new parties, but does not necessarily bring about a significant change in the Polish party system in terms of the electoral support for the two largest parties or within patterns of electoral competition.

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 434-443
Author(s):  
Myriam Aït-Aoudia

The literature on democratic transitions considers the participation of new parties in the first pluralist election in a post-authoritarian context (founding election) as something to be taken for granted. As such, it is never questioned. Specialists in democratic transitions ignore the research on “new parties,” which is, nonetheless, essential to the understanding of the particular characteristics of a post-authoritarian situation. Using an original qualitative study on Algeria, this article proposes to bring to light the political, organizational, and legal conditions of new political parties’ participation or nonparticipation in a founding election. In particular, this research allows us to grasp the dilemmas and difficulties faced by leaders of new parties and the types of support on which they rely to engage for the first time in an electoral competition. The analytical framework stemming from this “case study” is applicable to other national case studies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mindaugas Jurkynas

AbstractThe article discusses conceptualisation of populism, Lithuania’s party system and electoral dynamics and their relation to the sustainability of populist parties. Special attention is given to Party Order and Justice, a former populist and protest party, and its leadership, namely to the issues related to scope and competencies of a leader’s intra-partisan power, leadership selection rules and history, development of leaders’ political careers and their electoral activity. The L ithuanian party system now exhibits moderate fragmentation without centrifugal tendencies. Voter volatility is still relatively high, yet the share of new parties has dropped to zero. The protest and populist parties in Lithuania went into the margins of political establishment. Popularity of the Order and Justice party has long been connected to the formerly impeached president Rolandas Paksas. His long-term leadership in the face of plummeting electoral support and an emphasis on his political martyrdom resulted in poor electoral performances, ensuing internal squabbles and his departure. Party Order and Justice’s internal regulations, however, remained favourable to strong leadership.


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.


2002 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-47
Author(s):  
Daniel Hough

In the years since unification, Germany’s political parties have faceda number of formidable challenges. They range from incorporatingthe citizens of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) into the FederalRepublic’s political processes, reassessing Germany’s role in thewider world, overcoming gridlock on many pressing policy questionsat home (perhaps best understood as the overcoming of the Reformstau),to finding a way out of Germany’s much maligned economicmalaise.1 Such challenges have had a not inconsiderable effect on theGerman party system, the end product of which has been that thissystem, once a bastion of cast-iron stability, has become characterizedby diversity and genuine electoral competition in a way that it hasnot been since the late 1950s. Therefore, the electoral position of themuch-vaunted Volksparteien, if perhaps not their control of the politicalprocess, has slipped considerably.


2005 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni M. Carbone

Post-conflict elections in Mozambique, held in 1994, 1999 and 2004, established a formally competitive and pluralistic system. This paper examines the country's emerging two-party system as an essential feature affecting prospects for democratic deepening and consolidation. The condition for political parties to actually help the establishment of democratic politics is their development as durable, socially rooted, country-wide effective and legitimate organisations. The paper contends that the current party system has indeed been a major instrument for political expression and for the channelling and peaceful management of conflicts. It shows how both Frelimo and Renamo – and the competition between them – have deep-seated historical origins and well-established regional roots. Yet, a number of aspects concerning the Mozambican party system negatively affect the deepening of democratic politics: the legitimacy of the party system is weakened by post-conflict polarisation and uncertain mutual recognition; the ethno-regional entrenchment of the two main parties bestows a communal connotation on electoral competition; and most importantly, the party system remains unbalanced and unevenly institutionalised, with Frelimo's disciplined and fundamentally institutionalised organisation opposed by a strongly personalistic and weakly organised Renamo, which struggles to operate within state institutions and to accommodate internal differences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-292
Author(s):  
Anatoliy Romanyuk ◽  
Vitaliy Lytvyn

This article is devoted to study and comparative analysis of the features and levels of support for new political parties during parliamentary elections in Ukraine, in particular the period 1998–2019. With this in mind, mainly based on the calculations of the indices of overall electoral volatility, intra-system electoral volatility and extra-system electoral volatility, we analyze the parameters of changes in electoral support (by voters) for political parties, in particular new ones, during the 1998–2019 parliamentary elections in Ukraine. In addition, we correlate overall, intra-system and extra-system electoral volatility, and present the correlation of overall electoral volatility in the sample of all political parties as the subjects of electoral processes in Ukraine and political parties elected to the national parliament (the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine). As a result, the study outlines two clusters of extra-system electoral volatility, which show the highest level of similarity, and calculates the dependence of the level of electoral volatility and stability of the party system in Ukraine. With this background, we conclude that electoral volatility in Ukraine is largely determined by the effect of party affiliation or desire to belong to the government or opposition, and is regulated by the special context of identity politics in this country.


Author(s):  
Jeffery A. Jenkins ◽  
Charles Stewart

This chapter examines the speakership elections of 1849 and 1855–1856, the most chaotic instances of officer selection in the history of the House of Representatives. It considers how the Second Party System weakened and eventually collapsed as the slavery issue overwhelmed the interregional partisanship that had been in place for two decades. It also discusses the emergence of new political parties, such as the Free-Soil Party, the American Party, and the Republican Party, that created new avenues for coalitional organization. In particular, it looks at the rise of the Republican Party as the primary opposition party to the Democrats. Finally, it describes how the rising popularity of the new parties in congressional elections affected politicians in both the Whig Party and the Democratic Party.


Modern Italy ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolò Conti

Italian political parties have been involved for almost three decades in a multi-level electoral game encompassing the election of national, supranational and local institutions. The content of the electoral competition has also changed to include not only nationwide, but also sub-national and supranational issues. This article analyses the interaction between Italian parties and the theme of European integration. The aim is to explore the role of contentious European Union matters in domestic electoral competition, specifically at the time of European elections. Such a role is important to understand to what extent the Italian parties politicise the EU issues during EP elections, and to determine the impact of such issues on the Italian party system and on its patterns of policy competition. In particular, the article will explore whether Europe as an issue has been internalised along the main patterns of party competition or has produced a disruptive effect and forms of realignment.


1996 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather MacIvor

AbstractThis article summarizes the cartel model of party structure and tests it against the experience of the Canadian party system in the 1990s. Four claims are evaluated: that the three dominant parties in the House of Commons before 1993 colluded to exclude new parties; that they used state subsidies in their own interest; that the 1993 election result was a backlash against the cartel parties; and that Canadian parties are adopting new leadership selection methods in order to allow their leaders greater autonomy. The article concludes that the first two claims are valid while the latter two are not, and discusses some of the implications of these findings for Canadian parties and for the cartel model itself.


1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Sinnott

‘The Irish party system is unique. In no other European polity does a small number of programmatically indistinguishable parties, each commanding heterogeneous electoral support, constitute the entire party system.’ This bold statement is merely a particularly forthright expression of a commonly held view about political parties in the Republic of Ireland. This view is understandable given that the formal casus belli between the two major parties was the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921; surely this issue must at some stage have been overtaken by events. In the revised edition of his standard text on Irish politics, Chubb points to the year 1948 as the date by which the ‘issues which had split Sinn Fein were either resolved or increasingly irrelevant’. He goes on to argue that from the 1950s ‘all parties were to a great extent drained of ideology; they overlapped considerably in the policies they proposed; and they competed for the votes of a public increasingly concerned with welfare and consumer politics and less and less with national issues’. What we may call ‘the no-differences thesis’ has far-reaching implications for our understanding of the Irish party system and of the role it plays in policy formulation and the wider political process.


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