scholarly journals THE FRAGMENTATION OF POLITICAL REPRESENTATION AT MUNICIPAL LEVEL IN SLOVAK REPUBLIC IN PERIOD 2002 - 2018

2019 ◽  
pp. 193-198
Author(s):  
MARTIN KLUS ◽  
MARCEL MARTINKOVIČ
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Municipal Policy ◽  
Control Factors ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
Civic Skills ◽  
Municipal Level

Presented study sheds light on the developments of political representation at municipal level and tries to identify the sources of its fragmentation. These sources are vested in electoral laws, in development of national party system and in public distrust towards partisan candidates including changes in decision-making dynamics of the electorate. All mentioned factors shape the popular preference to support independent candidates in achieving municipal offices. This phenomenon gained on intensity between 2002 and 2018. The trend of ever-increasing support for civic and non-partisan candidates also introduces practical implications and risks in terms of lacking effective governing, transparency and of municipal policy control. Factors such as: non-existence of integrative organizational basis for political decision making, low levels of civic skills or elusive ownership structure of regional media. Most importantly, it is the inability of established political parties to maintain the functionality of democratic institutions in terms of public administration. All these factors increase the risks of decision-making at municipal level. Such development is part of deepening crisis of trust in political parties and leads to risks of forming a defect democracy.

scholarly journals THE FRAGMENTATION OF POLITICAL REPRESENTATION AT MUNICIPAL LEVEL IN SLOVAK REPUBLIC IN PERIOD 2002 - 2018

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-198
Author(s):  
MARTIN KLUS ◽  
MARCEL MARTINKOVIČ
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Municipal Policy ◽  
Control Factors ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
Civic Skills ◽  
Municipal Level

Presented study sheds light on the developments of political representation at municipal level and tries to identify the sources of its fragmentation. These sources are vested in electoral laws, in development of national party system and in public distrust towards partisan candidates including changes in decision-making dynamics of the electorate. All mentioned factors shape the popular preference to support independent candidates in achieving municipal offices. This phenomenon gained on intensity between 2002 and 2018. The trend of ever-increasing support for civic and non-partisan candidates also introduces practical implications and risks in terms of lacking effective governing, transparency and of municipal policy control. Factors such as: non-existence of integrative organizational basis for political decision making, low levels of civic skills or elusive ownership structure of regional media. Most importantly, it is the inability of established political parties to maintain the functionality of democratic institutions in terms of public administration. All these factors increase the risks of decision-making at municipal level. Such development is part of deepening crisis of trust in political parties and leads to risks of forming a defect democracy.

scholarly journals Channels of Electoral Representation in Advanced Industrialized Democracies

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Kreuzer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Control Function ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Wide Range

Electoral systems and political parties not only are at the core of a wide range of representational mechanisms (others being lobbying, direct democracy, corporatism) used in modern democracies to project societal interests into the formal, legislative decision-making process, but also they vary greatly in their respective make-ups. Political parties differ in their internal decision making, membership size, funding, links with interest groups, and ideology. Electoral systems, in turn, are differentiated into systems of proportional representation (PR), single-member district (SMD), or first-past-the-post electoral systems (FPTP). Despite all these differences, parties and electoral systems are the two primary mechanisms for aggregating and then translating the preferences of private individual citizens. They also are the oldest, most widely studied, and arguably the most democratic channel of political representation. Parties and electoral systems certainly are important, but they are still only intermediary mechanisms that interact in complex ways with other factors, such as actors’ preferences, resources, other representational mechanisms, and the larger constitutional context. This complex interaction makes it intriguing to study how they affect political representation and explains why they are studied from so many different angles, methodologies, and theoretical perspectives. The following bibliographic suggestions are intended to reflect this diversity in the literature. The literature points out that parties and electoral systems function not just as mechanisms of political expression, through which voter preferences are bundled, articulated, and electorally weighted, but also as mechanisms of social control. The social control function becomes apparent in the ability of parties and electoral systems to contain the risks of overly expressive and potentially anarchic forms of direct and, hence, unorganized participation (i.e., protest, extremism, violence) as well as their potential to integrate individual citizens into the political order by creating political identities crucial for social order. Thus, parties and electoral systems have an as yet little understood but also fascinatingly complex relationship to popular sovereignty because they are indispensable for it while at the same time they give politicians the ability to mute and manipulate that sovereignty. In large part, the literature on parties and electoral systems tries to untangle this complex relationship by studying how their cross-national and historical variations influence the extent to which they have facilitated or distorted political representation.

Mayors and their interaction with municipal councils in the countries of Eastern Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (58) ◽  
pp. 147-157
Author(s):  
Александр Игоревич Черкасов
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Political System ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Governance Mechanism ◽  
Modern Cities ◽  
Municipal Level

This article deals with the institute of mayor and his interaction with municipal councils in the countries of Eastern Europe. The author points out that the mayor personifies the whole urban governance mechanism and acts as an arbitrator in the struggle of various interests coming into confrontation at the level of a modern city. The article contains analyses of the trend towards “presidentialization” of the local political system and decollectivization of the decision making process at the municipal level common for many modern cities. On the basis of popular support and expectations the mayor begins to increasingly squeeze positions of local councils in the municipal mechanism. Direct mayoral elections are becoming more common and increase the independence of the head of local administration from political parties and slightly reduce the role of the latter in the decision making process

scholarly journals Hacia el estudio de lo preocupante en nuestro régimen de partidos = The worrying state of our party system

2015 ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Óscar Alzaga Villaamil
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Full Control ◽  
El Sistema ◽  
Siglo Xix ◽  
Party Funding ◽  
Sociological Studies ◽  
Spanish Legislation

Noting that in sociological studies at European level Spain is almost at the bottom of civic appraisal of its democracy and its political, the study explores the historical roots of poor political representation in the nineteenth century Spanish with management from the Crown Decrees of dissolution of parliament and full control by governments shift elections based on small districts and on a rooted cacique system. The 1977 Law for Political Reform conditioned the electoral system for the Parliament, distorting proportional representation in terms that have come down to us and who have devoted bipartisanship when none of the major parties has a majority depends on the Nationalist forces, they have made great revenues as unique representative map. The Spanish legislation regulating political parties with great precision how the upcoming ban terrorism forces, but hardly develops the constitutional requirements regarding the organization and internal functioning must be democratic, nor on party funding, for what you need to consider the reform of the parties Act 2002.Tras constatar que en los estudios sociológicos de ámbito europeo España se sitúa prácticamente a la cola de valoración ciudadana de su democracia y de sus políticos, el estudio profundiza en las raíces históricas de la mala representación política durante el Siglo XIX español con manejo desde la Corona de los Decretos de disolución de las Cortes y pleno control por los gobiernos del turno de unas elecciones basadas en distritos pequeños y en un arraigados sistema caciquil. La Ley de 1977 para la Reforma Política condicionó el sistema electoral para las Cortes, distorsionando la representación proporcional en términos que han llegado a nuestros días y que han consagrado un bipartidismo que cuando ninguno de los principales partidos tiene mayoría absoluta depende de las fuerzas nacionalistas, que han obtenido grandes réditos de tan singular mapa representativo. La legislación española de partidos políticos regula con gran precisión la forma de prohibir las fuerzas próximas al terrorismo, pero prácticamente no desarrolla los imperativos constitucionales en cuanto a que la organización y el funcionamiento interno deben ser democráticos, ni sobre la financiación de los partidos, por lo que procede abordar la reforma de la Ley de partidos de 2002.

The Populist Discourse on Representation in Lithuania

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 744-760
Author(s):  
Jogilė Ulinskaitė
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Election Manifestos ◽  
2016 Election

Populist parties participate in the process of political representation through elections. Little is known about how they conceptualize this process since their statements refer to a direct involvement of citizens in decision-making and disapprove of representatives. This article addresses this issue and presents an empirical study about how Lithuanian populist political parties define political representation. The data come from the 2016 election manifestos and from party websites between April 2016 and September 2017. The qualitative content analysis reveals that populists define representation by referencing common moral values and constant communication with citizens. This helps them create a political identity common to themselves as representatives and the represented.

scholarly journals The Vlaams Belang: A Mass Party of the 21st Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 275-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Sijstermans
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Organisation ◽  
Important Player ◽  
Social Media Tools ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Local Party

Throughout its 40-year history, the Vlaams Belang (VB, Flemish Interest) has established itself as an important player within the Belgian party system, albeit with significant electoral fluctuations. In 2019, it became the second largest party in Flanders. The party developed and maintained a mass-party organisation by investing significantly in local party branches and in a rigid vertically articulated structure. It relies heavily on social media, particularly Facebook, to communicate to supporters beyond the more limited group of party members. Using both modern and traditional tools, VB representatives aim to create communities of supporters bonded to the party, facilitating dissemination of the party’s messages. Despite this investment in a grassroots organisation, the VB’s decision-making remains highly centralised. Social media and local branches allow informal consideration of members’ views, but the party has not created significant mechanisms for internal democracy. While it is often claimed that political parties have moved away from the “mass-party” model, this article demonstrates that the VB still maintains characteristics of the mass party, albeit with a modern twist. New social media tools facilitate attempts to foster communities and disseminate party messages among a wider group of supporters, both formal members and more informal sympathisers.

scholarly journals IDEAL COMBINATIONS OF GOVERNMENT SYSTEM AND PARTY SYSTEM FOR STABILITY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF THE GOVERNMENT

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Widayati Widayati ◽  
Winanto Winanto
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Party System ◽  
The Core ◽  
System A ◽  
Presidential System ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Government Coalition

Indonesia since before independence until the time the core adopted a multi-party system. While the system of government changes, from a presidential, parliamentary, quasi presidential system. Multiparty presidential government systems can disrupt the stability and effectiveness of the government because there must be a coalition of political parties in the government, the preparation of the cabinet by the President must consider and accommodate the interests of coalition political parties, decision making or policy-making must also consider the interests of coalition political parties, so it will require longer time. The coalition of political parties is very fluid and pragmatic, so there may be a change in the coalition because there is a possibility that political parties that were outside the coalition will then enter the government coalition, and vice versa. Exit the entry of political parties in the government coalition will certainly be very disturbing, because political parties who have just joined the government will demand a seat in the government, especially in the cabinet. Unloading pairs of the cabinet or dismantling pairs of government seats will often occur. This of course greatly disrupts the stability and effectiveness of government. Therefore, a presidential government system ideally does not combine with a multi-party system. A change from a multi-party system to a simple multi-party system is needed, or if possible with a two-party system.

Preference Representation and the Influence of Political Parties in Majoritarian vs. Proportional Systems: An Empirical Test

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Stadelmann ◽  
Marco Portmann ◽  
Reiner Eichenberger
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Empirical Test ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
Preference Representation ◽  
Median Position

Electoral systems determine the role that representatives’ party affiliations play in political representation. According to conventional expectations, party affiliation drives the behavior of representatives when they are elected under a proportional system, while majoritarian systems mute the role of party affiliation by forcing politicians to converge to the median position of their constituency. This study directly tests these predictions within a common party system by matching referenda decisions of constituents with voting behavior of their representatives who are elected either under a majoritarian or proportional system.

scholarly journals Politics, Political Parties and the Party System in Nigeria: Who's Interest?

2020 ◽  
Vol 89 ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
Dhikru Adewale Yagboyaju ◽  
Antonia Taiye Simbine
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
Fourth Republic ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Law Reports ◽  
Special Committees ◽  
Selection Of

Party system and the administration of political parties are critical factors in determining the direction of politics and democracy. Three political parties contested at the inception of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic in 1999, but the number increased to more than 91 as at 2019. This paper raises fundamental questions as to whose interest – public or private interest of promoters and financiers - these parties serve, and whether the increase in the number of political parties has significantly entrenched democratic values in the country? These questions are compelling because of several events in political party operations in the 20 years of the Fourth Republic. These include controversial and vexatious party primaries preceding every major election, often leading to protracted and distractive litigations and rampant political defections. Unregulated use of money has, in particular, restrained ample participation by women and youths, while violence is almost becoming a norm and permanent characteristic of the electoral and political system. The paper draws data from secondary documentary sources for its conceptual and theoretical contents. Primary data are generated from events analyses by the authors as observers at party conventions and other meetings for the selection of candidates for political offices as well as during general elections. This is complimented by content analyses of relevant documents including electoral laws, court and law reports, and reports by special committees such as the Electoral Reform Committee (ERC). A combination of the ecological approach and conspiratorial theory is deployed for the paper’s analytic frame.

Electoral systems applied to the Iraqi parliament elections after 2003 (comparative analytical study)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurdistan Saeed ◽  
Chawan Salah
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Party System ◽  
Analytical Study ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
The Right

This study deals with the electoral systems applied in Iraq after 2003 for the Iraqi Parliament elections. The issue's importance lies in the fact that elections are the legitimate means adopted by modern political systems based on the separation of powers. Therefore, after changing the political system in Iraq in 2003 from a one-party system to a democratic parliamentary system, the permanent constitution of 2005 granted the right to political participation for citizens. Including the right to participate in elections through nomination or candidacy for the Iraqi Council of Representatives, this study examines the electoral systems applied after 2003 and the reasons for the instability of the Iraqi parliament elections on a specific law. The study dealt with the types of electoral systems by focusing on the concept and emergence of elections and the most critical electoral systems adopted by political systems. Furthermore, the electoral systems applied after 2003 in the Iraqi parliament elections by focusing on the electoral laws or their amendments that preceded each electoral cycle since 2003 until now. The study concluded that the electoral system in Iraq was not legally stable; several amendments have been made to the laws regulating the elections for the House of Representatives. So the two elections did not repeat under one law because of political parties' criticism leveled at it. Moreover, the attempt by the large parliamentary blocs, through their control of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, to legislate laws that limit the victory of the blocs and small parties.

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