Book Review: Today’s Foreign Policy Issues: Democrats and Republicans

Today’s Foreign Policy Issues: Democrats and Republicans, as the title suggests, examines international and “intermestic” policy issues from the perspectives of our two major political parties. According to the introduction, this book “examines the proposals and positions of the two parties—from profound disagreements to areas of common ground” (p. viii); however, this nuanced approach is difficult to achieve in a volume written for the novice researcher. Further, the structure of the articles stresses differences rather than similarities. Presenting political parties as monolithic structures is also problematic. While parties have unifying platforms that are referred to often throughout the book, they tend to obscure internal divisions. This partisan framework also seems to lend itself to deepening cleavages, both real and imagined, for readers approaching the material from entrenched perspectives. And what of independent, libertarian, and green-party positions, among others?

Download Full-text

Crimean non-governmental organizations in 2005 - 2010: struggle for the national cultural identity of Russian population

Perspectives and prospects E-journal ◽

10.32726/2411-3417-2019-4-82-91 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 82-91

Author(s):

Alexander POLUNOV

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Political Parties ◽

Cultural Identity ◽

Russian Population ◽

Crimean Peninsula ◽

Policy Issues ◽

Governmental Organizations ◽

Non Governmental Organizations ◽

The Social ◽

The Crimean Peninsula

The article analyzes the social, political and ideological backgrounds of the processes that unfolded on the Crimean Peninsula in the spring of 2014 and ended with its return to Russia. The focus is on the period 2005-2010, when the "orange power" with President V. F. Yushchenko at the head was established in Kiev. The author dwells on public organizations and political parties of Russian population in Crimea, their positions on key domestic and foreign policy issues and on serious differences that arose between them in the course of their activities but were eventually overcome.

Download Full-text

Book Review: Today’s Economic Issues: Democrats and Republicans; Today’s Social Issues: Democrats and Republicans

Reference & User Services Quarterly ◽

10.5860/rusq.56n3.221 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 56 (3) ◽

pp. 221 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Todd J. Wiebe

Keyword(s):

Political Parties ◽

Social Issues ◽

Economic Issues ◽

Democrats And Republicans

Here I get the unique pleasure of reviewing two separate books in one shot. They are the first two volumes in ABC-CLIO’s Across the Aisle series, examining contemporary economic and social issues from the perspectives of America’s two most prominent and increasingly polarized political parties. Both volumes adhere to the same format and structure, and entries are comparable in quality and depth, the only difference being that Today’s Economic Issues contains a forward and introduction, whereas Social Issues has only a brief introduction. The former is an edited volume, whereas the latter is authored solely by Kneeland. As for the main content, the publisher is clearly going for uniformity throughout the series, so with my sincere apologies to the unique contributions of the authors and editors, I will for the most part be reviewing the two books together.

Download Full-text

Helping Citizens to Locate Political Parties in the Policy Space: a Dataset for the 2014 elections to the European Parliament

Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences ◽

10.1163/24523666-00401002 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 13-26

Author(s):

Kostas Gemenis ◽

Fernando Mendez ◽

Jonathan Wheatley

Keyword(s):

Political Parties ◽

Political Participation ◽

Estimation Method ◽

European Parliament ◽

Third Party ◽

Policy Space ◽

Policy Issues ◽

Party Positions ◽

Party Position ◽

Voter Information

The authors present a dataset that contains the positions of 231 political parties across 28 countries on 30 policy issues that were considered salient for the 2014 elections to the European Parliament. The party position estimates were originally used in a voter information tool which compared the policy preferences of citizens to those of political parties. The paper discusses the estimation method in the context of the literature on estimating party positions, outlines the coding methodology, and introduces the value of the dataset for third-party users interested in studying political participation and representation.

Download Full-text

Validating and Improving Voting Advice Applications: Estimating Party Positions Using Candidate Surveys

Statistics Politics and Policy ◽

10.1515/spp-2018-0012 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 135-160 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ioannis Andreadis ◽

Heiko Giebler

Keyword(s):

Political Parties ◽

Party System ◽

Political Competition ◽

Party Competition ◽

The Political ◽

Additional Source ◽

Policy Issues ◽

Party Positions ◽

Using Data ◽

Voting Advice Applications

AbstractLocating political parties correctly regarding different policy issues is not just crucial for research on parties, party competition, and many similar fields but also for the electorate. For the latter, it has become more and more important as the relevance of voting advice applications (VAA) has increased and as their main usage is to compare citizens’ policy preferences to the offer of political parties. However, if party positions are not adequately assigned, citizens are provided with suboptimal information which decreases the citizens’ capacities to make rational electoral decision. VAA designers follow different approaches to determining party positions. In this paper, we look beyond most common sources like electoral manifestos and expert judgments by using surveys of electoral candidates to validate and improve VAAs. We argue that by using positions derived from candidate surveys we get the information by the source itself, but at the same time we overcome most of the disadvantages of the other methods. Using data for the 2014 European Parliament election both in Greece and Germany, we show that while positions taken from the VAAs and from the candidate surveys do match more often than not, we also find substantive differences and even opposing positions. Moreover, these occasional differences have already rather severe consequences looking at calculated overlaps between citizens and parties as well as representations of the political competition space and party system polarization. These differences seem to be more pronounced in Greece. We conclude that candidate surveys are indeed a valid additional source to validate and improve VAAs.

Download Full-text

Ukrainian political parties and foreign policy in election campaigns: Parliamentary elections of 1998 and 2002

Communist and Post-Communist Studies ◽

10.1016/j.postcomstud.2005.03.005 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 38 (2) ◽

pp. 251-267 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Anna Makhorkina

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Political Parties ◽

Dominant Role ◽

The Political ◽

Election Campaigns ◽

Parliamentary Elections ◽

Policy Issues ◽

Factors Of Influence ◽

Policy Agendas ◽

Voting Decisions

The foreign policy agendas of Ukrainian political parties participating in parliamentary elections are among the important factors of influence on Ukrainians voting in favor or against. There is a positive correlation between the preferences of Ukrainian voters and the foreign policy orientations of the political parties as expressed in their electoral platforms. Even if it is not likely that in general foreign policy plays a dominant role in the average citizen’s voting decisions, it is, nevertheless, very relevant in the context of Ukrainian politics. In this article it is demonstrated that the use of foreign policy issues is a part of the overall electoral strategy of Ukrainian political parties.

Download Full-text

Book Review: Today’s Environmental Issues: Democrats and Republicans

Reference & User Services Quarterly ◽

10.5860/rusq.58.2.6950 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 58 (2) ◽

pp. 129

Author(s):

Stacey Marien

Keyword(s):

Political Science ◽

Common Ground ◽

Social Issues ◽

Environmental Issues ◽

Assistant Professor ◽

Associate Professor ◽

Stevens Institute ◽

Institute Of Technology ◽

Democrats And Republicans

Walker is an associate professor of political science at Elmhurst College. This volume is part of a series titled “Across the Aisle.” The other titles cover Social Issues, Economic Issues and Foreign Policy Issues. The preface is written by Lindsey Cormack, an assistant professor of political science and director of the Diplomacy Lab at Stevens Institute of Technology. She goes on to state that members of Congress “do not dedicate the same amount of time and focus to each pressing environment issue.” (vii). Cormack presents some tables that contain both topics covered by party e-newsletters and keywords that are used most by each party. The preface also gives an overview of each party’s platform pertaining to environmental issues in 2016. The introduction states that this volume “examines the proposal and positions of the two parties—both the profound disagreements and the areas of common ground between the two parties.” (xviii).

Download Full-text

The party scene: new directions for political party research in foreign policy analysis

International Affairs ◽

10.1093/ia/iiaa165 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 97 (2) ◽

pp. 305-322

Author(s):

Stephanie C Hofmann ◽

Benjamin Martill

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Political Parties ◽

Policy Analysis ◽

Comparative Politics ◽

Policy Making ◽

Theory Development ◽

Foreign Policy Analysis ◽

Party Positions ◽

New Research

Abstract Research on political parties and foreign policy has grown in recent years in response to disciplinary and real-world changes. But party research still bears the imprint of earlier scepticism about the role of parties. The result is scholarship which is disaggregated, which avoids difficult cases for parties, and which has focused more on showing that parties matter relative to structural accounts of foreign policy-making. This article takes stock of recent research on political parties, party politics and their role in foreign policy-making. We argue that it is time for party research not only to embrace the question of whether parties matter but also how, when and where they matter. This requires a move away from most-likely cases and the realist foil towards an embrace of the complexity of party positions. Building on International Relations, comparative politics and foreign policy analysis scholarship, we suggest four avenues deserving of greater scholarly focus: 1) ideological multidimensionality; 2) parties as organizations and the role of entrepreneurs; 3) parties as transnational foreign policy actors; and 4) the interaction between parties and the changing global order. We propose how these literatures can help identify new research questions, contribute to theory development and help define scope conditions. This will hopefully help scholars establish benchmarks for judging the efficacy of parties in foreign policy-making.

Download Full-text

Political Parties and Political Representation

Comparative Political Studies ◽

10.1177/0010414085018003001 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 18 (3) ◽

pp. 267-299 ◽

Cited By ~ 190

Author(s):

RUSSELL J. DALTON

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Political Parties ◽

Political Representation ◽

Contextual Factors ◽

Close Correspondence ◽

Security Issues ◽

Party Positions ◽

Party Elites ◽

Party Characteristics ◽

Western Democracies

Political representation in most Western democracies occurs through and by political parties. Based on parallel surveys of voters and party elites in nine West European nations, this article examines how well parties perform their representation role. The opinions of voters and party elites are compared for 40 party dyads. In some cases there is close correspondence between these opinions (e.g., economic and security issues), but in other instances the evidence of voter-party agreement is substantially weaker (e.g., foreign policy). An examination of party characteristics and contextual factors suggests that the clarity of party positions, represented by a centralized party structure and noncentrist ideology, strongly influences the efficiency of the party linkage process.

Download Full-text