What explains party unity? A test of competing theories

Several theories have been created to explain party unity in Congress, but previous studies have generally assumed the same factors affect party unity for both parties. Given the differences between the two parties (the ideological heterogeneity of their electoral coalitions, how the party’s electoral coalitions view partisanship, etc.), this assumption may limit our understanding of the sources of party unity. In this paper, I test three theories of party unity (cartel theory, Conditional Party Government, and Strategic Party Government) on separate panels for the two parties. I find cartel theory helps explain party unity for both parties, but, unlike what has previously been argued, I find this is not entirely due to Reed’s Rules. I further find Conditional Party Government better explains party unity for the Republicans, while Strategic Party Government better explains party unity for the Democrats. I provide theoretical reasons for these findings and how they may impact future research.

Contemporary Populist Representation and Its Implications for Democracy

This chapter aims to shed light on the connections between populism, democracy, and democratic theory by providing a theoretical assessment of contemporary populism and populist representation as an alternative form of political representation to party government or as a corrective of it. The chapter summarizes the conceptual background relating to democracies, populism, and contextual surroundings. Then, it proceeds to investigate how they relate to each other in present-day politics. The author argues that populism is a strategic political style that exploits the gap between the promise and the actual performance of democracies thus reflects on democratic reality. Hence, it embodies what realist democratic theory has argued for quite some time now about the nature of politics. Namely: voters are irrational, our notions of democracy are delusional and populist politicians seem to have realized it first..

11. Conclusion

This concluding chapter presents a summary of the common themes and key points about British politics, which help make sense of current events, such as whether turbulence and instability now characterize British politics, and whether democracy can work well in these conditions. It provides a table containing summaries of each chapter, which relate to the themes of the book: party government and executive power, political turbulence, blunders/policy disasters, and the difficulties of achieving agency. With these and other insights, it is possible to assess whether there is anything left for traditional understandings of British democracy or whether the country is in uncharted waters, without any clearly understood democratic mechanisms and not capable of producing effective policy outcomes. Overall, how does Britain fare as a democracy with its old and new features? The chapter then looks at the debate about the quality of UK democracy.

1. The Starting Point

This chapter discusses what makes British politics distinctive and recognizable: its parliamentary democracy, uncodified constitution, and pattern of party government. It begins by outlining some recent events that have made British or UK politics so fascinating and controversial. The chapter then describes the political system, particularly the institutional rules that affect what happens and govern how politics takes place. Parliament, composed of the House of Commons, House of Lords, and the Crown, is the supreme legal authority in the UK. The chapter also provides a summary of the British constitution. It places the UK in a comparative context, to be studied alongside other nation states. Finally, the chapter sets out the information and concepts that help in understanding the nature of and limits to British democracy.

Internal tensions will dog Czech five-party government

Headline CZECH REPUBLIC: Five-party government may lack unity

Big Business and Cadre Management in China

Leading cadres in China are subject to rotation. An interesting form of rotation takes place between big business and the political world. That means one fifth of China’s governors and vice governors have a business background as heads of one of China’s large State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). How this takes place and which qualifications the involved business leaders possess are shrouded in mystery. Based on prosopographical studies of Chinese business leaders who have participated in the Chinese Executive Leadership Program (CELP), this article attempts to open the black box. The study examines the career pathways of CELP participants in Party, government and business positions. The study shows that 84 of the 261 CELP SOE participants (2005-2018) were subsequently promoted, and 20 of these promotions were from SOEs to leading Party and government positions. In some cases, former business leaders became Party secretaries in important provinces or ministers in key ministries. The article also argues that Chinese business leaders have managed to keep their administrative ranking in the Chinese nomenklatura system. In fact, Chinese business leaders are quasi officials (zhun guan) and form an important recruitment base for leadership renewal. As such, the article suggests that the rotation of cadres within the ‘Iron Triangle’ of Party–government–business constitutes the main unifying and stabilising factor in the Chinese political system.

Bulgaria will have a new four-party government

Headline BULGARIA: New four-party government will be formed

Reform of Germany’s economy faces serious challenges

Significance Arguably the greatest challenge for his three-party government, which includes the Greens and Free Democrats (FDP), will be addressing the need to transform Germany’s economy for the 21st century, particularly the digital and green transformations. Impacts The new government will seek to make legal immigration rules more flexible to offset the impact of Germany's ageing population. The global shortage of semiconductors will slow the recovery for Germany’s auto-mobile industry. Germany’s export dependence on China will make Berlin reluctant to adopt a hardline stance on Beijing.

Are mandates obsolete?

Representative democracy relies on elections and party government. Parties play a key role to the extent that they aggregate citizens’ preferences and that they organize political competition. This in turn implies that parties, once in power, implement the programme they were elected for. There is a growing literature arguing that it is increasingly difficult for governments to implement their electoral programmes for a variety of reasons. Growing international constraints have limited government autonomy in general. As the electorate has become more dispersed and party membership has shrunk, it has, moreover, become more difficult for parties to respond to voters. Greater electoral volatility has further complicated things. As a consequence of these trends, the distinctiveness of government parties is said to have decreased. And this, in turn, could explain the decline in turnout and the rise of populist parties. This conclusion, however, is based on limited data and analyses. This chapter calls for renewed study of competition between parties and election-to-policy linkages. It suggests revisiting the thesis of mandate decline using new empirical data, adopting an agenda-setting perspective.