Party and Government

Party and Government
Author: Jean Blondel
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2016-07-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 134924788X

Party and Government is an eleven-country study of the relationship between the governments of liberal democracies, mainly from Western Europe, but also including the United States and India, and the parties which support these governments. It examines this relationship at the three levels at which governments and parties connect: appointments, policy-making, and patronage. The emphasis is on a two-way relationship: parties influence governments but governments also influence parties. The extent and the direction of this influence varies from country to country. In some cases, governments and parties are almost autonomous from each other, as in the United States; in other cases, on the contrary, there is considerable power of one over the other: sometimes the party dominates, sometimes the government.

The Party Decides

The Party Decides
Author: Marty Cohen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2009-05-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0226112381

Throughout the contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, politicians and voters alike worried that the outcome might depend on the preferences of unelected superdelegates. This concern threw into relief the prevailing notion that—such unusually competitive cases notwithstanding—people, rather than parties, should and do control presidential nominations. But for the past several decades, The Party Decides shows, unelected insiders in both major parties have effectively selected candidates long before citizens reached the ballot box. Tracing the evolution of presidential nominations since the 1790s, this volume demonstrates how party insiders have sought since America’s founding to control nominations as a means of getting what they want from government. Contrary to the common view that the party reforms of the 1970s gave voters more power, the authors contend that the most consequential contests remain the candidates’ fights for prominent endorsements and the support of various interest groups and state party leaders. These invisible primaries produce frontrunners long before most voters start paying attention, profoundly influencing final election outcomes and investing parties with far more nominating power than is generally recognized.

Party Government

Party Government
Author: Elmer Eric Schattschneider
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2004
Genre: POLITICAL SCIENCE
ISBN: 9781315126050

What do we need to know about political parties in order to understand them? In his classic study, E.E. Schattschneider delineates six crucial points: A political party is an organized attempt to get control of the government. Parties live in a highly competitive world. The major parties manage to maintain their supremacy over the minor parties. The internal processes of the parties have not generally received the attention they deserve in treatises on American politics. The party is a process that has grown up about elections. And perhaps most important of all is the distribution of power within the party organization." "But Party Government is not just about political parties. At its heart is the theory and practice of modern democracy, and it is the most cited, controversial, and probably single most influential study of political parties ever written. Schattschneider questions the purpose of government, who rules, and how government should be organized consistent with its fundamental purpose, which are the enduring fault lines of American democracy. He takes the reader through a thorough and penetrating examination of political parties and the American government. Starting with a historical overview and defense of parties. Schattschneider offers a searing analysis of politics itself, with special focus on the number of interest groups both affecting and affected by government. He describes the various types of political organizations - major parties, pressure groups, and minor parties - and offers a study of the two-party character of the American system.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Representation in Liberal Democracies

The Oxford Handbook of Political Representation in Liberal Democracies
Author: Robert Rohrschneider
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 752
Release: 2020-07-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0192558692

The Handbook of Political Representation in Liberal Democracies offers a state-of-the-art assessment of the functioning of political representation in liberal democracies. In 34 chapters the world's leading scholars on the various aspects of political representation address eight broad themes: The concept and theories of political representation, its history and the main requisites for its development; elite orientations and behavior; descriptive representation; party government and representation; non-electoral forms of political participation and how they relate to political representation; the challenges to representative democracy originating from the growing importance of non-majoritarian institutions and social media; the rise of populism and its consequences for the functioning of representative democracy; the challenge caused by economic and political globlization: what does it mean for the functioning of political representation at the national leval and is it possible to develop institutions of representative democracy at a level above the state that meet the normative criteria of representative democracy and are supported by the people? The various chapters offer a comprehensive review of the literature on the various aspects of political representation. The main organizing principle of the Handbook is the chain of political representation, the chain connecting the interests and policy preferences of the people to public policy via political parties, parliament, and government. Most of the chapters assessing the functioning of the chain of political representation and its various links are based on original comparative political research. Comparative research on political representation and its various subfields has developed dramatically over the last decades so that even ten years ago a Handbook like this would have looked totally different.

Responsible Parties

Responsible Parties
Author: Frances Rosenbluth
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2018-10-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0300241054

How popular democracy has paradoxically eroded trust in political systems worldwide, and how to restore confidence in democratic politics In recent decades, democracies across the world have adopted measures to increase popular involvement in political decisions. Parties have turned to primaries and local caucuses to select candidates; ballot initiatives and referenda allow citizens to enact laws directly; many places now use proportional representation, encouraging smaller, more specific parties rather than two dominant ones.Yet voters keep getting angrier.There is a steady erosion of trust in politicians, parties, and democratic institutions, culminating most recently in major populist victories in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Frances Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro argue that devolving power to the grass roots is part of the problem. Efforts to decentralize political decision-making have made governments and especially political parties less effective and less able to address constituents’ long-term interests. They argue that to restore confidence in governance, we must restructure our political systems to restore power to the core institution of representative democracy: the political party.

Party Mandates and Democracy

Party Mandates and Democracy
Author: Elin Naurin
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2019-02-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0472131214

When people discuss politics, they often mention the promises politicians make during election campaigns. Promises raise hopes that positive policy changes are possible, but people are generally skeptical of these promises. Party Mandates and Democracy reveals the extent to and conditions under which governments fulfill party promises during election campaigns. Contrary to conventional wisdom a majority of pledges—sometimes a large majority—are acted upon in most countries, most of the time. The fulfillment of parties’ election pledges is an essential part of the democratic process. This book is the first major, genuinely comparative study of promises across a broad range of countries and elections, including the United States, Canada, nine Western European countries, and Bulgaria. The book thus adds to the body of literature on the variety of outcomes stemming from alternative democratic institutions.

The Government Party

The Government Party
Author: R. Kenneth Carty
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2022-03-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0192674382

Democracy thrives on vigorous competition between political parties. However, in several established democracies one party manages to dominate national politics for decades at a time, seemingly creating a democratic one-party unnatural democracy. This book examines five such countries - Canada, Ireland, India, Japan, Italy - to understand what kind of party comes to dominate democratic competition, and how and why they do so. In different countries with different political challenges, an analysis of their 'Government Parties' reveals their common relationship with the origins and operations of the states they dominate, and the nation- and/or state-building challenges they face. Democratic dominance cannot last forever; how a government party responds to the seemingly inevitable decline of long-term support defines the prospects for its unnatural democracy. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterized by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit www.ecprnet.eu The series is edited by Susan Scarrow, John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston, and Jonathan Slapin, Professor of Political Institutions and European Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich.

Party Policy and Government Coalitions

Party Policy and Government Coalitions
Author: Ian Budge
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 471
Release: 2016-07-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1349223689

Coalitions are the commonest kind of democratic government, occurring frequently in most countries of western Europe. It is usually assumed that political parties came together in a government coalition because they agree already, or can reach an agreement, on the policy it should pursue. This book examines this idea using evidence from party election programmes and government programmes. It demonstrates that party policies do influence government programmes, but not to the extent they would if policy-agreement were the sole basis of coalition.

The Politics Industry

The Politics Industry
Author: Katherine M. Gehl
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2020-06-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1633699242

Leading political innovation activist Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter bring fresh perspective, deep scholarship, and a real and actionable solution, Final Five Voting, to the grand challenge of our broken political and democratic system. Final Five Voting has already been adopted in Alaska and is being advanced in states across the country. The truth is, the American political system is working exactly how it is designed to work, and it isn't designed or optimized today to work for us—for ordinary citizens. Most people believe that our political system is a public institution with high-minded principles and impartial rules derived from the Constitution. In reality, it has become a private industry dominated by a textbook duopoly—the Democrats and the Republicans—and plagued and perverted by unhealthy competition between the players. Tragically, it has therefore become incapable of delivering solutions to America's key economic and social challenges. In fact, there's virtually no connection between our political leaders solving problems and getting reelected. In The Politics Industry, business leader and path-breaking political innovator Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter take a radical new approach. They ingeniously apply the tools of business analysis—and Porter's distinctive Five Forces framework—to show how the political system functions just as every other competitive industry does, and how the duopoly has led to the devastating outcomes we see today. Using this competition lens, Gehl and Porter identify the most powerful lever for change—a strategy comprised of a clear set of choices in two key areas: how our elections work and how we make our laws. Their bracing assessment and practical recommendations cut through the endless debate about various proposed fixes, such as term limits and campaign finance reform. The result: true political innovation. The Politics Industry is an original and completely nonpartisan guide that will open your eyes to the true dynamics and profound challenges of the American political system and provide real solutions for reshaping the system for the benefit of all. THE INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL INNOVATION The authors will donate all royalties from the sale of this book to the Institute for Political Innovation.

Party Politics in America

Party Politics in America
Author: Marjorie Randon Hershey
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2017-02-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 113483666X

The seventeenth edition of Party Politics in America continues the comprehensive and authoritative coverage of political parties for which it is known while expanding and updating the treatment of key related topics including interest groups and elections. Marjorie Hershey builds on the book’s three-pronged coverage of party organization, party in the electorate, and party in government and integrates contemporary examples—such as campaign finance reform, party polarization, and social media—to bring to life the fascinating story of how parties shape our political system. New to the 17th Edition Fully updated through the 2016 election, including changes in virtually all of the boxed materials, the chapter openings, and the data presented. Explores increasing partisan hostility, the status of voter ID laws and other efforts to affect voter turnout, young voters' attitudes and participation, and the role of big givers such as the energy billionaire Koch brothers in the 2016 campaigns. Critically examines the idea that Super PACs are replacing, or can replace, the party organizations in running campaigns. New and expanded online Instructor's Resources, including author-written test banks, essay questions, relevant websites with correlated sample assignments, the book’s appendix, and links to a collection of course syllabi.