Party Systems in Latin America

Party Systems in Latin America

Author: Scott Mainwaring

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-02-08

Total Pages: 525

ISBN-13: 1107175526

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This book generates a wealth of new empirical information about Latin American party systems and contributes richly to major theoretical debates about party systems and democracy.


The Politics Industry

The Politics Industry

Author: Katherine M. Gehl

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 2020-06-23

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1633699242

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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.


Responsible Parties

Responsible Parties

Author: Frances Rosenbluth

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2018-10-02

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 0300241054

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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.


Open Democracy

Open Democracy

Author: Hélène Landemore

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-03-08

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0691212392

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To the ancient Greeks, democracy meant gathering in public and debating laws set by a randomly selected assembly of several hundred citizens. To the Icelandic Vikings, democracy meant meeting every summer in a field to discuss issues until consensus was reached. Our contemporary representative democracies are very different. Modern parliaments are gated and guarded, and it seems as if only certain people are welcome. Diagnosing what is wrong with representative government and aiming to recover some of the openness of ancient democracies, Open Democracy presents a new paradigm of democracy. Supporting a fresh nonelectoral understanding of democratic representation, Hélène Landemore demonstrates that placing ordinary citizens, rather than elites, at the heart of democratic power is not only the true meaning of a government of, by, and for the people, but also feasible and, more than ever, urgently needed. -- Cover page 4.


Parties Without Partisans

Parties Without Partisans

Author: Russell J. Dalton

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2002-03-14

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 0199253099

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Parties Without Partisans provides a comprehensive cross-national study of parties in advanced industrial democracies in all their forms - in electoral politics, as organisations, and in government.


The End of Representative Politics

The End of Representative Politics

Author: Simon Tormey

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2015-05-19

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 0745690513

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Representative politics is in crisis. Trust in politicians is at an all-time low. Fewer people are voting or joining political parties, and our interest in parliamentary politics is declining fast. Even oppositional and radical parties that should be benefitting from public disenchantment with politics are suffering. But different forms of political activity are emerging to replace representative politics: instant politics, direct action, insurgent politics. We are leaving behind traditional representation, and moving towards a politics without representatives. In this provocative new book, Simon Tormey explores the changes that are underway, drawing on a rich range of examples from the Arab Spring to the Indignados uprising in Spain, street protests in Brazil and Turkey to the emergence of new initiatives such as Anonymous and Occupy. Tormey argues that the easy assumptions that informed our thinking about the nature and role of parties, and ‘party based democracy’ have to be rethought. We are entering a period of fast politics, evanescent politics, a politics of the street, of the squares, of micro-parties, pop-up parties, and demonstrations. This may well be the end of representative politics as we know it, but an exciting new era of political engagement is just beginning.


Unstable Majorities

Unstable Majorities

Author: Morris P. Fiorina

Publisher: Hoover Press

Published: 2017-11-01

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0817921168

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America is "currently fighting its second Civil War." Partisan politics are "ripping this country apart." The 2016 election "will go down as the most acrimonious presidential campaign of all." Such statements have become standard fare in American politics. In a time marked by gridlock and incivility, it seems the only thing Americans can agree on is this: we're more divided today than we've ever been in our history. In Unstable Majorities Morris P. Fiorina surveys American political history to reveal that, in fact, the American public is not experiencing a period of unprecedented polarization. Bypassing the alarmism that defines contemporary punditry, he cites research and historical context that illuminate the forces that shape voting patterns, political parties, and voter behavior. By placing contemporary events in their proper context, he corrects widespread misconceptions and gives reasons to be optimistic about the future of American electoral politics.


Political Parties and Constitutional Government

Political Parties and Constitutional Government

Author: Sidney M. Milkis

Publisher:

Published: 1999-09-07

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13:

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The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of political parties, yet parties began to form shortly after its ratification. Today, American democracy would not work without them. In Political Parties and Constitutional Government, Sidney Milkis explores the uneasy relationship between the Constitution and the party system to advance a novel argument: political parties arose as part of a deliberate program of constitutional reform. Forged on the anvil of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, parties initially formed as decentralized political associations that engaged the attention of ordinary citizens and held presidents accountable to local constituencies. But as the power of the presidency and the federal government grew, parties shifted their attention from building political support in the states and localities to vying for control over national administration and, in the process, lost their vital connection to the electorate. In the past thirty years, partisan disputes have more often than not involved confrontations between the president and Congress that have undermined the public's respect for American political institutions. With the decline of localized parties, Milkis concludes, there has arisen an administrative politics of rights and entitlements that belittles the efforts of Democrats and Republicans alike to define a collective purpose. Ending with a discussion of possible methods of revitalization and reform, this timely book does much to explain the reasons behind Americans' disenchantment with parties and the party system.


Politics Without Parties

Politics Without Parties

Author: Van Beck Hall

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

Published: 2010-11-23

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 0822975971

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In this book, Van Hall Beck demonstrates that prior to the development of American political parties in the 1790s, political conflicts reflected differences in the values of the entire society. They were rooted in human circumstances-social, economic, cultural-of all sectors of society, and they displayed an ordered, patterned and persistent quality. To illustrate his assessment, Hall sifts through extensive archival data on 343 towns and plantations in Massachusetts. By comparing rural to urban settings, agricultural to market economies, and differing levels of political and social networking, he effectively ties voting patterns to human circumstances at the town level, and then relates these to the overall social and political order of the Commonwealth.


Politics Without Vision

Politics Without Vision

Author: Tracy B. Strong

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2012-04-20

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13: 0226777464

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Politics without Vision takes up the thought of seven influential thinkers, each of whom attempted to construct a political solution to this problem: Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, Lenin, Schmitt, Heidegger, and Arendt. None of these theorists were liberals nor, excepting possibly Arendt, were they democrats—and some might even be said to have served as handmaidens to totalitarianism. And all to a greater or lesser extent shared the common conviction that the institutions and practices of liberalism are inadequate to the demands and stresses of the present times. In examining their thought, Strong acknowledges the political evil that some of their ideas served to foster but argues that these were not necessarily the only paths their explorations could have taken. By uncovering the turning points in their thought—and the paths not taken—Strong strives to develop a political theory that can avoid, and perhaps help explain, the mistakes of the past while furthering the democratic impulse.