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.

Organizing Political Parties
Organizing Political Parties

Author: Thomas Poguntke

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 0198758634

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Political party organizations play large roles in democracies, yet their organizations differ widely, and their statutes change much more frequently than constitutions or electoral laws. How do these differences, and these frequent changes, affect the operation of democracy? This book seeks to answer these questions by presenting a comprehensive overview of the state of party organization in nineteen contemporary democracies. Using a unique new data collection, the book's chapters test propositions about the reasons for variation and similarities across party organizations. They find more evidence of within-country similarity than of cross-national patterns based on party ideology. After exploring parties' organizational differences, the remaining chapters investigate the impact of these differences. The volume considers a wide range of theories about how party organization may affect political life, including the impact of party rules on the selection of female candidates, the links between party decision processes and the stability of party programmes, the connection between party finance sources and public trust in political parties, and whether the strength of parties' extra-parliamentary organization affects the behaviour of their elected legislators. Collectively these chapters help to advance comparative studies of elections and representation by inserting party institutions and party agency more firmly into the centre of such studies. 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 characterised 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 Emilie van Haute, Professor of Political Science, Universite libre de Bruxelles; Ferdinand Muller-Rommel, Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University; and Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston.

The Power of Partisanship
The Power of Partisanship

Author: Joshua J. Dyck

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0197623786

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In The Power of Partisanship, Joshua J. Dyck and Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz argue that the growth in partisan polarization in the United States, and the resulting negativity voters feel towards their respective opposition party, has far-reaching effects on how Americans behave both inside and outside the realm of politics. In fact, no area of social life in the United States is safe from partisan influence. As a result of changes in the media landscape and decades of political polarization, voters are stronger partisans than in the past and are more likely to view the opposition party with a combination of confusion, disdain, and outright hostility. Yet, little of this hostility is grounded in specific policy preferences. Even ideology lacks meaning in the United States: conservative and liberal are what Republicans and Democrats have labeled "conservative" and "liberal." Dyck and Pearson-Merkowitz show how partisanship influences the electorate's support for democratic norms, willingness to engage in risk related to financial and healthcare decisions, interracial interactions, and previously non-political decisions like what we like to eat for dinner. Partisanship prevents people from learning from their interactions with friends or the realities of their neighborhoods, and even makes them oblivious to their own economic hardship. The intensity and pervasiveness of partisanship in politics today has resulted in "political knowledge" becoming an endogenous feature of strong partisanship and a poor proxy for anything but partisan behavior. Dyck and Pearson-Merkowitz present evidence that pure independents are, in fact, very responsive to information because they are not biased by partisan elite cues and important and relevant political information is often local, contextual, and personal. Drawing on a series of original surveys and experiments conducted between 2014 and 2020, Dyck and Pearson-Merkowitz show how the dominance of partisanship as a decision cue has fundamentally transformed our understanding of both political and non-political behavior.

The Personal Vote
The Personal Vote

Author: Bruce Cain

Publisher:

Published: 2013-10

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 9780674493254

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"The Personal Vote" describes the behavior of representatives in the United States and Great Britain and the response of their constituents as well. It shows how congressmen and members of Parliament earn personalized support and how this attenuates their ties to national leaders and parties. This book is essential for specialists in American national government, British politics, and comparative legislatures and comparative parties.

New Parties in Government
New Parties in Government

Author: Kris Deschouwer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-02-08

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1134136390

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Party literature is largely focused on the rise and success of new parties and their effects on party systems and older parties. This book, on the other hand, provides a valuable and original addition to such literature by analyzing what happens to a party when it enters government for the first time. Leading contributors assess how these parties, whether old or new, change when entering government by answering a set of questions: How and why has their role changed? What are the consequences of change? What explains the evolution from principled opposition to loyal opposition and eventually to participation in the executive? Which characteristics of the parties can be held responsible? Which characteristics of the parties’ context should be brought into the picture? What have been the effects of the status change on party organization, party ideology and electoral results? Covering a wide range of European parties such as the Finish Greens, right wing parties (FN, Lega Nord and Alleanza Nazionale) and new parties in Italy , The Netherlands and Sweden to name a few; this book will be of particular interest to scholars and students concerned with party systems, political parties and comparative politics.

Political Power in America
Political Power in America

Author: Anthony R. DiMaggio

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2019-12-01

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 1438476957

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Analyzing major political institutions such as Congress, the courts, the presidency, and the media, this book chronicles how the interests of affluent Americans—particularly business, professional, and corporate interests—dominate over those of "average" citizens. Anthony R. DiMaggio examines American political behavior, as it relates to lobbying, citizen activism, media consumption, and voting, to demonstrate how the public is often misinformed and manipulated regarding major political and economic matters. However, record public distrust of the government and the increasing popularity of mass protests suggest that most Americans are deeply unhappy with the political status quo, and many are willing to fight for change. Political Power in America details this interplay between a political system dominated by the affluent few and the rise of mass political distrust and protest. It offers information and tools needed to better understand the democratic deficit in American politics, while providing opportunities for discussing what we might do to address the mounting crisis of declining democracy.

Small Power
Small Power

Author: David Doherty

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-12-27

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 0197605036

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An insider's look into the largely anonymous volunteers in local party organizations who make decisions in elections with profound implications for American democracy. Although scholars have long recognized that local American parties play an important role in elections, surprisingly little is known about the individuals who lead these typically small, volunteer-based organizations. As David Doherty, Conor M. Dowling, and Michael G. Miller show in Small Power, local party leaders influence the electoral process in myriad ways: They recruit and support candidates, interface with state-wide and federal campaigns, and get out the vote in their communities. Drawing from a survey of over 850 Democratic and Republican local party chairs, a nationally representative sample of voters, and dozens of in-depth interviews, the authors describe how parties are organized, who party chairs are, and how they serve the party. Leveraging novel experiments that illuminate how chairs make choices about which individuals to recruit as candidates--as well as whether those choices reflect voters' preferences--Small Power sheds new light on how seemingly mundane local decisions can shape party goals, influence candidate pipelines, and affect who ends up winning elections. The book therefore offers unprecedented insight into the substantial influence that local parties and their chairpersons are positioned to wield and how they shape American politics.

Party Politics, Party Problems
Party Politics, Party Problems

Author: Ann E. Weiss

Publisher:

Published: 1980

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13:

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Discusses the development of the political party system, problems of parties today, the role of the media in politics, third parties, and the power of special interest groups.