Party Politics in European Microstates PDF Download

Author: Fernando Casal Bértoa
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351798057
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
This book represents the first comprehensive study of the evolution of parties and party systems in all nine democratic European states with less than one million inhabitants. As small political units have for long been considered to be most conducive to stable democracy, this volume analyses the actual role of political parties and partisan competition in the operation of modern democracy in those European microstates. Drawing on the crucial contribution of leading country experts in the field, it provides rich, systematic contextualized knowledge on these lesser-known cases. It further contributes to the mainstreaming of small state research in social science studies by comparing the experience of party politics in European microstates with that of larger countries in the same region of the world. This volume will be of key interest to scholars and students of party systems and political parties, elections and democracy, small states, European politics and more broadly of comparative politics.

Author: Wouter Veenendaal
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317646576
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Why are small states statistically more likely to have a democratic political system? By addressing this question from a qualitative and comparative methodological angle, this book analyses the effects of a small population size on political competition and participation. By comparing the four microstates of San Marino (Europe), St. Kitts and Nevis (Caribbean), Seychelles (Africa), and Palau (Oceania), it provides fresh and stimulating insight, concluding that the political dynamics of microstates are not as democratic as commonly believed. Instead, it is found in all four cases that smallness results in personalistic politics, dominance of the political executive, patron-client relations between citizens and politicians, and the circumvention of formal political institutions. In addition, the book suggests that the study of formal institutions provides an incomplete image of microstate democracy and that informal characteristics of politics in microstates also need to be explored in order to better explain the influence of smallness on democracy. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of democracy, democratization, regional and decentralization studies and comparative politics.

Author: P. Lewis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230596657
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This book examines the influence of the EU on party politics in the ten 'new' EU countries from a variety of perspectives and using a range of empirical sources. The book thus makes an original and distinctive contribution both to contemporary EU studies and to the literature on CE party systems and party development.

Author: W. Swenden
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023058294X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
This book looks at the organization and strategy of state-wide parties from across some of the most important multi-layered countries in Western Europe. The volume provides the first systematic attempt to study the strategy of state-wide parties on the basis of the comparative literature on issue voting.

Author: Fernando Casal Bértoa
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019255669X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Party System Closure maps trends in interparty relations in Europe from 1848 until 2019. It investigates how the length of democratic experience, the institutionalization of individual parties, the fragmentation of parliaments, and the support for anti-establishment parties, shape the degree of institutionalization of party systems. The analyses presented answer the questions of whether predictability in partisan interactions is necessary for the survival of democratic regimes and whether it improves or undermines the quality of democracy. The developments of party politics at the elite level are contrasted with the dynamics of voting behaviour. The comparisons of distinct historical periods and of macro-regions provide a comprehensive picture of the European history of party competition and cooperation. The empirical overview presented in the book is based on a novel conceptual framework and features party composition data of more than a thousand European governments. Party systems are analysed in terms of poles and blocs, and the degree of closure and of polarization is related to a new party system typology. The book demonstrates that information collected from partisan interactions at the time of government formation can reveal changes that characterise the party system as a whole. The empirical results confirm that the Cold War period (1945-1989) was exceptionally stable, while the post-Berlin-Wall era shows signs of disintegration, although more at the level of voters than at the level of elites. After three decades of democratic politics in Europe (1990-2019), the West and the South are looking increasingly like the East, especially in terms of the level of party de-institutionalization. The West and the South are becoming more polarised than the East, but in terms of parliamentary fragmentation, the party systems of the South and the East are converging, while the West is diverging from the rest with its increasingly high number of parties. As far as our central concept, party system closure, is concerned, thanks to the gradual process of stabilization in the East, and the recent de-institutionalization in the West and South, the regional differences are declining. 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 Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston, and Jonathan Slapin, Professor of Political Institutions and European Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich.

Author: Tim Haughton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131798739X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
What impact has EU membership had on party politics in Central and Eastern Europe? Although there is an emerging body of literature on the Europeanization of political parties, most of these accounts focus exclusively on Western Europe. Drawing on a range of qualitative and quantitative approaches including detailed studies of party programmes and manifestos, analysis of the media, semi-structured interviews and expert surveys, this collection provides not just conceptually informed, but also empirically rooted analyses of party politics in Central and Eastern Europe during the first four years of EU membership. In particular, the contributions assess the impact of EU membership on parties’ internal balance of power, the use of European issues in inter-party competition, the role of transnational party federations and the broader role the EU plays in party politics. The findings not only shed light on the impact of EU membership on party organization and programmes, they also inform broader debates concerning the dynamics, fluidity and motors of party politics in Central and Eastern Europe. This book was based on a special issue of Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics.

Author: Paul Lewis
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719082979
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book is a comparative, empirically based study of party politics in contemporary Central and Eastern Europe that seeks to define the impact of European Union membership in this area. The question of Europeanization has been intensively debated over recent years, but no firm conclusion has been reached. This collection of rigorously comparative contributions directs attention to a number of key areas in the attempt to isolate cases where Europe has made a difference. Successive chapters examine how new parties are managed by the state and the ways in which parties colonize the state itself, the role of transnational cooperation and the influence pan-European parties have on national organizations. The book goes on to consider patterns of party-oriented participation in the new democracies and dimensions of electoral turnout, dimensions of inter-party competition and identification of the specific features of post-communist party politics, examination of the key case of the extreme right and the conditions under which it tends to emerge, detailed analysis of the quality of political representation in the new democratic context, and discussion of how EU constraints are likely to undermine the prospects of stable party linkages. A conclusion seeks to establish how far Europe and EU policy has succeeded in influencing Central and East European developments.

Author: Katy Hayward
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317965604
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Ireland’s relationship with the European Union has been determined by the behaviour, actions and discourse of political parties. This book examines this impact through an in-depth analysis of the Europeanization of party politics in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. First, it presents original research on cross-cutting issues that have featured in political debates about European integration, including referendum campaigns on EU treaties, Irish neutrality and party policy positions on the EU. Secondly, it is the first book of its kind to examine in detail how each of the main parties on the island of Ireland has adapted to EU membership. In doing so it both tests the thesis of ‘Europeanization’ and deepens understanding of the impact that EU membership can have on national and sub-national party politics. What this study reveals is that, while Europeanization is clearly evident in all parties in Ireland, including those most critical of European integration, its influence has been strictly curtailed. We argue that the effects of Europeanization in Irish party politics have been limited by enduring resistance to – and conditions placed upon – EU influence in particular policy areas, the importance of pragmatism and (sub-)national priorities in shaping parties’ approaches to European integration and the fact that engagement with the EU continues to be a predominantly elite-led process. This book was published as a special issue of Irish Political Studies.

Author: Jean Claude Cachia
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031232909
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
This book examines the Europeanisation of party politics in Malta. It evaluates the influence of Europeanisation on the political system, which is based on two party-system, polarisation, and clientelism. Malta is the smallest European Union (EU) member state, which joined the EU in 2004. The road toward membership was fraught with contentious and emotionally charged debates. This book explores the relationship between Maltese political parties and the EU, the politicisation and framing of the European Union by political parties, and the impact of the European Union on Malta’s political system. The book further discusses more contentious recent events which made headlines at the EU level, including the Panama Papers scandals, the Individual Investment Programme, and the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. The book will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers of political science and international relations interested in a better understanding of electoral studies, Europeanisation, European integration, as well as the Maltese political system, and party politics.

Author: P. Christiaan Klieger
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739174274
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
The seven microstates of Europe, i.e. Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Malta, San Marino, Sovereign Order of St. John, and Vatican City are remarkable not only for their size, but their persistence. Most have been around for centuries, while much larger empires have come and gone. Despite the great events of the last two millennia, these countries have come into existence and have managed to steer a course away from incorporation within their larger neighbors. Why is this? Rather than being an exercise in triviality, the study in The Microstates of Europe: Designer Nations in a Post-Modern World of the histories of these tiny states may provide insight into tenaciousness of national aspirations and ethnic solidarity that are everywhere evident. Modernist studies tend to view the microstates as illogical anomalies destined to disappear under the crush of social progress. However, these states are anything but marginal—in fact, they are among the richest states in the world. This book examines the phenomenon from structural history and anthropological perspectives. It is not a grand history of petite places—rather, it is an “ethnographic anthology” of a few places in Europe that should not logically exist. The Microstates of Europe is a post-modern critique of the trends of globalism, and it examines the counter-trend of increasing nationalism, particularism, and cultural relativism. Rather than being eclectic exceptions, the microstates may demonstrate the survival of extremely long enduring mechanisms of collective boundary maintenance that are most likely present in many communities throughout the world.