Many recent discussions of the decline of party are predicated on the assumption that the Duverger/socialist mass-party model is the only model for parties. We contend that this assumption is misco...

Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy The Emergence of the Cartel Party

The Political Consciousness of Post-Industrialism@@@The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics.

As Europe enters a significant phase of re-integration of East and West, it faces an increasing problem with the rise of far-right political parties. Cas Mudde offers the first comprehensive and truly pan-European study of populist radical right parties in Europe. He focuses on the parties themselves, discussing them both as dependent and independent variables. Based upon a wealth of primary and secondary literature, this book offers critical and original insights into three major aspects of European populist radical right parties: concepts and classifications; themes and issues; and explanations for electoral failures and successes. It concludes with a discussion of the impact of radical right parties on European democracies, and vice versa, and offers suggestions for future research.

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Populist radical right parties in Europe

The course is focused on historical texts, most of them philosophical. Context for understanding the texts and the course of democratic development will be provided in lecture and discussions, and by some background readings (Dunn). We begin with the remarkable Athenian democracy, and its frequent enemy the Spartan oligarchy. In Athens legislation was passed directly by an assembly of all citizens, and executive officials were selected by lot rather than by competitive election. Athenian oligarchs such as Plato more admired Sparta, and their disdain for the democracy became the judgment of the ages, until well after the modern democratic revolutions. Marsilius of Padua in the early Middle Ages argued for popular sovereignty. The Italian citystates of the Middle Ages did without kings, and looked back to Rome and Greece for republican models. During the English Civil War republicans debated whether the few or the many should be full citizens of the regime. The English, French, and American revolutions struggled with justifying and establishing a representative democracy suitable for a large state, and relied on election rather than lot to select officials. The English established a constitutional monarchy, admired in Europe, and adapted by the Americans in their republican constitution. The American Revolution helped inspire the French, and the French inspired republican and democratic revolution throughout Europe during the 19 century.

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Democracy and Its Critics

What accounts for variation in the electoral success of niche parties? Although institutional and sociological explanations of single-issue party strength have been dominant, they tend to remove parties from the analysis. In this article, I argue that the behavior of mainstream parties influences the electoral fortunes of the new, niche party actors. In contrast to standard spatial theories, my theory recognizes that party tactics work by altering the salience and ownership of issues for political competition, not just party issue positions. It follows that niche party support can be shaped by both proximal and non-proximal competitors. Analysis of green and radical right party vote in 17 Western European countries from 1970 to 2000 confirms that mainstream party strategies matter; the modified spatial theory accounts for the failure and success of niche parties across countries and over time better than institutional, sociological, and even standard spatial explanations.

Competition Between Unequals: The Role of Mainstream Party Strategy in Niche Party Success

The literature on democratisation emphasises the contribution of political parties, and in that context the importance of party institutionalization. But this concept remains relatively unexplored. Our article first considers the relationship between party institutionalization and party system institutionalization, pointing out that they are not necessarily convergent. We then review the existing literature on party institutionalization, indicating weaknesses and contradictions, before offering our own analytic model. In the final section we identify some of the key considerations arising when this model is applied to the particular circumstances of democratic transition in the Third World.

Party Institutionalization in New Democracies

Related to the general thesis that different situations call for different leadership skills and orientations, this article focuses upon the changing leadership needs of one type of political party ‐ the ‘entrepreneurial issue party’ ‐ as it matures from birth to institutionalisation. Drawing upon relevant literature on leadership of revolutions, leadership of social movements, leadership of organisations, and leadership generally, the authors present empirical evidence for the argument that different leadership needs exist at three stages of party development: the periods of identification, organisation, and stabilisation. Related propositions are addressed from the experiences of entrepreneurial parties in Denmark and Norway.

Party leadership and party institutionalisation: Three phases of development

It has been assumed that African political parties should play a key role in democratic consolidation. This article first assesses their performance in terms of particular democratic functional requirements. Second, it seeks to explain apparent shortcomings in their performance by reference to the imbalance of party systems and 'weakness' of parties, especially opposition parties, and also by reference to certain underlying factors. These include the economic context, weakness of civil society, prevalence of ethnicity as a basis for political mobilization, personalism, clientelism and strong presidencies.

Political Parties and Democratic Consolidation in Africa

This paper focuses upon a hybrid `performance hypothesis' positing that an established party will change its ideological identity in reaction to a successful new party only when the established party itself experiences poor election results which it can attribute to the new party. That hypothesis is addressed with original, longitudinal data on manifesto positions of the far-right Norwegian and Danish Progress parties, their Conservative neighbor-parties and (for control purposes) the Labour parties. Analyses support the authors' conclusion that both new parties have had a significant impact on their respective party systems according to the intentions and strategies of their founders.

The Influence of New Parties on Old Parties' Platforms: The Cases of the Progress Parties and Conservative Parties of Denmark and Norway

This article investigates the political impact of the introduction of state subsidies to political parties. The arguments for and against subsidising political parties are outlined. Different models of party subsidies, and their regulatory frameworks, are discussed. We find little evidence of a cross‐national impact of the introduction of party subsidies. The subsidies cannot explain the decline in party membership. Nor is there evidence to suggest that the subsidies were introduced as a response to membership decline. There is no support for the allegation that party subsidies lead to the petrification of party systems. The subsidies have not meant that other income sources have lost their significance for political parties.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01402380008425381

Lars Svåsand

Papers

Party Institutionalization in New Democracies

Party leadership and party institutionalisation: Three phases of development

Political Parties and Democratic Consolidation in Africa

The Influence of New Parties on Old Parties' Platforms: The Cases of the Progress Parties and Conservative Parties of Denmark and Norway

State subsidies to political parties: Confronting rhetoric with reality