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This book examines long-term single party dominance in modern democracies.
This book is about the collapse of Canadian party politics in the early 1990s, about the end of a party system that had governed Canada's national politics for several decades, and about the ongoing struggle to build its successor.
Three unprecedented large-scale democratic experiments have taken place in which groups of randomly selected ordinary citizens were asked to independently design the next electoral system. The lessons drawn from the research are relevant for those interested in political participation, public opinion, deliberation, public policy, and democracy
The Liberal Party of Canada is one of the most successful parties in the democratic world. It dominated Canadian politics for a century, practising an inclusive style of “big tent” politics that allowed it to fend off opponents on both the left and right. How did it do this? What kind of party organization did it build over the decades to manage its remarkable string of election victories? This book traces the record of the party over the twentieth century, revealing the cyclical character of its success and charting its capacity to respond to change. It also unwraps Liberal practices and organization to reveal the party’s distinctive “brokerage” approach to politics as well as a franchise-style structure that tied local grassroots supporters to the national leadership. R. Kenneth Carty provides a masterful analysis of how one party came to lead the nation’s public life. In a country riven by difference, the Liberals’ enduring political success was an extraordinary feat. But as Carty reflects, given the party’s not-so-distant travails, even with an election win, will it be able to reinvent itself for the twenty-first century?
Grassroots Politicians is the first systematic account of party activists at the provincial level in Canada. To understand the pattern of political polarization in British Columbia, the authors examine the values and beliefs of those at the party cores -- the people behind the party images who elect leaders, nominate candidates, and work in electoral campaigns. In the New Democratic Party they play a crucial role in determining policy, in the Social Credit they help to shape party direction and governing style by their choice of leader, and, among the Liberals, they form the small band that keeps the party alive in the province. The authors challenge the view that Social Credit is a homogene...
Politics, Policy, and Government in British Columbia examines the political life of Canada's dynamic Pacific province. Each of the seventeen chapters, written by well-known experts, provides an up-to-date portrait and analysis of one of the many faces of B.C. politics. Taken together they provide a clear and comprehensive overview of the dominant themes and issues that have been the distinguishing features of the province's political life. Key elements of the book include sections on: the political setting, with discussions of BC's political culture and economy, and its relations with the rest of Canada and its own Native communities; B.C.-style politics, which focus on electoral and parliam...
Motifs or recurring elements in Canadian party politics speak to dominant ideas of the era. Partisan Odysseys looks at how political parties have adjusted, adapted, and sometimes reinvented themselves in response to these cultural cues.
Is it possible to advance democracy by empowering ordinary citizens to make key decisions about the design of political institutions and policies? In 2004, the government of British Columbia embarked on a bold democratic experiment: it created an assembly of 160 near-randomly selected citizens to assess and redesign the province's electoral system. The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly represents the first time a citizen body has had the power to reform fundamental political institutions. It was an innovative gamble that has been replicated elsewhere in Canada and in the Netherlands, and is gaining increasing attention in Europe as a democratic alternative for constitution-making and constitutional reform. In the USA, advocates view citizens' assemblies as a means for reforming referendum processes. This book investigates the citizens' assembly in British Columbia to test and refine key propositions of democratic theory and practice.
Canadian party politics collapsed in the early 1990s. This book is about that collapse, about the end of a party system, with a unique pattern of party organization and competition, that had governed Canada’s national politics for several decades, and about the ongoing struggle to build its successor. Rebuilding Canadian Party Politics discusses the breakdown of the old party system, the emergence of the Reform Party and the Bloc Québécois, and the fate of the Conservative and New Democratic Parties. It focuses on the internal workings of parties in this new era, examining the role of professionals, new technologies, and local activists. To understand the ambiguities of our current party...
Drawing on theories of neo-institutionalism to show how institutions shape dissident behaviour, Boucek develops new ways of measuring factionalism and explains its effects on office tenure. In each of the four cases - from Britain, Canada, Italy and Japan - intra-party dynamics are analyzed through times series and rational choice tools.