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This text presents a new approach to understanding political parties. It sheds light on the inner dynamics of party politics and offers a comprehensive analysis of one of the most important processes any party undertakes, its process of candidate selection.
"Few countries receive as much attention as Israel and are at the same time as misunderstood. The Oxford Handbook of Israeli Politics and Society brings together leading Israeli and international figures to offer the most wide-ranging treatment available of an intriguing country. It serves as a comprehensive reference for the growing field of Israel studies and is also a significant resource for students and scholars of comparative politics, recognizing that in many ways Israel is not unique, but rather a test case of democracy in deeply divided societies and states engaged in intense conflict. The handbook presents an overview of the historical development of Israeli democracy through chapters examining the country's history, contemporary society, political institutions, international relations, and most pressing political issues. It outlines the most relevant developments over time while not shying away from the strife both in and around Israel. It presents opposed narratives in full force, enabling readers to make their own judgments"--
The bases of uneasy member-leadership relations, their manifestation and sometimes resolution, and the consequences of member-leadership tension to effective parliamentary performace and policy-making are considered in studies ranging from Germany to the US and New Zealand and globally.
This book studies the challenges to conventional politics posed by new ways of selecting candidates for legislative elections. The recent economic crisis had profound political consequences on politics, generating an upsurge in the demand for more participative ways of decision-making in politics channelled through social movements and individuals in different countries. Some parties have reacted by introducing changes in their internal organization (via intra-party democracy), particularly related to the selection of candidates for public office. This volume explores the trends and challenges of these new methods of selection, analyses how the internet is increasingly being used as a selection tool, and evaluates some of the relevant consequences related to political representation, party cohesion and party centralization, among others.
This book - previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Legislative Studies - asks why legislative unity is one of the distinguishing features of modern political parties.
What kind of impact do centre parties have in parliamentary democracies? How does the existence and growth of centre parties affect party system polarization, electoral competition and government stability? This text reassesses the perception of centre parties as a force of moderation. The author argues that this intuitive judgement, which has become accepted by political scientists is dubious, if not incorrect. He examines contemporary centre parties in Europe and asserts that the opposing tendency of centre parties contributes to party system polarization.
Legislatures are arguably the most important political institution in modern democracies. The Oxford Handbook of Legislative Studies, written by some of the most distinguished legislative scholars in political science, provides a comprehensive and up-to-date description and critical assessment of the state of the art in this key area.
No subject is more central to the study of politics than elections. Electoral systems--the rules about how voters' preferences are translated into election results--profoundly shape important political outcomes, including party systems, candidate selection, and policy choices. This volume provides an in-depth exploration of the origins and effects of electoral systems.
Elections lie at the heart of democracy, and this book seeks to understand how the rules governing those elections are chosen. Drawing on both broad comparisons and detailed case studies, it focuses upon the electoral rules that govern what sorts of preferences voters can express and how votes translate into seats in a legislature. Through detailed examination of electoral reform politics in four countries (France, Italy, Japan, and New Zealand), Alan Renwick shows how major electoral system changes in established democracies occur through two contrasting types of reform process. Renwick rejects the simple view that electoral systems always straightforwardly reflect the interests of the politicians in power. Politicians' motivations are complex; politicians are sometimes unable to pursue reforms they want; occasionally, they are forced to accept reforms they oppose. The Politics of Electoral Reform shows how voters and reform activists can have real power over electoral reform.
From Kosovo to Kabul, the last decade witnessed growing interest in ?electoral engineering?. Reformers have sought to achieve either greater government accountability through majoritarian arrangements or wider parliamentary diversity through proportional formula. Underlying the normative debates are important claims about the impact and consequences of electoral reform for political representation and voting behavior. The study compares and evaluates two broad schools of thought, each offering contracting expectations. One popular approach claims that formal rules define electoral incentives facing parties, politicians and citizens. By changing these rules, rational choice institutionalism claims that we have the capacity to shape political behavior. Alternative cultural modernization theories differ in their emphasis on the primary motors driving human behavior, their expectations about the pace of change, and also their assumptions about the ability of formal institutional rules to alter, rather than adapt to, deeply embedded and habitual social norms and patterns of human behavior.