Parties, Elections, and Policy Reforms in Western Europe PDF Download

Author: Kerstin Hamann
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136949879
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
This book provides a comparative assessment of social pacts between governments, labor unions and employer organizations in Western Europe. Using a dataset covering 16 European countries, as well as eight in-depth country case studies, the authors argue that governments’ choice of social pacts or legislation is less influenced by economic problems, but is strongly influenced by electoral competition.

Author: Emanuele Massetti
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000155714
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
The book analyses how political parties compete and strategise on the issue of territorial reform using case-studies that include countries from both Western (Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain) and Central-Eastern Europe (Poland, Slovakia and Romania). Each case-study considers different drivers of decentralization, such as territorial identities and the demands of regionalist parties for territorial autonomy or independence, efficiency concerns related to issues of uneven economic development and economic competitiveness, the pressure from supra-national organizations (especially the EU), as well as different combinations of these drivers. They also consider how the ideology and organisation of state-wide parties and the institutional context in which they compete shape their responses to these drivers and their strategy towards the question of territorial reform. This collection investigates the logic of the actions that guide political parties’ strategy to highlight trends that are apparent across the case-studies. This book was originally published as a special issue of West European Politics.

Author: Emiliano Grossman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192662945
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Are election campaigns relevant to policymaking, as they should in a democracy? This book sheds new light on this central democratic concern based on an ambitious study of democratic mandates through the lens of agenda-setting in five West European countries since the 1980s. The authors develop and test a new model bridging studies of party competition, pledge fulfillment, and policymaking. The core argument is that electoral priorities are a major factor shaping policy agendas, but mandates should not be mistaken as partisan. Parties are like 'snakes in tunnels': they have distinctive priorities, but they need to respond to emerging problems and their competitors' priorities, resulting in considerable cross-partisan overlap. The 'tunnel of attention' remains constraining in the policymaking arena, especially when opposition parties have resources to press governing parties to act on the campaign priorities. This key aspect of mandate responsiveness has been neglected so far, because in traditional models of mandate representation, party platforms are conceived as a set of distinctive priorities, whose agenda-setting impact ultimately depends on the institutional capacity of the parties in office. Rather differently, this book suggests that counter-majoritarian institutions and windows for opposition parties generate key incentives to stick to the mandate. It shows that these findings hold across five very different democracies: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK. The results contribute to a renewal of mandate theories of representation and lead to question the idea underlying much of the comparative politics literature that majoritarian systems are more responsive than consensual ones.

Author: David Broughton
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1855673282
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
This is an analysis of the changing pressures and demands placed on party systems in 11 countries in Western Europe since 1945. This book includes studies of the party system in Britain, France, Italy and Germany, as well as studies of Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Sweden, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. Five major themes are examined in each chapter. First, the broad development of the party system is accompanied by a discussion of how different party system typologies have been applied to each country. Secondly, a detailed discussion of the historical background to party system developments is provided, dealing with the main divisions derived from the typology of Lipset and Rokkan. Thirdly, the most important contextual variables are considered in terms of the "electoral environment" within which the party system operates. Next, consideration is given to the degree of "unfreezing" of the party system since 1945 and the changing balance between stability and change. Finally, major questions of change and adaptation are examined, updating the text.

Author: Jan-Erik Lane
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 0857022083
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
Politics and Society in Western Europe is a comprehensive introduction for students of West European politics and of comparative politics. This new edition has been extensively revised and updated to meet with the new needs of undergraduate students as they come to terms with a changing social and political landscape in Europe. This textbook provides a full analysis of the political systems of 18 Western European countries, their political parties, elections, and party systems, as well as the structures of government at local, regional, national and European Union levels. Throughout the book, key theoretical ideas are accessibly introduced and examined against the very latest empirical data on civil society and the state.

Author: W. Swenden
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023058294X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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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: Andrew McLaren Carstairs
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135026785
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
This book provides a concise and accessible account of the historical experience of European parliaments – why different electoral systems were adopted, how they have functioned, how they have affected the development of political parties, and in what respects they have been found over time to be either suitable or unsatisfactory. The book begins with a summary of the main electoral systems, analysing and re-assessing each in the light of historical experience. The core of the book, however, is a country-by-country account of the systems which have operated in each of the main West European countries, in the context of their own constitutional, political and social developments.

Author: OSCAR MAZZOLENI
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317068947
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Regionalist parties matter. Over the past 40 years, they have played an ever-larger role in West European democracies. Because of their relevance and temporal persistence, their achievements have increasingly become visible not only in electoral arena, but also as regards holding office and policy-making. Enhancing our understanding of these different dimensions of success, this book analyses various types of regionalist party success. Beyond conventional perspectives, the focus of this book is also on how the dimensions of success are related to each other, and in particular to what extent electoral and office success – jointly or alternatively – contribute to policy success. Adopting a common theoretical framework and combining the in-depth knowledge of country experts, each chapter explores the evolution and impact of regionalist parties in regional or federal states, that is the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Switzerland. This allows for a comprehensive and comparative analysis of one of the main political challenges within West-European democracies.

Author: Hagevi, Magnus
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1800884737
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Identifying a crisis for representative democracy in Western European party systems, this essential book studies the widening gap between political parties’ ideological economic Left–Right rhetoric. Combining in-depth theoretical analysis with empirical research, it addresses whether political party ideologies are converging or diverging, and whether these changes are initiated by the parties themselves, aligned with voter demand, or forced by economic globalization.

Author: Lieven De Winter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134712006
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Ethnoregionalist parties are an increasingly influential political phenomenon in many Western European countries. Despite this there has been little systematic study of these important political parties. This volume fills the gap with an exploration of the successes and failures experienced by ethnoregionalist parties in post-war Europe. Regionalist Parties in Western Europe looks in detail at the fortunes of twelve regionalist parties in: the Basque country, Corsica, French speaking Belgium, Scotland, Wales, Catalonia, Flanders, Italy, and South Tyrol.