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In this book the author proposes that parties are indispensable to modern politics and that the absence of parties suggests that a system is governed by a traditional elite which has yet to come to terms with the modern world. Without them it would be impossible to legitimize modern systems, to engage the loyalty and support of the citizens. The alternative to party rule is either aristocracy or violent repression. In all systems the party widens the area from which political leaders are recruited and is thus a 'democratising' if not necessarily a 'liberalising' force.

If a country has no developed political party system, it is not really a democracy. And the development of political parties in Russia has a long way to go. The only branch of government in which parties play an influential role is in the State Duma (the lower house of parliament) -- not in the Federation Council (the upper house) or the executive branch. Addressing the question of why parties have developed so little elsewhere, it is argued that they are weak because the most powerful politicians choose to make them so. This institutional arrangement suits their purposes to control what happens in government from the top. Tracing the origins of this situation reveals that they lie in Russian history & culture, predating the Soviet period. Another impediment to party development is the scale of socioeconomic change in Russia. Socioeconomic cleavages were important to party development in Western Europe, with liberal & conservative parties representing different sectors of the population. However, there is reason for optimism for the future. While Putin enjoys solid support from the people, other major political actors do not; if Putin should cease to identify with Unified Russia, the majority party's future is uncertain. Also, a 2002 law passed by both houses & the president requires regional parliaments to be proportional in terms of political party representation. This will lead to party development at the regional level, which conceivably could spread upward. Tables. J. Stanton

Political Parties, William Cross, The Canadian Democratic
Audit series; Vancouver, UBC Press, 2004, pp. 218.Political Parties is part of the Canadian Democratic
Audit series. The expressed aim of the series is to "examine
the way Canadian democracy functions" using three benchmarks,
"public participation, inclusiveness and responsiveness," with
the principle output being not so much a report card but the desire to
"encourage ongoing discussion of how best to fashion Canada's
democratic institutions and practices well into the new century"
(http://www.mta.ca/faculty/arts-letters/canadian_studies/cda/pdf/demaudit_overview_15aug.pdf).
Cross's short, readable volume achieves these objectives.

"A modern book for a modern parties course Seth Masket and Hans Noel bring a contemporary perspective and engaging writing to the political parties course. Using key material from contemporary and foundational research, Masket and Noel focus on how parties solve important problems in the American political system. This perspective reveals the importance of political parties, their inner workings, and their failures and successes"--

After tracing the origins of political parties in post-Soviet Estonia, parties are classified on the basis of "dispute measurements" -- from areas in which they fundamentally agree to those on which they widely diverge -- using a left-center-right continuum. It is shown that two key areas constitute the major source of interparty differences: socioeconomic & cultural-ethnic; ideological differences between parties are also noted. Data are presented on the performance of the major parties since independent Estonia held its first Riigikogu (parliamentary) elections in 1992, comparing results with those of the 1995 & 1999 elections; changes in the size & number of parties, the rise & fall of coalitions, & characteristics of party supporters are analyzed. The fundamentals of the Party Law adopted in 1994 are outlined & the structure of the party system is described, concluding that it lags far behind that of more developed democracies; electoral participation also remains quite low. 14 Tables, 2 Figures. K. Hyatt Stewart

What is the relationship between the political parties that embrace the democratic process and terrorist groups, which eschew the legal and procedural strictures of democracy?This acclaimed volume provides a detailed theoretical and empirical analysis of this controversial issue. Drawing on a vast array of data, the authors examine a large number of international case studies from Italy, Spain, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Peru, Argentina, Japan and Northern Ireland. This comprehensive book is the definitive account of this extremely important subject