Suchergebnisse

First published in 1980. This book covers areas of policy interest viewed from a social democratic perspective and each chapter takes a specific issue which would have been of concern to Labour in the 1980s, including some of the more controversial areas. The study reviews various problem areas and suggests policies which are realistic and applicable in the conditions of the 1980s. This title will be of interests to scholars and students of history and politics.

This engaging exploration of the French Socialist Party details the exceptional problems that the party has faced and the way it has dealt with them. The result is a comprehensive and compelling guide to the quiddities of political infighting, the structure of power and of the environment in which the party operates.

In the French Republic political leadership is normally provided by the presidency, albeit from a very narrow constitutional base. This volume examines the strengths and weaknesses of that leadership as well as the way that executive power has been established in the republican context.

The French elections of 2002 ended five years of cohabitation between a Prime Minister and government of the Left and a President of the Right, and restored presidential rule under the re-elected neo-Gaullist Jacques Chirac. This had always been a possibility given that power had changed hands at every election since 1981, but the manner and scale of the Right's victory were entirely unexpected, with the Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin being eliminated at the first ballot by the Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. This shock result - as much due to Jospin's failure to mobilise the Left as to Le Pen's modest augmentation of his share of the vote - prompted a tactical mobilisation against Le Pen and for Chirac in the decisive ballot of the election, and for Chirac's supporters in the subsequent parliamentary elections. Paradoxically, an unpopular President with a record low first-round share of the vote found himself re-elected overwhelmingly. Presidential dominance was thus restored by presidential and parliamentary majorities falling into line, but in an institutional setting still conducive to party system fragmentation and to the election of conflicting majorities. (Parliamentary Affairs / FUB)