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The existing comparative literature focuses on political institutions to explain party unity in parliament, and largely ignores the role of party characteristics in this process. This study argues that the strength of political party organization directly and independently influences the level of party unity. Organizational strength makes the party a valuable asset to individual legislators, thus increasing their willingness to be disciplined. Therefore, parties with strong organizations are likely to be more unified in parliament than those with weak organizations. I find support for this argument with data from four post-communist democracies: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, and Poland. Narratives suggest that the proposed causal mechanism is plausible.

This study traces the development of party law from its first appearance in the early 20th century to its re-appearance in post-transitional Latin America and demonstrates how legislators frequently use party law to legally validate the participation of political parties in the electoral process. Through an analysis of instances of cartelising party laws and party deregulation, this article shows that the cartelising use of party law is often followed by a backlash when society and new elites contest parties' monopolisation of representation. The legal validation of political parties is hence not sufficient for the legitimisation of the political status quo in terms of party. Instead, this article shows that elites that build their power merely on formal rules risk diminishing the political legitimacy of the system that these rules seek to uphold.

Political parties are key actors in electoral democracies: they organize the legislature, form governments, and citizens choose their representatives by voting for them. How citizens evaluate political parties and how well the parties that citizens evaluate positively perform thus provide useful tools to estimate the quality of representation from the individual's perspective. We propose a measure that can be used to assess party preference representation at both the individual and aggregate levels, both in government and in parliament. We calculate the measure for over 160,000 survey respondents following 111 legislative elections held in 38 countries. We find little evidence that the party preferences of different socio-economic groups are systematically over or underrepresented. However, we show that citizens on the right tend to have higher representation scores than their left-wing counterparts. We also find that whereas proportional systems do not produce higher levels of representation on average, they reduce variance in representation across citizens.

Most political scientists view Israels Mapai (Labor Party) as an example of a "dominant party". The questions which are discussed in this study are: (1) are there any special characteristics in the behavior of a dominant party which goes into opposition; and (2) does the transition to the opposition automatically nullify its definition as a dominant party? The study deals only with the Labor Party's perception of its role in the political system, as revealed in the records of meetings of various party forums. (DÜI-Hns)

AbstractApproximately 70 per cent of the parties emerging in the post‐Second World War era failed to keep their seats in parliament. Party survival is an important issue, especially in parliamentary democracies, where parties are the means through which voters' preferences are linked to government policy outputs. Using an event history modeling framework, and data from 37 democracies, covering 830 parties, this article analyses two questions regarding party durability. First, when do parties fail? Second, which parties survive longer? The article shows that most parties fail at the beginning of their lifespan, and disappear before the end of their fourth term in parliament. Moreover, it is found that moderate policy position, distinct ideology and participation in governing coalitions increase the duration of party survival, even when controlling for party size. This article contributes to the extensive literature about the electoral benefits of ideological moderation and distinct policy positions by showing the long‐term benefits of these factors. Moreover, the long‐term benefit of party participation in government in terms of survival overcomes the short‐term cost of ruling.

Contents: History, by Henry Slesser; Philosophy and principles, by Dingle Foot.

Contents: History, by G. D. H. Cole; Philosophy and principles, by Francis Williams.

Contents: History, by Charles Petrie; Philosophy and principles, by Kenneth Pickthorn.

This article assesses the internal dynamics of the cartel party model. It argues that a party's endeavour to increase its societal reach by opening membership boundaries while keeping candidate selection local (two tendencies ascribed to this model), and the general need to maintain party unity, are difficult to reconcile. Therefore a fully fledged cartel party is organisationally vulnerable, which reinforces its resort to selective benefits (i.e. political appointments, patronage) whenever in government to satisfy organisational demands, a trigger intensifying party–state relations which is usually overlooked. Further, the dominant view of the ascendancy of parties' 'public face' needs to be qualified: the Irish Fianna Fáil, with its permeable boundaries and local candidate selection, reflects the cartel party model without a cartel at the party system level. Majoritarian dynamics have forced Fianna Fáil repeatedly into opposition which reveals the following: Fianna Fáil as a cartel party can afford to neglect its infrastructure on the ground as long as it is controlling government resources. In opposition its leadership initiates reforms to reinvigorate the party's infrastructure since it is pressed to generate organisational support through other means than distributing benefits.

Observers of U.S. elections have reason to believe that third parties are not relevant political actors since they rarely win many votes or influence which major party wins an election. Researchers should use dependent variables besides vote choice and vote share to find third party effects that are a normal aspect of the American two-party system. A spatial model of elections motivates the hypothesis that a higher likelihood of third party entry induces greater major party candidate divergence. An empirical test that uses candidate positioning data in the 1996 U.S. House elections provides evidence of this third party effect. Adapted from the source document.

Observers of U.S. elections have reason to believe that third parties are not relevant political actors since they rarely win many votes or influence which major party wins an election. Researchers should use dependent variables besides vote choice and vote share to find third party effects that are a normal aspect of the American two-party system. A spatial model of elections motivates the hypothesis that a higher likelihood of third party entry induces greater major party candidate divergence. An empirical test that uses candidate positioning data in the 1996 U.S. House elections provides evidence of this third party effect.