Suchergebnisse

In the member states of the European Union, the competition between parties represents an important structural feature of democracy. At the European level, the existence of parties & the inherent competition of ideas & their implementation are still largely underdeveloped. The reason for this lay above all in the structures of the EU & the difficulties of the European parties in establishing common positions & nominating common candidates. In order to strengthen European parties & place them in a position to realize their important role in European democracy, a European Party Statute needs to be promoted. Furthermore, the institutional reforms envisioned in the constitution are necessary. Finally, the parties must continue to develop internally & take advantage of all existing possibilities to become powerful actors on the European stage. Adapted from the source document.

French political parties have traditionally been considered as very weak. In addition to historical reasons, the direct election of the French president, introduced in 1958, stands at the core of efforts to explain this weakness. This thesis of presidentialization, however, rests on a reduced notion that ascribes to each institution always the same degree of effectiveness independent of its specific context. A differentiated analysis that follows the neo-institutionalist approach allows a new view on French parties considering the institutional context of the presidential election. Given the French parliament's ability to dismiss a government, the direct election of the French president does not weaken French parties. In fact, presidential elections have evolved in principle into contests between parties, with candidates holding party chairmanship & being de pendent on party support. The president of the Fifth Republic has come to rely on his party's support not only in wielding executive power, but also in attaining it. Thus, the systemic functions of French parties have aligned them with those of parties in parliamentary democracies. [ZParl, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 728 ff.]. Adapted from the source document.

Paul Levi wurde lange Zeit ignoriert und ist fast vergessen. Diese Situation hat sich kürzlich geändert. Die beiden Hauptströmungen der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung versuchen, ihn für sich zu reklamieren. Der Autor zeigt eine neue Facette dieser einzigartigen Persönlichkeit auf. Er beschreibt Levis Auseinandersetzung mit Sozialdemokraten und Kommunisten in den 1920er Jahren und kommt zu dem Schluss, dass Levi auf die Bezeichnung "Luxemburgist" stolz gewesen wäre. (ICEÜbers)

The integration of European financial markets lags behind the integration of product & service markets with their quicker removal of trade barriers, & has suffered another setback with the adoption of the takeover directive in 2003/2004. The following analysis demonstrates that the removal of integration barriers is based on two cleavages: a party political conflict along the left-right axis & a distributional conflict between different national varieties of capitalism. The conflict between varieties of capitalism has greater explanatory power than the left-right conflict. The empirical chapter concentrates on the crucial vote on a comparatively liberal version of the takeover directive that took place in the European Parliament on July 4, 2001. It is argued that the creation of a single European financial market is unlikely -- at least in the short or mid term perspective. Tables, Figures, Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.