Suchergebnisse

One of the results of the passage of the manhood suffrage law of 1925 in Japan has been the rise of proletarian parties and the election of eight of their candidates as members of the Diet. In the House of Representatives these new members find themselves in the company of half a dozen minor parties and a group of independents, alternately ignored and courted by the two major parties. Their appearance coincides with a time when liberal opinion in Japan favors the two-party rather than the multiple-party system. But the economic significance of the new parties has saved them from the aspersion of merely adding to the confusion of minor groups. Moreover, the failure of Japanese liberals to develop a great party of liberalism invites a new association to seize a vantage ground so long unoccupied.On the eve of the general election of 1928 the founders of the proletarian parties had reason to hope that careful strategy in the campaign would give the new parties a good start upon the same road that led the Labor party in Great Britain to the leadership of the parliamentary opposition and finally into office. The manhood suffrage act had increased the electorate from 3,341,000 to 12,534,360. Among the nine million new voters are included practically all the male factory toilers and agricultural workers. Here, indeed, is a rich field for proletarian vote-getting.

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3 signif diff's in the heritage of the British & New Zealand Labor Parties (NZLP) deserve emphasis. (1) Though there have been disagreements within the British labor movement over industrial policy, notably in 1926, these have never been as sharp as the clashes between arbitrationists & direct actionists in New Zealand, nor have they seriously threatened the leadership of the TUC. (2) In spite of the NZLP's early commitment to socialism, it never acquired a clear sense of direction or a firm philosophical basis. In the British party the adoption of a socialist objective came later, & the commitment remained largely verbal until the re-thinking which followed the 1931 schism. The NZLP has never been without its active & dedicated socialists. But as a movement New Zealand socialism has been less unified & less certain of its goals, & it has not had as great an impact upon the thinking of the workers. (3) Perhaps the most signif contrast is the role played by elitist groups & Mc intellectuals. In GB the educ'al program of the ILP & the Fabian Society influenced the thinking of both the trade union leaders & the rank & file, & the ideas of Mc intellectuals contributed to the formulation of a program which was both practicable & consistent with national & trade union needs. The NZLP has not been without its intellectuals, but their influence has been much more limited. IPSA.

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This research tests the Downsian explanation of ideological change in competitive political parties on a sample of twelve labor parties examined at various points over their lifetimes. Ideological change is defined in terms of changes on three economic issue dimensions. The analysis first tests a series of hypotheses of bivariate association, hypotheses drawn from Anthony Downs's work, before utilizing multiple regression analysis to determine the best predictors of ideological change. The results tend to confirm Downsian theory, showing a party's competitive trend and party system size to be the major determinants of labor party ideological change. A party's competitive trend is found to be the primary determinant of ideological change, with growing parties tending toward leftism or rigidity, and stagnating parties tending toward centrism. Changes in the number of minor parties in a party system is the second most important factor, with increases in the number of minor parties encouraging leftist tendencies and decreases encouraging centrist tendencies. Finally, the number of major parties in a system also influences ideological change, with greater numbers of parties encouraging more leftism.