Suchergebnisse

Comparing Political Regimes provides a comprehensive assessment of the world's political systems by outlining and contrasting the aspects of four different regime types: liberal democracies, electoral democracies, semi-liberal autocracies, and closed autocracies. The third edition is thoroughly revised and updated. It now incorporates the two new countries that have appeared since the last edition—Kosovo and South Sudan—and covers the regime changes that have occurred in many countries, including the liberalization (but not yet actual democratization) of the Arab Spring. Extra material has also been added on demography and political economy, especially with regards to economic development, and on secession of regions

The third edition is thoroughly revised and updated. It now incorporates the two new countries that have appeared since the last edition - Kosovo and South Sudan - and covers the regime changes that have occurred in many countries, including the liberalization (but not yet actual democratization) of the Arab Spring. Extra material has also been added on demography and political economy, especially with regards to economic development, and on secession of regions."--pub. desc

In the period since 1936, Quebec has gone through two eras of party politics, the first between the Liberals and the Union Nationale, the second and ongoing era between the Liberals and the Parti Québécois. This study examines elections in Quebec in terms of all relevant types of electoral bias. In both eras the overall electoral bias has clearly been against the Liberal Party. The nature of this bias has changed however. Malapportionment was crucial through 1970, and of minimal importance since the 1972 redistribution. In contrast gerrymandering, ultimately involving an 'equivalent to gerrymandering effect' due to the geographic nature of Liberal core support, has been not only a permanent phenomenon but indeed since 1972 the dominant effect. The one election where both gerrymandering and the overall bias were pro-Liberal — 1989 — is shown to be the 'exception that proves the rule'. Finally, the erratic extent of electoral bias in the past four decades is shown to arise from very uneven patterns of swing in Quebec.

The focus of this research note is on the causes of imbalanced, if not indeed lopsided, election results that yield dominance within provincial legislatures. Two alternative areas of explanation are assessed here. The first relates to electoral system factors. Certainly, the single member plurality electoral system and its resulting disproportionality is a key part of the argument here. Yet this cannot be the whole story, not least because election results are not so lopsided in every province, nor indeed at the federal level. Thus what also will be assessed in this area are two other, related, aspects of elections: the total size of the assembly and the number of individual constituencies, as well as relevant party system factors.

The long-lasting race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Presidential nomination finished with Obama winning a clear majority of the pledged delegates. Yet he did not win a majority of all votes cast, and indeed the popular vote total was extremely close. This article assesses how a close vote total translated into a delegate victory for Obama. Three factors are assessed: malapportionment in terms of delegates per state, a strong abstention (low turnout) effect in the caucuses, and the disqualification of the Florida results. Numerically the abstention effect not just in the caucuses as a whole but across the various caucuses was the most significant factor.

This article outlines what is meant by a parliamentary form of government and analyzes how such regimes vary in the postwar advanced industrial democracies. A wide range of variables are discussed and measured annually. Factor analysis is used to produce eight different aspects of parliamentarianism. The first two of these yield a twodimensional analysis. Based on these two key factors, it is argued that there are three main types of parliamentary systems: (1) those of cabinet dominance; (2) those that are polarized with a central role for a fragmented parliament; and (3) those of cooperative policy-making diffusion with a working parliament. Generally, the first and third of these are polar opposite types, yet they each manifest greater cabinet durability than the cluster of polarized systems.

In this article, the concept of the `two-and-a-half-party system' is re-examined, with particular focus on the role of the `half'. The analysis is on longer-term parliamentary democracies since 1945 or democratization. First, various ways of measuring a party system are outlined, and a new alternative is proposed. Based on this, 10 countries are seen to qualify (at least for certain time periods) as two-and-a-half-party systems: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. Each of these systems is outlined and analysed. This category is then contrasted with both two-party systems and multiparty systems in order to explain its causes. Next, some general conclusions about when `half' parties are likely to matter more (in a governmental sense) are made, with a particular distinction occurring between `hinge' and `wing' half parties. Finally, the geographic shift in the presence of two-and-a-half-party systems is noted.