Contemporary Party Politics
Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Introduction -- Defining 'political party' -- The three faces of party organisations -- The structure of parties -- The role of parties in democratic states -- The crisis of parties -- Outline of the book -- 2 Party Systems -- The importance of understanding party systems -- Early approaches to party systems -- Party system typologies -- The effective number of parties -- Explaining party system variation -- Which party system is best? -- Conclusion -- 3 Theories of Party Development -- The 'internal' and 'external' origins of parties -- An alternative view of the emergence of political parties -- Understanding party types -- Cadre parties to mass parties -- Challenging the mass party model: the catch-all party -- Organisational consequences of the catch-all party: the electoral-professional party model -- The cartel party -- Conclusion: Beyond the cartel - beyond party types? -- 4 Ideology -- On ideology and party politics -- Political cleavages -- Party families -- Ideology in contemporary European party politics -- Party ideology beyond Europe -- United States -- India -- Africa -- Conclusion -- 5 Party Members, Activists and Supporters -- Defining party member, activist and supporter -- The rise (and fall?) of party members -- Why members? -- Party membership incentives: supply -- Leadership incentives: demand -- The costs of a membership organisation -- Explaining and reversing decline -- The effects of membership decline -- Conclusion -- 6 Candidate Selection -- The importance of candidate selection -- Selecting candidates -- The political system -- National legislation -- The candidate selection process: impact of different methods -- Territorial (de-) centralisation and in/exclusiveness of the selectorate.