Along with the right-left economical dimension of positioning of political parties and voters, there is also dimension of division along cultural and value items which is described as authoritarianism - libertarianism axis or sometimes conservatism - liberalism. In new democracies the division along clear support for liberal democracy on the one hand and support or toleration of non liberal use of power on the other hand is often very important. We distinguish between authoritarianism as orientation with tendency towards support for restrictive and hierarchical politics, which in some cases lead to non liberal variant of formally democratic order, and cultural conservatism, which has its roots mainly in higher level of religiosity. Authoritarian and conservative tendencies are to certain level associated with each other, nevertheless they do not create an integral complex. There is evidence of a group with authoritarian value orientation and culturally liberal position at the same time; in Slovak conditions it is the case of the electorate of left wing party Smer (Direction). Examining the opinion cleavage among Slovak public along cultural and value questions, we identify the biggest conflict potential of the authoritarian items as the mode of political rule and nationalism. Next significant...

O Brasil possui uma característica incomum entre as democracias, seu altíssimo número de partidos políticos. Em sentido clássico, muitos partidos poderiam significar várias clivagens sociais. Na teoria, uma ampla participação partidária na arena política favoreceria uma democracia mais consensual, mais benevolente. Por outro lado, elevado número de atores partidários inibiria a clareza de responsabilidade de quem é governo, dificultando, com isso, a responsabilização eleitoral. Utilizando-se de dados eleitorais, como o índice de volatilidade eleitoral, o índice de coerência partidária e o índice do número efetivo de partidos políticos, o trabalho elabora a seguinte hipótese: no Legislativo, quanto maior a fragmentação partidária, maior a dificuldade do eleitor em identificar o partido governista. Para testá-la, foi criado uma proxy inédita de clareza de responsabilidade e um banco de dados de países presidencialistas do continente americano. Os resultados mostram como países com alta fragmentação partidária e com coalizões de governo dificultam a associação entre o sucesso ou o fracasso do partido governista no Legislativo e no Executivo. Mostra-se, ainda, que o multipartidarismo brasileiro não deriva da fragmentação sócio-cultural e sugere que as instituições políticas brasileiras atuais constrangem os partidos políticos a não sustentarem uma condição de oposição ao Poder Executivo. / The Brazil has an unusual characteristic between the democracies, yours very high number of political parties. In classic sense, many parties can mean multiple social cleavages. In theory, a wide partisan participation in political arena favors a democracy more consensual, more benevolent. By other side, a high number of partisan actors inhibit the clarity of responsibility of who is government, difficulting the electoral accountability. Utilizing electoral data, like the index of electoral volatility, the index of partisan coherence and the index of effective number of parties, the work elaborates the hypothesis: in Legislative, as bigger the party fragmentation, more difficult to the voter identify the government party. To test it, was created an inedited proxy of clarity of responsibility and a database of presidentialist countries of american continent. The results show how countries with high party fragmentation and with government coalitions hamper the association between the success or fail of party government in Legislative and Executive. It also shows that brazilian multiparty system doesn’t derives from social or cultural fragmentation and suggest that the current brazilian political institutions constrains the political parties to not sustain an condition of opposition to Executive Power.

O Brasil possui uma característica incomum entre as democracias, seu altíssimo número de partidos políticos. Em sentido clássico, muitos partidos poderiam significar várias clivagens sociais. Na teoria, uma ampla participação partidária na arena política favoreceria uma democracia mais consensual, mais benevolente. Por outro lado, elevado número de atores partidários inibiria a clareza de responsabilidade de quem é governo, dificultando, com isso, a responsabilização eleitoral. Utilizando-se de dados eleitorais, como o índice de volatilidade eleitoral, o índice de coerência partidária e o índice do número efetivo de partidos políticos, o trabalho elabora a seguinte hipótese: no Legislativo, quanto maior a fragmentação partidária, maior a dificuldade do eleitor em identificar o partido governista. Para testá-la, foi criado uma proxy inédita de clareza de responsabilidade e um banco de dados de países presidencialistas do continente americano. Os resultados mostram como países com alta fragmentação partidária e com coalizões de governo dificultam a associação entre o sucesso ou o fracasso do partido governista no Legislativo e no Executivo. Mostra-se, ainda, que o multipartidarismo brasileiro não deriva da fragmentação sócio-cultural e sugere que as instituições políticas brasileiras atuais constrangem os partidos políticos a não sustentarem uma condição de oposição ao Poder Executivo. / The Brazil has an unusual characteristic between the democracies, yours very high number of political parties. In classic sense, many parties can mean multiple social cleavages. In theory, a wide partisan participation in political arena favors a democracy more consensual, more benevolent. By other side, a high number of partisan actors inhibit the clarity of responsibility of who is government, difficulting the electoral accountability. Utilizing electoral data, like the index of electoral volatility, the index of partisan coherence and the index of effective number of parties, the work elaborates the hypothesis: in Legislative, as bigger the party fragmentation, more difficult to the voter identify the government party. To test it, was created an inedited proxy of clarity of responsibility and a database of presidentialist countries of american continent. The results show how countries with high party fragmentation and with government coalitions hamper the association between the success or fail of party government in Legislative and Executive. It also shows that brazilian multiparty system doesn’t derives from social or cultural fragmentation and suggest that the current brazilian political institutions constrains the political parties to not sustain an condition of opposition to Executive Power.

O Brasil possui uma característica incomum entre as democracias, seu altíssimo número de partidos políticos. Em sentido clássico, muitos partidos poderiam significar várias clivagens sociais. Na teoria, uma ampla participação partidária na arena política favoreceria uma democracia mais consensual, mais benevolente. Por outro lado, elevado número de atores partidários inibiria a clareza de responsabilidade de quem é governo, dificultando, com isso, a responsabilização eleitoral. Utilizando-se de dados eleitorais, como o índice de volatilidade eleitoral, o índice de coerência partidária e o índice do número efetivo de partidos políticos, o trabalho elabora a seguinte hipótese: no Legislativo, quanto maior a fragmentação partidária, maior a dificuldade do eleitor em identificar o partido governista. Para testá-la, foi criado uma proxy inédita de clareza de responsabilidade e um banco de dados de países presidencialistas do continente americano. Os resultados mostram como países com alta fragmentação partidária e com coalizões de governo dificultam a associação entre o sucesso ou o fracasso do partido governista no Legislativo e no Executivo. Mostra-se, ainda, que o multipartidarismo brasileiro não deriva da fragmentação sócio-cultural e sugere que as instituições políticas brasileiras atuais constrangem os partidos políticos a não sustentarem uma condição de oposição ao Poder Executivo. / The Brazil has an unusual characteristic between the democracies, yours very high number of political parties. In classic sense, many parties can mean multiple social cleavages. In theory, a wide partisan participation in political arena favors a democracy more consensual, more benevolent. By other side, a high number of partisan actors inhibit the clarity of responsibility of who is government, difficulting the electoral accountability. Utilizing electoral data, like the index of electoral volatility, the index of partisan coherence and the index of effective number of parties, the work elaborates the hypothesis: in Legislative, as bigger the party fragmentation, more difficult to the voter identify the government party. To test it, was created an inedited proxy of clarity of responsibility and a database of presidentialist countries of american continent. The results show how countries with high party fragmentation and with government coalitions hamper the association between the success or fail of party government in Legislative and Executive. It also shows that brazilian multiparty system doesn’t derives from social or cultural fragmentation and suggest that the current brazilian political institutions constrains the political parties to not sustain an condition of opposition to Executive Power.

Bien que la littérature française n’ait presque pas abordé le sujet, les théories des coalitions ont constitué, dans la littérature dite “mainstream”, un des principaux champs d’étude en science politique, ces deux dernières décennies. Appliquées à l’analyse de gouvernements, ces études ont permis de développer un ensemble de connaissances théoriques et des outils d’analyse quant à l’étude des processus liés à la formation, le maintien et la conclusion de ce type de gouvernements. Toutefois, le fait que la plupart des politistes ayant contribués à l’expansion de ces théories proviennent d’Europe Occidentale, ces études se sont alors -pour leur majeure partie- concentrées à l’analyse des coalitions gouvernementales suivant les particularismes de leur région d’origine : les systèmes parlementaires d’Europe Occidentale. L’étude du phénomène en régime présidentiel, longtemps considéré comme accidentel du fait de la supposée « combinaison indésirable » entre présidentialisme et multipartisme, est de ce fait demeurée limitée. Ceci conduit à ce que, jusqu’à présent, la littérature en science politique ne dispose que d’un faible niveau de connaissance quant à la manifestation des coalitions gouvernementales sous la configuration présidentielle. Cette thèse se propose donc de combler cette lacune ontologique, en centrant l’analyse sur les particularités structurelles des systèmes présidentiels, tout en faisant le lien avec les théories les plus récentes issues de la littérature portant sur les systèmes parlementaires. En se basant sur les trois pays du Cône Sud, et l’analyse de huit gouvernements récents de coalition qui ont connus différentes fortunes, cette thèse viendra insister sur l’impact de la configuration présidentielle quant à la formation et la gestion des gouvernements de coalition. Cette « présidentialisation » de la théorie des coalitions, va ainsi mettre en avant deux éléments généraux propres à la matérialisation du phénomène coalitionnaire en régime présidentiel : la récurrence de la formation de coalitions électorales, et la tendance à la bipolarité de la compétition politique. / Coalition theories applied to governments developed during the last decades a huge literature so as to provide theoretical knowledge and tools for the analysis of formation, maintain and breakdown of this kind of governments. Nevertheless, these studies were focused especially on parliamentary systems and left away the study of this phenomenon on presidential regimes. On another hand, coalition governments used to be considered, otherwise, in these systems as an “undesirable combination”, or analysed as a functional trend rather than the proper object of investigation. This approach conducts, then to a very low level of knowledge of the coalition phenomenon under presidential configuration.This thesis, proposes thus to fill this analytical gap, aiming to apply and compare recent findings and approaches from parliamentary origins to presidential systems. Through the study of the three countries forming the American Southern Cone, and eight recent governments of coalition with different successes we will stress out the differentiated role and mechanisms of timing cleavages and party structuration, proper to presidential systems. We will therefore “presidentialise” the theory, and show that the presidential framework presents general peculiarities like a recurrent pre-electoral coalition formation, and a trend to the bipolarity of party competition. / Las teorías de las coaliciones (coalition theories) formaron en la literatura dominante en ciencias políticas, uno de los principales campos de estudio, en las últimas décadas. Aplicadas al análisis de los gobiernos, estos trabajos permitieron que se desarrollara un conjunto de conocimientos teóricos y herramientas de análisis pertinentes para el estudio de los procesos de formación, mantenimiento y conclusión de este tipo de gobierno.Ahora bien, el hecho que la mayor parte de los académicos que escribieron sobre este fenómeno proviniera de -o enfocara su análisis sobre- Europa Occidental, condujo a que dichos conocimientos y herramientas desarrolladas por la teoría de las coaliciones se desarrollasen incluyendo particularidades propias a las democracias parlamentarias de Europa Occidental. Paralelamente a esto, el auge de las coalition theories se produjo de manera concomitante con la emergencia del debate presidencialismo vs. Parlamentarismo, cuyos teóricos dominantes en un primer momento abogaron por el carácter “accidental” o “indeseable” del ocaso de coaliciones partidarias en sistema presidencial. Por ende, muy pocos trabajos teóricos han sido llevados a cabo, hasta la fecha, para analizar el proceso coalicionar en regímenes presidenciales; y las pocas tentativas que se hicieron, recuperaron los elementos de análisis propios a las teorías ya existentes sin “presidencializar” el enfoque. Aquello condujo a que el nivel de conocimiento y entendimiento de los gobiernos de coalición en sistemas presidenciales sean bastante mal conocidos, pese a que muchos estudios hayan demostrado el carácter rutinario del fenómeno.Esta tesis se propone colmar este vacío ontológico, concentrándose en el análisis de las particularidades estructurales de los sistemas presidenciales relacionándose, de manera constante, con la teoría en sistemas parlamentarios. Al considerar los tres países del Cono Sur, y el análisis de ocho gobiernos que presentaron una configuración coaligada con fortunas diversas, esta tesis vendrá insistiendo sobre el impacto del presidencialismo sobre la formación y la gestión de estos gobiernos. Este enfoque presidencializado de las teorías de las coaliciones insiste asimismo sobre dos elementos generales propios al fenómeno coalicionar en régimen presidencial: la tendencia a la bipolarización de la competencia política y el carácter más precoz del juego de alianzas.

The debate about affirmative action for ethnic minorities in countries with another majority culture is growing bigger in many parts of the world. However, it is often the debate misses the aborigines within the countries’ borders. The aim of this paper is to investigate the possible conflict in opinions for xenophobic political parties when managing an aborigine population. I will use a qualitative method to study the ethnic minority Sámi in Sweden, Norway and Finland, and afterwards xenophobic parties view on them. To reach a result will I present a scale over Xenophobia – Cosmopolitanism, which is described as a political cleavage. Finally I will, by comparing the empiric facts through that scale, demonstrate that there is a conflict in opinions for the investigated parties.

This thesis examines the nature of mass factionalism and rebellious alignment during the Chinese Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1968. This period in Chinese history presents an internecine mass conflict that boasts the largest political upheavals of the 20th century. The most puzzling question of the explosion of this intense rebellious rivalry lies in the mechanisms and processes of insurgents’ political choices: Why did people join and affiliate with different insurgent groups? What decision did people make and what were their reasons? In conventional social structural analyses of contentious politics, mass actors’ decisions are affected by functionally differentiated interests inherent in their pre-existing social positions. This model defines mass rebellion and factional alignment as a form of interest group politics, attributing political choices to participants’ pre-existing sociopolitical status quo and thus pits different social groups against one another. As a result, similar occupational and status groups in the previous hierarchical structure would make similar political choices that lead them to form well-defined competing factions. In contrast to this static structural interpretation, I propose a contextual process model to analyze processes of political division and factional contention within political movements. With a case study of Guangzhou, I argue that rebellious alignment was rooted in their political interactions in a rapidly evolving phase of the conflict, rather than rising from the tensions that existed between different socio-economic layers of society. During the times of radical instability such as the Chinese Cultural Revolution, political ambiguity and contingency were the defining characteristics. In such unstable political environment, the basic elements of the movement changed so many times: each phase of the rebel movement projected itself by means of different actors, agendas, targets, and so on. Consequently, individual rebels observed their embedded local political environment, interpreted it, and subsequently chose a course of action in a dynamic process. In this regard, mass actors from identical social strata in the previous hierarchical structure would make different political choices and tactically choose their factional camp.

This thesis examines the relationship between demographic ageing, as captured by temporal, within-country variation in the ratio of elderly to the working-age population – the dependency ratio – on citizens’ support for the welfare state. The research problem is vitally relevant considering the worsening demographic structure of advanced democracies, a process that is having considerable ramifications on the possibilities of financing comprehensive welfare states. Using a time-series cross-sectional design, and building on representative survey data from 13 advanced democracies, the thesis specifically assesses the relationship between the dependency ratio, and individual spending preferences towards 1) the welfare state as a whole, as captured by an additive index, 2) education policy, and 3) old-age benefits. It also assesses whether demographic ageing exacerbates attitude differences between age groups, thereby scrutinising some assumptions made previously on the issue of intergenerational cleavages. The thesis uncovers no significant relationship between the dependency ratio and general support for the welfare state. However, the dependency ratio is shown be positively correlated with citizens’ support for education policy, while being instead potentially negatively correlated with support for old-age benefits. The differences between these two policies, in terms of their enjoyed support, are important considering the presumed shift in welfare state priorities towards what is commonly called social investment. Indeed, they indicate that there may be popular support for the type of reform strategies whose purpose is to invest in tomorrow’s diminishing workforce, whereas the support for more compensatory old-age policies may instead be weakening. There are also signs that the positive effect on the support for education policy is lower among older individuals. This evidence is quite interesting considering the previous expectations of deepening intergenerational cleavages as a consequence of demographic ageing, but the weak indications of this development in previous empirical research.

This diploma thesis is focused on the topic of cleavages and their development in the Slovakian party system and society. The thesis chronologically interprets the evolution from the year 1990 until the current years, specifically until the 2016 election. In the beginning, the Slovakian party system and society were split up, similarly to other post-communist countries going from communism to anticommunism. When this topic is solved, other traditional cleavages come to mind as they are as well described by classical theoreticians. These cleavages can be activated by themselves, or become less important through time and social and political development. Other studies or thesis of Slovakian authors prove this idea. This known development is usually only addressed until the year 2012, that is why the main aim of this thesis is to analyze, continue with other results and find out how the situation regarding this issue has evolved before the election in 2016. It is important to analyze cleavages and other topics which divide the society and political parties from the point of view of the effect the cleavages have on the stability of the party system. It influences the number of them and the relationships between them which can be cumulative or cross cutting. Since then it is possible to determine...

The dilemma of parties systems in Czech Republic and Poland is connected indirectly with my work which was concerned in the transitions of these post-communists countries. The rise and development of these two parties systems was strongly inspired by the results of both transitions in these countries. I will concerned with deeper comparison of both parties systems, especially in the consolidated period of democracy.