The outbidding model of intraethnic party competition has dominated the literature on ethnic party competition. The emphasis of this literature on radicalization as an inevitable consequence of intraethnic competition has recently faced fair criticism. Scholars have presented new empirical evidence for intraethnic party competition that runs counter to the predictions of outbidding. Nevertheless, the major assumptions of the outbidding model persist. Scholars generally focus on ethnic outgroups as a source of intraethnic party competition, disregarding other factors that affect competition between ethnic parties within the same ethnic group. My approach to study intraethnic party competition is different. Instead of merely focusing on ethnic politics as the main factor driving intraethnic competition, I investigate other factors that determine intraethnic competition beyond ethnic politics, including social cleavages, and the electoral system. I submit that intraethnic party competition cannot be boiled down simply to ethnic politics. Ethnic parties within the same ethnic group compete over various issues ranging from socioeconomic concerns, to foreign policy and regionalists.

The aim of this thesis is to explore and evaluate legal position of political parties in the Czech Republic and its historical development. This thesis deals with political party law in a narrow sense, particularly with constitutional arrangement and the Political Parties Act. According to the Constitution of the Czech Republic our political system is based on a competition of political parties, despite this fact not enough attention is usually devoted to their position in a legal system. This text uses an interdisciplinary approach combining mainly legal and political science. The thesis contains seven chapters and moves from general to specific. The first chapter deals with the term political party. Firstly it observes it from the prism of social sciences then it moves to political science definitions and in the end it extracts legal definitions and characterizes a private law nature of parties. Second chapter is about functions of political parties both in general and according to the law. The third chapter describes in detail the development of legal position of political parties from the year 1852 to the present time. The fourth chapter analyses current Political Parties Act its creation and amendments. The fifth chapter examines conditions of creating parties. The sixth chapter is about...

The dissertation explores the causes of party relabeling by focusing on four party systems: South Korea, France, Taiwan and the United States. The existing literature on political parties considers one of their primary functions to be providing a brand name. As a result, party name change has been viewed as an anomaly caused by internal and external shocks that disturb the status quo equilibrium or a phenomenon symptomatic of unstable, weakly institutionalized party systems. However, party name changes are not as rare as assumed in the existing literature. Therefore, my dissertation addresses the following questions: When and why do parties change names? What are the characteristics of a party system that hamper the development of brand-name party labels? I theorize that the combination of the following three factors increases the likelihood of party relabeling: (1) prominence of personalistic party cues, (2) strong levels of political attention in the electorate, and (3) high degree of governmental centralization. These three factors encourage vote-, office-seeking motivations in the party so greatly that the party is willing to do whatever it takes to win including such a radical strategy as relabeling. In order to test the proposed theory, I closely examine South Korea and France, where parties commonly replace their labels, in comparison to Taiwan and the United States whose parties do not change labels, respectively. These four cases are chosen because they allows cross-case and within-case analysis that is crucial for a comparative case study to gain internal and external validity. I utilize various types of data – both qualitative and quantitative in investigating these cases. My dissertation will contribute to a broad range of literatures in party politics as well as in East Asian politics. By providing a new theoretical model on this understudied phenomenon, I contribute to a better understanding of the role of party labels and initiate more active discussion over party strategy and party branding. Furthermore, by examining Korean and Taiwanese parties in depth, my dissertation provides a systematic analysis on the studies of East Asian politics.

The organizations of national and provincial parties in Canada are understood to be separated from one another. However, it is not known whether this separation extends to the constituency-level organizations of those parties. In order to provide a better understanding of how national and provincial parties are linked at the local level (if at all), this thesis describes and accounts for the local organizations of the national Liberal Party and the provincial Liberal parties in sixteen national constituencies selected from the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and New Brunswick. Information from interviews with local party activists and participant observation in the ridings is used to develop a continuum of constituency-level party organizations. Descriptions of the activist bases, constituency associations, and local campaigns in each riding allow for each local organization to be placed along this continuum between integrated local organizations, which share important linkages between the national and provincial levels, and differentiated local organizations, where no such linkages exist. The placement of local organizations along this continuum is accounted for by (1) similarities or differences between the national and provincial party systems in the three provinces studied; (2) the actions of incumbent members of the national Parliament and provincial legislatures; and (3) characteristics of the constituencies. The patterns identified lead to a classification of four types of local organizations – One Political World, Interconnected Political Worlds, Distinctive Political Worlds, and Two Political Worlds – that illuminate the different forms of linkages between national and provincial parties that exist at the constituency level. This examination of the local organizations of the Liberal Party calls into question the academic consensus on the separation of national and provincial parties in Canada. Instead, the Liberal Party is characterized as an unevenly integrated party, where the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties are separated from provincial counterparts, but where the national and provincial parties on the ground are oftentimes integrated.

I examine the relationship between the electoral security of congressmen, measured as vote margins in the previous election, and the support Members of Congress offer to their party. I develop a theory that predicts safe members will be more willing to support than vulnerable members and leaders demand more loyalty from safe members than vulnerable. This arrangement is rational and beneficial for leaders and both types of members. Using an OLS regression, I find basic support for my theory.

Diss.--Philosophische Fakultät--Bonn--Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, 2000. / Bibliogr. p. 316-329. Index.

I examine the relationship between the electoral security of congressmen, measured as vote margins in the previous election, and the support Members of Congress offer to their party. I develop a theory that predicts safe members will be more willing to support than vulnerable members and leaders demand more loyalty from safe members than vulnerable. This arrangement is rational and beneficial for leaders and both types of members. Using an OLS regression, I find basic support for my theory.

The organizations of national and provincial parties in Canada are understood to be separated from one another. However, it is not known whether this separation extends to the constituency-level organizations of those parties. In order to provide a better understanding of how national and provincial parties are linked at the local level (if at all), this thesis describes and accounts for the local organizations of the national Liberal Party and the provincial Liberal parties in sixteen national constituencies selected from the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and New Brunswick. Information from interviews with local party activists and participant observation in the ridings is used to develop a continuum of constituency-level party organizations. Descriptions of the activist bases, constituency associations, and local campaigns in each riding allow for each local organization to be placed along this continuum between integrated local organizations, which share important linkages between the national and provincial levels, and differentiated local organizations, where no such linkages exist. The placement of local organizations along this continuum is accounted for by (1) similarities or differences between the national and provincial party systems in the three provinces studied; (2) the actions of incumbent members of the national Parliament and provincial legislatures; and (3) characteristics of the constituencies. The patterns identified lead to a classification of four types of local organizations – One Political World, Interconnected Political Worlds, Distinctive Political Worlds, and Two Political Worlds – that illuminate the different forms of linkages between national and provincial parties that exist at the constituency level. This examination of the local organizations of the Liberal Party calls into question the academic consensus on the separation of national and provincial parties in Canada. Instead, the Liberal Party is characterized as an unevenly integrated party, where the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties are separated from provincial counterparts, but where the national and provincial parties on the ground are oftentimes integrated.

In this doctoral dissertation, I put party members and activists back in context. I stress theimportance of two contextual dimensions, often overlooked in the scientific literature. On theone hand, I put forward social network explanations of party membership and activism,emphasizing the importance of social interactions, relations and structures, which were scarcelyexplored as potential triggers. Like other forms of participation, party membership haspredominantly been portrayed through individuals as isolated, independent units, disconnectedfrom their micro social environment. On the other hand, local party branches as research objecthave often been ignored in the literature on party organisations, dominated by research on thenational mother party. Yet, we know little about how these local groups organise, how theycontribute to the recruitment and retention of members, and, more broadly, how the local partylevel copes with the challenges faced by the national organisation.With contribution on both supply and demand side of party membership studies, my dissertationis interested in questioning party membership and activism through network triggers and localparty organisations. Therefore, the final work comprises and articulates three empiricalchapters, offering their own sets of empirical analyses developed on original data.Inspired by network theory of political participation, the first chapter highlights the role ofpersonal networks as micro-contexts. Relying on original survey data gathered among a quotasample of 2,800 Belgian citizens, the chapter raises the question how the structure andcomposition of citizens’ social networks influence their probability to be party members.Regarding the structure, I demonstrate that the chance of joining a party increases alongnetwork size and density, with a stronger effect when the network is operationalised throughpolitical discussion. Regarding the composition, I show a major, positive effect of politicalattributes (attitudes of others: satisfaction and party closeness; and behaviours of other: otherforms of participation and party membership) and homophily (congruence in the network onthose political attributes) on the chances of joining a party, and, furthermore, the dominant partyin the network. Besides, social composition and homophily calls for further investigations.Overall, the chapter shows the effect of social context: how individuals behave and think towardpolitical parties is intimately linked with the features of their close social environment.The second chapter looks at party membership in local context. Framed by a functionalapproach of local party organisations, the chapter is dedicated to a qualitative assessment oflocal party branches as social and political groups. I ask how they organise, how they function,and, ultimately, discuss how they are impacted by party change. For this, I rely on a qualitativeanalysis of various empirical materials: hours of ethnographic observation within 11 local partybranches active in Brussels, complemented by interviews with their local presidents and adocument analysis of party statutes and local party rules and procedures, complemented withother internal and public party documents (leaflets, emails, posters, invitations, minutes,agenda, etc.). I show, first, that the organisation of local parties can be read through the trypticdeveloped to apprehend their national organisation (on the ground, in central and public office).Actually, local branches are divided into smaller groups, which all adopt different formal rulesand informal practices. Second, I stress that local party branches fulfil specific functions and anessential role of organisational and democratic maintenance, even if national membershipfigures are dropping. Local parties are involved in a complex dynamic between their role intheir municipality and as part of a larger party organisation. Nonetheless, this second chapterconcludes by pinpointing evidence of local party change: ascendency of the central and publicoffice, concentration of power, gap between members and officials, focus on nominationfunctions, etc.The third and last chapter puts party members in social and local party context. Bringing backnetwork theory, the chapter questions to what extent party activism might be triggered by thesocial networks built by members with their local branch fellows, or with higher party actors.The chapter consists in a quantitative analysis of survey data collected among local partyinformants belonging to 5 of the 11 local party branches. Respondents completed a shortquestionnaire adopting a similar operationalisation of social networks as in the first part of thedissertation. I demonstrate that the central place occupied by members in the network of theirlocal party branch (network centrality) is a good predictor of involvement at both the local andother organisational levels. This finding provides evidence to the “strength of strong ties” theoryin context of party organisation. In other words, the more a member is connected to othermembers of the branch aside from formal party activities, the more probability for this memberto be a party activist. I also show that extensive contacts with elected officials enhance thechances of joining a local party branch. Finally, I highlight that party members motivated bysolidary incentives are less likely to take part in higher participatory opportunities proposed bypolitical parties.More generally, my dissertation explores contexts in which party members and activists areembedded. It goes beyond individualistic considerations of traditional political behaviour andbrings back the local level into the organisational analysis of party membership.Methodologically, I extensively rely on Social Network Analysis to provide original relationalinsights on phenomena deeply collective by nature. Empirically, I focus on Belgium, a casehighly relevant to test new, “social” perspective on party membership. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The organizations of national and provincial parties in Canada are understood to be separated from one another. However, it is not known whether this separation extends to the constituency-level organizations of those parties. In order to provide a better understanding of how national and provincial parties are linked at the local level (if at all), this thesis describes and accounts for the local organizations of the national Liberal Party and the provincial Liberal parties in sixteen national constituencies selected from the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and New Brunswick. Information from interviews with local party activists and participant observation in the ridings is used to develop a continuum of constituency-level party organizations. Descriptions of the activist bases, constituency associations, and local campaigns in each riding allow for each local organization to be placed along this continuum between integrated local organizations, which share important linkages between the national and provincial levels, and differentiated local organizations, where no such linkages exist. The placement of local organizations along this continuum is accounted for by (1) similarities or differences between the national and provincial party systems in the three provinces studied; (2) the actions of incumbent members of the national Parliament and provincial legislatures; and (3) characteristics of the constituencies. The patterns identified lead to a classification of four types of local organizations – One Political World, Interconnected Political Worlds, Distinctive Political Worlds, and Two Political Worlds – that illuminate the different forms of linkages between national and provincial parties that exist at the constituency level. This examination of the local organizations of the Liberal Party calls into question the academic consensus on the separation of national and provincial parties in Canada. Instead, the Liberal Party is characterized as an unevenly integrated party, where the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties are separated from provincial counterparts, but where the national and provincial parties on the ground are oftentimes integrated. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate