A presente pesquisa tem por objetivo preencher algumas lacunas nos estudos sobre a arena eleitoral brasileira. A literatura corrente, ao negligenciar o estudo da organização partidária, acaba por negligenciar questões fundamentais para que se entenda como funciona o processo eleitoral. Neste estudo iremos responder a três questões: Como os partidos brasileiros funcionam? O que explica o número de partidos em nosso sistema partidário? Qual o impacto da organização partidária na decisão de um partido de lançar ou não um candidato em determinada eleição? Pretendemos mostrar que os partidos têm mais vida do que julga grande parte dos estudos sobre nosso sistema político. Essa vida partidária ajuda a entender melhor a coordenação eleitoral que, por sua vez, determina o número de partidos que participam de determinada eleição. / The present research aims to bridge a gap in the studies of the Brazilian electoral arena. The current literature has neglected the study of party organizations and, for that reason, has neglected fundamental questions to understand how the electoral process works. In the present study we will try to answer to three questions: How do Brazilian parties work? What explains the number of parties in our party system? How does party organization impact on the decision of parties to enter or not the electoral contests? We will show that parties have more life than is supposed by much of the studies about our political system. This party life helps us to better understand the electoral coordination, responsible for the actual number of parties in a given election.

A presente pesquisa tem por objetivo preencher algumas lacunas nos estudos sobre a arena eleitoral brasileira. A literatura corrente, ao negligenciar o estudo da organização partidária, acaba por negligenciar questões fundamentais para que se entenda como funciona o processo eleitoral. Neste estudo iremos responder a três questões: Como os partidos brasileiros funcionam? O que explica o número de partidos em nosso sistema partidário? Qual o impacto da organização partidária na decisão de um partido de lançar ou não um candidato em determinada eleição? Pretendemos mostrar que os partidos têm mais vida do que julga grande parte dos estudos sobre nosso sistema político. Essa vida partidária ajuda a entender melhor a coordenação eleitoral que, por sua vez, determina o número de partidos que participam de determinada eleição. / The present research aims to bridge a gap in the studies of the Brazilian electoral arena. The current literature has neglected the study of party organizations and, for that reason, has neglected fundamental questions to understand how the electoral process works. In the present study we will try to answer to three questions: How do Brazilian parties work? What explains the number of parties in our party system? How does party organization impact on the decision of parties to enter or not the electoral contests? We will show that parties have more life than is supposed by much of the studies about our political system. This party life helps us to better understand the electoral coordination, responsible for the actual number of parties in a given election.

The objective of this study is to investigate how the phenomenon called the strategic vote is manifested in the legislative elections in France and Sweden. In order to gain knowledge in this domain of study, recent studies and well-established theories within the political science have been observed. The theory of the psychological factor, composed by the French political scientist Maurice Duverger lays the basis of the theory of the strategic vote, which is the central theory for this thesis, mostly defined by Gary W. Cox in Making votes count: strategic coordination in the world’s electoral systems (1997). The main question of research is as follows: “How does the strategic vote manifest itself amongst the voters in the legislative elections of the proportional electoral Swedish system and the majority electoral French system?” The following questions are follow-up questions to complement the main one: “Which are the effects of the strategic vote?” “Which are the differences in the French and Swedish legislative elections that are revealed throughout the interviews?” and “Is the validity of votes under the influence of the phenomenon of the strategic vote questionable?” The method used to obtain answers to the questions above is qualitative interviews with two groups of respondents: one group of respondents of French nationality and another group with respondents of Swedish nationality. The results of the study show that strategic voting in France is mostly due to the two-ballot system that is applied in the French electoral system, where the second ballot is the source to most of the strategic voting in France. The Swedish voters, however, first and foremost vote strategically by reason of the electoral threshold of 4 % that is employed in the Swedish electoral system. The effects of the strategic voting in the concerning states, found in this study are identical: an overrepresentation of the bigger political parties and an underrepresentation of the smaller political parties. Differences in the legislative elections of the countries, France and Sweden, which were revealed during the interviews are differences in electoral participation due to the structure of elections on the various levels, such as municipal, regional and legislative and so forth. The third follow-up question, being of a more philosophical nature, lead to two positions: an idealist and a realist one. Through the results found in this study, the idealist position is the preferred position, in order to respect and achieve the democratic ideals on which the democratic states France and Sweden are based.

The current French president has more possibilities to strengthen his position within the political system of the Fifth republic than his predecessors before the year 2000. This is the conclusion of this paper. At the turn of the millennium, French citizens have approved in a referendum the reduction of presidential term from seven to five years. In addition french prime minister initiated the change of the electoral calendar. Thanks to these reforms the probability that the system freezes in the period of cohabitation decreased significantly. In that context, this paper examines in what extend the role of the president became more important and how the last three french heads of state (Chirac, Sarkozy and Hollande) managed to behave within this new constitutional settlement. According to the results of this study, the president got wider possibilities especially in the field of practical execution of his mandate. It is because he can be more certain that the parliamentary majority will support him during his whole five year term. This means that the constitutional reform in 2000 (and next revisions in 2007 and 2008) made the political system clearer and it also stabilized the electoral calendar. Additionally, if an ambitious politician with the will of concentrating big amount of power only in his own...

Les révolutions de l’Est ont induit la fragmentation des Etats qui s’est accompagnée, sur le plan interne par une renaissance des partis ethniques ; ce qui ne va pas sans poser de problèmes à la démocratie politique. Les transitions et a fortiori les consolidations démocratiques font émerger un double phénomène d’interaction entre les acteurs et le système, dans la recherche d’un nouvel équilibre. Les partis ethniques se politisent alors que le système s’ouvre à l’acteur ethnique. On assiste donc à un réajustement évolutif du système devant la nouvelle donne. Le système s’ouvre aux nouvelles demandes à caractère ethnique de différentes façons et à différents degrés : entre la légalisation et la tolérance. Côté acteurs, les partis ethniques rentrent progressivement dans le jeu politique ; de différentes façons et à différents degrés. Dans notre champ problématique les relations interactives se déploient entre acteurs multi-niveaux (partis-Etats) et dans les divers champs (politique, sociétal et juridique). Leurs connexions sont croisées entre l’espace étatique et internationale, public et civil, politique et sociétal ; avec les Etats d’accueil ou d’origine, mais aussi, les Etats-tiers. Ils sont à velléités indépendantistes ou simplement des lobbies politiques. Nous avons essayé de mettre en lumière les principaux aspects de la complexité de la question ethnique dans les jeunes démocraties politiques ‘‘en consolidation’’. La problématique ethnique des PECO peut-elle nous aider à compléter en actualisant certaines visions généralistes des sciences politiques ? Les acteurs impliqués sont ainsi invités à éviter les pièges des nationalismes perçus comme ‘‘mesquins’’, voire ‘‘chaotiques’’ tout en servant la cause d’une plus souple intégration politique alias la ‘‘paix démocratique’’. / The revolutions of Eastern induced fragmentation of States were accompanied internally by a revival of ethnic parties, which is not without its problems in political democracy. Transitions and even more democratic consolidation are emerging a double phenomenon of interaction between actors and the system in search of a new equilibrium. Ethnic parties then politicize the system opens the ethnic actor. We are witnessing an evolutionary adjustment of the system to the new situation. The system opens to the new demands ethnic ways and to different degrees: between legalization and tolerance. Side actors, are gradually returning ethnic parties in the political game, in different ways and to different degrees. In our problem the field deploy interactive relationships between multi-level actors (parties-States) and in the various fields (political, societal and legal). Their connections are crossed between the State and international space, public and civil, political and social, with host countries or origin, but also the third States. They are separatist ambitions or simply political lobbies. We tried to highlight the main aspects of the complexity of the ethnic issue in young democracies political '' in consolidation ''. The ethnic problem of CEEC can help us to complete updating some general visions of political science? The actors involved are invited to avoid the pitfalls of nationalism perceived as '' petty '' or '' chaotic '' while serving the cause of a more flexible policy integration to the ‘‘democratic peace’’.