Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2005. / Thesis research directed by: Government and Politics. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 261-268). Also available online in PDF format.

This study achieved a group of objectives such as measuring the impact of theEU's decisions on trust-based, nationalism-based, and religion-based Euro-skepticism, measuring the impact of the EU's decisions on overall Euro-skepticism, and searching and investigating the reasons behind Euro-skepticism in detail by conducting content analysis on statements of two Turkish nationalist and religious peripheral parties' elites.The study basically asked two important questions about Euro-skepticism and answered each question by testing four main hypotheses. The hypotheses were tested on two different parties, ,the Nationalist Action Party and the Felicity Party, and on two different events (on December 17,2004 and on October 03,2005). Since the study had 4 general hypotheses, the total hypothesis testing occurred 16 times. To be able to prove the hypotheses, the content analysis technique was used on the data that was collected from two newspapers: pro-MHP Ortadogu and pro-SP Milli Gazete. Each hypothesis was tested by using the two sample z-Test formula.The findings show that the two decisions by the EU did not have any impact on religion-based and trust-based Euro-skepticism. Only the first event had an impact on the nationalism-based Euro-skepticism of both political parties and overall Euro-skepticism of the MHP. The findings showed that 3 of the testing had a negative impact and 13 of them had no impact at all. No positive impact was found at the 0.05 level. Only one of them, trust-based, showed significance at the 0.10 level. The results showed that the decisions of the European Union either did not change the Euro-skepticism or if there was a change it was in a negative way. By the end of the second event, trust-based Euroskepticism of SP showed a decrease at the 0.10 level.The results of this study were associated with the social identity theory, with a group's status as a peripheral party, and the policy requirements of the EU regarding Turkey's sensitive issues.

On November 3, 1998, Florida's voters approved by wide margin a revision to the Florida State Constitution. Among other things, Revision 11 made ballot access more equitable for independent and third-party candidates for elected office. This was an important step towards giving voters legitimate electoral options outside of the two major political parties. This study seeks to determine whether or not voters have been emboldened by the ballot access change to support candidates from outside of the two major parties in more significant numbers. This research makes an empirical comparison between the four elections for Florida's United States House of Representatives members prior to Revision 11 reforms and the four elections after. The analysis considers what effect the new, equitable ballot access rules have on minor party electoral success while controlling for certain variables that are hypothesized to have impacted the dependent variable. In all, it is expected that the removal of ballot access barriers will spell success for Florida's minor political parties holding all of these other considerations constant. However, the results of the statistical analysis show that ballot access is simply not enough to ensure third-party electoral success.

No description available.

No description available.

The present study sets out to challenge a common assumption that Green politics is virtually non-existent in Spain. This assumed state of affairs has been attributed to a number of factors including a materialist society which prioritises economic growth, Spain’s political culture and, finally, the country’s electoral system. The result, according to the few scholars who include Spain in their studies, is a country with a weak political ecology social movement (PESM) and a Green party that enjoys only ‘trivial support’ (Mair 2001:103). As will be demonstrated, such assumptions are based on an insufficient knowledge of political ecology in Spain. The lack of knowledge has resulted in Spain’s green movements and parties being routinely misinterpreted and, indeed, overlooked. The first and most glaring misconception is many scholars’ persistence in referring to the ‘Spanish Green party’ as if a single party existed. In fact, the ‘Spanish Greens’ comprise not one national party but a variable and variegated number of different political parties, a few of which have certainly achieved a measure of electoral success (depending, of course, on how success is defined). Furthermore, it will be shown that reasons often given for the failure of the Green parties – such as the country’s alleged lack of interest in environmental matters – overlook other more pertinent factors such as, for example, tensions between the Spanish Greens and the environmental movement organisations (EMO), the nationalist factor and continuing tensions between the ‘green-greens’ and the ‘red-greens’. Despite numerous problems at party level, the present study will show that Spain’s PESM is as vigorous as – though different from - that of other countries which are reputed to be environmental leaders. To pursue this argument, the thesis will provide an overview of Spain’s Green parties, setting these within the cultural and historical context of the broader PESM to which they belong. Drawing on territorial politics literature, the thesis will, in particular, demonstrate that the territorial dimension – that is, Spain’s division into 17 autonomous regions – has been one of the neglected but determining factors contributing to the problems besetting the Spanish Greens. It will also be argued that, in its own way, the efforts of Spanish ecologists have undoubtedly contributed towards the ‘piecemeal’ greening of Spain. The arguments are further developed through two in-depth case studies focusing on political ecology, and more particularly Green parties, in two of Spain’s regions, Catalonia and Andalucia.

This thesis applies Multiah Alagappa's framework for analyzing civil-military relations in the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the post-Deng era, when several key developments have fundamentally altered the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Liberation Army (PLA). These developments include the absence of a powerful paramount leader, the generational shifts in the civilian and military leaderships, the increasing professionalization of the PLA, the decline of communism as a legitimating ideology, the sustained progress of economic development, the emergence of a robust civil society, and the increasing legitimacy of China's political system. Moreover, this thesis undertakes an extensive review of the various explanations and theories advanced in the literature of civil-military relations, asserting that Alagappa's analytical framework offers the most comprehensive tool for analyzing civil-military relations to date. Using Alagappa's analytical framework, this thesis argues that the current trend in civil-military relations in China has brought increasing civilian supremacy, as the political power and influence of the PLA have diminished over time due to the decreasing significance of coercion in governance, the strengthening of non-coercive state institutions, China's sustained high level of economic development, and the increasing legitimacy of China's political system.

M.A. / Although the Free Democratic Party's (FDP) best performance at the polls was 12,8% of the votes in 1961, the party has played a far more significant role in postwar German politics than its electoral strength would suggest. Due to its participation as junior partner in coalitions with the Christian Democratic Union (1949-1956, 1961- 966) and the Social Democratic Party (1969 to present), the FOP has been represented in the Federal German Government longer than either the CDU or SPD. As it is exceptional for a single party to gain an overall majority in German politics, the two major parties are dependent on the FDP, as the only other party represented in the Bundestag, for the formation of a coalition government. Thus, in a certain sense, the FDP "determines" which of the major parties is to form the government. The purpose of this study is to analyse the development of the FDP from 1945 to the present, whilst emphasizing variations in the party's political role. To provide a sufficient background, the development of German liberalism from the nineteenth century up to 1945 has also been taken into consideration. The German liberal movement has, since Bismarckian times, been divided into two rival sections, namely "national liberalism" (right wing) and "progressive liberalism" (left wing). After the Second World War it seemed that for the first time in nearly a century both wings were to be united in one political structure namely the FDP. It seemed as if the rapid decline of' Liberalism since the turn of the century had at last been checked, factionalism eliminated and greater unity achieved. Factional rivalries, however, reappeared and caused serious strains on the FDP's internal unity and political efficiency. Basically it was a struggle to achieve an exact position for the FDP in the political spectrum: right of the CDU by uniting all nationalistic forces or as a middle party between the CDU and SPD. The first alternative ruled out the possibility of a coalition with the SPD, while the second kept...

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which participatory deliberative democracy is being practised in the constitution making process in Zimbabwe. The nature of public participation determines the character, quality and extent of consultations and democratic deliberation in policy formulation Constitution making has inescapably remained an ‘unfinished business’ in Zimbabwe as a consequence of the Lancaster House settlement of 1979. Yet, a national constitution is a biography of the nation, whose crafting must embody legitimacy and credibility. This research sought to examine the processes available for public participation for constitution making in Zimbabwe. The research focused on the constitution making process as a case study against the background of a partocratic policy making system that existed since 1980, and the advent of the Inclusive Government consummated on 13 February 2009 whose policy making architecture is premised on the GPA. The central question of this study was: “What processes are being used to secure deliberative democratic participation in the constitution design process in Zimbabwe? The research relied on documentary evidence, the researcher’s experience and observations as well as targeted semistructured interviews on public participation in the constitution making process in Zimbabwe for data collection, as a case study. The researcher relied on secondary data from published and unpublished literature and tracked newspaper publications to gather data related to the constitution making process. The researcher also visited and observed some of the Constitution Select Committee (COPAC) outreach meetings to gather information relating to the quality of deliberation at the meetings. The main findings were that the COPAC structure did not adequately provide a framework for delivering deliberative democracy as political parties retained decision making at stages of the process. The research concluded that political parties, the Executive and Parliament, dominated the process. Participation was cosmetic and “Executo-partocratic driven” rather than a “people-driven” process. The prevalence of citizen harassment and intimidation as well as the occurrence of violence during the consultative process hampered meaningful participation in deliberative processes by citizens. Similarly the inauspicious operating environment discouraged the free flow of information and debate, alienating citizen views and limiting deliberative participatory democracy. In the main, the policy making approach adopted was ‘Executo-partocratic’ and as such limited the citizens participation in equal, open and free deliberation resulting in a process that lacked legitimacy and credibility.

Thesis advisor: R. Shep Melnick / The United States now has an extensive, publicly controlled, and bureaucratic system of election regulation. Until roughly a century ago, however, elections were viewed as private party contests subject to minimal state regulation. We examine how this changed, considering in particular the role played by the courts, given that for much of the nineteenth century they viewed the parties as private, constitutionally protected associations. We consider how and why the libertarian argument concerning free speech came to prominence in the campaign debate, and find that at first neither the reformers nor the courts at any level viewed this as a fundamental obstacle to--or even an issue to be considered in--the regulation of money in politics. This shift from a private to a public electoral system had a significant impact on American democracy that has not often been examined. To understand these changes, we examine the arguments put forth by advocates of cam-paign finance reform from the nineteenth to the latter part of the twentieth centuries. We focus on how the proponents justified these laws and how state and federal courts responded to these arguments, paying particular attention to court rulings on the constitutionality of these unprecedented statutes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and to the evolution of their jurisprudence in this regard during the twentieth century. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.