The Italian political crisis of 1992-94, often referred to as Tangentopoli, emerged after the revelation of endemic corruption throughout the political system. First and foremost the crisis saw the collapse of the main political parties, the Christian Democracy and the Socialist Party. In a different manner and only one year prior to this crisis, the former Communist Party, also underwent major changes and evolved into a social democratic party, the Democratic Party of the Left. Though this crisis was sparked by a corruption revelation, it became a catalyst for a change in the deformities of a political system, of the partitocracy, which was itself the product of Cold War conditions faced by Italy in the post-war period. The focus of this study has been to re-evaluate the causes of this crisis with particular attention to the role of the Cold War as the over-arching influence which directly and indirectly influenced many of the internal dynamics of the Italian political process. The hypothesis of this research was that the end of the Cold War in 1991 as a factor which provoked this political crisis, was far more important as a cause than has hitherto been acknowledged. The study examines the other indicated possible causes including the impact of the corruption revelations, the role of the magistrates in uncovering corruption, the economic crisis, the role of the new protest movement of the Lega Nord and finally the especially brutal equilibrium with Italian political forces re-established by the Mafia after 1992.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Political Science Department, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

<p>Something is happening in the world today. The participation in the Swedish elections used to be over 90 %, but has drastically decreased, primarily among first time voters. The memberships are declining among both political parties, as well as within non-governmental organizations. But why?</p><p>The purpose of this paper is to test if the sociological theory of neo-tribalisation can explain the decreasing commitment, in the form of internet communities. The research is based upon the hypothesis: youths will seek themselves to Maffeolis tribes, witch will lead to fewer youths in political organizations. The hypothesis was tested using statistical analysis of members in political organizations and compared with posts on the community Lunarstorm.</p><p>The result of the analysis was that the hypotheis can not be said to be true, but therefore not dismissed. Something new is awakening, that we do not fully understand or comprehend yet. So the final analysis is that more studies needs to be carried out to get the final awnser to the question: are the youth of today being tribalized?</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 363-395) Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2006. / "Submitted to Department of Applied Social Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy" Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-133)

The relationship between a party leadership and party activists is often illustrated by the use of John May’s "Law of curvilinear opinion structures in political parties", i.e. the idea that mid-level party activists are assumed to be more radical than both party sympathisers and the party elite. This tension between party leadership and party activists can be assumed to lead to a restriction on the party leadership’s freedom of action. However, in recent years we have seen a number of examples where political parties have made major realignments of their own policies without any substantial internal conflicts. Given the role assigned to conditions for involvement in the formulation of May's Law it appears reasonable to look in that direction when trying to understand these changes. This study covers the Moderate Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party in Sweden. The offer made by the parties to their members can be understood in terms of collective goods, such as ideological and political community, and selective goods, such as elected offices. This thesis shows how the political involvement for the interviewed party activists is intimately linked to selective goods. This finding can help us to understand ideological and political changes in present-day parties. If, as a party activist, one is attracted by the opportunities to become an elected representative or the opportunities to exercise political power, it is reasonable to imagine that one will be more inclined to support actions that increase the opportunity to enjoy these goods. Since both the party leadership and the party activists are attracted by the selective goods offered by the party organisation, the conflict between these groups decreases, as both groups are focused on winning elections and exercising political power. The result of this study therefore provides grounds for questioning the ideas of a tension between party activists and party leaderships.

This qualitative study was conducted to investigate how large publicly listed companies inSweden apply its code of conduct on external parties as well as how such application is bestcarried out. Three overarching steps (implementation, monitoring and actions) weredeveloped from previous research to serve this purpose. Agency and contract theory wereimportant to understand the underlying problems of application of codes of conduct onexternal parties. It was found that companies that adequately address all of the three stepsexperience a successful application of its code of conduct on external parties. Companies thatdo not address the three steps as thoroughly do not experience the same compliance with theircode of conduct. It was further found that many companies fail to adequately address theemphasized areas. Extensive deficiencies put companies in a vulnerable position as externalparties associated with a company might have a negative impact on the company’s brand andreputation. An outlook shows that companies are not prioritizing all of the steps sufficientlyand it is thus suggested that they revise their plans. The project was carried out incooperation with KPMG Forensic and Advokatfirman Delphi. A content analysis and a survey were used to collect necessary data.

This thesis is a study of Parties as an outflow of societal changes where the aim has been to find out how parties are affected by societal changes and how they justify to new party formation. This is done by using a theory called Parties as an outflow of societal changes which is a theory developed by Swedish researchers in Political Science. To confirm the theory it is necessary to do an argumentation analysis of one external developed party’s electoral program. In this case the party selected is Feminist Initiative which brings a different view on how the society of Sweden should look like. Selected parts of the argumentative analysis will be examined with the purpose to give a perspective on how Feminist Initiative values the changes in society and how they describe their role as a new party. The main question of this study is; Are new parties an outflow of societal changes? The basic arguments includes that along with societal changes in Western Europe also changes the view of a representative democracy in which political parties play a central role. It is clear that societies have changed in different ways with the rampage of the globalization. Media’s role in the political realm has also increased and influences more in society. In the case of Sweden political parties have raised with different ideals, goals and visions of how Swedish society should look like. The result should confirm the thesis that changes in society contributes to party formation.

<p>Despite the crucial role that conference committees can play in the legislative process, relatively little is understood about the forces that influence conference outcomes and the priorities of conferees. In particular, the literature on conferences rarely considers the importance of parties, while prominent theories of party government in Congress do not engage the role of conferences in the legislative process. Given the unique features of the conference reports (i.e., they are subject only up-or-down votes, they are generally protected from further amendments, they enjoy a high probability of passage, and they provide a means to make controversial changes/additions to legislation with minimal scrutiny) conferences can be a useful means for majority conferees to further the legislative goals of their party. To the extent that one of the goals of a legislative majority is to pass legislation that better reflects the interests of its members, then partisan politics should play an active role at the conference stage and in the decisions of conferees. This dissertation serves to connect the conference and party government literatures by considering the claim that majority parties in Congress can and do use the conference process to pursue a partisan legislative agenda.</p><p>This broad claim is considered in three separate chapters that test hypotheses about the role of party politics in different aspects of the conference process. Chapter two tests the hypothesis that more partisan conference delegations are associated with changes in policy that are more consistent with the majority party's preferences. Since the Speaker of the House has sole discretion over the composition of the House's delegation it is possible that strategic selection of conferees could advantage the preferences of the majority in the House. Using original data that includes information on every conference committee from 1981-2008 the empirical analysis shows that changes in House minority support in roll call vote before and after conference are smaller for conferences where the percentage of the House majority delegation is larger. Increases in minority shifts of support within both chambers is also predicted by increased support for the report by minority conferees and more bipartisan support in the opposing chamber. Though the analysis cannot directly test whether strategic selection by the House Speaker is effective, the results do show that if a conference delegation is dominated by the majority party that conference reports are more partisan. Thus the results indicate that the decision to appoint conferees can be used to influence the partisan content of conference outcomes.</p><p>Chapter three looks at whether compromises made in conference reflect a bias towards the interests of majority members. Using newly available data from the first session of the 110th Congress, which allow for a comparison of earmarks before and after conference, the chapter provides one of the first analyses of how earmarks are changed during bicameral negotiations. Specifically, this chapter tests hypotheses on whether the earmarks of majority, well-connected, and electorally vulnerable members are advantaged in how conferees decided to change the value of pork barrel projects in conference. Lastly, since earmarking is generally considered to be free of partisan conflict, the data provides a demanding test of the existence of a majority bias. The results show evidence of majority bias for Representatives and Senators in conference earmarking during the 110th Congress.</p><p>Chapter four focuses on decision making in conference at the level of individual conferees. Using original data collected on every conferee's decision to sign a report from 1981-2008 the analysis this chapter tests the extent to which party loyalty is a factor in conferee decision making. Through descriptive, multivariate, and multilevel analyses of signature decisions the results show that majority affiliation, relative to committee and individual preferences is increasingly the dominant factor in predicting whether a conferee signs a conference report. This results also establish that contextual features of a conference, such as whether the bill was referred to multiple committees before conference, whether the bill considered was an appropriations measure, and whether the House was in a position to act first on the conference report, are all significant predictors of disagreement. Lastly, the results provide evidence that partisan conflict in support of conference reports generally increased over this period and that unified governments accentuate this conflict. These results support the overarching claim of the project in that conflict over the content of conference reports is increasingly divided along party lines to the advantage of the majority party.</p><p>Together the different analyses of the three chapters provide evidence of the claim that majority parties can and do pursue partisan goals in the contemporary conference process. Furthermore the results advance scholarly understanding of the many forces at play in conference committee bargaining and how they contribute to legislative outcomes through the complexities of the conference process.</p> / Dissertation

The research applied qualitative methods such as historical approach, documentary analysis and semi-structural interview survey to collect data, so as to explore how would the rotation of ruling parties influence the certification of education taken in the Mainland China. It has been a decade since the policy of such certification was initiated by the KMT President Lee Teng-Hui and followed by DDP President Chen Shui-Pien. Though the approach had been set perfectly, it just could not be promulgated and implemented, the KMT government led by President Ma Ying-Chiu had finished the legal procedures for the certification of education taken in the Mainland China and the permission of PRC students to study in Taiwan, but the legislation limits the certification of medical education taken in the Mainland China, and PRC student are prohibited from studying relevant departments of national security and registering the exams for civil services and any licenses. What on earth are the crucial factors for those situations? That¡¦s the very problems the study would like to explore. There were 4 main research purposes for the study to take: (1) To explore the reasons why such certification policy constituted by the Ministry of Education (MOE) would change. (2) To expound how the rotation of ruling parties influenced the policy change for constituting the certification of education taken in the Mainland China. (3) To research the approach and process for MOE to forward and lay out the policy of certificating the education taken in the Mainland China. (4) To explore the ultimate factors of decision-making for such certification policy. As browsing the research conclusion generally, it could find that 1. The MOE couldn¡¦t independently dominate the permission of PRC students to study in Taiwan and the certification of education taken in the Mainland China, but only has the competence to lay out relevant approaches. 2. The certification of education taken in the Mainland China was not purely educational issue, but public issue that was politicized. 3. Taiwan is a democratic country, any decision-making related to public affairs would have to emphasize political consultations and respect the perception of the people. 4. The policy of certifying the education taken in the Mainland China was decided by the ruling party¡¦s domestic and foreign policy toward the Mainland China.