This dissertation, a collection of independent papers, explores the polarization of the United States Congress through the lens of primary elections, campaign finance, and party structures during a pivotal moment in American political history. Paper 1 focuses on the top two primary format and its potential in producing moderate candidates and legislators, while Paper 2 expounds on the deleterious consequences it poses for the party system as a whole, particularly in this modern era of both high polarization and high fragmentation. Paper 3 examines the Downsian median voter theorem from the perspective of primary election voters, asking if general election wins/losses beget the nomination of more ideological/moderate nominees next cycle. Ultimately, the article illustrates that the parties instead retain consistent records through both election wins and losses, linked to credibility concerns from position changes as well as the inability of members to disentangle from national party identities. Its companion paper, Paper 4, takes that Downsian question to elites in Washington, D.C. Through original interviews with twenty-three individuals including former members of Congress, leadership, congressional staff, and think tank scholars, I describe the electoral and legislative pressures that prevent officeholders from responding to their median voter, especially among those in swing districts most exposed to the risks of partisan behavior. Paper 5, the final paper, brings together the themes of those preceding it by analyzing the ways in which outside interference, specifically political action committees and more inclusive primary elections, propagates legislative caucus fragmentation and weakens official leadership. This work plays one minor role in providing prescriptive steps to improve and empower channels of dialogue in the U.S. legislative brancha - in spite of larger systemic sorting along geographical and partisan lines - and ensure the mediation of ideology between voters and their elected representatives results in policy solutions rather than gridlock.

Abstract Identity politics is about who you identify as and which group you choose to belong to. The left is often said to be using identity politics. The purpose of this essay is to analyze two Scandinavian countries, Norway and Sweden’s, left parties and see if they use identity politics in their election manifestos. To analyze them I’ve chosen to do both a bigger qualitative idea- and ideology analysis and a smaller quantitative content analysis. I found the most common definition of identity politics and used this for my analysis. The theory I choose for my essay is Vivian A. Schmidts Discursive institutionalism where she talks about the importance of idées and discourse to explain change in institution and lawmaking. I also looked at previous research about party change and idea impact. My essay shows that both parties use identity politics, although the Swedish party uses it a little more than the Norwegian one. It also shows that it has not been a steady increase over the years, it has gone up and down for both parties.

O objeto central desta dissertação foram as relações estabelecidas, entre 1975 e 1979, entre os movimentos pela anistia e o Estado. Trabalhou-se especificamente com a relação da aprovação da lei 6.683/79 e a dinâmica da transição brasileira, buscando compreender como as ações dos movimentos influenciaram a agenda de abertura elaborada pela ditadura. A partir da hipótese inicial, de que os defensores da anistia produziram diferentes significados para a luta, analisei: o Movimento Feminino Pela Anistia, o Comitê Brasileiro pela Anistia, as mobilizações dos exilados, o pronunciamento do General Figueiredo e a atuação de parlamentares do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro e da Aliança Renovadora Nacional. Nas disputas empreendidas por esses agentes ficou evidente uma tensão entre o sentido de anistia como esquecimento e da anistia como rememoração. O sentido de esquecimento, conciliação e pacificação, foi elaborado por parte da oposição e incorporado à agenda oficial da transição. A aprovação da anistia foi uma resposta ao amplo ciclo de mobilizações populares empreendidas no final dos anos 1970. A estratégia foi dividir a oposição e trazer a disputa para o campo institucional. Para isso, foi aprovada a lei partidária, que canalizou os esforços militantes para essa atuação. Ficou relegada ao segundo plano a investigação das violações de direitos humanos e a responsabilização dos agentes da ditadura. Tais lacunas foram fundamentais para a construção do Estado Democrático Brasileiro. / The main subject of this thesis is the connections, established from 1975 to 1979, between the State and the movements for amnesty. Particularly, I have worked with the connection between the approval of law 6683/79 and the dynamics of transition in Brazil, aiming to comprehend how the actions of these movements have influenced the democratization agenda implemented by the dictatorship. From the initial hypothesis that the fight for amnesty took on various meanings inside each advocate group, I have analyzed: The Womens Movement for Amnesty, the Brazilian Committee for Amnesty, the various mobilizations carried out by the exiles, General Figueiredos speech, and the work of congressmen from the Brazilian Democratic Movement and the National Renewal Alliance Party. During the disputes undertaken by these agents, a tension between the meaning of amnesty as forgetting or amnesty as remembering became clear. The interpretation of amnesty as forgetting, reconciliation and appeasement was developed by part of the opposition and incorporated to the transitions official agenda. The approval of amnesty was a response to the extensive series of popular mobilizations that took place in the late 1970s. The strategy was to divide the opposition and move the dispute into the institutional field. To that end, the political party law was approved, channeling militant efforts towards that area. Investigating human rights violations and imputing responsibility to the agents of dictatorship was relegated to the background. These omissions were essential to the construction of the Brazilian Democratic State.

Esta pesquisa se propõe a ser um estudo de caso acerca do Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro, o PMDB. Analiso, de maneira interpretativa, os primeiros anos do partido após a restauração do pluripartidarismo, com um recorte histórico de 1979 - momento da sua (re)fundação em meio ao processo de abertura política - até as eleições de 1982 - momento no qual o partido disputa um pleito pela primeira vez. A análise ressalta a movimentação de grupos internos ao partido, notadamente a existência inicial de uma ala de esquerda herdada do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro - MDB (fenômeno não apontado pela literatura sobre o Partido) e o aumento da heterogeneidade interna do PMDB com o correr dos primeiros anos, como consequência da incorporação do Partido Popular, aspectos esses que são também negligenciados pela literatura. / This study aims to be a study case regarding a specific political party, the Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro, PMDB. I analyze interpretatively its first years after multipartyism restarted in Brazil, in a historical period beginning in 1979, when the party is (re)founded during the democratization, until 1982 elections, when the party faces an election for the first time. The analysis highlights the movement of internal groups within the party, especially the initial existence of a left wing inherited by the Movimento Democrático Brasileiro - MDB (a phenomenon yet mentioned by the literature about the Party) and the increase of PMDB´s internal heterogeneity in the course of its first years, as a result of the merger of the Partido Popular, aspects which are also neglected by the literature.

How does the Chinese Party-State renew its political elite and maintain its cohesion in the post-Mao era? This is a key question to understand the evolution of China’s political system and still the explanations one can find in the literature are far from satisfactory. Overall, the literature on transformation of the Chinese political elite focuses on the broad outcomes, the fact that since the 1980s officials tend to be younger and more educated, but it falls short in unveiling the mechanisms at play. It gives a limited answer to the elite renewal issue as it leaves politics aside. By focusing on educational levels and technical skills it forgets about the importance of political commitment. I approach these questions through a unique account of the role played by the Chinese Communist Youth League (CYL) in terms of cadres’ recruitment and promotion since the 1980s. Using biographical data and a snowball sample of 92 interviewees I reconstructed the trajectories of CYL cadres. Beyond my focus on the central organization of the CYL in Beijing, I compared the situation of the CYL in the capital cities of two very different provinces and in four universities. Through this mixed methods approach, I could assess the evolution of the CYL as a path to power in post-Mao China. My main findings are as follows: First, due to post-Cultural Revolution politics and the need for leaders at the time to recruit loyal young cadres, a “sponsored mobility” system was developed to renew the Party-State’s elite. College students are recruited and trained through the Party’s youth organizations. They are put then on a unique promotion path, which includes specific opportunities and trainings, and which leads them to leadership position in the Party-State. This contrasts with what happened in the Soviet case in particular. Under Khrushchev (1953-1964), the Soviet elite was renewed through the cooptation of professionals with technical skills rather than by recruiting young cadres who spent their whole career in the Party-State. Second, through the various steps of the sponsored mobility process, the young recruits develop a specific social role as future officials and transform their social circles. As a result, they cultivate a political commitment to their career in the Party-State and to the survival of the regime. Third, the decentralized nature of the Party-State and its youth organizations make it difficult for the young recruits to establish cohesive groups which could organize against the Party-State itself.

This thesis proceeds with my bachelor's thesis Financing of Political Parties in Czech Republic. Party patronage is additional field of study of how political parties work in real life. We can analyze different factors while studying party patronage such as the overlap or intrusion of political parties in state administration, the way how patronage is practised and it's criteria, similarly to studying the way how party financing influences for example electoral outcomes. I will point out main theoretical approach to this relatively new field of studies and its methological foundations. I will devote a seprate chapter to a non-existing Law on Public Service and see whether this should be enacted or not.

This thesis aims to discuss the main political and public aspects in the frame of media development and their changes, which are recalled by media. Political competition and its market behaviour is nowadays very naturally predisposed. Decision-making processes in the political sphere attract the attention not just by the experts, but also by wide and laic community. Behaviour of political leaders is influcnced by several changes approving in the political sphere and its circles. The global approach to media plays the key role, at the hand of political circles, which candidates directly and very hard appeal in all the elector's groups. Also very important factor here is a wide expansion of informative technologies. Racionalization of elective behaviour becomes very often in these days, what in many cases means that voters are still more sceptical to the relationship of the political scenes and its candidates. The more voices belong to that candidates who the voters think about, they refer the most interesting political pre-voting marketing and campaign. These changes shown, lead to the claim, that political parties direct their campaign by the hand of the base of marketing rules. The concept about the consequence of political communication leads to the rising interest of mass media and policy. The...

Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão (1801-1856) foi um dos mais eminentes políticos do Partido Conservador do período monárquico brasileiro. Foi agraciado visconde e marquês de Paraná, nos anos de 1852 e 1854, respectivamente. O ápice de sua carreira foi a presidência do Ministério da Conciliação, entre 1853 e 1856. A trajetória política de Carneiro Leão a partir de 1842 é o objeto central desta dissertação. Não se pretendeu, todavia, recontar sua vida de forma linear, nem simplesmente relembrar laudatoriamente seus serviços ao Império do Brasil. Este trabalho buscou, sobretudo, questionar e desconstruir a memória que uniu indivíduo e Estado e influenciou muitas interpretações sobre cinco importantes acontecimentos políticos do Oitocentos brasileiro: a formação do Regresso conservador; as revoltas de 1842; a Rebelião Praieira; a intervenção na região do Rio da Prata e, por fim, o Ministério da Conciliação. Cada um desses assuntos foi tratado detalhadamente nos quatro capítulos desta dissertação. / Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão (1801-1856) was one of the most eminent politicians of the Conservative Party of Brazilian monarchical period. He was honored with the titles of viscount and marquis of Paraná in 1852 and 1854, respectively. The apex of his career was the chair of the Conciliation Cabinet, between 1853 and 1856. The political career of Carneiro Leão since 1842 is the main subject of this dissertation. However, it was not intended to recount his life in a linear basis, nor simply laudatorily recall his services to the Brazilian Empire. This study aimed, above all, to question and deconstruct the memory which united the individual and the State and influenced many interpretations of five major political events of the Brazilian Eighteenth Century: the formation of the Regresso; the riots of 1842; Praiera Rebellious; intervention on the Platine region and, finally, the Conciliation Cabinet. Each one of these issues was discussed in detail in four chapters of this dissertation.

A presente dissertação tem como objeto de estudo os dois grandes partidos monárquicos, Conservador e Liberal, nas décadas finais do Império. Partindo de temas fundamentais às disputas políticas do período, como eleições, autonomia provincial e escravidão, pretende-se compreender de que forma as importantes inflexões ocorridas na década de 1880 impactaram o sistema político-partidário do Império. Essas inflexões, já apontadas pela historiografia, dizem respeito ao recrudescimento das tensões políticas, ocorrido em consonância com o robustecimento da mobilização de forças extraparlamentares, que ganharam radicalidade no período. O surgimento de um movimento social organizado contrário à escravidão e as reivindicações de crescentes setores da população por maior participação nos negócios públicos acabaram por cindir profundamente a elite política do país. Se a solução para alguns foi a resistência obstinada, outros se mostraram dispostos a tomar parte na formulação de um projeto denominado por eles mesmos de monarquia democrática, que teve em seu horizonte a abolição incondicional da escravidão, a vigorosa expansão do direito ao voto, a reforma do Estado, o alargamento da autonomia provincial e a disseminação do acesso à terra. / The present thesis aims to study the two major political parties in the Brazilian monarchy, the so-called Conservative and Liberal parties, during the regime\'s final decades. Taking into account fundamental themes to the period\'s political strife, such as the electoral system, provincial autonomy and slavery, how major changes, throughout the 1880s affected the Empire\'s political party system. Those changes, recurrently discussed by historians, were driven by an aggravation of political tensions, together with the strenghtening of forces outside the traditional representative institutions, radicalized in those years. The emergence of an organized movement aiming to abolish slavery and the growing claims of the population for greater intervention in public affairs profoundly divided the country\'s political elite. If to some resistance was the only solution, others showed disposition in taking part in the advancement of a project of a Democratic monarchy, a term some of them used profusely. That project had, among its priorities, the unconditional abolition of slavery, the vigorous expansion of voting rights, the State reform, the concession of larger provincial autonomy and measures toward land reform.

O presente trabalho teve como intuito levantar informações a respeito da formação, educação, socialização e transmissão de valores envolvendo as gerações adultas e de jovens no interior de Partido Político. / The purpose of this study was to gather information about the formation, education, socialization and transmission of values involving the adult and youth generations within the Political Party.