Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Leipzig, 2003.

Diss. Uppsala : Univ., 2008.

Masteropgave. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

Diss. Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 2008.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 160-173).

At the turn of the century agrarian parties emerged in large parts of Europe. The parties had one thing in common: they stood up for the social, economic, cultural, and political interests of the agrarian society. The Swedish agrarian parties - 1 Bondeförbundet ' and 'Jordbrukarnas Riksförbund1 - were formed between 1913 and 1915.In this study the agrarian parties are not considered to be class parties. Instead, they are described as traditional parties, defending the old agrarian community against expansive industrialization. Their potential voters belonged to various social strata in the agrarian community, and their political programme, often characterized by a markedly negative view of modern society and by cultural protectionism, is summarized here under the term agrarianism. Agrarianism seen as a political theory and an applicable ideology had features in common with Conservatism as well as with Fascism and Socialism. Liberal values, however, were kept in the background.A modernization perspective is adopted in order to demonstrate that the agrarian parties were in fact traditional parties. It is assumed that regional variation in the electoral support of the agrarian parties reflects the modernization process, and, consequently, that the parties were weaker in industrial areas and stronger in socially and economically backward areas.The empirical studies show that the Agrarian parties stand out as traditional parties rather than class parties. Their voter support was stronger in areas where the historical and economic development was characterized by stagnation and conservatism, as well as in areas where social mobilization advanced slowly. In more industrialized and modernized areas conditions were quite the opposite. A study of Swedish interwar agrarianism with special regard to regional variations in party strength proves the agrarian parties to be the inheritors of a way of life formed by centuries of agrarian traditions. / digitalisering@umu

There has been tremendous variation in the development trajectories of Latin America's leftist parties. Whereas some have successfully entrenched roots in society, built their party organization, and become relevant national parties, other leftist parties have languished organizationally, suffered debilitating internecine rivalries, and witnessed a mass defection of followers, at times despite substantial initial electoral success. For instance, Brazil's Workers' Party (PT) abandoned socialism, moderated its program, and built itself up into one of Brazil's two main parties. Venezuela's Radical Cause (LCR) and Peru's United Left (IU), however, did not. While they had similar origins to the PT, both failed to adapt: LCR and IU fractured and became electorally irrelevant, having been unable to adapt to external challenges. What accounts for this puzzling empirical variation in otherwise similar parties in relatively similar contexts? More broadly, this dissertation seeks to answer under what conditions do leftist parties in Latin American democracies transform from undemocratic, radical, weakly institutionalized parties into democratic, moderate, professional parties? Conversely, under what conditions do they fail to adapt, experience organizational stagnation, and succumb to irrelevance? It argues that the political context in which each of these leftist parties emerged had an indelible effect on the parties' later ability to adapt institutionally and ideologically to future endogenous and exogenous shocks. First, where authoritarian repression dismantled preexisting leftist parties, a political vacuum on the left emerged that created the incentive for the rise of a new type of leftist party that intrinsically valued democracy. Second, the implementation of legal requirements by outgoing authoritarian regimes during a party's formative years encouraged parties to institutionalize, ensuring the development of a disciplined, majoritarian party organization. Finally, obstinance on the part of the military's move to extricate itself from politics encouraged leftist parties to participate in democratization and, thus, widen their electoral appeals. Those leftist parties that were formed under such regimes were induced to take certain actions and adopt certain institutions that made them adaptable in the long run. Those that formed afterwards or never experienced life under authoritarian rule had little incentive to change and, thus, proved unable to respond to external challenges down the line that demanded institutional professionalization and ideological moderation. / text

This paper presents a spatial utility model of support for multiple political parties. The model includes a "valence" term, which I reparameterize to include both party competence and the voters' key sociodemographic concerns. The paper shows how this spatial utility model can be interpreted as a hierarchical model using data from the 2009 European Elections Study. I estimate this model via Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) using a block Gibbs sampler and show that the model can capture broad European-wide trends while allowing for significant amounts of heterogeneity. This approach, however, which assumes a normal dependent variable, is only able to partially reproduce the data generating process. I show that the data generating process can be reproduced more accurately with an ordered probit model. Finally, I discuss trade-offs between parsimony and descriptive richness and other practical challenges that may be encountered when v building models of party support and make recommendations for capturing the best of both approaches. / text

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Political parties are the basic building blocks of representative democracy. They reduce information costs for voters, enhance executive accountability, and contribute to democratic governability by facilitating legislative organization and aggregating the interests of powerful societal groups. Yet we continue to know relatively little about the conditions under which strong parties form. The dominant theories of party-building are mostly based on historical studies of the United States and Western European countries, almost all of which developed stable party systems. Drawing on this literature, a segment of the early scholarship on party-building in third-wave democracies optimistically took "party development" for granted, assuming that parties would follow from democracy, cleavages, or certain electoral rules. Yet party-building outcomes in third-wave democracies fell short of scholars' initial, optimistic expectations. In many third-wave polities, social cleavages, attempts at electoral engineering, and decades of democratic competition did not produce durable parties. On the other hand, in numerous third-wave democracies, new political parties did take root. What accounts for the variation in party-building outcomes observed across the developing world? More generally, under what conditions does party-building succeed? / Government