This dissertation offers a novel argument for the democratic importance of political parties and campaign finance. Taking issue with the United States Supreme Court's campaign finance and political party jurisprudence, which tends to value campaign spending and party activity for the role that they play in expanding voter choice, my account seeks, instead, to emphasize the role that these forms of political participation can play in countering the sense of political disenchantment which characterizes the political attitudes of a large number of American citizens today. I argue in this project that by subjecting their preferences to continuous contestation and challenge, parties and campaign finance can help instill an appreciation for compromise, as well as tolerance for political diversity and disagreement, among the disenchanted. This, in turn, has many beneficial implications for enabling good governance on the part of the American state. In the course of the dissertation, I also specify the many ways in which contemporary parties and campaign finance regimes need to be reformed in order for them to be able to perform this role. Questions of institutional design thus occupy an extremely prominent place in the project. / Government

Political parties proliferated in Senegal and other competitive authoritarian regimes in post-Cold War Africa. This dissertation examines the causes and consequences of that proliferation. Why do so many politicians create their own parties in this context and what are the consequences of party proliferation for opposition party behavior and presidential turnover? The dissertation addresses these questions with original data collected over sixteen months of fieldwork in Senegal, including over one hundred interviews, material from party archives, local press clippings, political biographies, and data on elections and party behavior. Party formation, strategy, and competition are shaped by the "uneven playing field," a hallmark of competitive authoritarian regimes that entails systematic, deep advantages for the ruling party in terms of access to political finance, media, and the state. Focused on Senegal, a critical case of party proliferation, the dissertation traces how the uneven playing field not only empowers the president to create incentives for proliferation; it also renders life in the opposition so difficult that many politicians form parties to negotiate their way into the state. A significant subset of Senegalese party leaders is primarily concerned not with competing in elections; they focus instead on patronage negotiation, which does not necessarily entail vote-seeking. Moreover, because most party leaders minimize their involvement in elections that are difficult to win, they rarely function as the consistent opposition parties that bolster liberal democracy. Party leaders rarely possess the endowments that foster such behavior- namely, prior experience as high-level state administrators and access to international private financing. Finally, in the absence of consistent opposition parties, ex-regime insiders often constitute the president's most serious electoral challengers. Insider opposition candidates' previous access to the state provides opportunities for political advancement that outsiders lack. / Government

What are the conditions under which terrorist groups turn to party politics? Under what conditions do political parties turn to terrorism? What types of political groups are more likely to turn to or from terrorism? Answers to these questions provide new insights into explanations for the formation of linkages between political parties and terrorist groups. While political parties and terrorist groups are often differentiated by the tactics they employ, empirical evidence shows that these political groups sometimes shift tactics, making use of violent and nonviolent tactics either concurrently or consecutively. Shifts between violent and nonviolent tactics occur when a political party supports, creates, or becomes a terrorist group and when a terrorist group supports, creates, or becomes a political party. Cases in which terrorist groups turn to party politics have been addressed in the literature, most often in the form of case studies. Less attention has been paid to the more numerous cases of political parties forming linkages with terrorist groups. Both types of tactical shifts are under-studied and under-theorized. This dissertation fills a gap in the largely separate literatures on political parties and terrorism through an analysis of international-, state-, and group-level factors associated with the formation of party-terror linkages and a discussion of the implications of these factors for the construction of a more general theory of political group adaptation. / text

Not available / text

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

No description available.

This thesis marks the first attempt to systematically study Canadian minor parties. Minor parties, as distinct from third parties, are those that acquire less than 5 percent of the national vote (usually much less than one percent) and have never sent an MP to Ottawa. We know little about parties as a group except that their numbers have steadily proliferated over the last 20 years and that this growth shows no signs of abating. The goal of this paper is fill the knowledge gap surrounding minor parties and to assess the health of electoral democracy in Canada. Specifically, nine minor parties are studied through the experiences of their candidates during the 1993 federal election. The findings presented are based on data collected from government sources and on surveys and interviews administered to a sample of minor party candidates who ran in the greater Vancouver area. The dissemination of political beliefs not represented in mainstream politics was the dominant reason candidates gave for participating in elections. Winning is a long term ambition, but not expected in the short run for the majority of parties. Despite their modest aims, minor parties and candidates are unduly fettered in their ability to effectively compete in elections and communicate with the public. Minor party campaigns typically have scant political resources, including money, time and workers; electoral laws — concerning registration thresholds, broadcasting time allotments and campaign reimbursements — designed to promote fairness, disadvantage the system's weakest players; and subtle biases on the part of the press, debate organizers and potential donors close important channels of communication. Of these factors, money emerged as the most important, with media exposure — or the lack of it — a close second in terms of determining a party's competitiveness. The National Party, with superior resources, was often an exception to the above characterization, but ultimately, media neglect sealed its fate as a marginal party. Notwithstanding the great odds facing minor parties, winning is not impossible given the right alignment of factors. The Reform Party did it in 1993, providing other small parties with hope and an example to follow.

The organizations of national and provincial parties in Canada are understood to be separated from one another. However, it is not known whether this separation extends to the constituency-level organizations of those parties. In order to provide a better understanding of how national and provincial parties are linked at the local level (if at all), this thesis describes and accounts for the local organizations of the national Liberal Party and the provincial Liberal parties in sixteen national constituencies selected from the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and New Brunswick. Information from interviews with local party activists and participant observation in the ridings is used to develop a continuum of constituency-level party organizations. Descriptions of the activist bases, constituency associations, and local campaigns in each riding allow for each local organization to be placed along this continuum between integrated local organizations, which share important linkages between the national and provincial levels, and differentiated local organizations, where no such linkages exist. The placement of local organizations along this continuum is accounted for by (1) similarities or differences between the national and provincial party systems in the three provinces studied; (2) the actions of incumbent members of the national Parliament and provincial legislatures; and (3) characteristics of the constituencies. The patterns identified lead to a classification of four types of local organizations – One Political World, Interconnected Political Worlds, Distinctive Political Worlds, and Two Political Worlds – that illuminate the different forms of linkages between national and provincial parties that exist at the constituency level. This examination of the local organizations of the Liberal Party calls into question the academic consensus on the separation of national and provincial parties in Canada. Instead, the Liberal Party is characterized as an unevenly integrated party, where the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties are separated from provincial counterparts, but where the national and provincial parties on the ground are oftentimes integrated.

Magistro baigiamajame darbe, remiantis Lietuvos bei užsienio valstybių teisės aktais bei teisine literatūra, apžvelgiamas sutarčių trečiojo asmens naudai istorinis vystymasis Lietuvoje bei kitų valstybių praktikoje, sutarties trečiojo asmens naudai samprata bei elementai, kurie atskleidžia šios sutarties ypatumus bei sutartis, kurios savo prigimtimi yra pripažįstamos sutartimis trečiojo asmens naudai. / The final paper to obtain the Master’s degree deals with the historical formation of contracts of third parties in law practice in Lithuania and in other countries, to the conception and the elements of contract of third parties on the basis of legal reference and interpretation of law acts in Lithuania and foreign countries, contracts which by their nature belong to contract of third parties. The final paper to obtain the Master’s degree deals with issues related to contract of third parties. It consists of four parts. In the first part author summarizes the historical formation of contract of third parties in law practice in Lithuania and in other countries. The second part is devoted to the conception of contract of third parties and its place in civil law in different countries. The third part discusses the elements of contract of third parties by establishing the particularity of these contracts and underlining their differences in comparison with other types of contracts. The author attempts to summarize the juridical facts, which are necessary for third party to become a creditor. This part also analyses the situation of the claim when the third party has an ability to gain it from the contract or from law acts. Next in this part the role of creditor in the contract of third parties is analyzed. The fourth part of final paper is devoted to the contracts which by their nature belong to contract of third parties. The purpose of final paper to obtain the Master’s... [to full text]