The Party System: Structure, Policy, and Europeanization

One of the prime incentives for this dissertation was the renewed interest in the role of party agency for the emergence and structuring of party systems that came up in the course of the discussions about the third wave of democracy and the concomitant challenges to the theoretical fundamentals of common party system theory. In addition, scholarly discourse on the third wave brought up again the question as to how the party system as an independent variable impacts on processes of democratic consolidation, national integration and socio-economic development.Trying to examine the role of party agency in this regard and to assess the role of the party system as the independent variable, the dissertation deals with two regional and temporal contexts and a political phenomenon pertinent to these contexts that most often have ranked as unique or paradoxical in scholarly assessments. Academic accounts of post-colonial India are interspersed with references to a deviant case of, or an empirical anomaly to, party system and democratic theory, and the conventional vocabulary used to describe post-apartheid South African political development frequently resorts to such terms as political miracle or societal exceptionalism. A similar confusion and vagueness prevails with regard to the specific configuration of a democratic and competitive party system characterised by the towering and prolonged dominance of one party. The study is an attempt to shed light on these contexts and their party systems by departing from the conventional �paths� of party system theory as well as from the relativist assessments of post-independent India (1947-67) and post-apartheid South Africa (1994-). This is done by means of a diachronic comparison of the two countries� party systems with a distinct focus on the role of party agency in the shaping and maintenance of one-party-dominance and on the role of the two party systems as independent variables. Chapter 1 deals with the conceptual, theoretical and methodological problems, incentives and questions inherent in the kind of cross-national and diachronic comparison attempted in this study. Chapter 2 gives a brief outline of the regional settings at the time democratic party competition was beginning to take shape, outlines the institutional boundaries within which the two party systems were/are located, looks at the main characteristics of the electorate in post-independent India and post-apartheid South Africa and �takes stock� of the two party systems in terms of a broad outline of the dominant party and the relevant opposition parties. The next three chapters present the bulk of the empirical analysis and deal with the emergence, working and functions/effects of one-party-dominance in India and South Africa respectively. Each chapter refers to the basic outline of the analytical framework depicted above and combines theoretical arguments with empirical, as well as historical, givens of the two party systems under examination. Whereas chapter 3 examines how the two party systems were �shaped from above�, i.e. how party agency helped to achieve the dominant position of the INC and ANC respectively, chapter 4 examines the mechanisms of control employed to maintain dominance and the mechanisms of party competition prevailing in the two regional contexts. Both chapters deal with the party agentive factors identified in the analytical framework as responsible for the achievement and maintenance of one-party-dominance in the form of short analytical narratives. The last of these three chapters (chapter 5) sums up and discusses the effects and (redefined) functions of party systems in changing societies and gives an account of how both countries� party systems have fared with regard to these effects and in terms of fulfilling these functions. Chapter 6 takes up the differences and similarities of the two regional contexts as they have emerged out of the preceding three chapters, relates the �lessons� of the Indian experience to the prospects of one-party-dominance in South Africa by means of a comparison and reassesses the two key theses of the study, namely that a) party agency and strategy were among the most decisive factors in the formation and development of the two regional contexts� systems of one-party-dominance and are, in general, crucial for party system formation and development (they are especially relevant in the shaping of one-party-dominance in changing societies); and that b) systems of one-party-dominance have a potentially (but not necessarily) benign effect on processes of democratisation, national integration and democratic development in the crucial period of changing societies� transition to democracy and democratic consolidation.

Accountability and transparency have been on the top of lists of the agenda about local governance. Unfortunately, a significant number of studies have tended to view accountability through the traditional model of public administration (supply side of accountability) at the expense of the demand side of accountability. Based on the experience with decentralization in Tanzania for the past four decades, this article argues that both the demand and supply sides are important for effective service delivery by local governments. In this arrangement, the fundamental principle of democracy is attained when citizens have the right to demand accountability and public officials are held accountable. The demand side, which is bottom up driven by non–state actors, or the supply side, which encompasses legal and fiscal governmental checks and balances may lead to effective local good governance. This article is based on these assumptions and therefore attempts to discuss the main avenues and challenges for exercising effective supply and demand sides of accountability in local governments in Tanzania. The study seeks to answer the question of how the demand and supply sides of accountability have been implemented in Tanzania, regarding local governments.

In this chapter, we examine the challenges that the German party system and established parties faced in the early 2020s, tracing the path towards polarized pluralism. Through longitudinal data, we illustrate the major trends since the post-war period, with an emphasis on the system’s polarization, fragmentation, and electoral competition. We also address the challenges that parties face as organizations in a changing political environment. The German party system has undergone significant changes, putting parties under increased competitive pressure. These changes include heightened volatility, weakened catch-all parties, and a rise in politicization, leading to diversified political competition through the emergence of the populist radical right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the success of the Green party. Currently, the party system is more polarized and pluralistic than ever, with new and diverse coalition models reflecting the altered competition. While the situation does not necessarily indicate a democratic crisis, the increasing polarization, particularly evident in eastern German federal states, could threaten the system’s future stability.

This article analyses the nature of Spanish political parties' attitudes towards the EU. Three main dimensions of the EU process and of its impact on the member states are focused upon: identity, representation and scope of governance. The analysis shows how European integration as an independent variable has impacted the party system. Then, how each political party has individually adapted to the new circumstances by changing its positions and policies since 1986, when Spain got the EEC membership. We maintain that, although the EU issue is not one of intense political contestation, and therefore it is not very salient for party competition, the historical cleavages of the Spanish party system still affect the party stance on the EU. On the whole, the European issue has been absorbed by the Spanish party system without any particular disruption, in a context of party wide-spread Europhilia.

This paper models the correlates of parties’ positions on the issue of European integration, asking why some parties are in favour of European integration, while others are less favourable or even opposed to it. The paper builds on existing work which has identified three sets of explanatory factors predicting parties’ positions on integration: the electorate, parties and party system characteristics. By employing multilevel modelling using data on over 220 parties in 14 Western EU member states for the years 1984 to 2006, the effects of party- and context-level predictors of parties’ positions on EU integration are assessed. The findings demonstrate that parties’ positions are primarily influenced by EU preferences of the general electorate, parties’ left–right ideological extremes and incumbency status. The results also show that the impact of party characteristics is moderated by the electoral context in which parties operate. Moreover, the interaction between both levels offers further insights as to the nature of these associations. Specifically, party size is a robust predictor of integration position only when accounting for the levels of party system's fractionalisation and polarisation. Additionally, parties oriented towards the centre of the ideological spectrum are even more likely to favour European integration within highly polarised systems.

Simon Hix accurately notes that ‘EU politics is party politics’, and party politicians are an important link between governments and parliaments, parliaments and voters and also the national and European scenes. Milada A. Vachudova also stresses that in the process of European integration, parties are the source of changes in national politics through their compliance or non-compliance with European Union’s (EU) requirements. Despite these voices, the influence of the process of Europeanisation on national parties has long been downplayed and authors usually explain that parties have no institutionalised channels of contact with the decision-making bodies in the EU.The purpose of this article is to present the current state of research into the process of the Europeanisation of parties and party systems, with particular emphasis on the specificity and diversity of responses to challenges related to Europeanisation formulated by parties from Central and Eastern Europe. Three aspects of the Europeanisation of parties can be distinguished: changes in the party environment resulting from the ongoing process of European integration; rare but direct interventions of EU actors into party politics; and the influence of the Transnational Party Cooperation (TPC). The author refers to the neo-institutional paradigm of research into Europeanisation to indicate its mechanisms, factors determining the responses of national parties and the possible dimensions of observing changes. Importantly, the article also describes the author’s model that can be applied to studies of the Europeanisation of national parties and party systems in post-communist countries, both those who joined the EU between 2004 and 2013 and those aspiring to EU membership. Extensive literature studies and field studies conducted by the author for nearly three years in the post-Yugoslavian countries prompts her to make a hypothesis that the impulses for change coming from the broadly understood European environment (including European institutions and Europarties) are modified by several groups of factors: external factors (the credibility of the integration offer and the advancement of this process); intrasystemic factors (primarily, the influence of the communist heritage, constellations of political parties in individual countries and change of public preferences regarding integration); and, finally, intraparty factors (the position of leaders, the faction that is currently dominant in the party and the role of electoral defeats).

Based on a number of regional and local tourism value-added studies carried out in Switzerland, this paper presents an implementation-oriented and pragmatic approach that provides important theoretical insights and empirical data on which to build regional satellite accounts. Regional and national satellite accounts can be used for tourism-oriented economic analysis as well as for decision making in the area of tourism policy and marketing. The main focus here lies in the empirical determination and balancing of tourism supply and demand through a mixture of top-down and bottom-up methods. The structure of the article is as follows: a brief outline of main theoretical considerations in the tourism sector is followed by a discussion of the most important methodological aspects of the regional approach. The next part deals with the presentation of the individual procedural steps on the demand side (tourism frequencies and expenditures) and the supply side (tourism production) to estimate the direct and indirect regional effects of tourism activities in terms of tourism-relevant gross output, value-added and intermediate consumption. A selection of empirical findings on the demand and supply sides is presented both to document the individual procedural steps discussed before and to highlight the similarities and differences between the regional findings. The paper concludes with an outline of how the methodological approach and the empirical findings can be used in the establishment of a tourism satellite account at the national level.

A systematic review of supply and demand side optimal load scheduling in a smart grid environment

The article examines the processes of European integration during the «Cold War» period and analyzes the position of the USSR regarding European integration processes in Western Europe. It is noted that the political leadership of the USSR interpreted the process of European integration as part of the political and economic struggle of «world and European imperialism» with socialist countries. It is emphasized that at the initial stage of European integration, many of its supporters were against the participation of the USSR in European economic integration, not to mention political integration, which was impossible in principle. Insignificant economic relations between the European Communities with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries took place during the period of «detente». They were determined not only by political considerations, but also by economic factors. It is noted that the attitude of the European Community to the Council of Economic Mutual Assistance (CEC) was also negative. The community did not see the latter as a necessary trading partner. The Soviet Union, in its turn, directed its main efforts to the development of trade and economic cooperation with the socialist countries that were part of the REV. At the same time, the USSR did not pay attention to the economic successes of the EU, calling them temporary. It was concluded that the USSR negatively evaluated the European integration processes, especially during the first twenty years. But the successes of Western European integration, the creation of integration organizations in many regions of the world, which took an example from the European Union, forced the Soviet leadership to change its position and also urgently engage in its own integration projects, such as the establishment of the Council for Economic Mutual Assistance (CMEA). Despite all the efforts of the Soviet leadership, CMEA could not become the core of integration in its true sense, because at the very beginning of the association’s existence, such key principles of integration processes as voluntariness and equality were grossly violated.

The study of European integration tends to focus on formal aspects of the integration process: formal decision-making procedures, the role and functioning of institutions, the provisions contained in the treaties, the operation of regulatory regimes in the various policy areas. This is hardly surprising: what is distinctive about the integration process in Europe – what distinguishes integration in Europe from international co-operation in other parts of the world – is the creation and growth of a unique institutional and legal framework structuring the relations between the participating states. An early and still important contribution to the understanding of the integration process has been the 'integration through law' school which regarded the development of a supranational legal order as the key factor in the explanation of the integration process (Cappoletti et al 1986).If the formalisation of inter-state relations is regarded as the essence of the integration process, it is hardly surprising that scholars should concentrate on the formal procedures and the institutionalised arenas for decision-making. However, as has become increasingly evident in the course of recent developments in the European Union, there is an important undercurrent to the formal integration process. This concerns the operation of informal networks which link policy-makers to client groups as well as actors across EU, national and sub-national institutions, and influence (or at least seek to influence) decision-making in the EU. This practice of informal governance is, of course, not a recent phenomenon, but a long-standing dimension of EU politics. This is a recognition that has been reflected by some approaches to European integration: in particular the literature on policy networks and the new institutionalism writing of the 1990s have picked up on the less formal aspects of the EU policy process. Nevertheless, informal governance has never been systematically studied and assessed: this is the void that this volume seeks to fill.

A review of electrical energy management tech-niques on the supply side and demand side is pre-sented. The paper suggests that direct load control, interruptible load control, and time of use (TOU) are the main load management techniques used on the supply side (SS). The supply side authorities normally design these techniques and implement them on demand side consumers. Load manage-ment (LM) initiated on the demand side leads to valley filling and peak clipping. Power factor correc-tion (PFC) techniques have also been analysed and presented. It has been observed that many power utilities, especially in developing countries, have neither developed nor implemented DSM for their electrical energy management. This paper proposes that the existing PFC techniques should be re-eval-uated especially when loads are nonlinear. It also recommends automatic demand control methods to be used on the demand side in order to acquire optimal energy consumption. This would lead to improved reliability of the supply side and thereby reducing environmental degradation.

In this research note, candidate survey data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) is used to analyse positional shifts of German Bundestag parties between 2013 and 2017. Two developments make Germany a particularly interesting case: (1) the liberal but also controversial policies of the Merkel cabinet during the European refugee crisis and (2) the change of leadership within the right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Applying scaling techniques to locate candidates of both elections in the same two-dimensional policy space, the analysis demonstrates that in 2017 the AfD took a distinct radical right position in the party system of Germany. Moreover, the study finds that almost all parties moved to the right on the cultural left–right dimension in 2017, whereas for the economic left–right dimension this has not been the case. Contrary to the mantra of an ideological delineation against right-wing populism, there has been a robust socio-political conservative shift in the German party system.

The article draws upon the formal coalition literature to demonstrate that party system change over the last thirty years means that the Volksparteien enjoy more coalition options and greater ideological leverage within coalitions that form than was the case in the past. The Free Democrats have lost their kingmaker status and the distribution of party weights over recent elections allows no other small party to act in this manner. By contrast, the numerical and ideological resources possessed by the two Volksparteien means that they remain the only parties within the German party system that can act as formateur in the coalition game and are less vulnerable to threats of a decisive defection by small parties to alternative coalitions than they were in the past.

This paper examines the evolution and characteristics of the Polish party system in the period 1991–2007, using the framework of institutionalization. Key moments in the development of the party system are identified by analyzing the results of six consecutive parliamentary elections. At the onset of the development of democratic politics, the party system was characterized by instability and under-institutionalization. By the end of the second decade, it displayed strong signs of structural stabilization and some evidence of the stability of inter-party competition and party institutionalization, implying that the Polish party system is quasi-institutionalized. Moreover, the paper attempts to explain the results by focusing on elite behaviour and institutions.

European Papers is conceived of as a cultural project: a tool for reflecting on European integration as a means to create a new political community. European Papers intends thus to be part and parcel of the debate on the process of European legal integration, on its causes and its functioning, on its most remote interconnections with other social events. Its mission is to draw attention to the manifold forms of integrating Europe and to the far-reaching implications of this process. Moreover, such a reflection requires a wider dialogue between the legal experience and other forms of integration, economic, social and cultural. To forge a law journal as an instrument for a cultural mission entails a number of inescapable steps. This conception implies passing over the traditional hurdles of language, nationality and traditions. European Papers could be an ideal opportunity to match this demand, through its multinational governing bodies, whose members share its ideal and cultural philosophy. It further entails the capacity to reconcile antithetical needs. On the one hand, we intend to promote a scholarly debate on the theoretical foundations of the process of European integration in its manifold expressions. On the other hand, the tumultuous development of this process, which takes place on a daily basis, requires an on-going debate on events that incessantly unfold under one’s eyes. To reconcile these apparently antithetical needs, we have thought of European Papers as composed of two parts: a four-monthly e-Journal – i.e. an electronic and open access journal, that emphasises our belief in the open and free character of scientific research – and a “militant” European Forum, designed to be a hotbed of intellectual discussion, a breeding place for ideas, and an indispensable tool for updating and keeping in touch with the latest developments. Finally, the inescapable issue of language. The aspiration of European Papers to be an interlocutor for an open set of recipients entails a multilingual option. Par contre, uniformity reasons, and the need of reaching a wider, potentially universal, readership would plead for a sole common language. The compromising solution, for an uncompromising project, has been the adoption of a dual-track: English, French, Italian and Spanish for the European Forum; English for the four-monthly e-Journal. European Papers is not inspired by preconceived ideas or ideologies. It has been conceived of as an area where every hypothesis about the process of integration in Europe can be freely verified and discussed. It intends to be a living laboratory for the analysis of a social phenomenon whose uniqueness vis-à-vis the contemporary legal and political categories has been widely recognised. Yet, European Papers has the ambition to go beyond this recognition and appreciate, day after day, its technical as well as its conceptual features, in the belief that this is the path through which the scientific knowledge can advance.