Labour and the Scottish National Party: the Triumph of Continuity in a Changing Scotland

Scotland's party system appears on the verge of major change with the Scottish National Party poised to supplant the Labour party as the dominant force. Under a charismatic leader, the SNP is using populist means to try and secure independence. However, real change appears elusive even if constitutional arrangements are altered further. The SNP distrusts democratic participation and is keen to rule through mobilised interests groups and the civil‐service, strengthening the corporatist style of government characterising Scotland for centuries. Labour might avoid long‐term marginalisation, if it was to embrace an agenda based on strong democratic citizenship and a broad nationalism which emphasises a continuing Union in which the benefits of devolution are clearly directed towards individual citizens as well as elite groups     

Fascism: The Ideology of the British National Party

The revival in interest in the British far right as a result of recent localised growth in support for the British National Party (BNP) necessitates analysis of its political ideology and objectives. This article seeks to demonstrate that the BNP is virulently hostile to liberal democracy and that this hostility derives from its revolutionary, fascist agenda. The point that the BNP is a fascist organisation is significant and cannot be ignored. At the very least, it raises important questions about the place of the BNP in contemporary British politics     

Political Party Trends in 1985: The continuing But Constrained Advance of the National Party

In 1985 the national party organizations continued to expandtheir spheres of activity into state and local politics. Bothparties made preparations for extensive involvement in the 1986state legislative elections. The Republican National Committeeinitiated programs to aid county party organizations, to induceDemocratic state legislators to join the GOP, and to encourageDemocratic voters to switch their party registration. The nationalDemocratic party continued to assert authority over state partiesas it engaged in the quadrennial practice of rules reform. Incontrast to the past, the 1985 reform process resulted in nosignificant rules changes and in little intra-party skirmishing.Both parties, however, were forced to recognize the limits ofnational party influence in state and local politics.     

The Scotish National Party and the Italian

Abstract. As European regional autonomy parties, the Scottish National Party and the Italian Lega Nord present important similarities in the way they appeal to voters. Both parties, too, have recently been favoured by very similar social and political changes. Yet, of the two parties' recent electoral advances, that of the Lega has been by far the more striking. This can be explained in terms of the relative inability of the Lega 's main rival, the Democrazia Cristiana , to adapt to its challenge. The Scottish National Party's main rival, the Labour Party, is better able to adapt owing to the long-standing institutionalisation of regional conflict in Britain.     

Electoral Success Versus Party Maintenance: National, State, and Local Party Contributions to Illinois Legislative Races

The need for political parties both to expand their legislativebase by winning elections and to maintain their organizationbetween elections is translated into two kinds of campaign contributionstrategies. Federalism affects how political parties choosebetween the two objectives and their related strategies. Contributionsto Illinois legislative races reveal that expansive strategiesaimed at candidates with reasonable chances of winning are mostprominently used by state organizations. Maintenance strategies,concerned with ensuring a continued party presence, are mostconsistently pursued by local parties. In general, except forthe national parties, differences between Democratic and Republicanorganizations are comparatively minor.     

The Formation of National Party Systems in Europe: A Comparative-Historical Analysis

Using a large wealth of newly collected and unexplored data on single constituencies in 17 European countries, this comparative and long-term analysis describes the territoriality of electoral participation and vote for political parties, as well as their evolution since the mid- nineteenth century until the present day from highly territorialized politics to nationwide functional alignments. The article provides an empirical analysis through time, across countries and between party families. Through the inclusion of all the most important social and political cleavages (class, state–church, rural–urban, ethno-linguistic, and religious) the analysis assesses the homogenizing impact of the left–right dimension that emerged from the National and Industrial Revolutions, and the resistance of pre-industrial cultural and centre–periphery factors to national integration.     

The National Press and Party Voting in the UK

The difficulty with resolving the classic problem of whether newspapers influence voting patterns is self-selection: readers select a paper to fit their politics, and newspapers select particular types of readers. One way round this chicken-and-egg problem is to compare the voting behaviour of individuals whose politics are reinforced by their paper, with those who are cross-pressured by their paper, and to compare both with those who do not regularly read a paper. Using the British Household Panel study to analyse voting patterns in 1992 and 1997, this study suggest that newspapers have a statistically significant effect on voting, larger for Labour than Conservative sympathizers, and larger for the 1992 than the 1997 election. The broader implications of these findings for British politics and democracy are discussed.     

The European Dimension to Scottish Constitutional Change

Scottish self‐government and European integration are linked. Europe has become an important framework for the independence project. Evidence for Scots being more pro‐European is ambivalent, but there is a pro‐European consensus in Scottish political parties and civil society. In the referendum campaign, the No side suggested that an independent Scotland might not gain admission to the European Union. If the United Kingdom as a whole should vote to withdraw from the EU in a future referendum but Scotland to stay in, the independence question would re‐emerge. In the absence of independence, a number of issues arise as to how Scottish interests can best be represented in the EU.     

实现政党成功转型的标志——学习党的十七届四中全会《决定》的体会

党的十七届四中全会总结提出了加强我党自身建设的"六个坚持"的基本经验,标志着我党实现了由革命党、传统政党到执政党、现代化政党的转型。"六个坚持"是在总结我党执政60年来的经验教训,借鉴世界上一些长期执政的大党、老党失去执政地位教训的基础上提出的,尤其是借鉴了苏共亡党、日本自民党下台的教训。     

The Scottish Liberal Democrats

As the junior members of the two Scottish coalition or partnership governments (1999–2003 and 2003–7), the Liberal Democrats have had a major impact on post-devolution public policy in Scotland. Contrary to expectations, their participation as junior partners in a coalition government has enhanced rather than damaged their electoral prospects. The party's success in coalition reflects the electoral and policy compatibilities between them and Labour, the availability of increased public spending to fund their demands, their use of specific policy agreements and effective election campaign tactics. Under their new leader, Nicol Stephen, they have sought greater distance from Labour and located themselves between Labour and the Scottish Nationalist Party. Looking forward to the 2007 election, the declining Labour vote and probable SNP gains mean that the Liberal Democrats are likely this time to have a choice between joining a Labour-led or forming a non-Labour coalition.     

公共权力转型期的政府公共服务

我国实行社会主义市场经济以来,市场经济的巨大发展推动着政府公共权力由传统的强制属性向契约和服务属性转型,政府由管制型向服务型转变,政府的公共服务职能日益凸显。与公共权力的本质要求相适应,政府公共服务应具备契约性、有限性、公共性及公正性等特征。在公共权力转型期,应该通过完善公共服务信息公开体系、创新公共服务公民参与机制以及构建公共服务监督体系来加强政府公共服务体制建设。     

The Challenge to Party Government

At a time when the literature on political parties is brimming with health and vitality, the parties themselves seem to be experiencing potentially severe legitimacy problems and to be suffering from a quite massive withdrawal of popular support and affection. This article addresses one key aspect of the problems facing contemporary parties in Europe, which is the challenge to party government. I begin by reviewing the changing pattern of party competition, in which I discuss the decline of partisanship in policy-making and the convergence of parties into a mainstream consensus. I then look again at the familiar ‘parties-do-matter’ thesis and at the evidence for declining partisanship within the electorate. In the third section of the paper I explore the various attempts to specify the conditions for party government, before going on in the final section to argue that these conditions have been undermined in such a way that it is now almost impossible to imagine party government in contemporary Europe either functioning effectively or sustaining complete legitimacy.     

哈尔滨与护送“六大”代表接待站

中国共产党第六次全国代表大会在莫斯科召开,这是一次具有重大历史意义的会议。大会集中解决了当时困扰党的两大问题:一是中国社会性质仍然是半殖民地半封建社会;中国革命性质仍然是资产阶级性质的民主主义革命。二是明确了当时革命形势处于低潮;党的路线是争取群众。