The regulation of party switching in Africa

The article presents a complete overview of existing regulations of party switching in Africa since the reintroduction of multiparty politics in the early 1990s. While most established democracies do not see any reason for sanctioning with legal restrictions the decision of members of parliament to change their party affiliation, in Africa many countries take a critical stance towards party switching. Frequent party switching is considered to weaken political parties, to hinder the institutionalisation of party systems, and to endanger the stability of government and the legitimacy of democracy. The article distinguishes legal regulations of party switching conceptually by what is prohibited and its enforcement. A preliminary analysis shows that anti-defection laws indeed matter for party system institutionalisation in Africa's emerging democracies.     

对马华公会党员及其政治参与的研究

马华公会是马来西亚政治史上最为重要的华人政党 ,本文对马华公会的党员及其政治参与进行了初步研究。     

台湾政党政治的腐败与政治转型

近二十年来,金钱政治以一种看似矛盾和不自觉的方式,破坏着台湾执政党和政府及官员的政治形象、权力结构和统治基础,以一种潜在的力量推动着它们的政党政治和政治体制由一元的模式向多元的模式变化,从而加快了多元政治的发展;同时,在巩固民主的过程中,它以一种瓦解体制的形式阻碍着民主制度的形成和稳定.进一步来说,这种腐败在政党政治和政治发展的不同阶段可以产生不同的作用,它或是在巩固政治转型阶段推动政治转型和民主化,或是在巩固民主的阶段推动或阻碍民主的发展,但其总的表现形式都是瓦解体制.     

当代俄罗斯政党财政及其对选举的影响——以第七届国家杜马选举为例

《俄罗斯联邦联邦会议国家杜马代表选举法》对选举基金有专门规定:政党参加选举一定要建立政党选举基金.政党选举基金全部经费支出最高不超过7亿卢布.政党的自有资金不可超过选举基金限额的50％,即3.5亿卢布,对公民和法人捐赠的条件和金额也有相应限制.通过对参加第七届俄罗斯国家杜马选举的全部14个政党的选举财政情况进行研究可得出以下结论:选举基金的支出与第七届俄罗斯国家杜马选举结果没有直接的因果关系;意识形态因素对杜马选举发挥着重要作用,"统一俄罗斯"党和俄罗斯联邦共产党这两个党具有更多的选举竞争力;在第七届国家杜马选举中,最终获得进入俄国家杜马资格的4个主要政党除俄罗斯联邦共产党之外,都有募集到直接的政治献金,这些政治献金在俄罗斯是合法的;进入国家杜马中的政党在印刷宣传品方面的选举支出所发挥的作用要比其在电视宣传方面的选举支出发挥的作用大.     

再论泰国的社会结构变化、精英选择与政治发展

泰国独特的社会意识结构决定了泰国政治发展的特色.泰国独特的社会意识结构包括主-仆关系结构与德行信仰两个方面,两个方面的共同特点是强烈的物质化倾向,这一点为理解泰国政坛的频繁变换提供了一个很好的线索,也提供了预期泰国政治发展的一个思路.     

Splitting and making parties: Analysis of party reconfiguration in Taiwan

The development of Taiwanese party politics reached a milestone in the 2000 presidential and 2001 legislative elections. The island's pre-existing three-party system underwent a marked reconfiguration. With the split of the Kuomintang (KMT), two new parties emerged but one existing party nearly collapsed. Party politics in Taiwan have shown a continuous process of proliferation of new parties. This paper analyzes the underlying logic that drives the reconfiguration of the Taiwanese party system. A political-institution perspective is employed to show how social cleavages, mixed electoral incentives, and government formation work in dictating the transformation of the party system. This paper is supported by the National Science Council, Taiwan, under Grant NSC 92-2414-H-001-019, NSC 93-2414-H-001-002, and NSC 94-2414-H-001-012.     

Growing Without Pains? Explaining Liberal Democrat MPs' Behaviour

Recent academic studies and wider commentary on the behaviour of Liberal Democrat MPs have recognised their relatively high level of cohesiveness on whipped votes when compared to that of Labour and the Conservatives, and to the Liberal Democrats' own reputation; but while this trend continues, few studies have focused upon its causes. This article uses the MPs' voting records, personal papers, interviews and wider contextual data to chart the extent of that unity over time, and to explore its origins, including group composition, structure, patronage, relations with the extra-parliamentary party and other parties as well as national party image. It finds the key to this unity in a combination of medium and long-term features of the Liberal and Liberal Democrat group of MPs, rather than a short-term singular determinant.     

Political parties in Ghana: agents of democracy?

Political parties are generally thought of as agents of democracy that fulfil a range of functions, such as policy formulation, interest aggregation and articulation, social integration, and elite recruitment. However, given the weakness of many African parties, are they able to contribute positively to democracy? This article seeks to answer this question by using Ghana – one of Africa's most successful democracies – as a case study. It is found that parties in Ghana are comparatively strong and do indeed mobilise large numbers of voters. They even expose a degree of ideological competition and have successfully adapted their strategies to the local context. On the other hand, they expose serious weaknesses in the field of social integration and interest representation. Against this background it is argued that even in procedurally well-functioning democracies like Ghana, political parties can be instruments of elite competition that contribute to the exclusion of the poor from decision-making.     

Reformas electorales y coherencia ideológica de los partidos políticos en Colombia, 1986-2013

This article sets out changes which the Colombian party system experienced throughout the last two decades. It focuses on the topics, ideology and party divisions present in a representative sample of the last four legislatures’ congress members. This study is based on factorial and discriminate analyses, making use of the Latin American Parliamentarian Elites database. This article holds that the 2003 political reform had a positive effect on Colombian parties’ and social movements’ ideological coherence within Congress. Electoral reforms are also discussed in the light of these findings.     

民主不是万应灵丹--评菲律宾和印尼的总统直选

民主制度属于政治文明.在一个国家,政治文明的发展必须与物质文明和精神文明同步,如果太过超前,就有可能出问题.民主制度的建立和完善必须循序渐进,既不能超越历史发展阶段,也不能超越物质文明和精神文明,这是世界各国,尤其是许多发展中国家政治发展的历史所证明了的一个真理.