Implementing Democratic Equality in Political Parties: Organisational Consequences in the Swedish and the German Pirate Parties

This article theorises and empirically assesses some important intra‐organisational implications of maximising democratic equality in political parties both between followers and members and between members and elites. They include weak member commitment, passivity of the rank‐and‐file membership and – depending on party structure – high levels of internal conflict. To substantiate the arguments, two parties that implement principles of democratic equality in their organisations are examined: the Swedish and German Pirate parties. These cases show, first, that while organisational structures implementing norms of equality allowed them to rapidly mobilise a considerable following, the same structures systematically reduced their capacity to consolidate support in the longer term – a weakness that might eventually put these parties' survival at risk. Second, they show that differences in the extent to which subnational units provide a foundation for member mobilisation helps to explain variation in the level of internal conflict experienced by these parties.     

Party Feminism: Gender Gaps within Nordic Political Parties

On the basis of surveys of Danish and Norwegian political party members, this article shows that female presence is comparatively high in Danish and Norwegian parties, and that there are a number of consistent and politically significant gender differences in political opinions within the parties. These gender gaps are largest regarding issues that are not central to the ideological core of the parties and on issues where women are particularly affected. The study still reveals the importance of party in the sense that the differences between the members of different parties are greater than the gender gaps within parties. In the Nordic party systems, gender as such does not constitute a political force transcending the left–right dimension.     

Policy Congruence and Style of Representation: Party Voters and Political Parties

This article focuses on whether styles of representation influence policy congruence. Style of representation is defined at the party level as the proportion of representatives within parties who are partisans, delegates or trustees. Policy congruence refers to how close on the left–right scale the mean position of a party as placed by its candidates is compared to that of party voters. The article concludes that where there are higher proportions of trustees within parties, there is a greater degree of policy congruence, whereas a higher proportion of partisans results in less policy congruence. The proportion of delegates has no significant impact on congruence after taking account of other party and country measures. This indicates that party constraints on representatives are applied at the cost of congruence with voters, and that when representatives enjoy more flexibility to follow their own opinions, the party displays greater congruence with its own voters.     

Motivated Reasoning and Political Parties: Evidence for Increased Processing in the Face of Party Cues

Extant research in political science has demonstrated that citizens’ opinions on policies are influenced by their attachment to the party sponsoring them. At the same time, little evidence exists illuminating the psychological processes through which such party cues are filtered. From the psychological literature on source cues, we derive two possible hypotheses: (1) party cues activate heuristic processing aimed at minimizing the processing effort during opinion formation, and (2) party cues activate group motivational processes that compel citizens to support the position of their party. As part of the latter processes, the presence of party cues would make individuals engage in effortful motivated reasoning to produce arguments for the correctness of their party’s position. Following psychological research, we use response latency to measure processing effort and, in support of the motivated reasoning hypothesis, demonstrate that across student and nationally representative samples, the presence of party cues increases processing effort.     

Intergovernmental Relations in Canada: The Emergence of Collaborative Federalism

"Executive federalism" or "federal-provincial diplomacy" haslong been considered the defining characteristic of Canadianfederalism, which combines federalism and Westminster-stylecabinet government. However, these processes have come underincreasing stress in recent years from a number of forces thathave affected the nature and conduct of federalism and intergovernmentalrelations in Canada. Executive federalism has not been displaced,but has been increasingly informed by a set of practices thatwe call "collaborative federalism," characterized more by theprinciple of co-determination of broad national policies ratherthan by the more traditional pattern of federal-leadership.     

The Funding of Political Parties

Despite attempts over the last decade to bring an end to what has become an ‘arms race’ between political parties, party funding in the UK continues to defy resolution. Drawing on the experience of the committee charged by the last Labour administration to put party funding and electoral spending on a more sustainable footing, this article examines the issues and the main sticking points. It outlines the basis on which the negotiations were undertaken, and the main hurdles they sought to overcome. It highlights the disagreement between the parties on the definition of the central issue, the problems associated with the main funding sources for each of the parties, and the viability of state funding. It discusses why success proved elusive, but also why a solution is necessary, since in the absence of robust rules, parties and therefore the UK political system more broadly, are ‘a hostage to the next scandal’.     

Managing Intergovernmental Relations in Australia: The Case of Agricultural Policy Cooperation

In June 2004, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) announced changes to the guidelines and protocols of some 40 ministerial councils and intergovernmental fora which comprise the web of intergovernmental consultative arrangements. This article examines the impact of the guidelines on the operation of the oldest of the sectoral ministerial councils, those relating to agriculture. The COAG guidelines aim to increase the strategic focus of the councils. However, in the case of agricultural policy there appears to have been a centralising of policy control, both within state governments and towards the Commonwealth, which undermines that objective and leaves the ministerial councils focusing on the more technical issues which they are more effective at addressing.     

The Substitution Approach To Intergovernmental Relations: The Case Of OSHA

Federal legislation of the last two decades has substantiallyreduced state autonomy in dealing with many regulatory issues.Participation in the implementation of these federal programsmay, however, enable states to exert some leverage over policyoutcomes. Variations in state leverage no doubt exist from oneintergovernmental grant program to the next. Substitution authoritymay be one variable accounting for this variation. Under a substitutionapproach, a federal agency cannot only sever the flow of fundsto a grantee; it can also step in and operate a program if statesfail to meet expectations or choose not to participate. Thisarticle generates more basic propositions about the substitutionapproach by analyzing its implementation under the OccupationalSafety and Health Act of 1970. The article examines the roleplayed by substitution authority in motivating the OccupationalSafety and Health Administration (OSHA) to adopt an aggressiveposture toward the states. The article then assesses whetherOSHA's aggressiveness prompted state grantees to exert considerableeffort on behalf of program goals. Finally, the implicationsof current reform proposals, which call for a sorting out offunctions between the states and the federal government, receiveattention.     

Intergovernmental Growth Management: A Partnership Framework for State-Local Relations

Growth management receives strong support as a policy concept.However, there are serious political reservations concerningits implementation. The Florida Growth Management Act is anexample of a well constructed policy that relies on a partnershipapproach to state-local relations. Its implementation during1989 has brought to light the difficulties in maintaining thatpartnership, mainly due to disagreements over responsibilityfor funding the infrastructure needed to manage growth. Statewillingness to negotiate revenue sources and responsibilityis essential to strong state-local relations. The complexitiesof financing growth management threaten the viability of strongplanning policy, regardless of its rationality.     

Institutionalized Evaluation and Intergovernmental Relations: The Case of Coastal Zone Management

The enactment of national environmental management programswas prompted, in large part, by the perceived failure of stateand local government officials to deal adequately with pollutioncontrol and resource management problems. Paradoxically, theimplementation of several important environmental managementprograms relies heavily on these same state and local officials.Congress has sought to resolve this paradox by requiring federalevaluation of state and local environmental planning and managementactivities. Many of these evaluations are little more than routinefiscal audits. However one agency, the Office of Coastal ZoneManagement, has sought to develop a systematic evaluation processfocusing on all aspects of state coastal zone programs. Theseevaluative efforts have led to intergovernmental tensions, mostnotably with regard to the purposes and methods of evaluation,the appropriate roles of federal and state officials, and theresources available for evaluation. In spite of these tensions,there is broad agreement about the value of the evaluation processand its potential applicability in other contexts.     

论执政资源概念的提出及与政党的关系

胡锦涛总书记从党的建设视角提出执政资源概念及执政七谋后,对党的执政资源及中国共产党执政资源的研究形成热潮。为把这一研究引向深化,有必要对执政资源概念形成及提出的过程、政党的产生与形成及与执政资源的内在联系进行探讨,弄清执政资源研究对党的建设的意义。     

Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations: Coordination Failures and Fiscal Outcomes

This article estimates the fiscal impact of coordination failures in intergovernmental fiscal relations. The coordination failures considered here are due to agency problems arising from the delegation of fiscal powers to sub-national governments, and "common pool" problems associated with funding decentralised government spending through intergovernmental transfers. Particular attention is focused on the trade-off between coordination and fiscal decentralisation. Evidence provided for a sample of thirty countries suggests that coordination failures are likely to result in a deficit bias in decentralized policy making, particularly in the case of developing countries, for which the benefits of decentralization may be over-stressed. Developed countries were found to be less adversely affected by coordination failures and have therefore managed to pursue fiscal consolidation in a decentralized setup.     

The Transformation of the Central Administration in Spanish Intergovernmental Relations

The role of the central administration in Spain is examinedin relation to the European Union, autonomous communities, andlocal governments. The position of the central administrationhas changed dramatically in light of the transformation of theregime from dictatorship to democracy. Once the dominant actorin the system, it now plays more of a "middleman" or brokerrole within a decentralized state. Fundamental questions ofthe efficacy and legitimacy of the central administration ina federalizing system are also raised.