Proportional Representation and the Fortunes of Right-Wing Extremist Parties

This article examines the relationship between electoral systems and extremist political parties. Focusing on the West European parties of the extreme right, it first investigates the extent to which district magnitude and electoral formula - the two main dimensions of electoral systems - influence the scores of these parties. It then considers the overall impact of the disproportionality of the electoral system. The article concludes that whilst proportional electoral systems do undeniably make it easier for extremist parties to gain legislative representation, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that they promote extremism. Instead, the share of the vote going to extremist parties appears unrelated to the type of electoral system employed.     

Too Important to Leave to Parties: The Case for Constitutionalising Equal Representation

At the current rate of progress it will be another century before parity of representation between men and women is achieved in the House of Commons. This article explores why and how legal guarantees may now be the best available route to secure equality of representation following the repeated failure of the political parties to deliver any significant improvement in numbers through their own preferred, voluntary mechanisms. It explores how the concepts of equality and political representation need to be recalibrated in order to place greater emphasis on democracy rather than meritocracy, and on outcomes as much as opportunities, and offers a broad outline of how a legislative guarantee might be structured and operate in practice.     

Political Parties and Representation of the Poor in the American States

Motivated by recent work suggesting that low‐income citizens are virtually ignored in the American policymaking process, this article asks whether a similar bias shapes the policy positions adopted by political parties much earlier in the policymaking process. While the normative hope is that parties serve as linkage institutions enhancing representation of those with fewer resources to organize, the resource‐dependent campaign environment in which parties operate provides incentives to appeal to citizens with the greatest resources. Using newly developed measures of state party positions, we examine whether low‐income preferences get incorporated in parties’ campaign appeals at this early stage in the policymaking process—finding little evidence that they do. This differential responsiveness was most pronounced for Democratic parties in states with greater income inequality; it was least evident for Republicans’ social policy platforms. We discuss the implications of these findings for representation in this era of growing economic inequality.     

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.     

European Parliament Elections and Political Representation: Policy Congruence between Voters and Parties

It is often said that European Parliament elections fail as an instrument to express the will of the European people. However, while the elections are not contested at the European level and are often dominated by national issues, this does not necessarily imply that they fail to connect policy views of voters and representatives. This article examines policy congruence between voters and candidates, utilising the candidate and voter surveys of the European Election Study 2009. First, it demonstrates that policy preferences of candidates and voters are constrained by three separate policy dimensions. Second, it shows that the quality of representation is high in terms of left/right, the main dimension of conflict in European politics, but lower on the cultural and European integration dimensions. Finally, it establishes that in some cases the aggregation of national parties in political groups in the European Parliament poses problems for effective political representation.     

Explaining Gender Parity Representation in Spain: The Internal Dynamics of Parties

This paper sheds light on the reasons for the sudden rise of women in party politics and political representation in Spain. Structural explanations and the conditioning influence of the electoral system are reviewed before focusing on institutional and party-political explanations. It argues that the key factor in explaining this rise is not just the adoption of rules on the gender parity representation, but the intra-party politics that allows for effective implementation of such rules. Using insights into the internal dynamics of the PSOE gained from extensive field observations and interviews, it argues that high levels of female representation were secured via internal party procedures, coupled with political backing from the party leadership. The paper therefore takes the discussion on women’ participation in representative politics beyond the question of adopting quota rules into the terrain of how, instead of remaining a dead letter, it is successfully implemented in practice.     

From Peacekeeping to Stabilisation: Interorganisational Co-operation,Challenges and the Law

ABSTRACT

Global complexity and limitations in the United Nation's legal framework necessitates collaboration with regional organisations, creating tension between the legal frameworks guiding peacekeeping, the use of force, and intervention practices within the increasing complexity of peace enforcement and stabilisation missions with a Protection of Civilians mandate. With the UNs lack of impetus in clarifying stabilisation as a concept, the use of force required for stabilisation cannot be justified, necessitating the use of regional organisations' more flexible legal frameworks. The continued complexity of contemporary peace and security requires a reassessment of peacekeeping doctrine that, if left unaddressed, risk condemnation for illegal ‘peacekeeping'.     

Accessing the Corridors of Power: Puzzles and Pathways to Understanding Minority Representation

Three major constraints hinder cross-national comparisons: a lack of data on the immigrant origins of political candidates and elected representatives, incomplete public data on the immigrant origins of national populations or electorates, and cross-national differences in the definition of the minority population. This article addresses these methodological difficulties and the conceptual challenges of studying minority representation. Using public data for a number of West European countries and three ‘Anglo-settler’ immigration countries, it elaborates an index to evaluate representational equity and to compare women’s and minorities’ presence in national legislatures. The index reveals the limits of a ‘national models’ or simple ‘electoral rules’ framework. Future research should focus on dynamics of group mobilisation, ideological contexts and the recruitment practices of political parties.     

Political Star Power and Political Parties

Abstract

Political parties, and more specifically public interest groups, budget extensive amounts of time and money to use celebrity endorsers for their candidate. Do celebrities bring forth enough value to warrant the time, effort, and money expended to make their endorsements public? Using a sample of first-time voters from the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election, the authors examine the extent to which celebrities influence voting while specifically assessing whether celebrity influence is greater for Republicans or Democrats. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

In From the Cold? Christian Parties in Scandinavia

The combination of extreme religious homogeneity and advanced secularization is a special feature of the Scandinavian societies as compared to the rest of Europe. This difference largely explains why Christian parties have remained small compared to the rest of Europe. This article surveys the creation and popular following of the Christian parties in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The four parties acquired an image of "moral vigilantes" from the beginning. Their best electoral results, however, are a result of a more general political protest. Despite the recent success of the Swedish party, the parties are not likely to reach a position beyond that of a minor party with basically a moralist image.     

The Challenges of Contracting and Accountability Across the Federal System: From Ambulances to Space Shuttles

This article focuses on two questions related lo governmentcontracting and accountability. How are key components of contractingsimilar or different for city, state, and federal governmentsin the United States? To what extent do the three levels ofgovernment share the widely recognized challenges of contractdesign and contract management? To address these questions,we compared and contrasted six contracting cases, two each forlocal, state, and the federal governments. We found that forall governments in the U.S. federal system, the public managementfunctions of contracting are remarkably similar, and that contractmanagement and the achievement of accountability are "weak links"in the contracting process. Our findings do not support thehypothesis that contract management is more effective in localgovernment relative to state and federal governments.     

Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Representation in Europe: Conceptual Challenges and Theoretical Approaches

This article introduces the symposium on the representation of immigrant-origin and ethnic minorities in Europe. It argues for the importance of research on this topic, noting the large, established populations of immigrant-origin citizens and their descendants across Western European countries and these minorities’ underrepresentation in elected bodies. Current research gaps concern both empirical knowledge and the theoretical conceptualisation of immigrant and ethnic minority political involvement. The article argues that existing research on representation needs to be extended to suit the cases of immigrants and ethnic minorities. It ends by providing a brief overview of each contribution to the symposium.     

Protest: tradition and change

Analyses of political development in colonial Africa have largely concentrated on the role of the educated elite in the emergence of nationalist movements. In recent years some attempt has been made to fill out this one-dimensional view through the study of early and more broadly based protest movements in various colonial territories. This paper takes as its subject matter the records of riots which occurred on the Gold Coast between 1890 and 1920. These disturbances are taken as an index of non-elite protest while an analysis of case-studies indicates their significance for political developments leading to the emergence of nationalist parties.