The Irish election of November 1982

Changes in centre‐periphery relations, both institutional (most notably decentralisation) and socio‐economic (the growing importance of cities) have radically altered the environment in which French political parties operate. The unprecedentedly close links between parties and the local political system that have resulted have profoundly affected power structures within the parties. Just as the Fifth Republic ‘presidentialised’ parties, so decentralisation has ‘localised’ them. The case of the Rassemblement pour la République, the inheritor to the top‐down, presidentialist tradition of Gaullism, is a remarkable illustration of this transformation.     

Taiwan’s political ecology after the November 1997 local election

From the late 1940’s to the late 1980’s, the political system in Taiwan can be best characterized as one-party system, with the Kuomintang (KMT) as the dominant ruling party. In the November 1997 local election, the KMT was defeated by the opposition party, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), for the first time. The DPP not only gained more county and city posts at the provincial level but also grabbed more votes than the ruling party, resulting in a new political order. At the local level, a two-party system has emerged. The general population prefers a cleaner and more efficient government. Many voters in the November 1997 election voted for the candidates—not the party—of their choice. Unless the KMT can welcome back the New Party (NP), its ruling party status at the national (as opposed to central) level may be called into serious question. Before the legislative election of December 1998 and the direct, presidential election of March 2000, it seems that the KMT will try to co-opt members of the NP. There could be tension between the central and local governments in Taiwan on many issues in the foreseeable future, such as whether or not the Republic of China (ROC) flag should be hoisted in schools and how much financial support the local governments can get from the central government. It is highly doubtful that the DPP can grab the presidency in the year 2000. Most voters are not ready for such a new order at the presidential or central (as opposed to national) level.     

The Netherlands' green paradoxes

In CNS 10, Barney Dickson analyzed the first Party Congress of Holland's Green Left. The present account of Green Left and their rivals The Greens by Gerrit Voerman (who directs the Documentation Center on the Dutch Political Parties at the University of Gronngen) deals with the origins and development of the green political movement in the Netherlands, and the respective roles of Green Left and The Greens, focusing on the alliances that make up the former and the related weakness of the latter.     

The centre holds: The 1986 Netherlands election

It is often argued that clientelism is a key feature of electoral mobilisation in southern European democracies. This article examines the evidence for clientelism in the Spanish case, assessing the recruitment, redistributive strategies and electoral performance of governing parties in the 1977–96 period. It finds little evidence of extensive clientelistic mobilisation; instead, political parties’ use of state resources is largely consistent with their programmatic and ideological positions. ‘Old’ clientelism from the pre‐democratic era mostly did not survive the change of regime, whilst ‘new’ clientelism based on the expansion of state employment contributed to the Socialist Party's organisational consolidation, but was not a significant feature of its strategy of electoral mobilisation.     

The 1984 Luxembourg election

The emergence of new interest groups and social movements in the 1960s and 1970s facilitated a participation explosion in Western democracies. With increased levels of education and improved understanding of the workings of the political process, modern citizens are now faced with a vibrant and growing market for political activism. Political parties face an especially strong challenge in this market‐place as it appears that citizens now make a succession of participatory decision, akin to impulse buying in a supermarket. It is not surprising that the market share which traditional parties retain is apparently in decline. Whether this is problematic for democracy is more open to debate than conventional models of participation would suggest.