People, Place and Party: Describing Party Activism

The aim of this article is to present a structure for the historical study of party activism. Based on research carried out on the activities of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) between 1884 and 1911, the article puts forward the case that current understandings of that organisation should be reassessed to include the notion of the 'political journeys' of the activists. Instead of focusing exclusively on ideology, the article suggests that other poles or features such as locality and collective biography should be used. If the organisation is viewed from a wider perspective and with a longer exposure time, then, this article argues, a clearer picture presents itself.     

A Party of a Different Color? Race,Campaign Communication,and Party Politics

Although studies have examined the contents of party images and the impact of those images on candidate evaluations, we do not have an understanding of the conditions that lead to party image change. In this article, I examine the impact of racialized campaigns on perceptions of individuals' party images. Moreover, I explore the factors that mediate the campaigns' effects. I argue that the success of a strategy's ability to alter party images depends on the strength of the individuals' extant party images. Using the 2000 Republican National Convention as a case study, I find that party images are indeed malleable. Further, I find that race, party identification, and education mediate party image change.     

Party Types,Organisation and Functions

Austria, which between the wars could neither find its political identity nor put its economy in order, has made a spectacular recovery after its resurrection in 1945, and especially since the State Treaty ten years later which restored its sovereign independence. Today, Austria is one of the most stable and reasonably prosperous small nations in Europe, pursuing a policy of ‘active neutrality’ between the Great Power blocs and cultivating good relations with other neutral and non‐aligned states. Behind her internal consolidation and her new role in international politics is the remarkable personality and diplomatic skill of Bruno Kreisky, Federal Chancellor of Austria and leader of the Socialist Party.     

Roll Calls, Party Labels, and Elections

We develop a model of legislative policymaking in which individuallegislators are concerned with both policy and reelection. Legislators'preferences are private information, and they have two meansof communicating their preferences to voters. First, they eachhave a "party label" that credibly identifies an interval withinwhich their ideal points must lie. Second, their roll call votesmay convey additional information about their preferences. Eachlegislator must therefore tailor his or her votes to his orher district in order to forestall a reelection challenge fromthe opposing party. In equilibrium, nonsincere voting recordswill occur mostly in moderate districts, where extreme incumbentsare vulnerable to challenges from relatively centrist candidates.In those districts, the most extreme legislators may even chooseto vote sincerely and retire rather than compile a moderatevoting record. Thus, both roll call scores and candidate typeswill be responsive to district type. An empirical test of shiftsin roll call scores of retiring House members in moderate districtsconfirms these findings.     

Strategic Party Government: Party Influence in Congress, 1789–2000

Why does the influence of Congressional parties fluctuate over time? Building on prevailing answers, we develop a model, Strategic Party Government, which highlights the electoral motives of legislative parties and the strategic interaction between parties. We test this theory using the entire range of House and Senate party behavior from 1789 to 2000 and find that the strategic behavior of parties complements members' preferences as an explanation for variation in party influence. Specifically, the strongest predictors of one party's voting unity are the unity of the opposing party and the difference between the parties in the preceding year. Moreover, we find strong links between party behavior in Congress and electoral outcomes: an increase in partisan influence on legislative voting has adverse electoral costs, while winning contested votes has electoral benefits.     

The Party Faithful: Partisan Images,Candidate Religion,and the Electoral Impact of Party Identification

We argue that the factors shaping the impact of partisanship on vote choice—“partisan voting”—depend on the nature of party identification. Because party identification is partly based on images of the social group characteristics of the parties, the social profiles of political candidates should affect levels of partisan voting. A candidate's religious affiliation enables a test of this hypothesis. Using survey experiments which vary a hypothetical candidate's religious affiliation, we find strong evidence that candidates’ religions can affect partisan voting. Identifying a candidate as an evangelical (a group viewed as Republican) increases Republican support for, and Democratic opposition to, the candidate, while identifying the candidate as a Catholic (a group lacking a clear partisan profile) has no bearing on partisan voting. Importantly, the conditional effect of candidate religion on partisan voting requires the group to have a salient partisan image and holds with controls for respondents’ own religious affiliations and ideologies.     

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.     

Party Platforms with Endogenous Party Membership

This paper proposes and analyzes a model of how the behaviorof voters and that of potential party activists togetherdetermine party membership and the ideological characteristicsof party platforms. Membership decisions are based onexpressive motivations, whereas platforms are chosenstrategically. Part of the ideological spectrum may remainoutside both parties because of alienation or indifference.     

Party Sub-Brands and American Party Factions

Scholars and pundits have long noted the dominance of the American two-party system, but we know relatively little about new, endogenous institutions that have emerged within the two major parties. I argue that ideological factions provide party sub-brands, which allow legislators to more precisely define their partisan type and capture faction-specific resources. To support this claim, I analyze new data on nine ideological factions in the House of Representatives (1995–2018). I find that (1) faction voting is distinct, suggesting a product ripe for party sub-branding, and (2) joining a faction changes the ideological composition of a candidate's donor base—conditional on the strength of the faction's institutions. Party sub-branding is effective only when factions possess organizational features that induce coordinated and disciplined position taking (e.g., whips, PACs, membership restrictions). These results suggest that, even within highly polarized parties, American political ideology is more than a dichotomous choice, and factions target niche markets of political donors as a means of blunting financial instruments of party power.     

Crashing the Party? Elites,Outsiders, and Elections

We consider an election between two parties that nominate candidates for office. The parties are polarized along a traditional cleavage, but they are also internally divided along a second issue dimension. We introduce a threat of entry from Outsider candidates, who have the prominence and resources to bypass party elites. We consider when voters will turn to Outsiders, and identify the conditions under which Outsiders will enter the election through an established party's nomination process, as opposed to circumventing established parties via a third-party challenge. We further explore when the elites will fail to respond to the threat of Outsider candidates. Our framework highlights how established parties will be especially vulnerable to Outsider primary entry in periods of intense ideological polarization between the parties, and that this vulnerability is especially heightened for the majority party.     

Party Strength,the Personal Vote,and Government Spending

“Strong” political parties within legislatures are one possible solution to the problem of inefficient universalism, a norm under which all legislators seek large projects for their districts that are paid for out of a common pool. We demonstrate that even if parties have no role in the legislature, their role in elections can be sufficient to reduce spending. If parties in the electorate are strong, then legislators will demand less distributive spending because of a decreased incentive to secure a “personal vote” via local projects. We estimate that spending in states with strong party organizations is at least 4% smaller than in states where parties are weak. We also find evidence that strong party states receive less federal aid than states with weak organizations, and we theorize that this is because members of Congress from strong party states feel less compelled to secure aid than members from weak party states.     

Party system nationalization,presidential coalitions,and government spending

This paper argues that there is a strong relationship between geographical patterns of political parties' electoral performance and the composition of central government expenditures. When party system nationalization is high, the composition of spending will focus more on non-targetable expenditures, while targetable expenditures increase as the party system distribution of votes across different districts becomes less homogenous. However, the effect of party nationalization on spending type is conditioned by the size of the presidential coalition; targeted transfers will increase if the coalition size decreases, even if party nationalization is high. I find support for these hypotheses with an empirical analysis of district-level electoral and government expenditure data for several countries in Latin America between 1990 and 2006.     

高校学生党员结合群众路线加强党性修养浅析

党性不仅是党员的灵魂,是党员素质的根本,决定着党员的风貌,反映着党员的形象,而且还关系着党的兴衰成败和生死存亡。对于大学生党员来说,党性修养是一门重要的必修课。在深入开展群众路线、加强党性修养的今天,大学生党员作为中国共产党的生力军,要结合党的群众路线,增强党的意识,提高党性修养,不断加强主观世界的改造,履行好共产党员的义务,把自己培养成社会主义事业的建设者和接班人。     

Economic Integration,Party Polarisation and Electoral Turnout

Recent research provides evidence that economic integration has a negative effect on electoral turnout. Taking up these recent findings, this article explores the causal chain in more detail. Specifically, it argues that one way by which economic integration affects the calculus of voting is through the positioning of political parties. The expectation is that the polarisation between parties on an economic left–right scale is lower the more integrated an economy is. Consequently, electoral turnout should be lower with less polarisation in the party system. The article employs aggregate-level data from legislative elections in 24 developed democracies. Using data from the Comparative Manifestos Project, evidence is found not only that economic integration has a negative effect on party polarisation as measured on an economic left–right dimension, but also that this in turn exerts a negative effect on electoral turnout.     

加强党性锻炼坚定理想信念

中共中央《关于在全党开展以实践“三个代表”重要思想为主要内容的保持共产党员先进性教育活动的意见》中强调,共产党员保持先进性的一项基本要求,就是坚定共产主义理想和中国特色社会主义信念。共产主义的崇高理想和社会主义的坚定信念是共产党人的灵魂和立身之本。开展党性分析,坚持党性锻炼和修养是共产党人坚定理想信念的重要途径。崇高的理想信念是共产党人保持先进性的动力源泉人是要有一点精神的。共产党人的精神动力,来源于崇高的共产主义理想和坚定的社会主义信念。首先,共产党人的共产主义理想和社会主义信念建立在马克思主义揭…     

Center Parties, Party Competition, and the Implosion of Party Systems: A Study of Centripetal Tendencies in Multiparty Systems

Centripetal party competition is traditionally associated with the need to capture the median voter in a two-party system, whereas the existence of center parties is associated with centrifugal party competition. This article argues that the existence of a 'pivotal center party' leads to centripetal party competition in multiparty systems. A pivotal center party is so strong in electoral terms that forming a majority either to the left or to the right of it is unrealistic. Therefore, office-seeking political parties are forced on to a centrist course. This dynamic can be so forceful that the major parties to the left and to the right of the center party decide to govern in a broad coalition, and we may speak of an 'implosion' of the party system. The theoretical argument can explain party system developments in the Netherlands and Finland.