On the theory and practice of party formation and adaptation in new democracies

Abstract.  In addressing issues of party development in contemporary democracies, many of the recent discussions confuse notions of party formation with those of party adaptation. The contention of this article is that the conceptual confusion of these two distinct processes undermines our understanding of party development, which is of particular importance in the context of the more recently established democracies. Moreover, in order to contribute to theory building on political parties more generally, it is necessary to differentiate between the two. This article offers some theoretical contours for the study of party formation and development, and empirically evaluates the patterns of organizational development in some of the newer democracies in Southern and East-Central Europe. The analysis shows that the external context of party formation has encouraged these parties to adopt an organizational style largely resembling their contemporary counterparts in the older democracies. However, despite the resemblance between party organizations in the older liberal democracies and the newly established ones, the paths of party development are best understood as processes sui generis . The historical uniqueness of parties emerging as strong movements of society, as opposed to agents of the state, is a path that is unlikely to be repeated in contemporary polities which democratize in a different institutional context.     

AID'S CRISIS OF LEGITIMACY: CURRENT PROPOSALS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

Aid to Africa is less threatened by the current foreign policyand fiscal pressures than by a complex crisis of legitimacyregarding the enterprise. Despite official rhetoric to the contrary,most aid insiders are disappointed by the current achievementsof aid. The current malaise has resulted in a considerable fermentof thinking about how to make aid more effective. This articledescribes four sets of proposals that have been advanced. Theseinclude proposals to make aid more selective, as well as toadopt a more need-based approach, which includes proposals topromote government ownership, and to focus aid on non-governmentalactors in the private and voluntary sectors. It is argued thateach of these proposals is desirable, but that together theyare probably incompatible, certainly difficult for the donorsto implement and unlikely to address the real problems thathave plagued aid and African development these last thirty-fiveyears. The real challenge, not addressed by most current reformproposals, is to change how donors and recipients manage aid,so that it contributes to a sound development strategy. Thearticle concludes that the main impulse for reform must comefrom African countries themselves, rather than from the donorcountries.     

In-group solidarity or out-group hostility in response to terrorism in France? Evidence from a regression discontinuity design

Conventional wisdom holds that terrorism has a wide-ranging impact on a polity. At the same time, a complementary, yet less extensive body of research discusses the impact of terrorism on the crux of representative democracy, namely its citizens. In contribution to that literature, and to further explore how external shocks affect public opinions, we propose a two-dimensional analytical framework to examine the effects of the November 2015 terrorist events in Paris and Saint Denis. Drawing from extant scholarship, we argue that we can expect both in-group solidarity and out-group hostility to increase in direct response to these events. This study relies on a regression discontinuity design to analyse a representative survey (DREES) that was in the field at the time of the events. Findings are two-fold. First, and perhaps surprisingly, we find no conclusive evidence of increasing out-group hostilities as a direct consequence of the terrorist events. Second, we find a definite strengthening of in-group solidarity indicators following the events. This not only confirms that citizens adjust their opinions in response to environmental stimuli, but also highlights the democratic resilience of citizens, particularly when faced with a collective threat. Altogether, these findings add to our understanding of why and how individual behaviour changes in light of exogenous shocks.     

FROM RED TAPE TO WHICH PERFORMANCE RESULTS? EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RED TAPE AND VARIOUS DIMENSIONS OF PERFORMANCE IN HEALTHCARE WORK UNITS

Decades of research on red tape have still to provide final answers as to whether red tape reduces performance. This may be due to not distinguishing the different dimensions that public service performance consists of. Shifting the focus to rules and their characteristics, this study analyses how the degree of compliance burden and lack of functionality of rules relates to overall and dimensional public performance. Building upon the argument that red tape reduces resources and motivation and by doing so influences performance, hypotheses are put forward regarding the relationship to performance. Using red tape reports from employees in 49 work units and performance rated by the supervisor, this study shows that performance is at its lowest when the rules have a high compliance burden and lack functionality. Moreover, the dimensional analyses show that compliance burden may be most detrimental for output, whereas lack of functionality reduces responsiveness and democratic outcomes.     

CHANGING NATIONAL RULES: THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM THE NETHERLANDS (1960–2004)

This paper will empirically analyse the evolution of national rule changes for the domain of post‐war Dutch higher education. We focus on rule changes because in the life cycle of rules – births, changes and repeals – change is the most common event. Our theoretical framework is mainly based on the organizational ecology and top management demography literatures. We will be integrating these perspectives, adapting them to our research context. In so doing, we focus on rule density, a minister’s demographic characteristics (such as age and tenure) and cabinet features (for example, power and turnover) as deteminants of rule changes. The empirical results provide significant support for the majority of our theoretical predictions. Overall, the results suggest that the ecological processes are the most robust, followed by the characteristics of ministers and the features of cabinets.