Exploring the link between patronage and party institutionalization: an historical-institutional analysis of the Italian transition

This article analyses party patronage transformations in Italy since the early 1990s, a time when political parties and the party system entered a phase of continuing change. It examines how the interaction between the temporality of party system restructuring and historical legacies rooted in the nature of public bureaucracies reproduced patronage practices aimed at capturing state resources. The article employs a historical institutionalist approach as a research framework and concludes that this provides a cogent explanatory argument for the development of state exploitation taken by Italian political parties since the crisis of the early 1990s.     

马克思创立共产党的伟大历史贡献——纪念马克思逝世130周年

创立共产党是马克思的伟大历史贡献。共产党是科学社会主义同工人运动相结合的产物,也是马克思为人类解放的理论的和实践的活动的结晶。中国共产党能够成为执政党和长期执政的党,应当归功于马克思主义和发展着的马克思主义,归功于为共产主义奋斗的一代又一代中国共产党人。     

论马克思主义文化观与政党文化建设

牢牢树立政党文化建设的根本原则,准确把握政党文化建设的价值取向,不断加强政党文化建设的文化自觉,推进党的文化建设,对增强国家文化软实力,建设社会主义文化强国具有重要的意义。     

Towards an organisational perspective on party funding: Explaining financial transfers from MEPs to their national parties

Which parties represented in the European Parliament (EP) are able to extract regular donations from their MEPs' salaries and, if they extract donations, how great are they? In the literature on party finances, there has been a lack of attention paid to the use of salaries of elected representatives as a source of funding. This is surprising given that the national headquarters of many parties in Europe regularly collect ‘party taxes’: a fixed (and often significant) share of their elected representatives' salaries. In filling this gap, this article theoretically specifies two sets of party characteristics that account for the presence of a taxing rule and the level of the tax, respectively. The presence of a tax depends on the basic ‘acceptability’ of such an internal obligation that rests on a mutually beneficial financial exchange between parties' campaign finance contributions to their MEPs and MEPs' salary donations to their parties. The level of the tax, in contrast, depends on the level of intra‐organisational compliance costs and parties' capacity to cope with these costs. Three factors are relevant to this second stage: MEPs' ideological position, the size of the parliamentary group and party control over candidate nomination. The framework is tested through a selection model applied to a unique dataset covering the taxing practices in parties across the European Union Member States.     

Reforming the Spanish Senate: Mission Impossible?

Attempts in recent years to reform the Spanish Senate have proven futile. Using an institutionalist approach, this article highlights some of the weaknesses of the Spanish Senate in terms of its constitutional design and institutional development. The article explains how attempts at reforming political institutions are influenced by the historical context in which the institution was originally designed and the political context in which it has subsequently developed. The debate over Senate reform is analysed by examining the Senate's institutional setting and its relationships to broader political settings such as the legacy of the transition to democracy, political party discourse, and a competitive culture in Spain's system of intergovernmental relations.     

The Accursed Share: Bataille as Historical Thinker

Abstract

This essay addresses Georges Bataille as a historical thinker by concentrating on The Accursed Share (three volumes, 1949-54), the text Bataille took as his master-work. An amalgam of cultural criticism, anthropological and sociological research, The Accursed Share reveals Bataille's temporalised vision of his four central ideas, excess, expenditure, sovereignty and transgression. Grappling with this vision is key for understanding Bataille's oeuvre as a whole because it brings the entirety of his assessments of Western and world culture under its heading. The aim of the paper is to offer a sense, on one hand, of Bataille's dystopic heterology and, on the other hand, the unique formulation of the junctures between economics, power and morality that define him as important for the irruption of post-structural thought specifically, and indeed, the postmodern era as a whole.     

Images of Labour

Abstract

This paper looks at the continuities and changes in the nature of election campaigns in Britain since 1900 by focusing on the way campaigning has changed and become more professional and marketing driven. The piece discusses the ramifications of these developments in relation to the Labour Party's ideological response to mass communication and the role now played by external media in the internal affairs of this organisation. The paper also seeks to assess how campaigns have historically developed in a country with an almost continuous, century long cycle of elections.     

What's an Elite to Do? The Threat of Populism from Left,Right and Centre

Anthony Painter's report for Policy Network correctly describes populism as a ‘democratic argument’ which sets up a morally pure ‘people’ against vilified ‘elites’, in binary opposition. This is an argument which is increasingly prominent in political discourse, whether the elites in question are political, financial or technocratic. Painter focuses on the now‐familiar ‘radical right‐wing’ version of populism, as reflected across Europe in the rise of parties such as the UKIP. He omits discussion of other types of populism (of the left and centre), which perhaps represent the future for populist politics.     

石油企业强化政治优势转化效果方法分析——以黄河钻井三公司为例

黄河钻井三公司深入推进党建工作创新发展,积极促进政治资源和政治优势转化,做法为：加强基层党组织建设,把党组织的政治核心作用转化为领导力;加强领导班子建设,把领导干部资源优势转化为创新力;加强人才队伍建设,把人力资源优势转化为竞争力;加强思想文化建设,把党的思想文化优势转化为软实力;加强反腐倡廉建设,把党的作风优势转化为执行力;密切联系群众,把党的群众工作优势转化为创造力。