Research Catalog

Title

Organizing political parties : representation, participation, and power / edited by Susan E. Scarrow, Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke.

Publication

• Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2017.
• ©2017

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Poguntke, Thomas
• Webb, Paul, 1959 April 15-
• Scarrow, Susan E.

Description

xvi, 345 pages; 25 cm

Summary

Political party organizations play large roles in democracie, yet their organizations differ widely, and their statutes change much more frequently than constitutions or electoral laws. How do these differences, and these frequent changes, affect the operation of democracy? This book seeks to answer these questions by presenting a comprehensive overview of the state of party organization in nineteen contemporary democracies. Using a unique new data collection, the book's chapters test propositions about the reasons for variation and similarities across party organizations. They find more evidence of within-country similarity than of cross-national patterns based on party ideology. After exploring parties' organizational differences, the remaining chapters investigate the impact of these differences. The volume considers a wide range of theories about how party organization may affect political life, including the impact of party rules on the selection of female candidates, the links between party decision processes and the stability of party programmes, the connection between party finance sources and public trust in political parties, and whether the strength of parties' extra-parliamentary organization affects the behaviour of their elected legislators. Collectively these chapters help to advance comparative studies of elections and representation by inserting party institutions and party agency more firmly into the centre of such studies.

Series Statement

Comparative politics

Uniform Title

Comparative politics (Oxford University Press)

Subject

• Political parties > United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Investigating party organization: structures, resources, and representative strategies -- Part 1. How parties organize -- Assessing the strength of party organizational resources: a survey of the evidence from the political party database -- Which face comes first? The ascendancy of the party in public office -- The paradox of party funding: the limited impact of state subsidies on party membership -- Still connecting with society? Political parties' formal links with social groups in the twenty-first century -- Varieties of intra-party democracy: conceptualization and index construction -- Patterns of intra-party democracy across the world -- Part 2. The impact of party organization -- Party finance and perceived party responsiveness -- Candidate selection rules and democratic outcomes: the impact of parties on women's representation -- Rules of engagement? Party membership costs, new forms of party affiliation, and partisan participation -- The effects of manifesto politics on programmatic change -- Party organization and party unity -- Conclusion: the study of party organization -- Afterword.

Call Number

JFE 17-9161

ISBN

• 0198758634
• 9780198758631

OCLC

966899937

Title

Organizing political parties : representation, participation, and power / edited by Susan E. Scarrow, Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke.

Publisher

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2017.

Copyright Date

©2017

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Comparative politics

Comparative politics (Oxford University Press)

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Added Author

Poguntke, Thomas, editor.

Webb, Paul, 1959 April 15- editor.

Scarrow, Susan E., editor.

Research Call Number

JFE 17-9161