NORDIC PARTY SYSTEMS Nordic five-party model, a significant concept to evaluate and understand the Nordic countries’ political system, has been introduced by Sten Berglund and Ulf Lindström in 1978 in their book "The Scandinavian five party system(s): A comparative study". When it comes to analyze the distinctive features of Scandinavian party systems, five-party model plays an essential role along with strong social democrats, producer interest ties, traditionally strong class voting and well-organized mass parties (lecture, February 11). According to Lipset and Rokkan the emergence of the Nordic party system was realized under the influence of the four historic revolutions: the national revolution, the industrial revolution, the proletarian revolution and the communist revolution (Arter, pp.51-55). Rokkan categorizes national revolution by considering the relationship between church vs. state and center vs. periphery (lecture, February 11). The conflict among state and church derives from getting the control over education; however, the relationship between center and periphery consists of national independence, status of national and linguistic minorities, centralization of power (lecture, February 11). In addition, industrial revolutions shapes Nordic party systems due to the distinctions that it brought as workers vs. owners and urban vs. rural. These relationships have created the basis for the concepts of redistribution, welfare state, public ownership which are essential features of Nordic political model (lecture, February 11). Historically, the emergence of the Nordic party system can be traced back to 1870s characterized by two party politics: liberals vs. conservatives. The two party politics period lasted till 1900 wh... ... middle of paper ... ...ed by the emergence of radical right-wing populist parties whilst parties with a strong environmental appeal and those with a strong moral compass cannot readily be located on a conventional left-right spectrum (University of Oulu, Comparative Nordic Politics). BIBLIOGRAPHY David Arter, Scandinavian Politics Today. Second edition. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009 Kaare Strøm, Lecture Notes for University of California San Diego, Scandinavian Politics, 2014 Tapio Raunio, Lecture Notes for University of Oulu, Comparative Nordic Politics Tapio Raunio, Euroskepticism – Causes and Consequences, 1-2 July 2005, Amsterdam Berglund, S. & U. Lindström (1978): The Scandinavian Party System(s). Studentlitteratur, Lund Laakso, M. & R. Taagepera (1979): “Effective” Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe. Comparative Political Studies 12:1, 3-27
The spread of democracy has been one of the largest and most widely heralded trends in government worldwide – its prevalence and impact has been the subject of much political discussion and debate. In many cases, however, fewer observers focus on the electoral system used by the democratic governments themselves, which are in many cases equally important to the ultimate shape of the government formed. In general, the First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system that is used in Canadian Federal Elections has excluded and prevented third parties from having a large impact on the national stage post-WWII, forcing a bipartisan system of government. Central to this paper is an analysis on how third parties, in this case minor broad-based parties
Grofman, B. & Lijphart, A. 2002. The evolution of electoral and party systems in the Nordic countries. USA: Agathon Press.
Shapiro, Ian, Rogers M. Smith, and Tarek E. Masoud, eds. Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics. Cambridge ; Cambridge University Press, 2004.
In Keys paper it shows the changing of coalitions at various times, it is all due to movements of people. A large portion of the Democratic vote at a certain point came from the Industrial towns...
Politics is today commonly associated with ‘party politics’ where each party represents a certain group of people in Parliament and considers issues through a specific lens. Britain has three main political parties; first, the Conservative Party on the right, which advocates the encouragement of private property, the preservation of a strong military, and the conservation of traditional cultural values. Second, the Labour Party on the left which is closely affiliated to trade unions, promotes nationalization, a welfare state and a Keynesian approach to economics; and the third, Liberal Democrats at the centre who put an emphasis on individual liberty, equality, a mixed economy, a developed welfare state and a reformed democratised system of government. Their main roles are both on the long term and on the short term. The long-term goals of a political party include public engagement where parties ignite the public’s interest and incite them to participate in debates in a sustained manner. A political party’s short-term role would be the mobilisation of the population, which looks at how people vote in one instance, in a referendum or an election for example. However, if one looks more closely at how effective political parties are in terms of their roles in society, we can notice a gap between what they aim to achieve and the observable outcome. This suggests that there have been changes in the way political parties operate, which could lead to the decline of the parties. This essay will argue that first, party organisation can cause a decline in memberships and lead to a decline of a party. Second, a change in society can affect the parties; class and partisan dealignment has pushed parties to transform themselves when it comes ...
Kruelgor. "Two Party Political System - Recipe for Disaster: Civil Wars throughout History." The Political Machine. 28 Mar. 2008. Web. 18 Aug. 2011. .
• Whiteley, F. P. (2010), ‘Is the party over? The decline of party activism and membership across the democratic world’, Political Parties, 17 (1), pp. 21-44, Sage Journals January 2011 [Online]. Available at: http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/17/1/21.full.pdf+html (Accessed: 27th February 2014)
During the second half of the past century the notion that, political science should be treated as a science became extremely popular among academics specially in the United States. One of the most prominent exposers of this school of thought was Anthony Downs, who developed a theorem to explain in a rather economic sense, how and why voters behave in a certain way when it comes to voting. Downs did not only applied his theory to the way voters behave, he also used it to explain the way political parties align themselves when it comes to elections in a two and a multiparty system nevertheless this essay will analyze Downs’ claims about a two party system only. This essay argues that the Downs’ model has proven to be accurate in many cases throughout history, nevertheless it makes a series of assumptions about voters and parties that can not be considered realistic neither in 1957, when he published his paper An Economic Theory of Political Action in Democracy in 1957 nor in 2013. This essay also acknowledges that fact that this theory might help to explain how parties behave but it is by no means the only explanation. Furthermore this essay will prove that it is a multiplicity of factors rather than an economic theory what can help us understand why parties behave the way they do. In order to support the argument previously stated this essay will state and critically analyze a number of Downs assumptions, then his theory will be outlined. Then it will carefully consider how effective it has been at predicting the way in which parties align themselves by examining the behavior of political parties during general elections in different countries.
A party system of a state is the range of political parties in a given political system, and it is characterised by the 3 main features: the number of parties, the political and ideological nature of these parties, how they interact and com...
Political parties are critical structures in the modern society and universal phenomena in most democracies. In fact, they form major objects of intensive study as they are usually the centre of political and social power. They engage in most activities that are of significant consequence in the lives of citizens and link the common populace to the government. Therefore, it is important to understand political parties fully from every perspective of political systems so obtain their real importance in democracies. A political party is basically a group of citizens who converge as voters, activists, electoral candidates and office holders with a common party label and seek to elect party members into public offices. While modern political systems are complicated, the American system is more particularly so. The American system comprises of enormous bureaucracies, huge bicameral legislatures and extensively elaborate committee systems. In addition, there are many layers of courts in the jurisdiction system, each with a different political structure that compounds the fragmentation even further, making the American government an even more complicated structure. There are also multiple interest groups in political America as well as in many modern systems. These groups are constantly multiplying and increasing in diversity while pressing their concerns in a bid to seek government action (Eldersveld, 2000). Most importantly, political parties have a specific role of communicating with the public to mobilize and support its interests and to yield pleasant results. The objective of this paper is to discuss American political parties to understand their forms, categories and functions.
The political incentives that spawned parties are transparent. In any system where collective choices are made by voting, organization pays. When action requires winning majorities on a continuing basis in multiple settings, organization is absolutely essential. The Constitution’s provisions for enacting laws and electing leaders therefore put a huge premium on building majority alliances across institutions and electoral units. Parties grew out of the efforts of political entrepreneurs to build such alliances and to coordinate the collective activity necessary to gain control of and use machinery of government. One of the incentives for building political parties is to build stable legislative and electoral alliances. To control policy consistently, then,
Political parties are the link between general society and the representative machinery of our government. In order for an effective democracy to be in place, these political parties must be continually operative in the functions that they carry out. They are vehicles in which groups of people as well as individuals work together to secure political power, and to exercise that...
The Denmark Government is a constitutional monarchy system. The government of Denmark is based on the parliamentary system and it is representative democratic. The head of government is controlled by the Prime Minister. Denmark is a multi-party system so that there is no single party since the beginning of the 20th century in Denmark. The parties members will be represent their parties in the parliament. Hence, the Danish parliament tends to be more powerful than legislatures in others countries. The constitution of the Denmark is not grant to the judiciary power of judicial review of legislation; however the courts have asserted this power with the consent of the other branches of government. Moreover, the government of Denmark has two arms, the government and the Folketing. The choice of the candidates depends on the majority votes of the person who has received from the respective constituency and also on his local connection. However, the change of political system has started when Fogh Rasmussen has won his first general election on 20 November 2001 and became the Prime Minister...
The Nordic Model is the term for the Scandinavian states economic system. The government equally provides the same thing for each of its citizens. Many things are provided by the government, like universities, health care, maternity leave and social security. But there are other aspects of the Nordic Model too. Social Democrats support regulated private enterprise, high taxes in return for high public service, thorough working laws, like minimum wage and working conditions, and a strong policy of equality for all citizens. However, to make all these things possible, citizens must pay high taxes. In Norway, for example, the majority of ...
According to all three professors Seymour Martin Lipset, Juan Linz, Donald Horowitz, they are strongly suggesting their main politically argument based on the concept of presidential and parliamentary system. The stability of presidential system is that two-candidate races in multiparty systems produce coalitions including extremist parties. The balance between branches varies and with fixed term in office comes the risk of ‘vouloir conclure’. The parliamentary system’s stability describes that it has superior historical performance to presidential system. This is especially in societies with political cleavages-multiple parties. The continuity of this party is power and there is duration of coalition.