Central Party Research Articles

Gatekeeping by Central and Local Party Actors: Theory and Evidence from a Field Study of New Brunswick Nominations, 2017–2018

AbstractUnder what circumstances do central and local party actors engage in gatekeeping to influence the outcomes of local nomination races? In this article, I develop a theory of gatekeeping in Canadian parties by synthesizing past work on candidate selection with a multi-method field study of New Brunswick provincial nominations (2017–2018). I present evidence in favour of this theory from participant-observation of 25 nominating conventions, 93 elite interviews, and an original dataset of major party nominations for the 2018 New Brunswick election. The theory and evidence show how gatekeeping by central party actors helps explain how nominations can go uncontested, even in competitive and safe seats. The theory also generates several testable claims for future studies of candidate selection in other places, time periods and levels of government in Canada.

Government policy and social housing. Dangers and opportunities in the Bill

The debate about current housing policy tends, like so much else in British politics, to be dominated by arguments from two opposing forces: free market individualism on the right, and state socialism on the left. The co-operative voice is caught in the middle, and for the most part is continually drowned out. This is not because it is the voice of ‘centre party politics’ (though the centre parties have been sympathetic to it); when taken seriously, the co-operative philosophy is simply too radical to be contained in any conventional continuum between right and left. It has been drowned out partly because the left in Britain, unlike that of many other countries, has been incorrigibly statist and unsympathetic to co-operative socialism, and partly because the right, sensing this weakness in the philosophy of the left, continually tries to assimilate the co‑operative belief in mutual aid to the rhetoric of market-based ‘self-help’. This paper reviews the implications on the Housing Bill 1988.

Cost-effectiveness and gain-sharing scenarios for purchasing a blockchain-based application in the maritime supply chain

Maritime supply chain (MarSC) stakeholders interact with third parties (e.g. freight forwarders, 3PLs, financial institutes, custom authorities) to facilitate the cargo flow and exchange of information, documents, or financials. Hence, MarSC stakeholders are increasingly interested in innovative technological solutions that vouch for the authenticity and/or the ownership of digital assets without the control of a central third party. Extended research is carried out to prove how applications based on the distributed ledger technology or blockchain address these requirements, yet limited research investigates their purchasing process and economic implications. This paper uses the phytosanitary certificate in an international supply chain flow as a case study where interaction between multiple stakeholders is fundamental and analyses the purchase scenarios of a blockchain-based tool. To do so, it uses a theoretical model that identifies and quantifies the costs and benefits incurred by MarSC stakeholders, formulates gain-sharing scenarios and presents the results of a sensitivity analysis to show the dependence between the data-use and the potential economic gains it generates. The results show that freight forwarders could share economic benefits with shippers or consignees to anticipate purchasing a blockchain-based tool.

Evaluating College Students' Comprehensive Quality by the AHP Algorithm.

For the full rank of appraisement, college students act a central party in the instructive fabric of colleges and universities. The common attribute teaching should settle the reciprocal expert valuation agreeing to the specifying goals of training. Establishing a practical and energetic system for appraising the extensive rank of college students is a topical valuable for investigation. This writing confers a mandate supported on Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to exactly rank the compendious degree, college students, frame estimation indicators, calculative crushing, and generate rising wherefore to distinct mayor leagues. Taking the full attribute valuation of electronic computer greater combine, a college as a represent, the import and implementation of this precept are utter details. Through the analysis of the passable state of the thorough nature appraisement, college students, alluring Taiyuan University of Science and Technology as an instance, a large property valuation dummy was established with the assistance of analytic hierarchy outgrowth. A reasonable valuation of students foresees a notional base.

Undisciplined Constituency Campaign Behaviour in Canadian Federal Elections

AbstractScholarly research suggests that Canadian election campaigns are centralized affairs, with party headquarters managing a disciplined campaign organization across 338 federal constituencies. At the same time, local realities can incentivize constituency campaigns to deviate from their parties. This article examines the extent of local campaign discipline, given these tensions between parties’ centralizing compulsions and countervailing forces that militate against party cohesion. The article relies on original data to identify and explain the extent of local campaign behaviour that defies central party preferences and directives. It draws from interviews with 87 former candidates and eight party strategists, as well as observational data gathered from 10 constituency campaigns during the 2019 federal election. The findings indicate a relatively high level of undisciplined constituency campaign behaviour during the 2015 and 2019 elections. The article contends that this behaviour stems from insubordination, innovation and incompetence within constituency campaigns.

Antagonistic Cooperation: Factional Competition in the Shadow of Elections

AbstractIntra‐party competition is widespread and affects political parties' strength. This article presents a model of elections in which intra‐party factions can devote resources to campaigning for the party or undermining competing factions to obtain more power. The model shows that inter‐ and intra‐party competition are substitutes: Internal competition increases when the electoral stakes are low – for example, in consensus democracies granting power to losing parties – because the incentives to focus on the fight for internal power increase. Similarly, an increase in party polarization incentivizes factions to campaign to avoid a more costly electoral loss. Factions in the moderate party campaign more than those in the extreme party; conversely, when factions in the same party are ideologically divided, extreme factions campaign more. Finally, the model studies how internal rules affect intra‐party competition, showing how parties design internal contests among factions to maximize campaigning.

The petit effect of campaign spending on votes: using political financing reforms to measure spending impacts in multiparty elections

This paper explores the relation between campaign spending and votes, in France, relying on political financing reforms as a quasi-natural experiment to assess if and how spending affects votes, for both incumbent and challenger candidates in multiparty legislative elections. The French reforms were adopted in the mid-1990s, modifying the fundraising rules in three important ways: (1) spending limits were reduced, (2) legal entities no longer were allowed to fund candidates, and (3) the maximal amount of candidates’ personal campaign spending reimbursed by the State was raised. We study observations on two consecutive legislative elections, one before and one after the reforms. The difference in campaign expenses across elections turns out to be strongly affected by the reforms: candidates from the extreme parties (far left and far right) increased their expenditures substantially, while the candidates fielded by moderate parties reduced them considerably. Focusing on politicians running in both elections, we estimate the impact of spending using first-difference panel data methods and TSLS. Our instrumental variables for the difference in spending are constructed from the regulatory reforms. We find that spending by incumbents did not have statistically significant effects on their vote shares. Spending by challengers is statistically significant but the impact nevertheless is economically small.

The 2021 Norwegian election

The Storting election of September 2021 signalled the end of eight years in office for of the centre-right government led by Premier Erna Solberg. During this period, different constellations of parties had been in power: first the Conservatives and the Progress Party, later the Liberal Party and finally the Christian Democrats joined the coalition. However, due to policy disagreements, particularly with the Liberals and the Christian Democrats, the Progress Party left the coalition in 2020, just a year ahead of the election. Climate and immigration policies were at the core of the disagreements. At the 2021 election, the five centre-left (or red-green) parties won the majority of seats and votes, but did not succeed in establishing a majority government. Instead, the Labour Party and the Centre Party formed a minority government, supported by the Socialist Left Party. The overriding issue at the election was climate and environmental concerns. Somewhat unexpectedly, the Green Party did not fare particularly well at the election, and fell short of the four percent threshold for adjustment seats by the tiniest margin. Data from the Norwegian National Election Study shows that the Greens only received 11 per cent of the climate vote, while more than 60 per cent voted for other red-green parties. Social inequality was also high on the agenda, in particular by left of centre voters. The number of effective parties rose from 5.5 to 6.4, increasing the fractionalisation of the party system, which may be worrying if it continues.

Performativity in Estonian Political Theatre of the 2010s

The main political theatre of the 2010s in Estonia was Teater NO99 (2005–2019), which created several experimental projects. The performance Tallinn — Our City (2010) was a tour through the Old Town, during which the guide revealed corruption schemes with the real estate in which city government and personally mayor Edgar Savisaar were allegedly involved. The fictitious political movement Unified Estonia with the final performance United Estonia Assembly (2010) existed for 44 days and copied unfair campaigning of parliamentary parties, thereby predicting the rise of hyper-populism in the 2010s. The documentary production Meeting of the Leadership of the Reform Party (2012) was devoted to a real investigation into the suspicious financing of the ruling party. The musical Savisaar (2015), released during the parliamentary elections, foresaw the fall of the chairman of the Estonian Centre Party, Edgar Savisaar, who had held power for too long. At the same time, the performance activated the followers of the politician, which led to the fact that the year of the performance's release marked the highest level of electoral activity. Performances From the Second Glance (2016) and I’d Rather Dance with You (2016) gathered Estonian and Russian-speaking audience in theatre halls to talk about the problems that had accumulated in society. The play Will Be/Won’t Be: Estonia in 100 Years (2018) was based on the surveys of children and students: the younger generation should choose which way of development Estonia would take. By participating in interactive voting, viewers themselves decided what kind of Estonia they wanted to see: multicultural, technological, nationalistic, ecological Estonia. There could be distinguished three strategies of performativity in the political theater of Estonia: 1) role reversal, when the audience becomes participants in the production and realizes themselves as subjects of the political process, and the active political forces (government, party) turn out to be spectators of an unpredictable theatrical action; 2) usage of space outside the theater (city, media, social networks) to signify how public spaces become the stage for real politics; 3) erasing the line between art and reality, when a fictitious process exists along with the real political process and even affects it.

The impact of trade unions and government party orientation on income inequality: evidence from 17 OECD economies

PurposeDespite the existing conceptual analysis on the impact of trade unions on employees' welfare and the wider economy, the mediating effect of political party orientation (i.e., right, centre and left) on income inequality remains under researched. In this paper, the authors empirically explore the relationship between the nature of political party orientation, trade unions and income inequality.Design/methodology/approach The authors use three different measures of income inequality and dummy variables that capture government party orientation with respect to economic policy for a panel of 17 OECD economies over the period 2000–2016. The authors employ a panel fixed effects approach and the Driscoll and Kraay's (1998) nonparametric covariance matrix estimator.FindingsThe empirical evidence indicates that strong unions and, to some extent, left party governance, are fundamental institutional elements to combat rising levels of income inequality whilst countries dominated by right-wing political parties appear to exacerbate income inequality. The results pertaining to the impact of centrist parties on income inequality are ambiguous suggesting that a potential fragmentation may exist in their political approach.Originality/valueThe evidence generated can have significant policy ramifications in alleviating rising levels of income inequality as well in relation to the declining unionization rates observed across advanced economies.

Simulation of the Implementation of the Single Transferable Vote in Bosnia and Herzegovina – the Case of Elections for the Parliamentary Assembly in 2000

The electoral system is deeply divided and post-conflict societies have a prominent place in the existing literature studying political and institutional regulation. One of the assumptions is that the electoral system encourages political actors to act and behave more moderately or radically. Proportional representation electoral systems are widespread and are generally considered the most suitable for the representation of social groups, although the success of their outcomes remains disputable. Two types of proportional systems – party lists and single transferable vote – stand mutually opposed from the standpoints of incentives of political actors to political moderation. The party lists system (list-PR) was criticized for encouraging more radical behavior as opposed to the single transferable vote (STV) which instigated more moderate behavior. The outcomes of the named two types of proportional systems will be compared based on the case study of the elections for the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina which were held in 2000, using counterfactual simulation. Contrary to the expected outcomes of the STV, the electoral simulation will show that the list-PR has proven to be a more successful institutional solution in terms of encouraging political moderation. A STV would not significantly lead to an interethnic exchange of preferences, nor the representation of the small moderate parties, contrary to the list-PR that enabled their representation.

Life of the party: The polarizing effect of foreign direct investment

As countries are becoming increasingly connected with one each other, it is essential to study the influence multinational firms have on political outcomes in the countries where they locate. This paper examines the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on party vote shares in 149 countries between 1990 and 2017. We construct a database by cataloging political parties into specific political positions. We use a measure of linguistic distance between countries to construct a novel instrumental variable using the average exchange rate of the surrounding region. With this IV, we capture the relative attractiveness of FDI in host countries. Our results indicate that increased FDI causes an increase in vote shares for right-wing parties. We also find suggestive evidence of increased left-wing support in developing countries and legislative elections. We show that more moderate parties, specifically center-right parties, generally lose vote shares as FDI increases. • Increased FDI causes an increase in vote shares for right-wing parties. • Left-wing support in developing countries increases with FDI. • Center-right parties lose votes as FDI increases.

Introducing the party-interest group relationships in contemporary democracies datasets

Few existing datasets on parties and interest groups include data from both sides and a wide variety of interest groups and parties. We contribute to filling this gap by making several interconnected new datasets publicly available. The Party-Interest Group Relationships in Contemporary Democracies (PAIRDEM) datasets include cross-national data from three different surveys of (1) central party organizations, (2) legislative party groups, and (3) interest groups. A fourth dataset based on coding of party statutes and party finance data was established together with the Political Party Database. The datasets contain novel indicators on party-group relationships in up to 21 mature democracies. In this research note, we first present the main content of the datasets and the research design. Second, we present descriptive statistics documenting the extent of organizational ties between parties and groups in contemporary democracies. Third, we illustrate more advanced usage through a simple application.

Party Literature Work, Ideology, and the Central Party Literature Office of the Communist Party of China

This article reviews the origins, development and current trends of what is known as ‘party literature work’ and the principal organisation that carries out this work—the Central Party Literature Office (CPLO). Party literature work plays a crucial role for each generation of Chinese communist leadership to assert its ideological ‘line’ and build its canon. It is an integral part of the ideological apparatus of the Communist Party of China. Under Xi Jinping, CPLO was merged into a new organisation, but party literature work remains and continues to play a key role, supporting his ideological line.

KOLABORASI PEMERINTAH PUSAT DAN DAERAH DALAM PENGEMBANGAN KAWASAN EKONOMI KHUSUS (KEK) DI INDONESIA

The development of special economic areas (KEK) of local governments collaborates with the central government and private parties. The development of a region into a special economic area requires a real planning and action. Supported by regional autonomy demanding the role of local governments in realizing the SNR, it also requires collaboration with the central government in addition to the large role of the private sector in economic activity. Government and private cooperation with Indonesia's infrastructure development model involves the private sector, local government, central government in a synergy with their respective roles and functions that allow for a clear division of positions, duties and responsibilities set out within the legal framework of legal in carrying out development projects. The strategy that can be pursued by local governments in realizing SNR is to build collaboration with private parties and central government in public private partnership schemes.
 Keywords: Collaboration, Special Economic Zones, Development

An imperial historian of empire: insights from the Philip Warhurst papers, Killie Campbell Africana Library

This research note recovers the career and personal papers of Philip Warhurst, a British historian who taught at universities in Rhodesia and South Africa from the 1960s until the 1990s. The note simultaneously reviews the extent of the holdings of the Warhurst Papers at the Killie Campbell Africana Library in Durban while also exploring the insights the collection offers on Warhurst’s views on race relations and his positionality vis-a-vis the British Empire and the Commonwealth. As the collection is open but unprocessed, this note aims to provide a guide that will assist scholars in navigating the collection. The collection will particularly appeal to scholars interested in Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence era (1965-1979). Warhurst was at the frontline of numerous political developments in the colony during this time. Materials document conditions at the University of Rhodesia following political disturbances in 1966 and 1973 and Warhurst’s desire to maintain academic freedom at the university. Warhurst was also a senior official in the Centre Party, a comparatively moderate political group that sought to increase black political participation in Rhodesia, but which expressed opposition to black majority rule. The collection also holds extensive materials of a less overt political nature, primarily documenting Warhurst’s ecumenical activities and support for Scouting in both South Africa and Rhodesia. Finally, the papers hold extensive scholarly notes by Warhurst concerning his review of archival and published material as well as several unpublished lectures and papers.

Датская народная партия и трансформации иммиграционной политики Дании

The author explores the history of the Danish People’s Party and its effect on Danish immigration policy. The DPP was founded in 1995. It successfully continued the anti-immigration course of the Danish Progress Party fallen into disrepair. The Danish People’s Party represented a synthesis of several political currents: the Lutheran movement Tidehverv and its journal, intellectual nationalists from the Danish Association, and conservative populists from the Progress Party. The DPP seeks to drastically reduce non-Western immigration, opposes Islamization and favors cultural assimilation of immigrants. For 25 years, the Danish People’s Party has managed to maneuver between establishment parties and their small partners in the complicated multi-party political system of Denmark. Dissociated from radical elements, the DPP has occupied a stable position on the right of the traditional bourgeois parties. It has broken the long-term influence of centrist parties, and especially radical left-wing parties, on Danish policy. Collaboration with liberal-conservative forces from 2001 to 2011 and from 2015 to 2019 was the most productive for the Party. The DPP played a key role in writing the rules and conditions for immigration in the immigration law that was established by the government in May 2002. Most importantly, the document provided for strong restrictions in immigration policies, which resulted in what is often described as Europe’s strictest immigration laws. The 24-year rule has drawn a lot of attention. Thanks to European migrant crisis, the 2015 general election was historic for the Danish People’s Party. It got unprecedented electoral support and became Denmark’s second largest political party. However, the Party suffered a major defeat in the 2019 general election, recording its worst result since the establishment by wining 8.7% of votes – down from 21% in 2015, for the following reasons: depletion of anti-immigrant rhetoric and seizing the traditional DPP initiative by the establishment, increased political competition and party’s collaboration with the Social Democrats, unexpected for the DPP voters.

Activities of the Union of Militant Atheists in Kazakhstan in 1920-1930s

The Union of Militant Atheists (UMA) was created as a mass voluntary public organization, which set as its goal the fight against religion in all its manifestations. The Union’s main task was considered to build effectively an organizational structure, forming regional, provincial, and district and volost councils with the aim of mass coverage of the population with anti-religious propaganda. The authors attempted to give a comprehensive analysis of the activities of the regional organizations of the Union of Atheists in Kazakhstan in 1920-1930s, to show the features of building an organizational structure, the nature and content of anti-religious propaganda. With the help of the method of discursive analysis of archival sources, the history of the formation of the regional organization of the UMA is studied, the stages of its development are indicated, and the main directions of activity, forms and methods of fighting against the religious worldview of the masses are considered.According to the results of the study, it was found that the organization and activities of the UMA in Kazakhstan were carried out in accordance with the instructions and recommendations of the central party and Soviet bodies

PELATIHAN DAN PENDAMPINGAN KEPADA PELAKU UMKM OLEH TAX CENTER UNIVERSITAS METHODIST INDONESIA

The UMI tax center cooperates with the Regional Office of DJP Sumbagut 1 to assist MSME actors in improving and developing their products through appropriate marketing, namely digital marketing, recording transactions clearly, completely, and correctly, and in the future, MSME actors can make tax payments. As a result of this assistance, a win-win solution is created for the three parties; namely, MSME actors can gain knowledge and skills to increase sales and record transactions that are useful for decision making. The North Sumatra Regional Tax Office I can increase tax compliance. At the UMI Tax Center party, students have knowledge that directly handles tax cases at the time of tax reporting.

Party families and greenhouse gas emissions: a\xa0new perspective on an old concept

Partisan theory is not easy to apply to environmental issues. One reason for this is that party families are usually structured according to the left-right dimension. However, such a perspective ignores the fact that the concept of party families stems from a multi-dimensional historical analysis. In order to determine the relevance of the influence of party families on greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs), we use a new data set that differentiates between ten party families. An organization theoretical analysis shows that the participation of green parties in government reduces GHGEs. Left parties have much less impact. In contrast, non-Christian center parties have a negative effect on GHGEs. Methodologically, we show that the party effect does not appear in the short term, but only takes effect after more than two years