Potential For Parties Research Articles

Defying expectations: what leader insurgencies reveal about media and party incapacity in the time of ‘audience democracy’

Political communication and citizen engagement have been impacted by crises in both political parties and conventional media models. This article contends that the confluence of these crises has been insufficiently understood, and that this lack of understanding depends upon a third element: the dissolution of a ‘holding culture’, a sense of the ‘rules of the game’ that has constituted the ground on which parties and the media operated and generated the imaginative space for constituting community. This dissolution might be represented as resistance to a now discredited political class, once constituted by ‘old’ political and media elites, and promising a new culture – with the potential for parties to be more responsive to ‘the people’, and for a more diversified and representative media. By looking at case studies of leadership insurgency in parties and the impact of new media in creating the discursive conditions for their emergence, this article explores the realities in relation to political communication and democratic engagement.

Neglected Tropical Diseases and the 2012 US Presidential Election

Neglected Tropical Diseases and the 2012 US Presidential Election

Who Gives? Partisan Donations in Europe

Party finance reformers often call for European parties to increase their financial reliance on small donors, but researchers have made few efforts to establish the feasibility of such strategies. This study examines partisan giving in Europe, investigating the potential for parties and policymakers to increase this type of political participation. It also asks whether there are national-level factors that make such efforts more likely to succeed in some countries. The research uses data from the European Social Survey to examine patterns of contributions to political parties in 16 European countries. It finds that the strength of partisanship predicts political giving independent of party membership, which suggests that European political parties may have some scope to increase their number of individual donors. On the other hand, existing tax policies to encourage political giving do not seem to be effective in increasing this type of partisan political participation.

Party Potential and the Pattern of Party Competition in the 2003 Swiss Federal Elections

This article explores both the party potential of the five major parties in Switzerland at the 2003 elections and how well the parties actually did in relation to how well they could have done. A party's electoral potential depends on both the probability of the electorate voting for the party and on the probability of individual voters participating in an election. The analysis shows that the SVP and the CVP were successful in mobilising their potential voters in the 2003 elections, while the FDP did almost as badly as they could have done. However, compared to the potential of the FDP or the SP, the overall potential of the SVP is limited. For the SVP, issue specific factors account for the mobilising success. This is especially the case for its stands against the EU and asylum seekers. The CVP profited from the Ruth Metzler effect, who was a key figure in the 2003 CVP campaign.

Maximising small party potential: The effects of electoral system rules on the far right in German sub‐national elections

Drawing on a data base of election results at national, regional and sub‐national level, this paper examines the impact of the German electoral system on the representation of far right parties. While the electoral threshold of five per cent is a hindrance to small parties at all levels, low district magnitude at sub‐national level tends to exacerbate under‐representation and the minority status of small parties while high district magnitude may result in over‐representation, in particular if a party secures around ten per cent. The paper concludes that electoral representation of small parties with limited resources is affected by votes gained, district magnitude and seat distribution at a given electoral level. Depending on the combination of these factors, the system of translating votes into seats may favour or disadvantage small parties.

The Komeito and Local Japanese Politics

THIS STUDY WAS undertaken as a preliminary survey of the Komei Party in Japanese local government with the aim of reaching some tentative conclusions about the party's potential for growth. It was motivated in part by a number of commonly expressed assumptions by political observers in and outside of Japan: (1) that the party has probably reached its peak; (2) that the Komeito is entirely dependent for its support upon its Buddhist parent body, the Soka Gakkai; (3) that the party's strength is confined to the large cities; and (4) that, while the leadership of the Komeito in the National Diet is politically astute, the local leadership of the party is of mediocre quality, below par in experience, education, and political sophistication. The Japanese Komeito or Clean Government Party, founded in 1964, has been a subject of considerable interest for a number of reasons, among them the party's rapid rise to national prominence and its often stated goal of becoming the leading party in the national government. Of no small interest and concern to many is the party's religious orientation, growing out of its close connection with the Soka Gakkai, a mass Buddhist lay organization. The Soka Gakkai (Value Creating Society) was founded in the 1930s and grew rapidly in the postwar years. It has today, according to various estimates, some 10 to 15 million mainly urban-based followers of the Japanese Buddhist Nichiren Sh6shfi sect. This sect, which claims to be the only true religion, promises happiness to all of its members. On its practical (as contrasted with its theological) side is the organization's perceived mission to strive for the creation of a perfect society in which true happiness is possible. This has led, through a highly organized group structure, to many endeavors of a self-realization and