State Party Systems Research Articles

From convergence to congruence: European integration and citizen–elite congruence

Recent research argues that European integration has led to an ideological convergence of member state party systems, which is purported to have significant consequences for democratic representation. We argue that convergence of party positions is less problematic if congruence between governed and governing is maintained. We therefore turn to test whether integration has had an effect on congruence between the public and their governing elites. Using five measures of integration, two sources of public opinion data, and expert surveys on political parties, we find little evidence that integration into the European Union reduces congruence between the public and the national party system, government or legislature either ideologically or across five issue areas. These results should assuage concerns about integration’s effect on domestic political representation.

«Хрущевская конституция»: путь нового конституционализма

Introduction. Scientific research on the process of preparing and developing the draft Constitution of the USSR in 1964 began to appear only in the post-Soviet period. In Soviet times, this topic was banned, and the project itself, being in the archive, was not available for research. The study of the “Khrushchev Constitution” only started in the post-Soviet period. Since the constitutional reforms carried out in the last decade (2008, 2014, 2020) caused a heated discussion in the scientific community, the study of the draft Constitution of the USSR in 1964 is gaining new relevance, allowing us to look at the process of development of domestic constitutionalism more comprehensively. Theoretical analysis. The study on the development of Russian constitutionalism results in new theoretical material that can be used in Russian state building. The purpose of the publication is to summarize the experience of constitutional design of the Khrushchev Thaw period. The tasks of the research: finding the reasons for the emergence of a new need to develop the Basic Law; defining the attitude of Soviet society to the institution of the presidency; analyzing the content of the draft Constitution of the USSR in 1964. Еmpirical analysis. The end of the era of Stalinism and the beginning of the Khrushchev Thaw period required a conceptual revision of the foundations of the constitutional order in the Soviet state. During the reign of N. S. Khrushchev, there were clear trends towards decentralizing economic management and public administration, and a return to the idea of “socialist legality” became relevant. To solve these problems, the creation of an appropriate legislative base was required, which was supposed to proceed from the Basic Law of the country. However, the existing Constitution of the USSR in 1936 could not provide support for a broad liberalization of the state-party system. As a result of the challenges of the new era, the idea of adopting a new Basic law, called the “Khrushchev Constitution”, arose. Results. This article examines the development of Soviet constitutionalism during the reign of N. S. Khrushchev and concludes that the draft Constitution of the USSR of 1964 made a significant contribution to the formation of the constitutional image of the Soviet state until its collapse. In addition, the content of the “Khrushchev Constitution” allows us to emphasize its much greater democratic potential, in contrast to the USSR Constitutions of 1936 and 1977.

Vicisitudes del sistema de partidos del Estado español (1977-2011): ¿bipartidismo imperfecto, sistema de partido dominante o pluripartidismo limitado?

This paper analyzes the vicissitudes and changes experienced by the Spanish state party system from the 1977 general elections to 2011. Thus, after a brief terminological approach to the issue, it shows some generic features of the state party system and undertakes a critical examination of some of its most prominent typifications (“imperfect bipartidism,” “predominant party system” or “limited pluralism”). On the basis of such critical examination, it finally provides its own and more adequate characterization of itself

The Greek Conundrum

AbstractSyriza lost the July 2019 election in Greece to the right‐wing New Democracy Party, though it was not a crushing defeat. This article explains that although Syriza is chiefly responsible for the return of New Democracy to power, its remarkable electoral performance is because its party elites, being in power for over four years, succeeded in appropriating the state machine, establishing caucuses of power, influence and clientelism. Thus, the demise of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), upon which Syriza capitalised in full, led to the establishment of a new two (state) party system dominated by New Democracy and Syriza. The extreme left and the extreme right ceased to play a major role in this new political scene.

DECLINING SYSTEMIC TRUST IN THE POLITICAL ELITE IN THE EU’S NEW MEMBER STATES: THE DIVERGENCE BETWEEN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE AND THE BALTIC STATES

In the last decade there has been a process of rolling-back Europeanization efforts in the EU’s new member states (NMS), a process intensified by the global crisis. This de-Europeanization and de-democratization process in the NMS has become a significant part of a more general polycrisis in the EU. The backslide of democracy in the NMS as a topical issue has usually been analysed in terms of macro-politics, formal-legal state institutions, party systems, and macroeconomics. The most significant decline of democratization, however, is evident in the public’s decreasing participation in politics and in the eroding trust. This decline in systemic trust in political elites in the NMS has been largely neglected by analysts. Therefore, this paper concentrates on this relatively overlooked dimension of declining trust and social capital in the NMS. This analysis employs the concepts of governance, trust, and social capital to balance the usual formalistic top-down approach with a bottom-up approach that better illustrates the divergence between East-Central Europe and the Baltic states’ sub-regional development.

Electoral Incongruence and Delayed Republican Gains in Southern State Legislatures

This paper investigates the impact of electoral incongruence – the tendency of Democratic state legislative candidates to perform better than their co-partisans in higher-level races – on partisan control of southern legislative chambers in the 1990s and 2000s. Using precinct-level data from five southern states, I examine incongruence between presidential and state house election results and show how such incongruence delayed the Republican consolidation of power in southern legislatures during this period. I then develop and test an account of electoral incongruence focusing on the tendency of older white southerners and those living in rural areas to split their tickets across state and federal offices, particularly when given the option of voting for conservative Democratic legislative incumbents. Lastly, I explore possible reasons for electoral incongruence’s recent decline. The results of the paper provide important insights concerning the delayed Republican takeover of southern legislatures, an underexplored aspect of southern partisan change. They also speak to longstanding questions in the state politics literature about the extent of autonomy that state party systems can hope to enjoy in a highly nationalized era.

Electoral Incongruence and Delayed Republican Gains in Southern State Legislatures

This paper investigates the impact of electoral incongruence – the tendency of Democratic state legislative candidates to perform better than their co-partisans in higher-level races – on partisan control of southern legislative chambers in the 1990s and 2000s. Using precinct-level data from five southern states, I examine incongruence between presidential and state house election results and show how such incongruence delayed the Republican consolidation of power in southern legislatures during this period. I then develop and test an account of electoral incongruence focusing on the tendency of older white southerners and those living in rural areas to split their tickets across state and federal offices, particularly when given the option of voting for conservative Democratic legislative incumbents. Lastly, I explore possible reasons for electoral incongruence’s recent decline. The results of the paper provide important insights concerning the delayed Republican takeover of southern legislatures, an underexplored aspect of southern partisan change. They also speak to longstanding questions in the state politics literature about the extent of autonomy that state party systems can hope to enjoy in a highly nationalized era.

Rethinking Party System Nationalization in India (1952–2014)

This article provides a new conceptual and empirical analysis of party system nationalization, based on four different measurements. Unlike previous nationalization studies, these measurements conceptualize party system nationalization on the basis of electoral performance in national (general or federal) and sub-national (state) elections. After introducing these measurements we apply them to 16 general and 351 state elections in India, the world’s largest democracy with strong sub-national governments. By incorporating state election results we are able to demonstrate that: (1) the pattern of denationalization in India has been more gradual than assumed in previous studies of party system nationalization; (2) denationalization in recent decades results less from dual voting (vote shifting between state and federal elections) than from the growing divergence among state party systems (in state and federal elections); (3) the 2014 general election result, although potentially transformative in the long run, provides more evidence of continuity than change in the short run.

Avaliando vínculos entre partidos e deputados nas Assembleias Legislativas brasileiras

ResumoEste artigo parte do suposto de que existe expressiva variação nos vínculos estabelecidos entre legisladores e partidos no Brasil e procura explicá-la a partir de estudo realizado em 12 estados brasileiros. A variação é mensurada com o auxílio de um índice de partidarismo, construído com base em um conjunto de perguntas feitas aos representantes eleitos para as Assembleias Legislativas nas legislaturas 2007-2011 e 2011-2015. A variação encontrada é explicada em dois níveis. O primeiro remete a uma das dimensões da institucionalização dos diversos sistemas partidários estaduais: a estabilidade da competição eleitoral. O segundo remete a uma série de características individuais dos deputados, entre as quais se destaca o tempo de filiação ao partido. Ideologia, grau de particularismo no exercício do mandato e grau de progressismo relativamente a temas contemporâneos também apresentam impacto significativo e no sentido esperado sobre a variável dependente - o grau de partidarismo do deputado. As hipóteses aqui apresentadas haviam sido testadas com base em dados relativos à primeira das legislaturas acima. Ao agregar uma segunda legislatura, o presente estudo confirma e dá maior robustez aos resultados encontrados.

The Cuban Communist Party at the Center of Political and Economic Reform: Current Status and Future Reform in the Shadow of the Chinese Communist Party

Under the leadership of Raul Castro, Cuba has embarked on a series of changes that have focused on internal institutional reforms and their impact on the Cuban economy. These reforms have proven perplexing both for their ambitions and their limits. The usual explanations prove disappointing. This paper suggests that no consideration of these reforms can be complete without a study of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC), especially in comparative perspective. The thesis of this essay is that ideology is decisively important in any discussion of “reform” in Cuba. Western analysts have sought to subsume ideological issues within “transition” arguments — that ideological issues will evaporate once Cuba makes the jump from a Marxist-Leninist planned economy model to a Western oriented free market democracy. This essay argues that the inverse provides a more useful basis of analysis: that transition arguments are necessarily subsumed within ideological arguments. The ideological basis of state organization provides the key to understanding the likelihood of the success and direction of reforms to any of the sectors of state policy. The PCC’s now quite mature ideological framework has helped shape and constrain the organization and operation of the Party. That ideological framework also shapes and constrains all efforts to “reform” or develop Cuba’s economic, social or political model. Yet the tensions created by these contradictions between PCC ideology and the conditions of Cuba need not lead invariably to a choice between Marxist-Leninist and Western style democratic state organization. After the Introduction, Section II, considers the centrality of ideology to the ‘problem’ of Cuba. In Section III, the essay examines the consequences for Cuba of the choice, made by its vanguard party, to follow a distinct path toward the articulation and application of Marxism-Leninism in the organization and exercise of power. Section IV then connects the ideological path of Cuban Marxism-Leninism tio state practice. With a focus on the possibilities and constraints of the reform efforts since Raul Castro assumed power. Section V then focuses on the alternative to ideology and economic reform offered through Chinese Party and state practice. Section VI then unpacks the consequences of ideological possibilities by considering Cuban approaches in the shadow of the Chinese alternative. Lastly, Section VII weighs the consequences of the quality of the transition that is coming to Cuba, one that need not lead Cuba away from Marxist-Leninism and a Party-State system. Each is considered in turn in light of the essay’s thesis: Variations in Marxist ideology matter (no monolithic communist ideology), sustainable economic reform is possible within a Marxist Leninist State-Party system, and that ideological systemic ossification in Cuba, as in the United States, can lead to crisis and paralysis. It is in that context that one considers the questions: does the Chinese model provide a framework for Cuba? Is it too late for reform of the Cuba CP? If reform is possible, what should be its objectives and strategies?

Book review: Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico: The Other Half of the Centaur, by Wil G. Pansters (ed.)

Wil G. Pansters (ed.) Violence, Coercion, and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico: The Other Half of the Centaur, Stanford University Press, Redwood City, CA, 2012; 400 pp: 9780804781589, US$62(hbk) Mexico is still in crisis. Even if violent incidents have partly disappeared from the news since the PRI took power again in 2012, homicides have only been reduced slightly, and abductions are on the rise (Aristegui Noticias 2013). This security crisis invites us to pose new questions about Mexican state formation, and challenges what have until now been common grounds. This remarkable volume, edited by Wil G. Pansters, challenges accounts in transition studies according to which, by cleverly devised mechanisms, the Mexican governments achieved a largely peaceful transition from the authoritarian state party system of the PRI to democracy, albeit still remaining 'flawed'. It is not only precisely the parallel movement towards party plurality and more visible insecurity (p. 9), but also the electoral return to a PRI government in 2012 that emphasise this critique. Pansters aims to examine 'the interconnections and historical roots of different dimensions, actors, and manifestations of violence, coercion, and insecurity in relation to broader processes of state-making' (p. 6). Violence, thus, even if often dismissed from historical accounts of post-revolutionary Mexico as a 'dark side' (p. 8) or simply as marginal, is nonetheless essential for state formation processes in Mexico after 1910. In fact, Pansters suggests (p. 8), the emphasis on inclusive, co-opting mechanisms might have exaggerated Mexicos role as a Latin American exception and hindered a systematic analysis of violence in Mexican state-making; ultimately, it tends to underestimate the role of violence during PRI times, and to overestimate the violence, illegal economy and conflict we observe today. The so-called paxpriista--the relative stability during decades of PRI rule--therefore, might not have been all that peaceful. And by no means are forms of violence in Mexico such as torture, disappearances, and homicide new destructive practices produced solely from within the 'narco' sphere and clearly separated from the state. Partial overlaps between police and narco organisations are not entirely new, either. Accordingly, the authors try to dismantle the mainstream depiction of the Mexican state as a unitary, corporatist colossus' (p. 29) and instead, based on a Gramscian understanding of the state, stress four fields of study: violence and coercion on a national and regional/local level, and hegemonic processes on both scales as well. A body of nine texts divided into three sections is framed by an introductory essay (Part I) by the editor, and a concluding chapter by Koonings (Part V), who positions the Mexican case within a broader Latin American context. Each of the three main sections (Parts II-IV) contains three chapters. Part II focuses on three 'pillars of state-making'--borders, policing, and the army--covering large parts of the 20th century. Part III concerns a field that is usually neglected: the grey zone between state and non-state actors, state-crime relations and the production of illegalities following new accumulation strategies on a global scale. Part IV focuses on the state-society relation, including issues such as corporatist mechanisms and clientelism, but again looking at these from unusual angles. Pansters offers a systematic analysis of violence and coercion framed by Gramscian concepts, and one aware of diverging theories on the state. The consequential historical perspective compels him to integrate historical peculiarities of Latin American state formation processes. A processual understanding of Gramsci's concept of hegemony allows for relating historical dynamics of state and society, class and violence (p. 26). While Pansters differentiates analytically between 'zones of coercion' and 'zones of hegemony/ consent' (p. …

La part du lion : les dessous du ralentissement économique chinois

Le plan de relance qui a suivi la crise globale, en 2009-2010, avec une expansion considerable du credit, a marque la fin de la « Chine bon marche », avec la sous-evaluation du travail, du capital, du terrain, de l’energie, et de la monnaie, tout en desequilibrant fortement la croissance au profit du secteur public et de l’immobilier, la part du lion de l’Etat-Parti. Le processus actuel de desendettement doit regler les problemes d’inegalites majeures qui derivent des distorsions dans l’allocation de ressources et des fonctions respectives du gouvernement central et des gouvernements locaux.

Individualismo e partidarismo em doze estados brasileiros

O artigo procura explicar a variação na relação entre deputados e partidos em doze estados brasileiros. Tal variação é mensurada com o auxílio de um índice de partidarismo, construído com base em um conjunto de perguntas feitas aos representantes eleitos para as Assembleias Legislativas em 2006. A variação encontrada é explicada em dois níveis. O primeiro remete a uma das dimensões da institucionalização dos diversos sistemas partidários estaduais: a estabilidade da competição eleitoral. O segundo diz respeito às características dos deputados, tais como tempo de filiação, tipo de partido pelo qual foi eleito, grau de particularismo no exercício do mandato, grau de progressismo relativamente a temas contemporâneos e polêmicos.

'Order, Discipline and Exigency': Cuba's VIth Party Congress, the Lineamientos (Guidelines) and Structural Change in Education, Sport and Culture?

The Lineamientos de la politica economica y social del partido y la Revolucion approved April 2011 has the potential to significantly alter the social, economic and political organization of the Cuban state. Though they remain true to the fundamentals of the Marxist-Leninist State-Party system, the Lineamientos conceive anew the normative basis of state operation. This essay examines the Social Politics (Politica Social) provisions of the Lineamientos. These target the great cultural-political achievements of the Revolution — medical care, education, culture, sport, social security, employment policy and state subsidies. In effect, these serve as the ideological heart, as well as the barometer of changes in the fundamental Party line and its effectuation. The essay starts with a consideration of the Linemamientos provisions of Politica Social as they relate to education, health, sport and culture. It will consider these Guidelines in light of those initially proposed and explore the extent of the changes within the framework of the Lineamientoset as a whole. The second part of the essay examines what these changes suggest in terms of the place and character of education, sport and culture within evolving Cuban state policy and suggest what the changes may mean for the future course of the development of Cuban State-Party system. First, the Lineamientos themselves were developed in response to the recognition that the current economic model was both tied to the economic development needs of the State (as represented in the economic provisions of the Lineamientos themselves) and, like the current economic model, unsustainable in its present form. Second, Second, it is not clear how effective the State will be in bending education to the needs of Cuban industry. Third, it suggests that the earlier expenditure on brick and mortar projects — large school buildings and other substantial infrastructure, now has become something of a drag on the ability of the state to deliver education efficiently. Fourth, Cuba is now wrestling with the consequences of globalization and the technological revolution that made globalization possible. Fifth, the public focus on family involvement as a critical component of education, and education reform, cannot be exaggerated. Sixth, the Lineamientos reaffirms and continues the long tradition of centralized control of education and the importance of the political education of Cuban citizens in socialism. And lastly, the emphasis on the connection between education, culture, and sport and revenue generation can have a potentially significant effect on the delivery of these services to the population. More generally I will suggest that the education, sport and culture Lineamientos parallel similar issues facing developed states, including the United States.

Federalized Party Systems and Subnational Party Competition: Theory and an Empirical Application to Argentina

In 1949 V.O. Key wrote about the importance of state-level one-party in the southern United States for organizing local authoritarian rule in a nationally competitive party system.1 Key's study documented a phenomenon that continues to pose theoretical puzzles to contemporary scholarship on party systems: the simultaneous existence of competitive party politics and noncompetitive party politics in one national party system. In addition to documenting U.S. party system dynamics at the subnational level that were distinct from those at the national level, Key also uncovered important institutional interac tions between noncompetitive state party systems and the competitive national party system. These findings (and many others that followed about U.S. state party politics) pro vided significant possibilities for theory building about parties and party systems. How ever, this theoretical promise was stifled by two subsequent developments in political science. The first was the impermeability of boundaries between American and com parative politics, which relieved Americanist scholars of the burdens of generalization and comparative theory builders of the burden of paying close attention to U.S evidence. The second was the theoretical development of comparative literatures on party systems, whose most influential scholars overlooked or rejected the incorporation of subnational contexts into their theorizing about party systems. As a result, scholars of American politics developed an extensive empirical literature on state party politics while com parative theorizing about parties and party systems remained oblivious to the theoretical implications of this trend. Today there is new interest in how and why the quality of democracy varies across subnational territorial units of countries.2 Party system dynamics are a crucial piece of the puzzle. However, the comparative literature on parties and party systems offers few theoretical tools to scholars interested in this topic. This is because in that theoretical tradition party systems are conceived of and measured nationally. Their systemic prop erties are assessed at the national level, and the indicators used to measure those proper ties (usually votes for national offices or seats in national legislatures) are national. This practice has created a situation of conceptual and measurement incompleteness that hinders new discoveries in the study of party competition across jurisdictional bound aries of the nation-state. 21

Ideological polarization in a decentralized party system: Explaining interstate differences

During the past decade scholars have noted growing ideological polarization between Democratic and Republican Party elites in the United States. This trend has occurred in a party system traditionally characterized as decentralized. This paper examines whether the trend towards partisan polarization noted by scholars at the national level has affected state party systems in similar ways. Are some state party systems more polarized than others? The paper uses a classification scheme of state party systems developed by David Mayhew to try to explain interstate differences in partisan polarization. The paper concludes that states with political environments that supported pragmatic and non-ideological traditional party organizations are less polarized in the modern era than states without such environments.

The Soviet Century

The USSR may no longer exist, but its history remains highly relevant--perhaps today more so than ever. Yet it is a history which for a long time proved impossible to write, not simply due to the lack of accessible documentation, but also because it lay at the heart of an ideological confrontation which obscured the reality of the Soviet regime. In The Soviet Century, Moshe Lewin traces this history in all its complexity, drawing widely upon archive material previously unavailable. Highlighting key factors such as demography, economics, culture and political repression, Lewin guides us through the inner workings of a system which is still barely understood. In the process he overturns widely held beliefs about the USSR's leaders, the State-Party system and the Soviet bureaucracy--the "tentacled octopus" which held the real power. Departing from a simple linear history, The Soviet Century takes in all the continuities and ruptures that led, via a complex route, from the founding revolution of October 1917 to the final collapse of the late 1980s and early 1990s, passing through the Stalinist dictatorship and the impossible reforms of the Khrushchev years.

The Limits of Anti‐Drug Policy in Mexico

The Mexican State's involvement in the fight against drugs has gone through several stages marked chiefly by legal and police action in keeping with the model of United States inspiration instituted in the early twentieth century. This paper seeks to show some of the limits to that model, built up in recent years by growing military participation, when the special history of the relationship between drug trafficking and the political authorities in a State party system is left out of account. There are also limits to the freedom of action of the President elected on 2 July 2000 and his government team, who do not belong to the State party, when it comes to determining the content and direction of anti‐drug policy.

Registration, Turnout, and State Party Systems

Registration, Turnout, and State Party Systems

Registration, Turnout, and State Party Systems

This study reexamines the influence of party elite liberalism on voter participation across the American states. Incorporating Hill and Leighley's measure of liberal party control, we offer a framework that places party elites as an important component in the state electoral setting. However, this effort departs from previous work by suggesting that studies of voter mobilization should pay greater attention to participation as a multi-stage process, where citizens must first register. Our results con form to expectations driven by this conceptualization. States with more liberal Democratic elites and more Democratic legislatures witness higher levels of registration, controlling for other factors. We find that the influ ence of liberal party control on state turnout is indirect, operating through registration. Our results are consistent with a view of party elite ideology as a long-term, rather than campaign-specific, component of state electoral politics. More generally, the analyses provide new insight into influences on aggregate registration and turnout and into the electoral participation across the United States of different income classes.