Van Biezen Research Articles

Private electoral finance and democratic theory

Private electoral finance and democratic theory

Saward’s Concept of the Representative Claim Revisited: An Empirical Perspective

Representation is a process of making, accepting, or rejecting representative claims (Disch, 2015; Saward, 2014). This groundbreaking insight challenged the standard assumption that representative democracy can be reduced to elections and activities of elected representatives (Pitkin, 1967). It broadened the scope of representative democracy to encompass representation activities beyond those authorized by elections, transformed our thinking and provided a new perspective, putting claims and their reception into the center. This paradigm shift erased the distinction between elected and non-elected representatives and disclosed the potential of non-elected actors’ claims to represent (Andeweg, 2003; Kuyper, 2016; Rosanvallon & Goldhammer, 2008; Saward, 2006, 2009; Van Biezen & Saward, 2008). In spite of this lively debate, we identify an important gap in the literature: while this paradigmatic shift inspired many authors, conceptual <em>frameworks that can be applied for systematic empirical analysis of real-life cases</em> are missing. In this article, we fill this gap and propose frameworks for assessing and validating a variety of real-life claims. Our study provides empirical substance to the ongoing theoretical debates, helping to translate the mainly theoretical ‘claim approach’ into empirical research tools. It helps to transform the conventional wisdom about what representation can (not) be and shines a new light on the potential future of (claims on) representation.

Induction, Bridging, or Straight Ahead: The Ongoing Dilemma of Allografting in Advanced Myelodysplastic Syndrome

Induction, Bridging, or Straight Ahead: The Ongoing Dilemma of Allografting in Advanced Myelodysplastic Syndrome

Registry based retrospective analysis of bendamustine conditioned second autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplants for relapsed myeloma

e164 PO-144 Registry based retrospective analysis of bendamustine conditioned second autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplants for relapsed myeloma L. Floro, R. Benjamin, A. van Biezen, L. Koster, S. Iacobelli, S. Schoenland, N. Kroeger, L. Gardereton behalf of the Plasma Cell Disorder subcommittee of the EBMT Chronic Malignancy Working Party Kings College Hospital, London, United Kingdom; EBMT Data Office, Leyden, Netherlands; University of Rome, Rome, Italy; University Hospital, Heidelberg; University Hospital, Hamburg, Germany; Saint Antoine Hospital, Paris, France

Tavits, Margit. Post-Communist Democracies and Party Organization (review)

SEER, 92, 3, JULY 2014 580 people believed, others colluded, and still others resisted, but this is true, he argues, of ‘any power regime’. In order to understand the specificities of state socialism, it is necessary to explore ‘people’s various interactions, and their unexpected, surprising, and often contradictory outcomes, unfolding within the various social contexts organized, accepted, or even encouraged by the regime itself’ (p. 248). The strongest chapters in this collection take up Poenaru’s challenge to resist dichotomy. Socialist Escapes is a very welcome addition to a growing literature on tourism, leisure and the pleasures and challenges of daily life under Communism. Department of History Anne E. Gorsuch University of British Columbia Tavits, Margit. Post-Communist Democracies and Party Organization. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 2013. viii + 289 pp. Figures. Tables. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. Index. £19.99: $32.99 (paperback). Scholars of party politics in Central and Eastern Europe have tended to downplay the importance of party organization. Members and an extensive network of party branches seemed so passé, so twentieth-century. Not only did notable authorities such as Attila Ágh, Petr Kopecký, Paul Lewis, Peter Mair and Ingrid van Biezen argue that new parties in the region were unlikely to build organizational structures, but they tapped into the conventional wisdom that parties in the new democracies did not need them. In her pioneering and path-breaking study Margit Tavits argues cogently against this view, showing that strong party organization really does matter for party success, longevity and durability. Post-Communist Democracies and Party Organization focuses on three components of party organization: organizational extensiveness (i.e. the number of local branches), membership size and activism and the professionalization of the central organization (i.e. the size of the central-office paid staff). Tavits employs a blend of qualitative and quantitative methods to great effect: there is hard core number-crunching using some sophisticated statistical approaches, but this is combined with detailed studies of parties in the four countries at the heart of her study: Estonia, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. By looking in detail at the contrasting fortunes of parties through paired comparisons and narratives, she shows that organizational strength enhances parties’ chances of electoral success and survival. She not only highlights the relationship, but seeks to tease out the mechanisms which make this happen. Tavits points out that if a member of parliament belongs to a party with a strong organization not only can he/she rely on the party’s REVIEWS 581 reputation and resources to get reelected, but also the stronger the party the more ‘credible and effective is its threat to withdraw the electoral benefits (i.e. expel or demote the legislator) if a legislator undermines party unity’ (p. 10). Tavits takes the study of party organization one step further by then asking, given the positive effects of party organizational strength, why do only some parties build strong organizations? She notes that ‘[p]arty leaders face a nontrivial dilemma: by strengthening their party organization on the ground in different electoral districts, they potentially improve its electability, and possible survival chances. However, they simultaneously risk losing intraparty power to the organizationally strong subunits’ (p. 151). Post-Communist Democracies and Party Organization is an outstanding book, but two criticisms deserve to be levelled. Tavits is making a case for the importance of party organization across Central and Eastern Europe, but are her four cases the best to explore the hypotheses and illustrate the arguments? A case could be made that Bulgaria might have been worth looking at because of the striking variation between one side of the spectrum dominated by one party since 1989 and the other side which has shown significant churn. Equally, the case of Slovakia illustrates that even with well-developed party organizations some parties like the Communist-successor Party of the Democratic Left and Mečiar’s Movement for a Democratic Slovakia have perished. In neither case does Tavits’s distinction between ‘professional’ and ‘amateur’ leadership style help explain the life-cycles of these parties, although to be fair, her overall stress on the role of agency does seem to hold the key to the fate of these...

The cartel party and the state

This article focuses on the nature and strength of the relationship between political parties and the state. Expanding on the analytical framework we developed earlier (van Biezen and Kopecký, 2007), we identify three different dimensions of the party–state linkage: the dependence of parties on the state, the management of parties by the state, and the capture of the state by parties. We provide an updated cross-national empirical analysis of the relationship between political parties and the state in contemporary European democracies, building on two recently developed datasets on party regulation and party patronage. Our analysis underscores the considerable importance of the state for political parties in general, but also highlights important differences between the older democracies, and the more recently established democracies that emerged in the third wave of democratization. We show that the different dimensions of the party–state linkage do not necessarily work in the same direction, which suggests that the assumption of a close relationship between parties and the state ultimately undermining the democratic legitimacy of political parties requires some qualification.

‘Divide et Impera’? Office Accumulation in State-wide Parties and the Process of Decentralization in Spain

Most recent studies about internal power distribution within state-wide parties in previous unitary countries, like Spain, show that they have changed less than was initially expected. But how national party leaders are able to counteract the decentralizing pressures that the first studies in this field underlined must still be explained. In this article we reformulate a mechanism for national political leaders to keep their parliamentary parties under control that Van Biezen has suggested for new European democracies. We argue that keeping party and public offices apart at the regional level is a vital part of a chain of command whereby national party leaders are able to control their party's regional governments. Using a quantitative analysis of national and regional elites for the first time we show that office overlapping is thus substantially less intense at the regional level than at the national level in the two main Spanish state-wide parties, and that this feature is related to regional politicians' degree of autonomy. Still, this ‘divide et impera’ strategy is employed less over time.

The Penicillium Chrysogenum Extracellular Proteome. Conversion from a Food-rotting Strain to a Versatile Cell Factory for White Biotechnology

The filamentous fungus Penicillium chrysogenum is well-known by its ability to synthesize β-lactam antibiotics as well as other secondary metabolites. Like other filamentous fungi, this microorganism is an excellent host for secretion of extracellular proteins because of the high capacity of its protein secretion machinery. In this work, we have characterized the extracellular proteome reference map of P. chrysogenum Wisconsin 54-1255 by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. This method allowed the correct identification of 279 spots by peptide mass fingerprinting and tandem MS. These 279 spots included 328 correctly identified proteins, which corresponded to 131 different proteins and their isoforms. One hundred and two proteins out of 131 were predicted to contain either classical or nonclassical secretion signal peptide sequences, providing evidence of the authentic extracellular location of these proteins. Proteins with higher representation in the extracellular proteome were those involved in plant cell wall degradation (polygalacturonase, pectate lyase, and glucan 1,3-β-glucosidase), utilization of nutrients (extracellular acid phosphatases and 6-hydroxy-d-nicotine oxidase), and stress response (catalase R). This filamentous fungus also secretes enzymes specially relevant for food industry, such as sulfydryl oxidase, dihydroxy-acid dehydratase, or glucoamylase. The identification of several antigens in the extracellular proteome also highlights the importance of this microorganism as one of the main indoor allergens. Comparison of the extracellular proteome among three strains of P. chrysogenum, the wild-type NRRL 1951, the Wis 54-1255 (an improved, moderate penicillin producer), and the AS-P-78 (a penicillin high-producer), provided important insights to consider improved strains of this filamentous fungus as versatile cell-factories of interest, beyond antibiotic production, for other aspects of white biotechnology.

Television, Democracy and Elections in Russia by Sarah Oates (review)

766 SEER, 86, 4, OCTOBER 2008 Despite these, and other, shortcomings, Runaway State-Building is a signifi cant and substantive monograph which develops a valuable link between state building and party competition, and presents important findings. It is a recommended read for those interested in state-building and patronage innew democracies, as well as party scholars more generally. Department ofPolitical Science& International Studies Ingrid van Biezen Universityof Birmingham Oates, Sarah. Television,Democracy andElections inRussia. BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies, 27. Roudedge, London and New York, 2006. xv + 222 pp. Figures. Tables. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. ?65.00. Television is the primary means of top-down political communication in Russia today. Slick, careful, pro-government reporting and analysis present reality as the Kremlin sees it, and Russians, by and large, accept this state-of affairs with resignation. Sarah Oates's study shows us how this came about, using an impressive array of interviews with media professionals, focus-group findings and survey data. An enormous amount of work, supported by several major research grants, has gone into this book. Oates analyses three elements in the process of political communication: media environment, content and audience. In tackling the first of these, she finds that although media law seems to provide for freedom of speech, in reality journalists face multiple constraints on their independence and professional freedom. Both state officials and owners of commercial or semi commercial media oudets use themedia to promote political and corporate interests.For journalists who engage indaring or confrontational investigative reporting, there is a high risk of being fired, and the persistent offender runs the risk of being physically attacked or even murdered. Oates's focus is on TV election coverage and political advertising. She analyses approximately one month of evening news programmes on the lead ing state-owned channel, ORT, and the leading commercial channel, NTV, during each of three Duma and three presidential election campaigns from 1995 through 2004. Concurrently, she examines a selection of the paid political advertising and free-time spots provided toparties under election law. In the 1995-96 election season the state or state interests did not have a controlling stake in NTV. Although NTV had taken a critical stance on thewar inChechnya in 1995, both channels rallied toEl'tsin's support in the crucial 1996 presidential election, eschewing any pretence at objectivity. The loyalist trend continued during the 1999 and 2000 election season, and moves during Putin's first term against oligarchs with television interests eliminated the few remaining pockets of editorial independence. By 2003, Kremlin dominance of all national TV channels appeared to have been consolidated. Oates uses focus-groups to tap into viewers' responses. These included a series of twenty-four focus groups before and after the 2000 presidential elec tions, as well as ten focus groups after the 2004 election. Participants were REVIEWS 767 asked about the role of themedia, their own viewing habits, and specifically about whether or not themedia influenced theirvote.Most showed awareness of bias on television and of deliberate attempts tomanipulate public opinion. An oil worker said of the 2000 campaign 'There was the impression that only one man was really running, i.e. Putin [...] It didn't beat you over the head, itwas very competent [eto ne v lob delaetsya, a ochen' gramotno]' (p. 145). Some participants admitted being influenced by what they watched even though theyknew the informationwas one-sided. Others appeared to accept bias as natural: theirprincipal criticismswere not about a lack of objectivity but about the negativity of themedia. Focus-group findings such as these can enhance our sensitivity to the Russian audience, but do not prove that TV carries the vote. On this point, Oates turns to survey data. She organized an opinion survey dedicated tomedia issues in 2001, updated by an additional survey in the winter of 2003/04. Her 2001 data snowed that themedian Russian adult watched two to three hours of television on a weekday, and four tofive hours on days off.The 2003/04 survey showed thatmore than four-fifths of respon dents heard about politics on television either daily or several times a week. She presents regressions showing that, controlling for demographic...

Democratic Theorists and Party Scholars: Why They Don't Talk to Each Other, and Why They Should

Despite their importance to one another, the current literatures on political parties and normative democratic theory continue to develop largely in mutual isolation. Empirical studies of contemporary political parties and party systems tend to have little to say about the meanings and possibilities of democracy, and therefore also about the varied potential roles of political parties within it. Meanwhile, contemporary democratic theorists quietly sidestep the issue of whether political parties perform a legitimate function in democracies. This lack of mutual engagement is regrettable, in particular given the pervasive erosion of popular support and legitimacy of political parties as representative institutions. In this article we explore the key reasons for democratic theorists and scholars of political parties so rarely taking on each others' core concerns, and we outline the key ways in which this mutual disengagement is mutually impoverishing. We will also suggest ways forward, by pinpointing and illustrating potentially productive areas of engagement which might serve to deepen our understanding of democracy's present and its possible futures.Ingrid van Biezen is Reader in Comparative Politics at the University of Birmingham, UK (i.c.vanbiezen@bham.ac.uk). Michael Saward is Professor of Politics at the Open University, UK (m.j.saward@open.ac.uk). The authors are grateful to Richard S. Katz and Jeremy Jennings and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. In developing our arguments, we also benefited from conversations with Robert Dahl, Russell Dalton, Ian Shapiro, workshop participants at the ECPR Joint Sessions, and graduate students at Yale University. Part of this research was supported by the British Academy (research grant SG 38612).

Political Parties After Communism: Developments in East-Central Europe and Political Parties in New Democracies: Party Organization in Southern and East-Central Europe

Political Parties After Communism: Developments in East-Central Europe. By Tomáš Kostelecký. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002. 240p. $25.95.Political Parties in New Democracies: Party Organization in Southern and East-Central Europe. By Ingrid van Biezen. New York: Palgrave, 2003. 256p. $69.95.Much previous work on political parties and party systems in new democracies has examined them as a means to democratic consolidation and regime stability. Two new studies seek to give finer-grain comparative analysis of party development in the relatively successful new democracies of Southern and East Central Europe. Tomáš Kostelecký's Political Parties After Communism aims to give a broad overview of the development of party politics in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Kostelecký first outlines the historical evolution of parties in the four cases from the midnineteenth century until the collapse of communism and then gives a detailed survey of the development of parties and electoral politics between 1989 and 2002. Subsequent chapters take a more thematic approach, reviewing and synthesizing a range of research to assess the impact of political culture, historical legacies, social cleavages, and the institutional “rules of the game” on party development. A concluding chapter weights these different factors and seeks to highlight broader trends across the region. These are then contrasted with current patterns of party development in Western Europe.

Russian parties and the political internet

Russian parties and the political internet

Political Parties in New Democracies: Party Organization in Southern and East-Central Europe by Ingrid s> van Biezen (review)

386 SEER, 82, 2, 2004 is not quite a history.What is missingfor this revieweris the pain of historical change, which reaches bitterly into the present. Even so staid a paper as the Helsingin Sanomat reflects, in its correspondence column and sometimes in its editorials, this pain. It is the pain of people living year in, year out in temporary and often part-time jobs and being in consequence no longer creditworthy, paying rents that are far too high for them and with little prospect of gaining, let alone maintaining, a loan for a place of theirown. It is the ever-present threat of the lay-off (yes, its starting again) for many other individualsof diverseskills,including graduates.It is the clamour of the Metal Workers'Union for state help for branches of industrythat might otherwise be in danger of being transferredelsewhere. In the meantime, the tax-cutting mania is affectingallpoliticalpartiesin line with the neo-liberalistichope that if you cut taxes deeply enough the economy will grow and with it, automatically,an adequate enough taxbase, too. What is adequate? The authors are aware of the most strikingmanifestation of the lesions in the Finnish economy, the persistence and threatening rise of structural unemployment. And they are acquaintedwith the volume, publishedin 200 I, by the Academy of Finlandand entitledDownfrom theHeavens, upfrom the Ashes, in which the welfare state, for all its wear and tear, is still seen as the safetynet . Long may it so remain. But chapter six of the Academy's reportbreathes a spiritof 'powerlessnessand inability'to find alternativesto the strainsof the present. What this means is thatthe losersin society,whetherstrugglingalong or pensioned-off, do have a case. Leaving aside the human interest (thereis always the welfare state for them), the losers are indicating a failure, a set of failures,in much of the restof the Finnishinfra-structure. At the beginning of the text, the authors, going back to the economic crisis of the early i990s, averthat 'irreversiblechanges'have consequentlyoccurred. Afterreading thisbook, I would stillliketo help to reversethem and as a start I would liketo pay more taxes. Mari Rantanen and Markus Itkonen are to be congratulated for their beautifulcover design of the stimulatingbook entitledDynamic Finland. University ofTurku GEORGE MAUDE Finland van Biezen, Ingrid. PoliticalPartiesin New Democracies: PartyOrganization in Southern andEast-Central Europe.Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, and New York, 2003. xv + 255 pp. Tables. Notes. List of Party Acronyms. Bibliography.Index. C50.??. POLITICAL parties matter. They are integral to the functioning of modern democracies, both in their establishedand newly formedvarieties. In Political Partiesin New Democracies Ingrid van Biezen examines party formation and organizational development in four thirdwavedemocracies: Spain, Portugal, Hungary and the Czech Republic. After two opening chapters exploring comparative analyticalframeworks,the book examines each of the four case studiesin turnbeforedrawingthe threadstogetherin threechaptersdedicated to identifyingcross-nationalpatterns. REVIEWS 387 The chaptersdevoted to Hungary and the Czech Republic arepackedwith a cornucopia of interestingdata and analysis.Van Biezen, for example, charts the organizational development of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSzP) showing how the Communist-successorparty attempted not only to distance itself from Communist ideology, but also to aim at a radical break in its organization through such mechanisms as decentralization and promoting the establishmentof differentinternalfactionsand platforms.MSzP, however, was not immune from the prevailing tendency in Hungarian party organization of an increasinglystrongparty executive. Emblematic of this change was FIDESZ's transmogrificationfromits initialloosely organizedform. Political Parties inNewDemocracies containsinterestingstatisticsdemonstrating the decline in political party membership in the Czech Republic despite the requirements of membership for many parties being little more than supporting the party's programme and paying one's membership fee. Lowlevel membership has had a knock-on effect in terms of the number of candidates running for public office. In the I998 local elections, for instance, politicalpartieswith parliamentaryrepresentationfieldedjust 25.7 per cent of the candidates. Central to van Biezen's book is her desire to discern where power lies in parties in new democracies. Her initial hypothesis suggests that we would expect the partyin public office (asopposed to the extra-parliamentaryparty) to be particularlyascendant because the parties are newly created, acquiring parliamentaryrepresentation at a very early stage of their development; but also thanks to their institutional rather than societal origins; and in part a...

The Communist Successor Parties of Central and Eastern Europe by A. Bozóki J. T. Ishiyama (review)

388 SEER, 82, 2, 2004 important role in the formation of political parties in the other half of the common state, the future of Czechoslovakiawas central to political debate in the federalstate in the I990- 1992 period. To ignore that factor is to leave out a centralpiece of thejigsaw. Nevertheless, it would be churlish to focus too much attention on these criticisms. Van Biezen has produced an excellent book, full of thoughtful insights furnishedwith a wealth of empirical detail which will be of interest notjust to area studiesexperts,but to a widerpolitical science audience. Centrefor Russian andEastEuropean Studies TIMHAUGHTON European Research Institute University ofBirmingham Bozoki, A. and Ishiyama,J. T. (eds). TheCommunist Successor Partiesof Central and EasternEurope.M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, 2002. xvii + 50I PP. Tables. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography.Index. ?75.50. EVERsince the collapse of Communism in Europe John Ishiyama has been making a thorough study of the successors of Communism's ruling parties. Now Andras Bozoki and he have produced what is likely to be the standard comparative work on the topic. The team of authors is extremely strong. Whilst the material and arguments that they bring may be familiarto many readers,the value of the workis in the synthesis. The editors set out to find answersto three questions. First,to what extent did the Communistlegacy impact on the adaptationstrategiesof the successor parties? Second, to what extent did the dynamics of the transition process affect the competition that they faced? And third, to what extent was adaptation affected by electoral performance? This gives the symposium a framework,which works. The comments that follow addressthe question of perspective alwaysa problem in a workwrittenby a number of authors. In many a symposium there is a problem of not seeing the wood for the trees. Here, I suspect, the problem is ratherone of knowing what constitutes the wood. A clear category of 'Communist party' was given us by the Comintern, by a sphere of Soviet dominance, and by a recognizable style of politics which enabled the category to embrace parties that lay (and lie) beyond that dominance. The category of 'Communist successorparty' is far less clear;we knowwhat a party is, but notions of Communist and succession are now muddy, to say the least. The category still has value, if only to attest one of the constants of politics the astonishingability of politicalparties to endure through time as organizations, surviving major upheavals and doctrinal turnabouts. But so varied are both the origins of the Communist successorparties and their experiences since the collapse of Communist rule in Europe, that any study of their present state can only be a map, plotting their diversityratherthan examining a categorical core. Clues can be sought to their current success or lack of it, and those clues can be ranked in importance (the book goes a good way down this track, with organization emerging as a favouredclue), but they remain multiple and refractory. REVIEWS 389 Another favouredclue presented may conceal problems.In historicalterms those partiespassed, as itwere, througha funnel constitutedby the Comintern and the Cold War. They entered the funnel from widely disparate starting points and, once emerging from the funnel, they began to diverge again. Herbert Kitschelt, in this work and elsewhere, has built on this idea (though not the funnel image itself). But not even he or not in thisbook develops the full implications of this. One implication concerns the term 'successor party' itself. Except in a very simple and analytically barren sense, the Communist Partyof Bohemia and Moravia is no more a successorof the prewar , and then Cold WarCPCz than today'sGerman Social-Democratic Party is a successorof the SPD of Engels's day. It is the same party (apartfrom the loss of the Slovakelement, which does not affectthis argument)and let not the defenders of the organization thesisgainsay this, since it makes theirpoint. It is history and geopolitics that in fact created two of the three types nationalist-patriotic and pragmatic reform parties that the book derives from a studyof the post-Communist 'succession'period. And it is a sensitivity to history that suggeststhat the label given for the book's third type -leftist retreat, embracing the Communist Party of Bohemia and...

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

REVIEWS OF BOOKS Get access The Middle Byzantine Kanon-Notation of Manuscript H. By J. van Biezen. A Palæographic Study with a Transcription of the Melodies of 13 Kanons and a Triodion. pp. 141. ( Creyghton, Bilthoven, 1968, fl.40.00.) M. V. M. V. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Music and Letters, Volume L, Issue 4, October 1969, Pages 482–485, https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/L.4.482 Published: 01 October 1969