Political parties and democratic linkage: how parties organize democracy

Political Parties and Democratic Linkage examines how political parties ensure the functioning of the democratic process in contemporary societies. Based on unprecedented cross-national data, the authors find that the process of party government is still alive and well in most contemporary democracies. Is theparty over? Parties are the central institutions of representative democracy,but critics increasingly claim that parties are failing to perform their democratic functions. This book assembles unprecedented cross-national evidence toassess how parties link the individual citizen to the formation of governments and then to government policies. Using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and other recent cross-national data, the authors examine the workings of this partylinkage process across established and new democracies. Political parties still dominate the electoral process in shaping the discourse of campaigns, the selection of candidates, and mobilizing citizens to vote. Equally striking, parties link citizen preferences to the choice of representatives, withstrong congruence between voter and party Left/Right positions. These preferences are then translated in the formation of coalition governments and their policies.The authors argue that the critics of parties have overlooked the ability of political parties to adapt to changing conditions in order to perform their crucial linkage functions. As the context of politics and societies have changed, so too have political parties. Political Parties and Democratic Linkage argues that the process of party government is alive and well in most contemporary democracies. Political Parties and Democratic Linkage offers a valiant defence of the often lamented role of parties in contemporary democratic processes.Dalton, Farrell and McAllister argue that despite their poor public image, parties still dominate elections, that newly incumbent governments are more closely connected to citizen preferences than their predecessors in office, and that voter opinion, operating through parties, matters for policy outputs. This is an important book forstudents of parties as well as for students of democracy. INDICE: Part I: INTRODUCTION Parties and Representative Government Part II: PARTIES AND ELECTION CAMPAIGNS Parties and Electoral Institutions Party Mobilization and Campaign Participation Part III: ELECTORAL CHOICE Citizens and their Policy Preferences Party Images and Party Linkage Voter Choice and Partisan Representation Part IV: PARTIES IN GOVERNMENT Government Formation and Democratic Representation Party Policies and Policy Outputs Part V: CONCLUSION Party Evolution Index

• ISBN: 978-0-19-959935-6
• Editorial: Oxford University
• Encuadernacion: Cartoné
• Páginas: 256
• Fecha Publicación: 29/09/2011
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés