Local Parties In Political And Organizational Perspective

Analyzes relations between political party systems and local communities in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and other nations. This book addresses an almost completely neglected branch of community politics: the comparative analysis of local political systems. Accordingly, Local Parties in Political and Organizational Perspective opens new views to a variety of relations between political systems and local communities in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, and other nations. The authors unite specific national case studies with an original theoretical framework, resulting in an anthology with uncommon coherency. Theoretical generalizations are tested with cross-national data; each case study, in turn, demonstrates a localized version of the larger framework, using specific historical political outcomes as examples. This book addresses an almost completely neglected branch of community politics: the comparative analysis of local political systems. Accordingly, Local Parties in Political and Organizational Perspective opens new views to a variety of relations between political systems and local communities in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, and other nations. The authors unite specific national case studies with an original theoretical framework, resulting in an anthology with uncommon coherency. Theoretical generalizations are tested with cross-national data; each case study, in turn, demonstrates a localized version of the larger framework, using specific historical political outcomes as examples. Local Parties in Political and Organizational Perspective argues that local political parties should be understood as Janus-faced: components of nationally encompassing organizations on the one hand, and specific actors in community politics on the other. As such, local parties necessarily act as the primary democratic institutions that link ordinary citizens to local governmental institutions, and transitively to the national political system. By linking ordinary citizens and the most basic local organizations with national politics, Local Parties in Political and Organizational Perspective adds significantly to the collective understanding of the nature and status of local parties in mature and developing democracies

Martin R. Saiz (Author) , Hans Geser (Author)

Theoretical Orientation And Empirical Observations; The Local Party as an Object of Interdisciplinary Comparative Study: Some Steps Toward Theoretical Integration (Hans Geser); Local Parties in Comparative Perspective (Peter John and Martin Saiz); Local Political Parties In Local And National Context; Civic Parties in Canada: Their Diversity and Evolution (Pierre Filion); Local Parties in England: Development and Change 19731994 (Colin Rollings and Michael Thrasher); Local Parties in the German Countryside (Herbert Schneider); Local Parties and Electioneering in Germany: Local Political Messages in an Era of Nationalized Political Communication (Susan E. Scarrow); Do Political Parties Matter in U.S. Cities? (Martin Saiz); Forms of Patronage and Political Parties in the Italian City (Annick Magnier); Local Parties in Switzerland: An Active Pillar of the Swiss Political System (Andreas Ladner); Local Party Organizations in Denmark: Crisis or Adaptation? (Roger Buch Jensen); The Local Party System in Poland (Zbigniew Zychowicz); From Communist Predominance to Multi-party System: The Change in the Local Party System in Russia, 1986-1995 (Sabine Kropp); Conclusion; Political Parties in National and Local Context (Martin Saiz)