Party System Change in Legislatures Worldwide : Moving Outside the Electoral Arena / Carol Mershon, Olga Shvetsova.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mershon, Carol, author.

Shvetsova, Olga (Olga Vitalievna), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Party affiliation--Cross-cultural studies.

Party affiliation.

Political parties--Cross-cultural studies.

Political parties.

Legislators--Cross-cultural studies.

Legislators.

Legislative bodies--Cross-cultural studies.

Legislative bodies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 222 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this book, Carol Mershon and Olga Shvetsova explore one of the central questions in democratic politics: how much autonomy do elected politicians have to shape and reshape the party system on their own, without the direct involvement of voters in elections? Mershon and Shvetsova's theory focuses on the choices of party membership made by legislators while serving in office. It identifies the inducements and impediments to legislators' changes of partisan affiliation, and integrates strategic and institutional approaches to the study of parties and party systems. With empirical analyses comparing nine countries that differ in electoral laws, territorial governance and executive-legislative relations, Mershon and Shvetsova find that strategic incumbents have the capacity to reconfigure the party system as established in elections. Representatives are motivated to bring about change by opportunities arising during the parliamentary term, and are deterred from doing so by the elemental democratic practice of elections.

Contents:

List of figures

List of tables

Preface

Acknowledgments

Part one. The prospect of party system change between elections

The phenomenon of party and party system change

How parliamentary party system change matters for policy

Why and how individual incumbents change legislative party systems

Part two. Discerning mechanisms through case studies

Legislators' pursuit of benefits and legislative party system change

Avoidance of electoral costs and stability in parliamentary parties

Part three. Generalizing in a broader empirical setting

Setting up the analysis of one hundred and ten parliaments

Institutional inducements and preference-based deterrents to legislative party system change

Comparative statistics : where our assumptions may not apply

Conclusions

Bibliography

Parliamentary records

Newspapers and periodicals

Other primary and secondary sources

Appendixes

Author Index

Subject index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

1-139-89013-1

1-107-24091-3

1-107-25063-3

1-107-56960-5

1-107-24814-0

1-107-24980-5

0-511-98290-9

1-107-24731-4

1-107-24897-3

OCLC:

857365009