How party polarization shapes the structuring of policy preferences in Europe

A significant body of literature has addressed the impact of party polarization on voting behavior. Yet little is known of the relationship between party polarization and belief systems. The present study argues that party polarization enhances the ideological consistency of belief systems and does so for the citizenry as a whole. We first demonstrate that the more party systems are polarized on economic and sociocultural issues, the more consistently belief systems are aligned with the progressive-conservative continuum. Second, we show that ideological consistency is greater in highly polarized party systems, not only among the most politically attuned Europeans but also among those with lower levels of political sophistication. Results have implications for our understanding of citizen competence and responsiveness to elite cues in polarized party systems.

Secure Group Key Management Protocol for Grid Computing

In any multi–device / party systems supporting GRID and cloud-based applications, an essential constraint of these systems is the need of all tools and participants to interconnect with each other as members of a group in a secure approach. Group key management method is an essential functional element for any protected distributed communication setting. Key distribution method is a crucial factor in securing communication in grid computing. After the secure key management is executed, messages will be able to be securely exchanged between the grid units. A number of protocols have been proposed to maintain secure group key management. In this paper we present a new password base protocol for secure group key management in Grid computing environment, which is organized in two dynamic servicing layers: the grid application that needs grid services, and the grid services that act on behalf of the user.

5. Winning and Losing Elections

This chapter assesses what politicians and members of political parties really care about: getting into office on the back of a successful election campaign. Rather than the general determinants of voting outlined in the previous chapter, this is about the choices voters and parties face within a particular system, so they can organize themselves to win. For that they need to play by the rules of the game, which includes developing strategies within electoral systems. The chapter then discusses the impact of electoral systems on that calculus, and how the number of parties is affected by the electoral system in place. It also looks at the factors that assist the winning of elections, and the extent to which the choices of parties and voters are affected by growing instability in the system. Overall, the chapter provides an overview of British political parties and party systems.

Diminished Parties

Many contemporary party organizations are failing to fulfill their representational role in contemporary democracies. While political scientists tend to rely on a minimalist definition of political parties (groups of candidates that compete in elections), this volume argues that this misses how parties can differ not only in degree but also in kind. With a new typology of political parties, the authors provide a new analytical tool to address the role of political parties in democratic functioning and political representation. The empirical chapters apply the conceptual framework to analyze seventeen parties across Latin America. The authors are established scholars expert in comparative politics and in the cases included in the volume. The book sets an agenda for future research on parties and representation, and it will appeal to those concerned with the challenges of consolidating stable and programmatic party systems in developing democracies.

Parties and Party Systems

Since the late 1980s, South Korea has established democratic rules and institutions to protect the political freedom and civil rights of its citizens. In this process, political parties played a pivotal role in building democratic institutions and became a necessary actor for democratic governance. The characteristics of South Korean political parties and party system such as non-ideological regional factionalism, personality-based party organization, growing electoral volatility due to party changes, and a cartelized two-party system have contributed to weak party system institutionalization (PSI). Despite weak PSI, South Korea successfully underwent three peaceful power transfers, thus exceeding Huntington’s two turnover test of democratic consolidation. The stability of interparty competition has been maintained despite moderate electoral volatility. While regionalism is still the most important factor in voter decisions, the ideological linkage between parties and voters has been tightening. The South Korean parties and party system have a long way to go before achieving the levels of PSI seen in the West, but they have followed in these countries’ footstep to some extent. More sophisticated measures and concepts should be developed to analyse political parties and party systems in new democracies.

Cases and methods

This chapter presents the five cases. They are all wealthy Western European democracies. They feature quite a few similarities, concerning the evolution of turnout, electoral volatility, or the growing success of far-right parties. Yet, they also allow for some variation regarding their electoral systems, ranging from very majoritarian to very proportional and a resulting variety of party systems. Each country’s institutional setup and contemporary politics is briefly presented in turn. For each of the five countries, the chapter briefly discusses data availability and sources. For the five countries, we present the legislative agenda and the party agenda from the early 1980s to the late 2000s at least. Finally, we explain the choice of fixed-effects negative binomial regression, given the specific structure of the data and the goals of the study.