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India and South Africa share a similar historical outcome as concerns their party systems albeit within very different temporal and spatial contexts. India's system of one-party-dominance (OPD) was electorally terminated in 1977 when for the first time in the country's history the Indian National Congress was ousted from office and power by the Janata Party, a multi-party electoral platform comprising four major opposition parties. South Africa so far had only two general (democratic) elections (1994 and 1999) wherein the African National Congress won an overwhelming share of the popular vote (62,65% and 66,35% respectively), but which do not allow to make an assessment of the country's party system without some qualifications regarding the dynamic nature of a pattern of party competition still in the making. What are the causal factors that made the emergence of a system of OPD in India after independence possible and make it likely in the South Africa of today? Why was it that a single party in a competitive democratic environment succeeded in winning one election after another amidst processes of massive social change, and, why is it that a single party is still able to do so at the end of the twentieth century? What did OPD do to the political and socio-economic development in the world's largest democracy, and, what will be the effects of its working in the world's most amazing democracy? Taking India as the locus classicus of OPD in changing societies, this paper is an attempt to draw advantage from a diachronic comparison between the Indian party system after independence and the emerging one in South Africa in order to free the political phenomenon of 'OPD' from some of the theoretical and conceptual flaws surrounding it, to examine common thinking about a party systems' emergence and working on the basis of two regional realities, and, finally, to enrich the current scholarly hypothesising about the correlation between the nature of the party system and processes of democratic consolidation and ...

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, unified Germany is still confronted with significant political divides. Two distinct party systems have emerged and are now consolidated, and a narrowing of the gap between them is not in sight. Among other dimensions, the differences in party spaces and competition are more fragmented, more unstable and, most importantly, characterised by the enduring success of the post-Communist Left in the East, where the party is a major third player. Looking at the origins and causes of the divide, the relevance of specific historical legacies and the role of distinct political cultures and value cleavages are emphasised. These point to previously neglected explanatory frameworks. In addition, some parties act as agents that facilitate political resentments and reinforce cultural divisions. Finally, lessons in understanding and coming to terms with some persisting East–West divides in the European Union are discussed.

It has been theoretically and empirically shown that ideological diversity complements the effect of institutions on the development of party systems and the number of political parties that ensue. Thus, students of party and electoral systems now commonly employ ethnic fractionalization as an indicator of ideological differences; however, there is no unilaterally agreed upon data set that scholars use. In addition, extant data sets measure heterogeneity at the national level, rather than at the district level, where electoral competition takes place and where both institutional and social factors matter most. Using a multi-level empirical analysis, this article illustrates the interactive effect of the two main district characteristics - magnitude and heterogeneity - on the number of parties. It demonstrates the analytical benefit of using district-level characteristics in explaining party system size and aims to reduce the data gap by providing a district-level ethnic heterogeneity data set for 18 European states. Adapted from the source document.

We study a model of party formation in which party discipline and inter-party ideological heterogeneity are endogenously and jointly determined. Discipline benefits party members because it gives risk-averse voters more confidence in the ideological composition of the party, but this discipline is costly to members who win office. Equilibrium is determined by balancing these forces. We show that this model can account for both comparative difference between parliamentary and presidential systems, and changes over time in the U.S. Congress.

In this response to Jay K. Dow's "Party Extremism in Majoritarian and Proportional Electoral Systems" (British Journal of Political Science, April 2011), Lawrence Ezrow evaluates the mediating effect of the relationship between party proximity and vote share. Adapted from the source document.

"Compared to other countries, Canada's Parliament shows a high level of party unity when it comes to legislative voting. This was not always the case, however. One hundred years ago, this sort of party discipline was not as evident, leading scholars to wonder what explains the growing influence of political parties in the Canadian Parliament. In Lost on Division, Jean-François Godbout analyses more than two million individual votes recorded in the House of Commons and the Senate since Confederation, demonstrating that the increase in partisanship is linked to changes in the content of the legislative agenda, itself a product of more restrictive parliamentary rules instituted after 1900. These rules reduced the independence of private members, polarized voting along partisan lines, and undermined Parliament's ability to represent distinct regional interests, resulting in - among other things - the rise of third parties. Bridging the scholarship on party politics, legislatures, and elections, Lost on Division builds a powerful case for bringing institutions back into our understanding of how party systems change. It represents a significant contribution to legislative studies, the political development literature, and the comparative study of parliaments."--

One of the most important issues of political development and nation building in Africa is national integration. One major political institution which the new nations have employed in the pursuit of this goal is the political party. Ironically and unfortunately, political parties stand for division and cleavages. Thus as Seymour Lipset and Stein Rokkan have noted, in Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignment: an introduction (Glencoe, 1967), '"Party" throughout the history of western government stood for division [my italics], conflict, opposition within a body polity. "Party" is etymologically derived from "part" and since it first appeared in political discourse in the late Middle Ages has always retained this reference to one set of elements in competition or in controversy with another set of elements within some unified whole' (p. 3). These indeed have been the main characteristics of political parties in most parts of Africa. That is, most of them are fragmentary, and thus contribute to national disintegration rather than fostering national integration. In other words, many political parties in most African nations have not functioned efficiently for the good of their respective countries.