Dominant political parties and democracy: concepts, measures, cases, and comparisons

This book examines dominant parties in both established democracies and new democracies and explores the relationship between dominant parties and the democratic process. Bridging existing literatures, the authors analyse dominant parties at national and sub-national, district and intra-party levels and take a fresh look at some of the classic cases of one-party dominance. The book also features methodological advances in the study of dominant parties through contributions that develop new ways of conceptualizing and measuring one-party dominance. Combining theoretical and empirical research and bringing together leading experts in the field - including Hermann Giliomee and Kenneth Greene - this book features comparisons and case studies on Japan, Canada, Germany, Mexico, Italy, France and South Africa. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, democracy studies, comparative politics, party politics and international studies specialists.

Introduction : setting a new agenda for research / Fran(c)ʹoise Boucek and Matthijs Bogaards -- pt. 1. Concepts and measures. Rethinking dominant party systems / Patrick Dunleavy ; Measuring one-party dominance with voting power indices / Jean-Fran(c)ʹois Caulier and Patrick Dumont ; District-level dominance and vulnerability under the French Fifth Republic / Nicolas Sauger -- pt. 2. Cases and comparisons. 1, Sub-national dominance. Big fish in small ponds : a comparison of dominant parties in the Canadian provinces and German L(c)Þnder / Amir Abedi and Steffen Schneider ; Hard and soft dominance : assessing the case of the Bavarian CSU / Gordon Smith. 2, The intra-party dimension of dominance. The factional politics of dominant parties : evidence from Britain, Italy and Japan / Fran(c)ʹoise Boucek ; Dominance without factions : the Liberal Party of Canada / R. Kenneth Carty. 3, Dominance and democracy. A resource theory of single-party dominance : the PRI in Mexico / Kenneth F. Greene ; One-party dominance in South Africa / James Myburgh and Hermann Giliomee ; Laying a foundation for democracy or undermining it? : dominant parties in Africa's burgeoning democracies / Staffan I. Lindberg and Jonathan Jones ; Conclusion / Fran(c)ʹoise Boucek and Matthijs Bogaards