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Party Leaders (party + leader)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences85%

Selected Abstracts

Political therapy: an encounter with Dr John Alderdice, psychotherapist, political leader and peer of the realm

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDIES, Issue 2 2009
Graham Little
Abstract This paper comprises an encounter by the author in 1992 with the distinguished Northern Ireland psychotherapist and political leader, The Lord Alderdice of Knock. Born in Northern Ireland in 1955, John Alderdice graduated in Medicine in 1978, and qualified as a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1983, followed by higher specialist training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Alderdice joined the Northern Ireland Alliance Party in 1978, and in 1987 was elected Party Leader. Raised to the peerage as Baron Alderdice in 1996, he was one of the key negotiators of the Good Friday Agreement signed in 1998. This 1997 paper includes the author's interview with Alderdice, together with his observations on Alderdice's two-handed psychoanalytic and political practice, his "political therapy". Drawing upon the author's roots as a Belfast-born Australian, the paper reflects on the possibilities of Alderdice's applied psychoanalysis , of politics "off the couch". Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

John Howard's "Nation": Multiculturalism, Citizenship, and Identity

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND HISTORY, Issue 1 2009
John William Tate
This article identifies the specific concept of "nation" that informed John Howard's politics from his time as Liberal Party leader in the second half of the 1980s to the final years of his 1996,2007 prime ministership. It compares and contrasts the constitutive, procedural and multicultural models of nation to show Howard's continuing commitment to a constitutive understanding of the Australian nation. He endeavoured to give this understanding expression at the policy level by explicitly moving against the multicultural concept of nation that had informed Australian policy from the late 1970s. The Citizenship Test, introduced in his final year of office, is presented as the final move in this departure from multiculturalism. [source]

PARADES, PUBLIC SPACE, AND PROPAGANDA: THE NAZI CULTURE PARADES IN MUNICH

GEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 4 2008
Joshua Hagen
ABSTRACT. As the birthplace of the Nazi Party and the official Capital of the Movement, Munich assumed a high profile within the party's propaganda apparatus. While Berlin became the political and foreign policy centre of Hitler's Reich and Nuremberg the site of massive displays of national power during the annual party rallies, national and local party leaders launched a series of cultural initiatives to showcase Munich as the Capital of German Art. Munich hosted numerous festivals proclaiming a rebirth of German art and culture, as well as the regime's supposedly peaceful intentions for domestic and international audiences. To help achieve these goals, Nazi leaders staged a series of extravagant parades in Munich celebrating German cultural achievements. The parades provided an opportunity for the regime to monopolize Munich's public spaces through performances of its particular vision of German history, culture and national belonging. While such mass public spectacles had obvious propaganda potential, several constraints, most prominently Munich's existing spatial layout, limited the parades' effectiveness. [source]

Machine Politics and Democracy: The Deinstitutionalization of the Argentine Party System1

GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 4 2008
Gerardo Scherlis
This article contends that intra-party dynamics based on particularistic exchanges constitute a double-edged sword for a political system. On the one hand, they provide party leaders with strategic flexibility, which can be essential for their party stability and for the governability of the political system. On the other hand, in permitting office holders to switch policies whenever they consider fit, these dynamics render governments unpredictable and unaccountable in partisan terms, thus debasing the quality of democratic representation. The hypothesis is illustrated by recent Argentine political development. [source]

Sources of Mass Partisanship in Brazil

LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 2 2006
David Samuels
ABSTRACT Scholars believe that mass partisanship in Brazil is comparatively weak. Using evidence from a 2002 national survey, however, this study finds that the aggregate level of party identification actually falls only slightly below the world average and exceeds levels found in many newer democracies. Yet this finding is misleading, because the distribution of partisanship is skewed toward only one party, the PT. This trend results from a combination of party organization and recruitment efforts and individual motivation to acquire knowledge and become involved in politicized social networks. Partisanship for other parties, however, derives substantially from personalistic attachments to party leaders. This finding has implications for current debates about the status of parties in Brazil. Also important is the impact of the 2005 corruption scandal implicating the PT and President Lula da Silva's administration. [source]

Manipulating Electoral Rules to Manufacture Single-Party Dominance

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2008
Kenneth Mori McElwain
This article argues that the LDP manufactured its parliamentary dominance in postwar Japan by strategically altering specific facets of the electoral system. More generally, I demonstrate that intraparty politics play a crucial role in determining when and how electoral rules are changed. Despite widespread evidence that the LDP would win more seats under an SMP electoral formula, party leaders were repeatedly blocked from replacing the postwar MMD-SNTV system by intraparty incumbents, who feared that such a change would harm their individual reelection prospects. However, party leaders had greater leeway in altering rules that generated fewer intraparty conflicts. Between 1960 and 1990, the LDP implemented approximately fifty changes to campaign regulations, most of which were aimed at enhancing the incumbency advantage of all rank-and-file MPs. Statistical tests confirm that absent pro-incumbent revisions to the electoral code, the LDP would have succumbed to declining public popularity and lost its majority at least a decade earlier. [source]

Women on the Sidelines: Women's Representation on Committees in Latin American Legislatures

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2005
Roseanna Michelle Heath
This article explores how new groups can be marginalized after they gain representation in the legislature. We use data from six Latin American legislatures to examine the effect of institutional and political factors on how traditionally dominant male political leaders distribute scarce political resources,committee assignments,to female newcomers. In general, we find that women tend to be isolated on women's issues and social issues committees and kept off of power and economics/foreign affairs committees as the percentage of legislators who are women increases, when party leaders or chamber presidents control committee assignments, and when the structure of the committee system provides a specific committee to deal with women's issues. Thus, to achieve full incorporation into the legislative arena, newcomers must do more than just win seats. They must change the institutions that allow the traditionally dominant group to hoard scarce political resources. [source]