Edited by Benjamin Reilly and Per Nordlund
Political Parties in Conflict-Prone Societies: Regulation, Engineering and Democratic Development
Political Parties in Conflict-Prone Societies
Edited by Benjamin Reilly and Per Nordlund
978-92-808-1157-5
328 pages; paper; US$35.00
September 2008
Policy Brief
Political Parties in Conflict-Prone Societies (184 KB PDF)
By Benjamin Reilly, Per Nordlund and Edward Newman
Well-functioning political parties are essential components of democracy. They organize voters, aggregate and articulate interests, craft policy alternatives, recruit and socialize new candidates for office, set policy-making agendas, integrate disparate groups and individuals into the democratic process, and provide the basis for coordinated electoral and legislative activity. But political parties in many developing democracies remain weak and underdeveloped, often being based around personal, ethnic or regional ties rather than national interests.
Today, with more states deciding their leaders through multiparty elections than ever before, many developing democracies seek to shape the development of political parties and party systems by regulating the way parties can form, organize and behave. Most of these ambitious initiatives and innovations emanate from new democracies rather than established Western examples. This volume examines this growing trend in conflict-prone societies towards promoting stable and inclusive political parties via political party regulation and engineering in developing democracies around the world.
Benjamin Reilly is Director of the Centre for Democratic Institutions and Professor of Political Science in the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University.
Per Nordlund, PhD, is Senior Programme Manager for International IDEA’s initiative on Research and Dialogue with Political Parties.
Table of contents
Part I: Introduction
- Introduction, Benjamin Reilly
- Party regulation and constitutionalization: A comparative overview, Ingrid van Biezen
- Comparative strategies of political party regulation, Matthijs Bogaards
Part II: Regional experiences
- Political engineering and party regulation in Southeast Asia, Allen Hicken
- Regulating minority parties in Central and South-Eastern Europe, Florian Bieber
- Political parties in conflict-prone societies in Latin America, Matthias Catón and Fernando Tuesta Soldevilla
- Party regulation in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America: The effect on minority representation and the propensity for conflict, Jóhanna Kristín Birnir
- Party regulation and political engineering in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific islands, Henry Okole
- Party regulations, nation-building and party systems in southern and east Africa, Denis K. Kadima
Part III: Thematic perspectives
- Party regulation and democratization: Challenges for further research, Iain McMenamin
- Party regulation in conflict-prone societies: More dangers than opportunities? Vicky Randall
- International support for political party development in wartorn societies, Krishna Kumar and Jeroen de Zeeuw
- Conclusion, Per Nordlund
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