Electoral politics in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

Australia’s constant experimentation with electoral system design, and its effects on voter behaviour, have been consistent themes in the Australian Journal of Political Science and its predecessor, Politics, for half a century. This article examines this research in the context of three areas: electoral institutions; election campaigns; and voter behaviour. Three distinct stages in the research are identified, starting with basic fact-gathering, then progressing to the application of rigorous methods and evidence to real-world questions. In the third stage, scholarly attention has been devoted to placing Australia within a comparative framework. An underlying theme in the research is Australian exceptionalism in electoral politics.     

The Presidentialisation of Australian Politics? Kevin Rudd's Leadership of the Australian Labor Party

The presidentialisation debate centres on the question of whether contemporary political leaders in parliamentary systems are more powerful than their predecessors. This article applies the presidentialisation thesis of Poguntke and Webb (2005) to the period in which Kevin Rudd led the federal parliamentary Labor Party in Australia. Their model identifies three distinct faces of presidentialisation: the executive face, the party face and the electoral face. This article argues that the evidence of presidentialisation under Rudd's leadership is mixed. The most compelling evidence is reflected in how Rudd interacted with the Labor Party, rather than his interaction with the executive or impact on voting behaviour.

关于总统化的辩论集中于当前国会的政治领袖是否比他们的前任更有权力。本文将普刚克和韦博（2005）的总统化理论应用于陆克文领导澳大利亚联邦议会工党的时期。他们二人总结了总统化的三个方面：行政面、党派面、选举面。本文指出,陆克文领导时期总统化的证据含混不清。最有说服力的证据倒是反映在陆克文与工党而不是与政府的互动或对选举行为的影响上。     

Party organisational change in Italy (1991–2006)

This article analyses, adopting the well-known approach of Katz and Mair, the issue of organizational change within Italian political parties since 1990. In addition to an account of trends in membership, local units, finances, staff, and of changes in party statutes, the article aims at testing the widespread view in the literature that organizational resources–hence power–are becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of party and/or parliamentary leaders, and correspondingly that the territorial presence of parties is declining. The analysis of the change over time of Katz and Mair's party organisational ‘faces’ leads to the confirmation, to a large extent, of the overall hypothesis of a decline of the party at ground level, and a concentration of party resources in the central office, and above all in the party in public office.     

Political Parties and Women’s Success in Municipal Elections in 2005 in Montérégie and Montréal (Québec,Canada)

ABSTRACT

We examine the impact of political parties on the success of women and men candidates in the 2005 municipal elections of Québec’s two most populous regions, Montérégie and Montréal. We built the dataset by requesting documentation from each municipality separately. This original dataset supports our two hypotheses. First, we demonstrate that the presence of political parties did not affect the difference in percentages of votes obtained by women and men candidates. No matter the gender, candidates affiliated with a political party obtained more votes than independent ones. Second, we find that gender did not affect contributions. No matter the gender, the presence of political parties and the candidates’ affiliation had a positive impact on their contributions. Québec conforms to findings in the U.S. literature: women and men candidates, under similar circumstances, are equally likely to obtain votes and contributions.     

Political parties at critical junctures: explaining the decisions to offer referendums on constitutional change in the United Kingdom

This article investigates the Labour and Conservative parties’ decisions to offer referendums on constitutional change. We focus on Labour’s Scottish devolution referendum and the Conservatives’ EU referendum. Rather than responding to public demand, we argue each party offered referendums based on short-term electoral calculations. Both parties believed their commitments would resolve intra-party dissension, neutralise emergent electoral threats and expand their electorate. While each party won the subsequent election, the referendums produced long-term unintended outcomes counter to their initial objectives: an invigorated Scottish National Party and an impending EU exit. Ultimately, the consequences of both may lead to Scottish independence.     

Interpreting foreign institutions. How the Italian academic culture dealt with the French Fifth Republic, 1958–1998

The interpretation by Italian scholars of the institutions of the French Fifth Republic was directly linked not only to the new French constitution and to the evolving practice of power in France, but also to the scholars' own judgement on the Italian constitution and on their changing perception of the role of the political parties within Italian republican institutions. Three main phases in the development of the interpretation of the Fifth Republic by Italian jurists and political scientists can be identified. During the first – extending from 1958 to the late 1970s – it was strongly criticized by most as anti-democratic. The second phase – from the late 1970s to the early 1990s – was marked by the end of anti-democratic suspicions; but only during the 1990s – the third phase – were the Fifth Republic's institutions proposed by some scholars as a model to be imported in to Italy.     

The Italian political system after the 9 – 10 April 2006 elections

Abstract

All recent Italian elections have produced important electoral consequences. In this brief introduction, the author highlights some of the problems, difficulties and perspectives for the Italian political system following the electoral victory of the centre-left. More precisely, he suggests that there are two complex issues in need of being analyzed and politically tackled: the revisions to be introduced into the Italian Constitution and the transformation of some Italian parties and the reorganization of the party system. In conclusion, at least in this phase, the Italian political system is bound to remain in a situation that can still be defined as an ongoing political and institutional transition.     

Delegitimation provided by the constitutional pact in the First Republic

Abstract

Far from being a value shared by the country’s political parties, republican Italy’s constitution has given rise to confrontation depending on the interpretations given to it in the main phases of transition of the country’s political system. Antifascism as a fundamental statute of public life, on the one hand, and the great parliamentary system framework, on the other, established the boundaries of democratic legitimacy. Although this process contributed to strengthening the country’s democratic foundations, particularly with regard to the risk of a possible authoritarian swing in the aftermath of World War II, it also affected a political dialectic strongly conditioned by the delegitimizing element underlying the constitutional charter. Attempts at institutional reform as well as opposition to any understanding between the two parties that benefited the most from a literal interpretation of the constitution, that is, the Christian Democratic Party and the Italian Communist Party, often ran the risk of being demonized. This led to a kind of short-circuit which, in the long run, eroded the democratic fabric itself, feeding the spiral of mutual delegitimation that marked the political life of the country in these republican years.     

The mobilisation of identities: a study on the relationship between elite rhetoric and public opinion on national identity in developed democracies

Over the last decade, the topic of national‐identity has gained considerable importance after various heads of states have made it an important political issue in the context of ongoing globalisation and European integration processes. There is also a large, mainly historical literature that has emphasised the role of the political elite in the formation of national‐identities. While this argument is widely discussed in both public and academic debates, there is, surprisingly, hardly any empirical research on this issue. We do not know whether elite positions resonate with how the masses think about these issues. We therefore set out to test this relationship by combining the 2003 wave of the International Social Survey Programme and content analysis of elite mobilisation rhetoric from the Comparative Manifesto Project. Results indicate that an overlap exists between politicians' articulation of exclusive notions about the contours of national‐identity and heightened expressions of civic and ethnic national‐identity within public opinion. By contrast, elite mobilisation along more inclusive lines appears ineffective. From this, it appears that exclusionary arguments play a more important role, at least in terms of attitudes about national‐identity, than inclusionary ones.