摘要:

The debate about the (future) role of political parties in modern democracies suffers from generally unacknowledged normative preconceptions as well as a tendency to reason in terms of ‘inevitable’ social processes, rather than precise theoretical reasoning or empirical analysis. At least four distinct bodies of thought affect the discussion about the assumed crisis of party: (1) the view that parties are a danger to the good society, leading to the denial of parties as legitimate actors; (2) the belief that some types of parties are ‘good’ and others ‘bad’, causing a selective rejection of parties; (3) the proposition that certain party systems are ‘good’ and others ‘bad’, resulting in a selective rejection of party systems; and (4) the affirmation that parties are becoming redundant. The latter suggestion is shown in a variety of approaches ‐e. g. the idea that parties are transient agents of democratization, the analysis of parties as mere market‐forces, the assumption that parties do not matter in policies, and the view, as exemplified by neocorporatism, that parties inevitably lose their functions to other political actors. The pervasive presence of aprioristic views suggests the need for a conceptual house‐cleaning, the importance of distinguishing normative from empirical arguments, and the need for more detailed empirical research, giving due weight to differences between countries, party systems, parties and periods instead of post

ISSN:0080-6757    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9477.1992.tb00022.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This article presents the major characteristics of the tradition of comparative political sociology which Stein Rokkan incarnated. Special emphasis is put on Rokkan's scientific reasoning based on the organic relationship between the creation of infrastructures for research and research efforts. Rokkan'soeuvreis marked by an acute awareness of the historical sources of institutional variation and by a concern for constructing region‐specific models reflecting culturally meaningful contexts. Rokkan's use of comparisons is treated at length before the conclusion states what the authors claim is worth preserving from the Rokkan tradition: thehistorical, institutionalandcomparativeaspects of Rokkan's approac

ISSN:0080-6757    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9477.1992.tb00023.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Petroleum policy in Britain and Norway provides comparativists with an opportunity to study policy formation, stability, and transformation on a cross‐national basis. This study explains why British and Norwegian officials decided to intervene in the North Sea, why offshore policy in the two countries went through periods of stability and change, and why they adopted similar offshore systems in the 1960s and 1970s but diverged markedly in the 1980s. We develop an explanatory framework using insights from state‐centric, group politics, rational choice, and institutional models of policy‐making. The framework identifies three decision‐making contexts in which petroleum policy‐makers operate simultaneously: an oil context, a domestic political context, and an international context, Each context establishes objectives for policy‐makers, indicates an acceptable degree of government intervention, and narrows policy options. Rational decision‐making within each context, however, may yield conflicting results. These must be worked out through intrastate and/or state‐society bargaining. The decision‐making contexts in Britain and Norway produced similar policies in the 1960s and 1970s, but the similarities hid deeper differences. Norwegian officials consistently favored state intervention offshore, and Norwegian interest groups successfully lobbied the state for offshore favors, while British officials intervened more reluctantly and paid less attention to societal interests. Differences in decision‐making contexts finally produced a major divergence in offshore policies in the 1980s when the Thatcher government dismantled the state's offshore p

ISSN:0080-6757    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9477.1992.tb00024.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

By the late 1980s, the absolute number of jobless in Norway had reached the same level as that during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployment in the 1930s is known to have had an impact on party choice. Among those hit by unemployment in the 1980s, however, we no longer find a strong correlation between unemployment and party choice. This situation constitutes the point of departure for this article. The relationship between joblessness and party choice is investigated on the basis of four hypotheses: (i)The incumbency thesis, which suggests that the incumbent party receives support in accordance with fluctuations in economic conditions ‐ i. e. it is punished in bad times and rewarded in prosperous times, (ii)The policy thesis, which predicts that voters concerned about unemployment prefer the Labour Party, (iii)The social composition thesis, which argues that the fluctuations between unemployment and party choice are simply due to changes in the social composition of the unemployed, (iv)The generation thesis, which underscores that the impact of unemployment on party choice varies according to historical generation. Confronted with empirical evidence, the social composition thesis is rejected. Likewise, support for the policy thesis has gradually vanished. Some empirical support is given to theincumbency thesis. In the end, however, thegeneration thesisappears to be the most relevan

ISSN:0080-6757    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9477.1992.tb00025.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Book reviewed in this article:Ari Salminen:Organized Welfare: The Case of Finland's Welfare Bureaucracy ‐ A Nordic ComparisonGöran Djupsund og Lars Svåsand (red.):Partiorganisasjoner: Studier i struktur og processer i finske, norske, og svenske partierLeif Lewin:Samhället och de organiserade intressenaChristopher Hood&Michael Jackson:Administrative ArgumentBob Deacon (ed.):The New Eastern Europe: Social Policy Past, Present and FutureMarja Keranen (ed.):Gender and Politics in Fi

ISSN:0080-6757    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9477.1992.tb00026.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY