New York, 4 September 2008 -- The book, Political Parties in Conflict-Prone Societies: Regulation, Engineering, and Democratic Development, was launched today in New York by International IDEA, the Centre for Democratic Institutions (CDI) and the United Nations University (UNU).
Edited by Professor Benjamin Reilly, Director of the CDI at the Australian National University in Canberra, and Dr Per Nordlund, former Senior Programme Manager at International IDEA, the book examines the 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.
At a time when the promotion of democratic procedures is at the heart of international efforts to strengthen peace within and between states, this book holds important implications for peace building activities conducted by the UN, regional organizations and individual states. Indeed, democracy promotion and electoral assistance efforts will count for little if political parties are not accountable, inclusive and broad-based.
“This work,” says Professor Reilly, “surveys attempts at party regulation and considers how to promote stable, non-sectarian political parties while allowing free political expression and minority representation.”
Well-functioning political parties are central to the process of democratic development and provide the basis for coordinated electoral and legislative activity. “Not only do they organize voters, aggregate and articulate interests, craft policy alternatives, recruit and socialize new candidates for office, set policy-making agendas,” explains Dr Nordlund, “they play a key role in integrating disparate groups and individuals into the democratic process.”
The number of competitive democracies has increased threefold since the 1970s, and the number of political parties now contesting elections worldwide has increased many times more.
“Multiparty politics however, is no guarantee of development, “Reilly emphasizes. “It may empower vulnerable groups, increase transparency, mediate conflict and achieve redistribution of income to the poor—but multiparty politics may also subvert the broader process of democratization by empowering already dominant elites, marginalizing minorities and, perhaps most seriously, mobilizing ethnic, regional and religious groups against each other.”
Many of these developing democracies are shaping the development of their political parties and party systems by regulating the way parties can form, organize and behave. “Challenging conventional wisdom,” adds Nordlund, “the book illustrates that most of these ambitious initiatives and innovations are being drawn from new democracies rather than from established Western examples.”
This volume is published by the United Nations University Press, New York and Tokyo. For more information on this and other publications on this subject visit the websites at CDI, International IDEA, and UNU.
