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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.
However, 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.
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 war torn societies
Krishna Kumar and Jeroen de Zeeuw
Conclusion
Per Nordlund
Index
