When Parties Fail: Emerging Alternative Organizations

✍ Scribed by Kay Lawson (editor); Peter H. Merkl (editor)

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2014
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 605
• Series: Princeton Legacy Library; 911
• Edition: Course Book
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Throughout history parties have faltered and new groups have emerged, but rarely has this process been so accelerated, so widespread, and so conducive to dramatic political change as in our present era. When Parties Fail explores alternative organizations in depth and comparatively. Among the organizations discussed are environmentalist groups, such as the West German and Swedish Greens, the Italian Radicals, and local protest groups in Japan, Switzerland, and the United States. Also considered are new groups seeking attention in unresponsive party systems, such as the Danish Gilstrup party, the British SDP, and American PACs; community parties and movements in Israel, India, Britain, and the American South; and antiauthoritarian movements in Poland (Solidarity), Taiwan, and Ghana. The case of France provides an example of major party survival. Three broadly comparative chapters consider the reasons for major party persistence in some nations and the causes and impact of their decline in others.

The contributors to the book are David Apter, Myron J. Aronoff, Liang-shing Fan, Frank B. Feigert, Zvi Gitelman, Ronald J. Herring, Jon Kraus, Kay Lawson, Tom Mackie, Peter H. Merkl, Raffaela Y. Nanetti, Angelo Panebianco, Mogens N. Pedersen, Geoffrey Pridham, Peter Pulzer, Richard Rose, Donald Schoonmaker, Frank Sorauf, Robert C. A. Sorensen, Evert Vedung, Hanes Walton, Jr., and Frank L. Wilson.

Originally published in 1988.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
PART I. Introduction
ONE. Alternative Organizations: Environmental, Supplementary, Communitarian, and Antiauthoritarian
TWO. When Linkage Fails
PART II. Environmentalist Organizations
THREE. The Challenge of the Greens to the West German Party System
FOUR. The Swedish Five-Party Syndrome and the Environmentalists
FIVE. The Italian Radicals: New Wine in an Old Bottle
SIX. Civic Action Groups in Switzerland: Challenge to Political Parties?
SEVEN. Community Groups as Alternative Political Organizations in Chicago
EIGHT. Sanrizuka: A Case of Violent Protest in a Multiparty State
PART III. Supplementary Organizations
NINE. The Social Democratic Party in Britain: Protest or New Political Tendency?
TEN. The Defeat of All Parties: The Danish Folketing Election, 1973
ELEVEN. Parties and Political Action Committees in American Politics
PART IV. Communitarian Organizations
TWELVE. The Failure of Israel's Labor Party and the Emergence of Gush Emunim
THIRTEEN. When Parties Fail: Ethnic Protest in Britain in the 1970s
FOURTEEN. The National Democratic Party of Alabama and Party Failure in America
FIFTEEN. Stealing Congress's Thunder: The Rise to Power of a Communist Movement in South India
PART V. Antiauthoritarian Organizations
SIXTEEN. The Limits of Organization and Enthusiasm: The Double Failure of the Solidarity Movement and the Polish United Workers' Party
SEVENTEEN. Independents and Independence: Challenges to One-Party Domination in Taiwan
EIGHTEEN. Political Party Failures and Political Responses in Ghana
NINETEEN. When Parties Refuse to Fail: The Case of France
TWENTY. Do Parties Persist or Fail? The Big Trade-off Facing Organizations
PART VII. Conclusions
TWENTY-ONE. The Challengers and the Party Systems
Notes on Contributors
Index