Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / ECPR Press
Pages: 368
•
978-0-9547966-1-7 • Paperback • July 2016 • $49.00 • (£30.00)
Giovanni Sartori was born in Florence, Italy, in 1924, and was appointed Professor of Political Science at the University of Florence in 1963. He has been a visiting Professor at Harvard and Yale, and in 1976 he succeeded Gabriel Almond as Professor of Political Science at Stanford. In 1979 he was appointed Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, New York, where he is now Professor Emeritus. Sartori is the author of numerous books across a range of fields in political theory and comparative politics, including Parties and Party Systems (1976), The Theory of Democracy Revisited (2 volumes, 1990), and Comparative Constitutional Engineering (2nd ed, 1997). His most recent books are Homo Videns (2nd ed, 2000), Pluralismo, Multiculturalismo, Estranei (2nd ed, 2002), and Mala Tempora (2004), which has been a bestseller in Italy. In 2005, Parties and Party Systems was also published in a Chinese translation.
contents
Tables and Figures vii
Abbreviations ix
New preface by the author xi
Introduction by Peter Mair xiii
Prefacexxi
PART ONE: THE RATIONALE: WHY PARTIES?1
Chapter one: The party as part3
1. From faction to party3
2. Pluralism12
3. Responsible and responsive government16
4. A rationalisation21
Chapter two: The party as whole35
1. No-party versus one-party35
2. The party-state system38
3. One-party pluralism42
Chapter three: The preliminary framework50
1. Channelment, communication, expression50
2. The minimal definition52
3. An overview57
Chapter four: The party from within63
1. Fractions, factions, and tendencies63
2. A scheme of analysis66
3. Southern politics: ‘Factions’ without parties?72
4. Italy and Japan: Fractions within parties78
5. The structure of opportunities82
6. From party to faction92
PART TWO: PARTY SYSTEMS
Chapter five: The numerical criterion105
1. The issue105
2. Rules for counting107
3. A two-dimensional mapping110
Chapter six: Competitive systems116
1. Polarised pluralism116
2. Testing the cases128
3. Moderate pluralism and segmented societies154
4. Twoparty systems164
5. Predominant-party systems171
Chapter seven: Non-competitive systems193
1. Where competition ends193
2. Single party197
3. Hegemonic party204
Chapter eight: Fluid polities and quasi-parties217
1. Methodological cautions217
2. The African labyrinth221
3. Ad hoc categorising226
4. The boomerang effect236
Chapter nine: The overall framework243
1. System change, continuum, and discontinuities243
2. Mapping function and explanatory power251
3. From classification to measurement261
4. Measuring relevance267
5. Numbers and size: The index of fractionalisation271
6. Combining the nominal and mathematical routes281
Chapter ten: Spatial competition289
1. The Downsian theory revisited289
2. Issues, identification, images, and positions292
3. Multidimensional, unidimensional, and ideological space297
4. The direction of competition305
Index319
Sartori …is particularly strong on conceptualisation, is insistent on the need for precision and consistency in the use of terms, and carefully distinguishes parties from factions, movements, and pressure groups…. The pay-off from the framework is seen in the brilliant exposition where the number of parties, moderated by ideology, is related to a wide array of characteristics of political systems… Sartori's book is a major contribution to the studies of comparative politics and political concepts, written with a remarkable feel for the English language.
— Dennis Kavanagh