Factional Politics

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Françoise Boucek

   Pages 1-5

3. The Theory of One-Party Dominance

   • Françoise Boucek

   Pages 6-32

4. Why Does One-Party Dominance End in Factionalism?

   • Françoise Boucek

   Pages 33-49

5. Majoritarian Democracies: Executive-Dominated Britain and Decentralised Canada

   • Françoise Boucek

   Pages 50-70

6. Case 1 — The Thatcher-Major Factional Wars over Europe

   • Françoise Boucek

   Pages 71-100

7. Case 2 — The Demise of Canadian Liberal Hegemony

   • Françoise Boucek

   Pages 101-122

8. Non-Majoritarian Democracies: Centrifugal Italy and Consensual Japan

   • Françoise Boucek

   Pages 123-143

9. Case 3 — Italy’s Christian Democrats: How Factional Capture Bred Self-Destruction

   • Françoise Boucek

   Pages 144-182

10. Case 4 — The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (1955–2009): End of Hegemony

    • Françoise Boucek

    Pages 183-204

11. Conclusion: How Parties Succeed or Fail to Manage Factionalism and Stay in Power

    • Françoise Boucek

    Pages 205-213

12. Back Matter

    Pages 214-273

    PDF

Drawing on theories of neo-institutionalism to show how institutions shape dissident behaviour, Boucek develops new ways of measuring factionalism and explains its effects on office tenure. In each of the four cases - from Britain, Canada, Italy and Japan - intra-party dynamics are analyzed through times series and rational choice tools.

• executive
• Institution
• politics
• Rational choice

'Boucek makes an important contribution to explaining the politics of single-party dominance by integrating consideration of both inter- and

intra-party politics. By challenging the unitary actor assumption of

inter-party accounts, she offers a fuller picture of both the maintenance and the decline of single-party dominance. She highlights the importance of institutional incentives and electoral market conditions in shaping the behaviour of factions within a dominant party, and hence its ability to maintain its dominant position.'

- Professor Richard S. Katz, Department of Political Science, The John Hopkins University

'Boucek's study provides a new benchmark for the analysis of how political parties really operate. Its rich comparative analysis of the dynamic relationship between factionalism and party dominance opens new windows into understanding the importance of intra-party organization and life in structuring competitive democratic politics.'

- R. Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, The University of British Columbia

'Why are dominant parties so factionalized, and with what consequences?, This is the crucial question at the core of this original study of political parties in power for extended periods. Combining elements of rational choice and historical institutionalism and investigating four major cases in Britain, Canada, Italy, and Japan, Françoise Boucek uncovers the paradoxical positive and negative functions that factionalism performs and the variables that affect stability and change in these parties. A truly creative, systematic and ground-breaking addition to the literature on political parties.'

- Professor Ellis S. Krauss, School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego

• School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary, University of London, UK

  Françoise Boucek

FRANÇOISE BOUCEK is a Teaching Fellow in European Politics in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London, a Visiting Professor at the University of Witten Herdecke (Germany) and an Associate of the LSE Public Policy Group. Her research interests include political parties and party systems, party government and representative democracy.

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