"Explores the phenomenon of party system collapse through a detailed examination of Venezuela's traumatic party system decay, as well as a comparative analysis of collapse in Bolivia, Colombia, and Argentina and survival in Argentina, India, Uruguay, and Belgium"--Provided by publisher.

How popular democracy has paradoxically eroded trust in political systems worldwide, and how to restore confidence in democratic politics In recent decades, democracies across the world have adopted measures to increase popular involvement in political decisions. Parties have turned to primaries and local caucuses to select candidates; ballot initiatives and referenda allow citizens to enact laws directly; many places now use proportional representation, encouraging smaller, more specific parties rather than two dominant ones.Yet voters keep getting angrier.There is a steady erosion of trust in politicians, parties, and democratic institutions, culminating most recently in major populist victories in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Frances Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro argue that devolving power to the grass roots is part of the problem. Efforts to decentralize political decision-making have made governments and especially political parties less effective and less able to address constituents’ long-term interests. They argue that to restore confidence in governance, we must restructure our political systems to restore power to the core institution of representative democracy: the political party.

This open access book focuses on the nexus between “party system stability” and “democratic consolidation”, using Slovenia as a case study. Its findings are presented from a comparative perspective to illustrate the commonalities and differences found in research on Central European post-socialist countries and former Yugoslav countries. On the one hand, Slovenia’s characteristics (including the characteristics of its transition to democracy) are far more similar to those of Central European post-socialist countries than Western Balkan countries. On the other, Slovenia shares some similarities with other parts of the former Yugoslavia – especially its experiences with the political system of socialist self-management, elements of a market economy under socialism, and war following the end of socialism (albeit the conflict in Slovenia was very short and rather mild in comparison to those in other parts of socialist Yugoslavia). Slovenia’s experiences with rapid but limited democratic backsliding under the Janša government (March 2019–June 2022) were halted by the 2022 national election – in contrast to the more widely known cases of Hungary and Poland, where such backsliding took place incrementally over a longer period of time that included several election cycles. Danica Fink-Hafner is Professor at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

This book generates a wealth of new empirical information about Latin American party systems and contributes richly to major theoretical debates about party systems and democracy.

Party System Closure maps trends in interparty relations in Europe from 1848 until 2019. It investigates how the length of democratic experience, the institutionalization of individual parties, the fragmentation of parliaments, and the support for anti-establishment parties, shape the degree of institutionalization of party systems. The analyses presented answer the questions of whether predictability in partisan interactions is necessary for the survival of democratic regimes and whether it improves or undermines the quality of democracy. The developments of party politics at the elite level are contrasted with the dynamics of voting behaviour. The comparisons of distinct historical periods and of macro-regions provide a comprehensive picture of the European history of party competition and cooperation. The empirical overview presented in the book is based on a novel conceptual framework and features party composition data of more than a thousand European governments. Party systems are analysed in terms of poles and blocs, and the degree of closure and of polarization is related to a new party system typology. The book demonstrates that information collected from partisan interactions at the time of government formation can reveal changes that characterise the party system as a whole. The empirical results confirm that the Cold War period (1945-1989) was exceptionally stable, while the post-Berlin-Wall era shows signs of disintegration, although more at the level of voters than at the level of elites. After three decades of democratic politics in Europe (1990-2019), the West and the South are looking increasingly like the East, especially in terms of the level of party de-institutionalization. The West and the South are becoming more polarised than the East, but in terms of parliamentary fragmentation, the party systems of the South and the East are converging, while the West is diverging from the rest with its increasingly high number of parties. As far as our central concept, party system closure, is concerned, thanks to the gradual process of stabilization in the East, and the recent de-institutionalization in the West and South, the regional differences are declining. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The series is edited by Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston, and Jonathan Slapin, Professor of Political Institutions and European Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich.

American democracy is in deep crisis. But what do we do about it? That depends on how we understand the current threat.In Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop, Lee Drutman argues that we now have, for the first time in American history, a genuine two-party system, with two fully-sorted, truly national parties, divided over the character of the nation. And it's a disaster. It's a party system fundamentally at odds withour anti-majoritarian, compromise-oriented governing institutions. It threatens the very foundations of fairness and shared values on which our democracy depends.Deftly weaving together history, democratic theory, and cutting-edge political science research, Drutman tells the story of how American politics became so toxic and why the country is now trapped in a doom loop of escalating two-party warfare from which there is only one escape: increase the numberof parties through electoral reform. As he shows, American politics was once stable because the two parties held within them multiple factions, which made it possible to assemble flexible majorities and kept the climate of political combat from overheating. But as conservative Southern Democrats andliberal Northeastern Republicans disappeared, partisan conflict flattened and pulled apart. Once the parties became fully nationalized - a long-germinating process that culminated in 2010 - toxic partisanship took over completely. With the two parties divided over competing visions of nationalidentity, Democrats and Republicans no longer see each other as opponents, but as enemies. And the more the conflict escalates, the shakier our democracy feels.Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop makes a compelling case for large scale electoral reform - importantly, reform not requiring a constitutional amendment - that would give America more parties, making American democracy more representative, more responsive, and ultimately more stable.

Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 195 countries and fifteen territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.