Kay Lawson

When Parties Fail: Emerging Alternative Organizations

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 paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback 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.

Local Party Activists and Electoral Linkage: Middlesex County, NJ

Using the framework of linkage theory, we examine local parties, by means of mail questionnaires to party activists in one county of New Jersey. Three aspects are investigated : level of activism, satisfaction of activists, and decision-making structures. Activists concentrate on campaigns, derive most satisfaction from electoral work, and leave decision making to party leaders. Relationships among higher activism, greater satisfaction, and more democratic structures are positive, but only to a moderate degree. We conclude, with Schlesinger, that U.S. parties primarily are agencies of electoral, not participatory or clientelistic, linkage, and consider the possible implications of this fact for the long-range liability of local parties and the American political system.

Understanding the contemporary French left

The Left in France. By Neill Nugent and David Lowe. London: Macmillan, 1982. Pp. xi + 275. £15.000. Contemporary French Political Parties. Edited by David S. Bell. London: Croom Helm, 1982. Pp. 199, £13.95.

R. William Rauch, Jr. Politics and Belief in Contemporary France: Emanuel Mounier and Christian Democracy, 1932-1950. Pp. 351. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972. 47.25. Guilders

further dependence on the United States. A large part of the book is devoted to relations with the Soviet Union and the author’s attempt to take the lead in arranging a summit conference. Macmillan belonged to the Tories who still believed in noblesse oblige and not the doctrines of nineteenth-century liberal economics. This was demonstrated by his acceptance of the resignation of three doctrinaire Treasury ministers and his emotional preference for expansionist policies. If he had only carried forward into his maturity some of the ideas of his youth when he wrote &dquo;The Middle Way&dquo; his premiership might have left a stronger mark. As it was, the overstretch of Britain’s political and military power, although reduced, continued until her overseas commitments were belatedly and reluctantly brought into line with her resources by Harold Wilson’s government in 1968. AUSTEN ALBU, M.P. Sussex