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This paper aims to explain the origins of the rules of parliamentary agenda control, which can be regarded as the single most important institutional determinant of parliamentary power. Based on the premises of distributive bargaining, the paper develops a causal mechanism for the delegation of agenda control to the government majority. Given that only anti-system or anti-establishment parties strictly prefer to participate in plenary proceedings, these ‘anti’-parties potentially obstruct legislation. Such legislative obstruction by ‘anti’-parties causes establishment parties to commit themselves to procedural reform and thus triggers attempts to centralise agenda control. The delegation of parliamentary agenda powers is successful if opposition to procedural reform is confined to anti-system parties. The causal leverage of this mechanism is assessed in a process-tracing of three reform attempts in two most different cases: the initially ineffective, but then successful introduction of a closure procedure in the United Kingdom and the failed attempt to facilitate the closure in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite its recent electoral successes, the Left Party's position in the German party system is more fragile that it may at first appear. The Left Party gained support in 2005 largely on account of dissatisfaction with other parties and not because masses of voters were flocking to its (nominally socialist) cause. Not even a majority from within its own supporter base thought it possessed "significant problem solving competences." Rather, much of the Left Party's political discourse is based on negative dismissals of much that it sees—in policy terms—before it. We discuss the Left Party's political development through the prism of populist politics. After outlining what we understand populism to mean, we analyze the Left Party's programmatic stances and political strategy within the context of this framework. Although populism is certainly not the sole preserve of the Left Party, it clearly excels in using populist tools to make political headway. We conclude by discussing the ramifications that this has for German party politics in general and for the Social Democratic Party in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to integrate existing theories on parties and political systems with the literature on party funding. On an empirical level, it asks why the German system of party funding developed in the way that it did. Germany combines a system of high transparency levels for political parties with generous state funding. Taking actor-centred institutionalism as a starting point, three variables are identified which explain the evolution of party funding regimes: the number of veto points available to opposition parties, parties' dominant goals during decisions on reforms of funding regulation, and the public discourse on political corruption. Reforms of party funding regimes are assumed to become more probable (1) the more institutional veto points even opposition parties have at their disposal, (2) the lesser the influence of vote-seeking strategies among parties, and (3) the more intense the societal discourse on political corruption. These hypotheses find support from the German case and may therefore be able to explain the convergence of western European party funding regimes around state subventions and transparency obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is now widely recognised that unification has led to an increased regionalisation of party politics in the Federal Republic. On the one hand a significant number of decision-making competencies within parties remain decentralised. On the other, regional party systems have become ever more differentiated both from each other and from that which exists at the national level. This article assesses to what extent there is any empirical evidence supporting such ideas by comparing four PDS Landesverbände . The article illustrates that ideological differences, personality clashes and different strategic agendas ensure that each the of the four Landesverbände has a different profile and can behave in strikingly different ways – highlighting that parties have much more room to manoeuvre at the Land level than is traditionally believed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]