1,721,202 research outputs found
The catch-all party in Western Europe 1945-1990. a study in arrested development : A study in arrested development
Full text linkKeman, J.E. [Promotor]Mair, P. [Promotor
Patterns of bryophyte life-forms are predictable across land cover types
No full textBryophytes are promising indicators for detecting the impact of rapid global change. However, despite their great potential, they are still largely neglected, and their patterns across wide areas and environmental gradients are still poorly explored. Here we tested the capacity of bryophyte life-forms to respond to the main environmental and anthropogenic factors using an herbarium collection of high quality. The database consists of over 40,000 records referred to an Alpine area (Bolzano province, Northern Italy). The main aim of the work was to assess the relationship between bryophyte life-forms and different Corine Land Cover types which spans a wide elevational gradient and land uses. Results showed a broad match between similar land cover types and life-forms composition. For example, there was a positive relationship between plagiotropic forms and coniferous forests and between cushion- turf forms and natural grasslands. Anthropogenic habitats like vineyards and urban areas showed a high proportion of dendroid and thallose forms whereas plagiotropic species were underrepresented. Our results indicate that patterns of bryophyte life-forms are predictable across land cover types and altitude thus providing a direct link between the organism and the environmental conditions
Political representation and government in the European Union
Full text linkThis paper addresses two particular aspects of the much debated democratic deficit in European Union (EU) governance - the absence of a system of party government at the European level, whereby parties in the Parliament lack the capacity to effectively control the governing bodies of the EU, and the apparent failings in the capacity of parties at the European level to represent the will of the citizens of Europe. We question the self-evidence of the recommendation that the Union adapt to conventional party government models at the national level and argue that since many of the conditions facilitating the effective fusion of the functions of representation and of control of the government no longer pertain, it may actually prove unwise to seek to replicate this process at the European level. We go on to take issue with the traditional view that the European process of political representation fails mainly because political parties do not compete on so-called European issues. Despite a poor process of political representation at the European level, European elections and political parties appear to serve quite effectively as instruments of political representation. We conclude by suggesting that the effectiveness of political representation at the European level owes much to the absence of party government, such that, paradoxically, one of the most commonly cited aspects of the democratic deficit thereby appears to alleviate the other
The Parameters of Party Systems
No full textDespite the scepticism that increasingly surrounds their role and standing in contemporary democracies, scholarly interest in political parties continues unabated. But this interest is also proving uneven, with relatively little attention now being given to the study of party systems. More specifically, the level of theoretical interest in party systems remains limited, with almost no substantial innovations being made since the publication of Sartori's classic work of 1976. In this article, we seek to redress some of this neglect by identifying the relevant parameters that can be used in the definition of party systems and, possibly, in the explanation of party system change. We then go on to look at the minimum defining characteristics of a system of parties (as opposed to a set of parties) before finally arguing that party systems are best understood as multidimensional phenomena in which we identify and discuss the implications of three types of division — vertical, horizontal and functional
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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