Does society and its cleavages influence Parties, or rather the other way around? The book I have reviewed deals with this crucial research question in Political Sociology.
Building Blocs. How Parties Organize Society. Edited by Cedric de Leon, Manali Desai, and Cihan Tuǧal, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015. 242p. $24.95 cloth.
The literature on political parties’ genesis and organization is well consolidated. Do exist brilliant books on comparative politics and in political sociology alike. On one side, the contributions of Max Weber, Stein Rokkan, Seymour Lipset and Hans Daalder have settled a clear perspective on the relevance of social cleavages and structures in shaping the born and the development of political parties, especially in western countries, and in Europe in particular. On the other side, the organizational perspective to analyze political parties is well robust alike. Since the seminal works of Moisey Ostrogorsky, Robert Michels, and then Maurice Duverger, David Epstein, Valdimer O. Key, Sigmund, Angelo Panebianco, Giovanni Sartori, Peter Mair, etc., the structure of political parties has been well analyzed. Do exist comparative researches that shed light on differences and similarities of different aspects of the political organizations, such as the leadership, the role of members and activists, and the funding. Leggi tutto “Building Blocs. How Parties Organize Society”