Factions

"Nel Friuli patriarcale Cividale era solo una 'terra', ma la vocazione urbana - già visibile nella 'forma urbis' - era fortissima. Nel corso del Trecento il consiglio del Comune attuò una chiusura oligarchica: 'milites' e 'pedites' appaiono ormai come etichette prive di valore, ma sono un gruppo coeso, che nei confronti del patriarca Bertrando di Saint-Geniés seglie la via del conflitto, fino al tragico epilogo del 1350.
Nel saggio sono descritte le magistrature cittadine e individuato il gruppo dirigente urbano tra tra 1328-45 (riassunto in due tavole poste in appendice)."

The study submitted here has to be understood as a contribution to the ongoing discussion devoted to the role of court parties in the Early Modern Age. Its centre of focus is a power grouping which the historians usually refer to as the Spanish Party/Faction at the Imperial Court. The author deals with the frequency of these terms (including their various language mutations) in contemporary sources and in current historical literature. Applying an analysis of informal links which tied Central European noblemen to the institution of the Spanish Embassy at the Imperial Court in the 16th century and in the first half of the 17th century, he then attempts to answer questions such as what the so-called Spanish Party/Faction was; whether there was a disparity in the understanding of the terms Party and Faction and to what degree these terms correspond to the designation of the relationship network

Partisan conflict is a defining feature of contemporary U.S. politics. Much of this conflict has occurred between the two parties, as is documented in a sizable literature on partisan polarization. Recent intra-party disputes direct our attention to another form of partisan conflict: party factions. We know surprisingly little about factions, including where they fit in party coalitions, why they might form in an era of polarized parties, or their impact on inter-party dynamics. In this paper I develop a theory of party factions. I build on earlier accounts of parties as long coalitions of policy demanders to explain what might incentivize low-influence groups to form miniature parties (factions) within their parties. To illustrate the empirical implications of this theory, I draw on original data about the Tea Party. I demonstrate how Tea Partiers sought to increase their influence in the Republican coalition by forming a sub-party organization that pressured the Republican Party and took over its electoral machinery.

The presence of highly structured factions is a key-feature of lombard political society throughout the later Middle Ages until well into the Cinquecento. This essay explores the nature of factional groups in 15th century Parma, where they operate as a means of political action at informal but also at institutional level. Far from being loose networks kept together by the temporary interests of individuals, factions appear to be built around the political traditions of urban lineages and the long-term patronage ties which connected them to the four major families of the local landed nobility. Parma’s case study provides useful insights into relevant issues: the relations between kinship and factional membership, the political cohesion of the lineage, the influence of structural factors on the political choices of the individual, the interrelations between feud and faction.

What was the real story behind Buondelmonte de’ Buondelmonti’s condemnation, attributed to Cacciaguida in Paradiso, xvi, 136–147? The major Florentine chronicles of Dante’s era (Compagni) and thenceforth (Villani, Stefani) paint a picture of an innocent Buondelmonte, barbarously assassinated thanks to the homicidal rage of his peers – the magnates. However, the harsh treatment of Buondelmonte in the Commedia is the result of the character Cacciaguida (and therefore Dante) adhering to the noble/magnate ethos found in many contemporary sources (for example the chronicle by the pseudo-Brunetto Latini). Indeed, only at a later date would the Popolo’s ethos, expressed in the works of Compagni, Villani and Stefani, become the ‘definitive’ version.

This  article  explores  how  the  classical  world  conceived  political  conflict,  beginning  with  its  views  on  “factions” and  “parties”.  Starting  from  Homer  and  Hesiod,  for  whom  Justice is  what  enabled  the  transition  from  original chaos to an organized cosmos, the article then focuses on the birth of the polis as mediator in the conflict between the social “parts”. It examines the works of Thucidides, Plato and Aristotle, who share a critical view of “parts”, which are seen as “factions” destroying political order. Polybius, on the other hand, credits the “parts” with being constituents of the political “whole”, whereas for Sallustius “factions” are responsible for the decline of the RomanRepublic.  Cicero,  too,  rejects  “factions”  as  undermining  the  “concord”  of  the  State,  whereas  with  the advent  of the Empire, the particularistic horizon of the poleis is superseded. It will take Tacitus to point out the contradic-tions of a particular powerthat legitimizes itself as universal.

(9200 words + iconographic appendix): chapter for the Renaissance volume (eds. Virginia Cox and Joanne Paul) of the Cultural History of Democracy (6 volumes) - Bloomsbury (scientific project editor: Eugenio Biagini, Cambridge, History) -- 2021
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/cultural-history-of-democracy-9781350042933/

All institutions of society have some individuals who own a superior position than others in their particular group or institution. They have or considered to have the ability to lead and control over the people’s thoughts. They are called elite class in their respective institution like as political, spiritual, economic, religious or intellectual one. Elite class has some influence on local people’s choices respectively and has the ability to change the choices of common persons and wins the loyalty by them. The purpose of current paper was to study the impact of local elite class on political groupings and orientation of local people as well as the voting behavior of people. It also explored that how local elite class made their influence on people. The locale of the study was Taunsa city, District Dera Ghazi Khan. A sample of 100

In the growing political theory literature on populism, the way in which populism appropriates the theory and practice of partisan politics remains neglected. My paper draws on the work of Norberto Bobbio (1909-2004), the leading political and legal theorist of XX-century Italy, to theorize this overlooked aspect of the populist phenomenon. Through the study of Silvio Berlusconi's populism, this paper excavates Bobbio's attempt to distinguish between parties and factions in the specific context of party democracy. A long-processed and key acquisition of proto-democratic politics, this distinction remains thin in polarized democracies, wherein the charge of factionalism becomes a rhetorical strategy to discredit a priori our political antagonists and their arguments. As Bobbio highlighted, Berlusconi's visions of the state and the party were structurally connected. Having built from scratch first his economic empire and then his own political party, Berlusconi believed that the state and its institutions, too, were at the mercy of his personal interests, as if both the party and the state were an appendix to his public persona. His political populism and his institutional patrimonialism were, as I put it rephrasing Kantorowicz, "the populist leader's two bodies". When contextualized and revisited, Bobbio's considerations on Berlusconi disclose important contributions-historical, conceptual, and normative-within three connected bodies of literature in democratic theory: the study of parties and partisanship; the theorization of populism; and the multiple analyses of the decay of party democracy. Additionally, they can serve as a template to theorize similar transformations of American democracy in the present.

Many China-watchers argue that Xi Jinping 习近平 has concentrated power in his own hands in a manner unprecedented since the death of Mao Zedong 毛泽东 and Deng Xiaoping 邓小 平. This article tests the extent of Xi's power consolidation by comparing the strength of his faction during his time in power to similar periods under his two immediate predecessors, Jiang Zemin 江泽民 and Hu Jintao 胡锦涛. Furthermore, we investigate whether a dominant faction is emerging under Xi Jinping, replacing the power balancing between factions that was the norm throughout the reform era. Analyzing factional affiliations of Chinese leaders in the top four ranks, we find that Xi has formed a dominant faction. Through statistical analysis of promotion chances of provincial leaders, we find that Xi has been unusually successful in promoting his clients as compared to previous leaders. This suggests that Xi has strengthened his faction by promoting provincial leaders to an extent unprecedented since the death of Mao and Deng.

All institutions of society have some individuals who own a superior position than others in their particular group or institution. They have or considered to have the ability to lead and control over the people's thoughts. They are called elite class in their respective institution like as political, spiritual, economic, religious or intellectual one. Elite class has some influence on local people's choices respectively and has the ability to change the choices of common persons and wins the loyalty by them. The purpose of current paper was to study the impact of local elite class on political groupings and orientation of local people as well as the voting behavior of people. It also explored that how local elite class made their influence on people. The locale of the study was Taunsa city, District Dera Ghazi Khan. A sample of 100 1 Corresponding author: huda.aftab@gmail.com

In this article (in French) I compare two "favoris du prince", two high-ranking courtiers, and their conflictual relationships with the prince's heir. They are Jean d' Arkel, in the years 1400, a favourite of the count of Holland, Albert of Bavaria, and Antoine de Croy, lord chamberlain and favourite of the duke of Burgundy, Philippe le Bon. The idea is to analyze the different phases of the conflict (mobilization of suppurt, peace violation, reconciliation and return to peace) along the lines of an anthropological model. The two favourites, because of their important land possessions, their matrimonial alliances and their political activity, ranked far higher than all the other noblemen. Through their formal and informal networks they tried to control the structures of the State and part of its revenues. This is the reason why they were considered by the heirs as a danger for the dynasties and territorial unity. In both cases, the heirs built themselves a clientage of their own made up of newcomers or of people who had been excluded fium power. The heirs, who benefited fr'om more political, ideological and financial resources than the favourites, eventually won. They still needed all the same the support of the favourites, or at least the support of their landed possessions as they bordered other entities.

Informal connections play an important role in regimes all across the world, but among China’s political elite, it is particularly factional affiliation that is said to determine who will rule and who will fall victim to a purge. This paper argues that informal politics is better conceptualized through networks than factions, and identifies and evaluates two common approaches to measure such networks: the inductive approach, which relies on a qualitative assessment of insider sources, and the deductive approach, which infers the network from publicly available data. The paper evaluates several commonly used deductive networks using methods and concepts developed in Social Network Analysis, and finds that coworker networks perform best in these tests, but can be further refined by noting the number of instances of working together, or by taking into account promotions that have occurred while the two individuals were coworkers.

While students of Chinese politics have long been interested in the impact of fiscal and administrative decentralization on patterns of governance in China, few have examined the impact of decentralization on political dynamics within the local state. Focusing on the county—the level of government primarily responsible for delivering public services, managing local state-owned enterprises, and coordinating the economy—this article explains how the pressures and incentives associated with decentralization have changed the “rules of the game” at the local level. It argues, in an in-depth study of a rural county, that local politics is driven largely by a competition over spoils and that competition over spoils is organized around a relatively stable system of factionalism. The first part of the article examines the emergence of local factions in County X and their relationship to the formal institutions of Party and government. The second part examines the resilience of local state factionalism and its implications for central government control and one-Party rule.

espanolEste articulo focaliza la atencion en los efectos que el conflicto entre Roma y Mitridates VI Eupator genero sobre las poleis griegas. Estas, divididas social y politicamente, apoyaron a un bando u otro en funcion de la politica de alianzas planteada por la faccion dirigente en cada momento. Para entender la situacion, el articulo propone el analisis de diversos casos de estudio de la Grecia continental, las islas del Egeo y Asia Menor: Delos-Atenas, Cos-Rodas, Pergamo y Heraclea Pontica. EnglishThis article focuses on the impact of the war between Rome and Mithridates VI on the Greek poleis. The latter, divided socially and politically, supported one side or the other depending on the policy of alliances proposed by the faction currently in power. In order to better understand the situation, several case studies from mainland Greece, the Aegean islands and Asia Minor (Delos-Athens, Cos-Rhodes, Pergamum and Heraclea Pontica) have been considered. catalaAquest article centra l...

Even if the non-unitary nature of parties has come back into the party politics agenda, many of its features are still largely understudied. Specifically, an encompassing explanation of individual faction membership and of the role of party fusions in fostering faction membership is still missing. By performing a diachronic analysis, this article proposes a new approach to study the determinants of faction membership, highlighting the fundamental role of ideological, policy- and career-related factors. Moreover, the article uses as an explanatory factor a key element that has hitherto never been taken into account in intra-party analyses: psychological social identity, a variable that strongly conditions party members’ behaviour in situations where parties are merging.
The analysis also shows the crucial role of party fusion in shaping individual faction membership determinants, highlighting that the effect of these determinants varies considerably the more time has elapsed since the party’s merger.

This article aims to provide a new understanding of factionalism as a form of social footing of political parties, based on the case study of the RPP (Republican People Party) in Adana metropolis (Southern Turkey). Turkish parties are generally considered as cut off from society. However, on the local scale, factionalism is omnipresent. Its analysis shows that the party maintains sustained but instable relationships with social groups and collective interests. This kind of factionalism only partially matches the theories developed in the 1970 on other countries. Poorly institutionalized, this version relies on diverse and changing social bases, in a context of dismantling of politicized groups. Analyzing this phenomenon provides a new understanding of the forms of political leadership as well as on the exchanges between leaders, activists and electors. This perspective also sheds new light on the internal working of parties, especially on the relationships between local and national scales.

過去對於1977年中壢事件的討論及敘事，常被放置於民主化過程中「黨外」對決「國民黨」的框架之下。然而，較少在為數不多的研究中被提及的是，中壢事件本身也有很強的地方性與特殊性。本文即試圖以這種地方性著手，探討中壢事件在「地方政治」的角度下，是否能給予新的意義或解釋，進而回饋到更大的敘事之中，或許有予以修正或豐富的可能。
中壢事件應至少分為下列幾起連續事件，這些事件本身有直接的因果關係：國民黨提名過程、桃園縣長選戰、二一三投開票所事件、中壢分局事件，以及與沒有直接因果關係，但仍有關連的二七九投開票所事件。而本文則以國民黨提名過程及桃園縣長選戰為主要討論對象。
2020年，國史館也開始進行中壢事件口述歷史訪問計畫，除訪談許信良及黨外陣營的當事人之外，也試圖獲得包括國民黨方、檢察官、投開票所職員等不同來源的說法。在經過訪問後。我們得知許多事件當事人都與當時桃園或其他縣市的地方政治人物（多為地方派系成員）有親戚或結盟關係。這些關係及其活動，影響了整個桃園縣長選戰的結果。
        初步的研究結果發現，桃園縣長選舉與同時在桃園競選的省議員、鄉鎮市長等選舉國民黨候選人票數及結果差異相當大，有顯然的分裂投票情形。本文即依據上述脈絡，試圖建立選舉結果和許信良陣營與地方派系互動之間的因果關係。

This book examines the development of the Ukrainian parliament - the Verkhovna Rada - from before Ukraine's independence in 1991 to the present. It shows how the parliament transformed itself from a provincial republican Soviet to the national legislature of a sovereign state and from a nominal, symbolic body to a genuine legislative and representative institution. It discusses the key role of parliament in the wider state-building process and examines the evolution of political factions and the committee system in the parliament.