Pete S Party

There is a party at Pete's, and Jack and Gabriella are invited. How will they get there? They'll follow the signs, straight to Pete's party!

The Trucktown trucks follow the road signs directing them to Pete's party.

The Trucktown trucks follow the road signs directing them to Pete's party.

The functioning of representative democracy crucially depends on political parties that mediate between citizens and the state. It is widely doubted, however, that contemporary parties can still perform this connective role. Taking seriously the ensuing challenges for representative democracy, Rethinking Party Reform advances a normative account of party reform, drawing on both democratic theory and political science scholarship on parties. Moving beyond purely descriptive or causal-analytical perspectives on party reform, the book clarifies on theoretical grounds why party reform is centrally important for the sustainability of established democracies, and what effective party reforms could look like in an age where most citizens look to parties with scepticism and distrust. In doing so, this book underlines in distinctive fashion why scholars and citizens should care about re-inventing and transforming political parties, resisting widespread tendencies of either declaring parties unreformable or theorising them out of the picture.

This book provides a comparative overview and account of how the parties in Western Europe have perceived contemporary challenges of electoral dealignment and how they have responded - whether organizationally, programmatically, or institutionally.

A groovy New York Times bestseller! From the bestselling Pete the Cat series, it’s a groovy pizza party that you don’t want to miss! It’s a party, a party, a perfect pizza party! That’s what Pete thinks as he piles the pie high with his favorite topping—pepperoni. But then his friends come over and add their own toppings to the pizza. Will Pete’s perfect pizza be ruined? There’s only one way to find out! In this picture book full of fun alliteration and tasty foods by the New York Times bestselling team of Kimberly and James Dean, Pete and the gang learn that the best kind of pizza is one you share with your friends. Don't miss Pete's other adventures, including Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes, Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons, Pete the Cat Saves Christmas, Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses, Pete the Cat and the Bedtime Blues, Pete the Cat and the New Guy, Pete the Cat and the Cool Cat Boogie, and Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes.

In the long-established democracies of Western Europe, electoral turnouts are in decline, membership is shrinking in the major parties, and those who remain loyal partisans are sapped of enthusiasm. Peter Mair’s new book weighs the impact of these changes, which together show that, after a century of democratic aspiration, electorates are deserting the political arena. Mair examines the alarming parallel development that has seen Europe’s political elites remodel themselves as a homogeneous professional class, withdrawing into state institutions that offer relative stability in a world of fickle voters. Meanwhile, non-democratic agencies and practices proliferate and gain credibility—not least among them the European Union itself, an organization contributing to the depoliticization of the member states and one whose notorious ‘democratic deficit’ reflects the deliberate intentions of its founders. Ruling the Void offers an authoritative and chilling assessment of the prospects for popular political representation today, not only in the varied democracies of Europe but throughout the developed world.

This volume brings together comparative studies and in-depth case studies that research the diversity of party system change in Europe. In so doing it presents a model for change which challenges orthodox views of political evolution.