Sartori reconsidered: toward a new predominant party system

Despite the success of his party systems theory, Giovanni Sartori’s predominant party system is a type that is consistently avoided by party systems scholars, yet the reasons for this have been unclear. This article exposes the flaws in Sartori’s predominant party system, but we also argue that it remains a useful concept and, consequently, that the literature’s rejection of predominance and retreat to the cruder dominance notion is unnecessary. Instead, we amend predominance to ensure its coherence within Sartori’s typology and consistency with his party systems theory. We show that our amendments improve the value of predominance as a category for empirical analysis of the effects of party systems.

Constraints, segmentation, services, satisfaction and loyalty relating to park visitation.

Nature parks provide substantial recreation opportunities for the community. Improved park use through better knowledge of visits and what constrains people from visiting parks was the focus of this research. Certain park services affect different market segments’ experience; the experience and economic benefits in turn affect the loyalty of visitors.

Cycles in public opinion and the dynamics of stable party systems

We study a dynamic model of elections where many parties may enter or exit political competition. At each election a new political leadership arrives for each party. The leadership cannot choose the party's platform (ideological identities are fixed) but must decide whether or not to contest the election. Contesting elections is costly and this cost is higher if the party has recently been inactive. The distribution of voters' ideal policies, or public opinion, changes over time via a Markov process with a state independent persistence parameter. We characterise stable party systems where the set of contestants is invariant to the recent most observed opinion. We show that stable party systems exist only when public opinion is sufficiently volatile, while highly persistent moods lead to instability and change in the party system whenever public opinion changes.

Bridging the divide: measuring party system change and classifying party systems

Party systems research has proceeded along two parallel lines of inquiry, one predominantly “qualitative” and the other “quantitative.” This article attempts to bridge this divide in two ways. First, by showing that qualitative information can be valuable in the construction of quantitative measures. Second, by showing that the results from applying theoretically sensitive measurement tools can be useful for qualitative classification. These analyses are performed using an original dataset of party system changes in Sub-Saharan Africa.

La influencia del Blues en la configuración y creación de The Black Panther Party en Estados Unidos (1966)

El trabajo a continuación tiene como objetivo mostrar cómo la música ha estado ligada al afroamericano desde su llegada al continente Americano en 1800, y cómo ha sido usada para lograr una transformación político-social que permitiría alcanzar la igualdad de trato en Estados Unidos durante la mitad del siglo XX. Se observará la evolución del Blues desde sus raíces y la introducción del R&B como expresión de pensamiento, ideas y experiencias utilizado por The Black Panther Party en la escena social negra de la época. Para lograr el objetivo anteriormente mencionado, se utilizará la Teoría de Campos de Pierre Bourdieu, junto con los conceptos de Capital y Habitus.

Between service and loyalty: chancery and chancellors of Portugal in the 14th century

Estudo dos perfis e carreiras dos chancelares que serviram os reis portugueses ao longo do século XIV. Procura-se, com este estudo, reflectir sobre a evolução do papel dos eclesiásticos na construção da realeza e estabelecer tendências para a evolução dos perfis dos protagonistas do serviço régio.

Customer Loyalty toward grocery retailing service: a multidimensional approach to costumer perceived value

Structured abstract Purpose: To deepen, in grocery retail context, the roles of consumer perceived value and consumer satisfaction, as antecedents’ dimensions of customer loyalty intentions. Design/Methodology/approach: Also employing a short version (12-items) of the original 19-item PERVAL scale of Sweeney & Soutar (2001), a structural equation modeling approach was applied to investigate statistical properties of the indirect influence on loyalty of a reflective second order customer perceived value model. The performance of three alternative estimation methods was compared through bootstrapping techniques. Findings: Results provided i) support for the use of the short form of the PERVAL scale in measuring consumer perceived value; ii) the influence of the four highly correlated independent latent predictors on satisfaction was well summarized by a higher-order reflective specification of consumer perceived value; iii) emotional and functional dimensions were determinants for the relationship with the retailer; iv) parameter’s bias with the three methods of estimation was only significant for bootstrap small sample sizes. Research limitations:/implications: Future research is needed to explore the use of the short form of the PERVAL scale in more homogeneous groups of consumers. Originality/value: Firstly, to indirectly explain customer loyalty mediated by customer satisfaction it was adopted a recent short form of PERVAL scale and a second order reflective conceptualization of value. Secondly, three alternative estimation methods were used and compared through bootstrapping and simulation procedures.