Centre for Democratic Institutions

Seminar on Political Parties & Party Law in New Democracies

On 15 April 2009 as part of the political science seminar series at the ANU, CDI Director Professor Ben Reilly presented a paper on "Political Parties and Party Law in New Democracies". A distinctive democratization trend of recent years has been for new democracies to introduce ambitious political party laws aimed at influencing the development of their party systems. These laws typically seek to build more stable and coherent political parties in parliament and/or stronger party organizations in the broader polity, or to sideline the development of ethnic parties or those seen as undesirable in other ways. But do they work? Professor Reilly's paper seeks to answer this question by discussing the role that parties play in political development, and the impact of attempts at political party engineering in new democracies.

Political Science Program @ the ANU


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	Crawford School of Economics and Government	The Centre for Democratic Institutions (CDI) is a government-funded body that supports the efforts of new democracies in the Asia-Pacific region to strengthen their political systems. It provides training, technical assistance and peer support for parliamentarians and emerging leaders in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, with a particular focus on Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji. The Australian Government established CDI in 1998. It is funded primarily by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). One of the primary ways in which CDI works to promote democracy is through strengthening parliamentary governance and political parties. The Centre focusses on parliamentary and political party development, and conducts flagship training courses and policy-relevant research on these subjects.
© The Centre for Democratic Institutions, The Australian National University. Please direct all comments to cdi@anu.edu.au. Last modified: 31 July, 2009 CRICOSProvider Number: 00120C