The “Niu–Li Factional Strife,” named after Niu Sengru (779–847) and Li Deyu (787–850), is an enduring theme in Tang history. Based on accounts of personal animosity, a narrative evolved in which Niu and Li have become the ringleaders of two factions that drew in almost all high-profile literati of the ninth century. This article revises traditional and modern narratives of the Strife by first showing that the scattered and contradictory evidence in the earliest sources does not bear out the model of a decades-long struggle between two factions. Second, it demonstrates how “Niu and Li” first arose as an emblem of Tang weakness and a rallying cry for unity within the bureaucracy under the Northern Song two centuries later. Finally, it shows how modern historians picked up the loose ends and remoulded them into a struggle between different classes against the backdrop of factious politics in Republican China.

The grand vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha (d. 1661) stands out as one of the most celebrated figures of Ottoman history, but despite his prominence, the basic contours of his earlier life remain largely unknown, and most of what is known derives from narrative accounts produced long after his death. This study utilizes archival sources to reconstruct Köprülü's career prior to his 1656 promotion to the grand vizierate. It reveals a major gap in the narrative sources: in 1653, when Köprülü is supposed to have been politically inactive, he was actually serving as a provincial governor in the sensitive region of Karaman in south-central Anatolia. At that time, a rebel faction was active in the area, and evidence indicates that Köprülü aligned with them. Elements of this faction, under Abaza Hasan's leadership, would later go on to rebel against Köprülü himself in 1658. Köprülü's ties to this rebel faction stand in sharp contrast to his later historical image as a paragon of order and central authority. An understanding of this period thus permits a reevaluation not only of Köprülü's political character, but also of how his supporters worked to construct his image in the aftermath of Abaza Hasan's rebellion.

Factionalism is an important element in parties' internal life, affecting their policies, strategies, electoral performance and even survival. Yet little is known about how parties manage factionalism. This study examines how radical left parties (RLPs) manage factionalism, drawing on a comparative case study of four RLPs – the Spanish Podemos and United Left (IU), and the Portuguese Left Bloc (BE) and Communist Party (PCP) – from 2010 to 2019. Drawing on original data collection, we find that parties adopt both formal and informal mechanisms to address factionalism. However, their approaches differ significantly. We identify two main approaches towards factionalism: a permissive approach, which allows internal pluralism, in the BE and IU; and a prohibitionist approach, which actively fights factionalism, in Podemos and the PCP, with competitive prohibitionism in the former and pre-emptive prohibitionism in the latter. These approaches strongly correlate with parties' origins and political orientation, but neither fully prevents intra-party conflict or splintering.

This article examines a corpus of over forty Italian civic histories produced from the mid-thirteenth to mid-fourteenth century, when the wealth of many of the peninsula's inhabitants increased significantly. Evidence from this corpus demonstrates that attitudes about wealth in historical writing changed over time and argues for a shift from a more static to a more dynamic representation of material goods in these texts. The novel mechanisms for accruing wealth that developed in the Italian urban context were important factors in the historigraphic turn, but as the period wore one, changes in the types of people writing history also contributed to modified presentations of wealth in their writings. Whether describing the display of luxury or its regulation, civic improvements or the destruction of a town's buildings by warring factions, taxation in a city or the corruption of its offiicials, views towards material goods in medieval Italian urban histories were neither wholly positive nor negative. Rather, the historiographic value of material goods was complex. The frequency with which wealth was a topic of discussion in civic histories highlights how the peninsula's inhabitants were coming to terms with the influx of wealth and the material goods they could acquire as members of their urban communities.

This article has two main objectives. First, we aim to revisit debates about the structure of Song Dynasty faction lists and the relationship between eleventh- and twelfth century factional politics on the basis of a large-scale network analysis of co-occurrence ties reported in the prose collections of those contemporary to the events. Second, we aim to innovate methodologically by developing a series of approaches to compare historical networks of different sizes with regard to overall network metrics as well as the significance of particular attributes such as native and workplace in their makeup. The probabilistic and sampling methods developed here should be applicable for various kinds of historical network analysis. The corresponding data can be found here: https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-xtf-z3au.

What is the relationship between schism and political identity? Existing scholarship has tended to focus on the determinants of schism while treating the ideational basis on which schisms are made as largely fixed. In this paper, I develop a new interpretation of the 1933 “neo-socialist schism” within the French Socialist Party to highlight how new political identities can be constituted in and through the process of schism itself. The 1933 schism is often understood as the convergence of a doctrinal revision called “neo-socialism” and a separate tactical challenge to the party's parliamentary practice. But a careful reading of the factional conflict within the party reveals that it was the preceding tactical debate over ministerial participation that was transformed over time into a debate over socialist doctrine. This distinction between “tactics” and “doctrine” performatively defined the limits of acceptable party discourse, and as such was both a weapon and a stake in the factional conflict. I trace the evolution of this conflict and show that, so long as the minority faction was weak, the issue of participation was widely considered “tactical” and thus safe for discussion. But when minority strength grew, the majority sought to redefine the conflict as doctrinal to delegitimate the challengers. Finally, only when a schism appeared inevitable did the challengers themselves adopt the label of “neo-socialism.” Neo-socialism was thus not a pre-constituted political heresy driving the schismatic process, but the contingent and emergent outcome of this very process.

How does a party’s organizational structure affect its chances of becoming a national party? While existing explanations of party nationalization focus on country-level institutional and societal variables, we argue that aspects of party organization such as the degree of centralization of authority, ideological unity and leadership factionalism also matter. By bringing the analysis to the party level, this article provides a multilevel analysis of institutional and party organization variables and disentangles the effect of each set of influences. We use original data on party organization and party nationalization for 142 parties across twenty European countries. This research contributes to the literature on nationalization and party development by advancing organizational strategies which parties could adopt in different social and institutional environments.

This paper investigates collective memory of the Soviet experiment in the narratives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), in the period of 1993–2004. My research finds that ideological differences within the CPRF led to the creation of multiple and contrasting depictions of the Soviet past in the discourse of its leaders. Challenging dominant assumptions, I argue that these differences did not conflict and undermine one another, but were structured to strengthen the public appeal of the CPRF. The paper adds empirical findings to the study of the CPRF and of collective memory at the (so far underdeveloped) level of public organizations. The paper also challenges the prevailing assumption that diverging historical narratives necessarily imply conflict and contestation.

The 1728 Musin Rebellion was a failed attempt by factional members to overthrow militarily King Yŏngjo's government. Between 1736 and 1837, six stelae, dedicated to loyal subjects who resisted the rebels, were erected in three different provinces. These stelae contain historical descriptions of the rebellion, its suppression, and the political aftermath. Previous research centred on one stele, represented as evidence of worsening discrimination against Kyŏngsang province elites. This article considers the six stelae in relation to the wider political context of 1728–1837 and analyses consistencies in the text, political connections, location, and the target audience. The stelae reveal complex political struggles in post-rebellion Chosŏn, including a struggle for court recognition by loyalists in areas of rebel strength. Most significantly, the stelae reveal a struggle amongst the victors of the rebellion. The authors attempted to set the record straight over the loyalty of their officials – especially those who had been involved in some form of controversy during the Musin Rebellion – thereby proving their loyalty to Yŏngjo and their right to administer government. To show they were trustworthy court officials, moderate Disciple's faction supporters were also distancing themselves from Disciple's faction extremists that had led the Musin Rebellion.