research paper on political party

Decline, adaptation and relevance: political parties and their researchers in the twentieth century

• Special Issue Article
• Published: 16 February 2021
• Volume 20 , pages 123–138, ( 2021 )

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• Anika Gauja 1 &
• Karina Kosiara-Pedersen 2  

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The sub-field of political party research is an interesting case study of the broader development of the discipline of political science over the past 20 years as it demonstrates the reflexive and evolving relationship between politics researchers and the organizations that they study. Party research has moved on from crises of existence, to studying the resilience and adaptation of these organizations with new and evolving methodologies that have taken party research into the twenty-first century and fostered more collaborative, specialist and increasingly internationalized relationships within the research community. In the last two decades, expectations around research engagement and impact have heightened in response to changes in the research funding environment and the political pressure to demonstrate the ongoing relevance of the discipline has intensified. The increasingly heterogeneous, specialized and quantified nature of the subfield has enabled party scholarship to find impact and relevance through the provision of technical advice to parties and policymakers, thereby affecting how parties organize. However, while political party researchers have been able to engage audiences outside academia with this specialized and technical advice, the sub-discipline has shifted away from some of the “bigger picture”, normative questions surrounding the role of parties in modern representative democracies.

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Gauja, A., Kosiara-Pedersen, K. Decline, adaptation and relevance: political parties and their researchers in the twentieth century. Eur Polit Sci 20 , 123–138 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-020-00312-8

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Annual Review of Political Science

Volume 2, 1999, review article, political parties and democracy.

• S. C. Stokes 1
• View Affiliations Hide Affiliations Affiliations: Department of Political Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637; e-mail: [email protected]
• Vol. 2:243-267 (Volume publication date June 1999) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.2.1.243
• © Annual Reviews

A central claim of democratic theory is that democracy induces governments to be responsive to the preferences of the people. Political parties organize politics in every modern democracy, and some observers claim that parties are what induce democracies to be responsive. Yet, according to others, parties give voice to extremists and reduce the responsiveness of governments to the citizenry. The debate about parties and democracy takes on renewed importance as new democracies around the globe struggle with issues of representation and governability. I show that our view of the impact of parties on democratic responsiveness hinges on what parties are—their objectives and organization. I review competing theories of parties, sketch their testable implications, and note the empirical findings that may help adjudicate among these theories. I also review debates about the origins of parties, about the determinants of party-system size and characteristics, and about party competition.

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Political Parties

In political science political parties have been described as the core institutions of democracy and necessary for its flourishing. Such claims echo earlier statements about democracy as unthinkable without parties. Even if the way in which parties function has received severe criticism, there is also a widespread consensus that parties are necessary and that it is difficult to imagine democracy without them. Hence, representative democracy has become the norm and a decline of parties is seen as detrimental to democracy.

Understanding of what is meant by a party must be established before entering the debate on whether and how parties have changed. A minimal concept of a party entails a certain level of organization, a more or less coherent program, and a procedure to select representatives. A number of functions can then be added to this. These, however, are not strictly necessary to speak of a party, yet this does not imply that a party is explained from the functions performed, or its absence if certain functions are not performed. Most authors mention recruitment, aggregation, and mobilization as functions. In addition, parties have to find a balance between the goals of votes, office, and policy. This would mean that a party typically is defined by these goals simultaneously: winning elections, gaining representation, and being in government.

Defining Political Parties

One of the oldest and most famous definitions of party is that of Edmund Burke: “Party is a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed” (40). Burke importantly assumes that parties strive for the same goals (i.e., the national interest), and only differ on the policies to achieve this. Taking this one step further, Anson Morse argues that a party advances “the interests and realization of the ideals, not of the people as a whole, but of the particular group which it represents” (91). Hence, contrary to Burke, Morse claims that parties pursue their own objectives. These objectives are, first, distinguishing themselves from their competitors and, second, gaining a large share of the popular vote.

The well-known critiques of parties from Moisey Ostrogorski and Robert Michels give another twist to this debate on general versus specific interests. Both authors focus in particular on how parties operate as organizations and with what effects. Michels’s description of the elitist and oligarchical tendencies within parties, or Ostrogorski’s depiction of the vicious influence of the party “machine” and the caucus imply that parties evolve in such a way that the interests of the masses make way for the particularistic and narrow interests of the few.

After World War II (1939–1945), the discussion on the nature of parties reemerged, but it was more oriented toward conceptualization—especially the necessary features to speak of a party. This led to various typologies of parties and party models. For instance, Otto Kirchheimer’s catch-all concept largely focused on the characteristics of mass parties, whereas Maurice Duverger distinguishes between membership parties and cadre parties. More recently, other types of parties have been put forward, like cartel parties and business-firm parties, where membership is less important and resources are derived from state subsidies or individual donations.

Joseph La Palombara and Myron Weiner define parties by a certain level of organization (locally and nationally) and by their office-seeking and vote-seeking characteristics. They distinguish the modern party from the “cliques, clubs and small groups of notables” (8) that can be identified as the antecedents of the modern political party. This combination of organization and programmatic goals is also found in Richard Rose’s work, identifying a party as “an organization concerned with the expression of popular preferences and contesting control of the chief policy-making offices of government” (3).

This conceptual and empirical development tends to blur the difference between what parties are and what parties do. A party will thus be defined here as an organized group of people who select candidates for parliament or government by participating in elections. This is the main function, or task, that sets parties apart from social movements, trade unions, or interest groups. Parties may perform all other functions, but they are not exclusive for a party.

Political Party Functions

In his discussion of the role of parties in the political system, Morse distinguishes two main functions of political parties: the education and organization of public opinion, and the administration of government. Moreover, he introduces what has later become known as the linkage function of parties, or the integration of interests. His contemporary, Lord Bryce, distinguishes five functions. All parties share four of these functions: union (keeping the party together), recruitment (bringing in new voters), enthusiasm (exciting and rousing voters), and instruction (informing and educating voters). Interestingly, Bryce argues that a fifth function, the selection of party candidates, is rather unimportant for European parties, while it is central to American parties.

In the classic article, “Political Parties in Western Democracies,” Anthony King provides an authoritative overview of the debate on party functions. Whilst being critical toward the functionalist approach, he does not suggest to do away with the study of functions altogether, but rather turns this into an agenda for empirical research. King’s main problem with functionalism is that parties are considered to produce consequences, and this has two main flaws. First, if certain hypothesized consequences are absent, one might believe that the party is not present. Second, there is the risk of inferring the existence of a party from the presence of the consequences—a general critique of functionalism.

The literature in the years that followed King’s contribution focuses less on party functions, but rather on the empirical study of how political parties performed in terms of vote-seeking, office-seeking, and policy-seeking actors within representative democracies.

Empirical Developments of Political Parties

In spite of these critical notes, party functions have remained central to analyzing parties. In fact, many authors have incorporated the objections raised, but as Russell Dalton and Martin Wattenberg argue, it is a functional rather than a functionalist approach. Party functions are used to measure what parties do, but functions are not seen as the constituting or defining elements of what a party is. Party functions become tools to measure change, transformation, or adaptation of parties, thus following King in his advice not only to draw up a list of party functions, but also to critically examine if and when parties carry out these functions. Table 1 presents an overview of the functions that several authors have ascribed to parties.

Table 1 illustrates considerable overlap with King’s functions, but none of these amounts to as many as six functions. This is no surprise: if the environment of parties changes, new functions may emerge while others become less relevant. One example of this is the education, or information, function, which was crucial for scholars at the end of the nineteenth century, then moved into the background for a long period, but recently reappeared in a different form in an era of mass media and modern technology.

Jean Blondel’s inventory has a slightly different presentation: rather than identifying functions, it basically describes group characteristics. Blondel speaks of mechanisms and institutions and refers to specific tasks that parties fulfill: handling conflicts and formulating policies. This inventory is parsimonious, as it leaves out specific reference to vote structuring, mobilization, and organization of government. Peter Mair stays closest to King’s inventory: aggregation of interests combines with articulation, the role of parties expands to the organization of both parliament and government, and nomination of persons to public office is added to the recruitment function. The main difference is that Mair, like several others, leaves out the function of “structuring the vote.”

On the whole, there is a striking congruence from the 1960s onwards. Most scholars assume that parties still perform roughly the same functions as they did thirty or forty years ago, even if the balance between these functions may have altered. On the basis of this overview, there are three essential functions:

• integrating and mobilizing the citizens to vote
• recruiting a political class to govern
• articulating and aggregating societal interests

This list contains functions related to both representation and governance, while it also refers to the tasks of a party in policy making and during elections. The functions emphasize the link between parties and voters, and the competition between parties. Finally, they allow for comparative analysis over time and across countries.

How Political Parties Develop: Decline Versus Transformation

A perennial debate concerns how parties have developed and continue to be omnipresent in Western democracies. Moreover, in many countries, parties have also been instrumental in the transition toward democracy and in providing legitimacy after its establishment. As Stefano Bartolini and Mair describe it, parties are important within a democratic political system since they concurrently “control political behaviour and harmonize different institutional orders” (342). In addition, the authors see no credible alternative to parties, which begs the question of what happens to democracy if parties no longer perform this political and institutional integration. After 1945 parties were regarded as indispensable for making democracy work.

The general idea that parties are essential for democracy still stands fast. Ian Budge and Hans Keman consider parties the “irreducible core” of democracy. José Montero and Richard Gunther state that parties are “essential for the proper functioning of representative democracy” (3), and they cite a number of other recent publications that put forward comparable claims. In other words, parties and democracy are seen as inseparable. A possible decline of parties—especially if this concerns functions of representation considered essential for making democracy work—is then often seen as a “crisis” of democracy. The often observed lower levels of trust in parties indicates this decline.

The Question of Political Party Decline

Montero and Gunther point at a paradox in the party literature: an increased attention for parties at the end of the 1990s accompanies a claim that parties are in decline. Another interesting point is that writings on party “crisis” mainly stem from the United States. American scholars such as Tim Aldrich have been more alert in this respect, contrary to scholars in Western Europe. Yet, Hans Daalder in 1992 mentions possible causes of party decline as:

• The legitimate role of parties is questioned, since they are considered counterproductive (in problem solving by policy making that reduces “good governance”).
• Selective perception of party competition: certain party systems are considered “good,” others “bad.”
• Redundancy of party: parties become irrelevant as other actors or institutions (e.g., interest mediation and representation) take over their functions.

In summary, it is argued that parties cannot exist or ought not exist (anymore).The first line of reasoning relates to what Daalder labels the redundancy of parties, while the second is seen as a result of distrusting parties.

These arguments come together in Joachim Raschke’s claim that the limits of what parties can do have been reached and that there is party “failure” in various aspects. First, there is over adaptation, and parties are not vehicles for change but enhance the status quo. Second, overgeneralization causes parties to no longer represent specific interests. Third, over institutionalization broadens the gap between citizens and parties. This party failure would explain the lower rates of electoral participation and of dealignment of voters across Europe and the United States.

Likewise, Mair’s analysis narrows the central aspects of party change to identity and functions. He argues that how parties present themselves to the electorate and the way they compete makes it increasingly difficult for voters to find ideological differences, or understand how these differences relate to their own interests. For the second element, party functions, Mair makes distinguishes representative and procedural functions and argues that the former type of functions—integrating and mobilizing the citizenry, articulating and integrating interests, and formulating public policy—have been drastically reduced. Conversely, the procedural functions—recruitment of candidates for office, organization of parliament and government— have remained important and may even gain significance. Thus, parties are changing from representative agencies into governing agencies: they have become parties of the state and are less part of society.

Aldrich considers the problem as emanating from a paradox where parties no longer match collective choice and related action by means of collective decision making. In the eye of the public and electorate, a party becomes redundant because they view “parties [that] are designed as attempts to solve problems that current institutional arrangements do not solve and that politicians have come to believe they cannot solve” (22). Hence, parties and their representatives are no longer capable to represent or to govern.

The conclusion can be drawn that the term party crisis concerns, in particular, the representative functions of parties. First, parties are less relevant for the information, education, and mobilization of the electorate. The role of cyberspace is but one example of how new technologies absorb this function. Second, parties are less successful in integrating interests. This problem relates both to the apparent inability of parties to adapt to new societal concerns and demands for other forms of participation, and the vanishing of ideological differences. Third, this development reinforces electoral volatility in many countries and points to processes of dealignment and realignment of individual voters vis-à-vis established parties or even departing from political life altogether.

Political Party Adaptation and Survival

There are three flaws in the debate surrounding party crisis, or party decline. First, using the term party crisis implies a view on what a party is, or a standard against which parties can be judged. Yet, it is unclear what this standard should be, and whether or not such a standard might well be contextually dynamic. Paul Webb qualifies the arguments about party crisis in a very succinct way:

In the absence of compelling systematic evidence that parties’ scope for autonomous action has diminished we would argue that most probably there never was a Golden Age of party government, and that it is therefore a misconception to speak in terms of “party decline” in this respect. (447)

Research on party crisis or decline should therefore start with a conscientious inventory of the roles and functions parties play As Dalton and Wattenberg have argued in their “functional approach to party politics,” certain functions may indeed have eroded, but this is compensated for by gaining others. Many authors tend to link the citizenry with the state as the crucial function of parties and from such a perspective, any loosening of this linkage is seen as decline. Yet, considering all party functions equal implies that a shift from representative functions to recruitment and governance is not the same as decline. Katz and Mair show that the main drawback of this perspective is that relations between parties and the state are ignored. Speaking of decline or failure is misconceived, and they see change as few signs that the role of parties has really diminished.

The third flaw in this type of reasoning is its emphasis on stability: it suggests that a party should remain more or less the same over time. Yet, the ability to change and adapt—to attract new groups of voters, to change the internal organization, or to renew the party ideology—can also be seen positively. This is Klaus von Beyme’s functional efficiency argument: parties have been able to adapt their organization and role to new circumstances. In a traditional view—putting the citizen-party linkage at the center—this is, however, seen as party decline. Trends of increasing electoral volatility and decreasing membership demonstrate that fewer people identify strongly with one particular party, and that voters are increasingly volatile. Yet, calling this party decline is biased toward the status quo.

Several other authors have also consistently qualified the arguments of party crisis or party decline. Daalder is therefore right in warning against writing off parties too hastily, and he makes a plea in favor of analyzing their actual functions and how these may change. The challenge is to understand to what extent there is a response to external factors and in how far it signifies a deliberate strategy of parties. Thus, the adequate picture that emerges is not so much crisis or decline, but rather a transformation of how parties shift attention to different functions.

A potential answer to the question of party survival is offered by the cartel thesis. Katz and Mair contend that the problem of the literature on party crisis and party survival stems from the questionable assumption that parties should be “classified and understood on the basis of their relationship with civil society” (93). Parties move away from civil society and become part of the state, which is the vital point of the cartel model.

Probably the best way to describe the process behind the survival and adaptation of parties is proposed by Von Beyme’s institutional efficiency. Some parties may disappear, other parties may emerge, but the organizations as such and the party systems in which they function stay put. Hence, both functional and evolutionary arguments are acknowledged: parties are necessary for the functioning of democracy, and they manage to adapt to new circumstances.

References:

• Aldrich,Tim. Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Party Politics in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
• Bartolini, Stefano, and Peter Mair. “Challenges to Contemporary Political Parties.” In Political Parties and Democracy, edited by Larry Diamond and Richard Gunther, 327–343. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
• Blondel, Jean. Comparative Government: An Introduction. 2nd ed. London: Prentice Hall, 1995.
• Bryce, James. “Party Organizations.” In Perspectives on Political Parties: Classic Readings, edited by Susan E. Scarrow, 233–238. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
• Budge, Ian, and Hans Keman. Parties and Democracy: Coalition Formation and Government Functioning in Twenty States. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
• Burke, Edmund. “Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents.’ In Perspectives on Political Parties: Classic Readings, edited by Susan E. Scarrow, 37–43. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
• Daalder, Hans. “A Crisis of Party?” Scandinavian Political Studies 15, no. 4 (1992): 269–288.
• Dalton, Russell J., and Martin P.Wattenberg, eds. Parties without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Duverger, Maurice. Political Parties:Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State. London: Methuen, 1959.
• Gunther, Richard, José R. Montero, and Juan J. Linz, eds. Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Katz, Richard S., and Peter Mair. “Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy:The Emergence of the Cartel Party.” Party Politics 1, no. 1 (1995): 5–28.
• King, Anthony. “Political Parties in Western Democracies.” Polity 2, no. 2 (1969): 111–141.
• Kirchheimer, Otto. “The Transformation of Western European Party Systems.” In Political Parties and Political Development, edited by Joseph G. LaPalombara and Myron Weiner, 177–200. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966.
• LaPalombara, Joseph G., and Myron Weiner. “The Origin and Development of Political Parties.” In Political Parties and Political Development, edited by Joseph G. LaPalombara and Myron Weiner, 3–42. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966.
• Mair, Peter. “Partyless Democracy: Solving the Paradox of New Labour? New Left Review 2, no. 2 (2000): 21–35.
• “Political Parties and Party Systems.” In Europeanization: New Research Agendas, edited by Paolo Graziano and Maarten Vink. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
• Michels, Robert. Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Collier Books, 1962.
• Montero, José R., and Richard Gunther. “Introduction: Reviewing and Reassessing Parties.” In Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges, edited by Richard Gunther, José R. Montero, and Juan J. Linz, 1–35. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Morse, Anson D. “The Place of Party in the Political System.” In Perspectives on Political Parties: Classic Readings, edited by Susan E. Scarrow, 91–98. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
• Puhle, Hans-Jürgen. “Still the Age of Catch-allism? Volksparteien and Parteienstaat in Crisis and Re-equilibration.” In Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges, edited by Richard Gunther, José R. Montero, and Juan J. Linz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Raschke, Joachim. “Political Parties in Western Democracies.” European Journal of Political Research 11, no. 1 (1983): 109–114.
• Rose, Richard. The Problem of Party Government. London: Macmillan, 1974.
• Schattschneider, Elmer E. Party Government. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1942.
• Von Beyme, Klaus. Political Parties in Western Democracies. Aldershot, U.K.: Gower, 1985.
• Webb, Paul. “Conclusion: Political Parties and Democratic Control in Advanced Industrial Societies.” In Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies, edited by Paul Webb, David M. Farrell, and Ian Holliday. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

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Political Parties Research Paper

View sample Political Parties Research Paper. Browse other research paper examples and check the list of political science  research paper topics for more inspiration. If you need a research paper written according to all the academic standards, you can always turn to our experienced writers for help. This is how your paper can get an A! Also, chech our custom research proposal writing service for professional assistance. We offer high-quality assignments for reasonable rates.

I. Introduction

Academic writing, editing, proofreading, and problem solving services, get 10% off with 24start discount code, ii. the formation of political parties.

III. Party Organizations

IV. Party Systems

V. Formation of Government

VI. Decline of Parties

VII. Implications for the Future of Parties and Party Systems

Political parties and party systems are of interest to the scholar of comparative politics because they are constantly in flux. A common understanding of the political party, according to Leon D. Epstein (1967), is of a group that “seeks to elect governmental officeholders under a given label” (p. 9). Party systems are described by the number of parties within a given country during a given time, along with their “internal structures, their ideologies, their respective sizes, alliances, and types of opposition” (Duverger, 1972, p. 18). Party systems can have as few as one major political party, or may have many political parties. Elections are the venue in which competition for government office takes place. Elections bring changes in the policies advocated by parties, the seats held by political parties, and of course the composition of government. It is important to note that political parties do not make changes in a vacuum; change often comes in anticipation of, or in reaction to, changes that other political parties in the system make. This makes the party system a system of interaction between political parties (Sartori, 1976).

This research paper will examine political party systems in a comparative context. We will begin with a broad discussion of political parties. The difference in number, type, and ideology of political parties across different party systems has much to do with the political development of a polity. Though there may be similarities in the ideologies of political parties in different systems, the parties may behave differently because of the dynamics within their own systems. Political parties that would never work together in one system because of ideological differences may be coalition partners in another system. This may have to do with the electoral rules of a system and the prospects for formation of a coalition government, or it may have to do with attitudes toward the political system in general. We will see that ideological considerations often have less to do in explaining the behavior of a political party compared with the potential for policy outputs. We end the research paper with a discussion of whether political parties are in decline, and the potential effects of such a decline.

We understand political parties as organizations that regularly compete for public office in that they put forth candidates for election (Sartori, 1976). The formation of political parties is generally associated with the extension of suffrage and the development of representative government (Duverger, 1972). Joseph LaPalombara and endemic to “modern and modernizing political systems”: A political party will emerge once a “political system reaches a certain degree of complexity, or whenever the notion of political power comes to include the idea that the mass public must participate” (p. 3). These definitions seem to place political parties as 20th-century phenomena, although Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan (1967) theorized that many of the political parties that existed at the end of the 20th century were based in part on earlier political conflicts dating back to at least the 19th century if not earlier. Specifically, these conflicts ranged from national revolutions to the political aftermath of the Industrial Revolution. From these events arose cleavages, or divisions, within societies that gave rise to political groupings. Lipset and Rokkan suggest that there are hierarchies in cleavages within systems and over time, which helps to explain the differences in political groupings across countries. It is important to note that the cleavages themselves may also change, or even lose relevance.

The most common cleavages can be classified as territorial and functional. Territorial cleavages arise when there is conflict between the central nation building culture and that of the periphery. Peripheral cultures are those differing in ethnicity, language, or religion from the center of the nation (Lipset & Rokkan, 1967), which often places the peripheral culture in the position of subject culture. Functional cleavages can be interest specific or ideological. Interest-specific cleavages are those that reflect conflict over resources (Lipset & Rokkan, 1967), whereas ideological cleavages often reflect differing worldviews. For example, in national revolutions the conflict between the nation-building center and periphery represents a territorial cleavage, whereas the often accompanying conflict between church and state results in a functional cleavage of religious versus secular worldviews. Industrial revolutions, which can pit the interests of industrialists against those of landed interests, can be territorial, whereas the conflict between owners and workers is functional in nature. Together, these constitute the four critical lines of cleavage that Lipset and Rokkan (1967) suggest explain the variance in many modern competitive party systems.

The transformation of a conflict into a cleavage and then a political grouping, or party, takes place only after particular thresholds are crossed in the development of a nation-state. These thresholds are (a) legitimation: Is there recognition of the right of protest? (b) incorporation: Are supporters of a movement given political citizenship rights? (c) representation: Can the new movement exist on its own, or must it join with older movements? and (d) majority power: Are there checks and balances against numerical majority rule? (Lipset & Rokkan, 1967). The first two thresholds specifically influence the development of a political party, whereas the latter two are related to the growth and development of the party system. As the first two thresholds occur roughly at the same time as the extension of mass suffrage, the contours of the party system are set relatively early in the life of the nation-state; thus the observation from Lipset and Rokkan (1967) that the “crucial differences among the party systems emerged in the early phases of competitive politics before the final phase of mass mobilization” (p. 114).

Lipset and Rokkan suggest that much of the development of party systems in Western Europe followed this model. Although political parties may differ, overall one may speak of party families, in which ideological tendencies are reflected by parties across different states. Beyme (1985) suggests that parties based on ideological principles have had more success in establishing themselves in western Europe than have parties based on specific conflicts. The earliest modern political parties, liberal parties, established themselves as supporters of representative democracy and constitutionalism. This involved the recognition of individual rights and the preservation of individual property. Within liberalism was a secondary, more radical branch that supported direct rule by the people, meaning the extension of suffrage to the masses. Liberal parties first emerged in England in the 1700s and in France after 1830. In many cases, they were the first parties to form in representative democracies. Over time, they have become smaller parties in many political systems. Though smaller, liberal parties such as the Free Democratic Party of Germany often govern as part of a ruling coalition.

Conservative parties developed alongside liberal parties, often as a response to liberal parties. The conservative ideal is the preservation of historical continuity, with a belief in the divine, valuation of traditional forms of life, and recognition of private property and freedom (Beyme, 1985). Conservative parties serve as a buffer to liberal parties because conservative parties oppose rapid change, which is presumed to threaten the social order. Conservative parties tend to be in more secularized political systems. England’s Conservative Party is one of the most well-known conservative parties.

Both liberal and conservative parties established themselves while representative governments formed, primarily reacting to the conflicts within a particular political system. The constituencies for liberal and conservative parties were necessarily small; not all the inhabitants of a democratizing polity had the franchise, and liberal and conservative parties tended to represent the upper classes. In contrast, socialist parties were the first parties to form outside representative bodies of government, often at the same time in which the franchise was extended to all. According to Beyme (1985), socialists were aiming for revolutionary reversal rather than maintenance of the “principles of 1789”: liberty, equality, and fraternity. Socialist parties tended to mobilize the newly enfranchised working classes. Mostly worker based and highly unionized, socialist parties sought better conditions for workers and demanded more state intervention in the economy. The constituency for socialist parties has largely stayed the same, as can be seen in cases such as the French Socialist Party. After World War II, socialist parties largely abandoned calls for full state intervention in the economy, instead focusing on implementation of stronger control mechanisms in the economy.

Communist parties are often linked to socialist parties in terms of their advocacy for workers’ rights and state-controlled economies. However, their historical difference with socialists dates to World War I, when some believed socialist parties were not strong enough in their opposition to the war (Beyme, 1985). The antiwar attitude unified many communist parties across European nations and led to the formation of a communist movement. This communist movement was much more ideological than other parties were, resulting in an outlook that was more international than national. Within older democratic systems, such as in France and Italy, communist parties have retained some influence, although their significance has waned in many other countries. In post-Communist states, the personnel of former Communist parties has remained in politics, although the parties themselves have undergone some changes, especially name changes. The former East German Communist Party became the Party of Democratic Socialism after unification and more recently transformed itself into the Left Party.

Christian democratic parties also originated before World War I. As some nations democratized, in some of the more religious nations, the established church found itself at odds with the secularizing tendencies of liberal reformers. Christian political parties were “generally formed as a defense counter reaction to liberal or secular legislations by which ardent believers felt threatened” (Beyme, 1985, p. 81). Only after the excesses of the national socialist era did established churches begin to realize the importance of democratic forms of government (Beyme, 1985). Accordingly, Christian democratic parties became popular in the post–World War era because their ideological orientation tended toward the center, especially economically, with a religious focus on moral issues.

Smaller parties such as agrarian or regional or ethnic parties are not as widespread as the previous party families are, owing to the particular historical circumstances of their formation. According to Beyme (1985), “Agrarian parties only emerged in countries where the towns were still relatively small during the period of the extension of the franchise and the rural population was strong enough to stand up to the major landowners” (pp. 112–113). The most successful agrarian parties have been in some of the Scandinavian countries. Agrarian parties tend to be to the right on political and social issues and were at their peak during the interwar period. Most have been subsumed by other parties.

Regional or ethnic parties also reflect a carryover from the nation-building process, and representation issues to this day still divide the regional or ethnic minorities from the larger society. Most advocate for self-determination or autonomy in their own affairs. The most famous of these are the Basque Nationalist Party, in Spain, and the Scottish Nationalist Party, in Scotland. These parties advocate for the independence of the Basque and Scottish peoples from Spain and the United Kingdom, respectively.

The second half of the 20th century witnessed the emergence of political parties not traceable to the cleavages of national or industrial revolutions. The cleavages that would be politically relevant would be based less on redistributive issues and more on what Ronald Inglehart (1977) refers to as postmaterialist, or quality-of-life, issues. The emergence of ecological parties such as green parties marked the transformation of this cleavage into a political grouping. As opposed to other political groupings, green parties seemed to lack a particular social base of support and represented issues such as the environment, nuclear power, human rights, and democratic representation. These issues could not easily be placed within a traditional left–right understanding of politics and soon came to be known as issues of the New Left. Not surprisingly, the social and political developments that led to a New Left cleavage would also lead to a New Right, in which law and order, patriotism, and personal morality issues were similarly difficult to place within a traditional left–right understanding of political parties. Parties of the New Right are also referred to as right wing extremist parties or parties of the far right, but they share an emphasis on the above issues. The most famous of these has been the Front National of France.

III. Political Party Organizations

Political parties tend to differ in their organization on the basis of three factors: competition, institutionalization, and resource factors (Ware, 1996). Competition refers to ideological differences, as well as the way in which the party was formed. Institutionalization refers to the power relations both between parties and within parties. Resources refers to how the party perpetuates itself. Each of these factors is affected by the specific time in which a party emerges. Different organizational structures are thus related to specific social and political developments in the modern democratic state. Organizational differences become apparent when one observes what Richard Katz and Peter Mair (1993) term the different faces or responsibilities of political parties. The three faces are the party on the ground, the party in central office, and the party in public office. The party on the ground refers to the political party as represented by the electorate, or the voters a party can reasonably rely on to vote for it. The party in central office refers to the membership aspect of a political party, or those who actively participate within the party with respect to policy formation, recruitment of members, and campaign planning. The party in public office refers to the members of a political party who serve as elected representatives.

The earliest political parties, known as cadre, or elite, parties, predated mass suffrage. Elite parties were small parties that largely reflected the interests of the elite classes. Because suffrage was limited, political representation of those who could vote was also limited—essentially narrow constituency groups, often locally based. The party in the electorate was indistinguishable from the party in public office because those elected to office came from local constituencies and directly represented voters. Organizationally, elite parties were not complex. A clear correspondence between voters and representatives existed, and local interests were well represented by the local representatives elected to national legislative bodies. Katz and Mair (2002) summarize the elite party as follows:

A small party on the ground in each constituency able to provide its own resources, close and locally based ties between the individual members of the party in public office and the individual parties on the ground, weak or entirely absent party in central office. (p. 116)

The extension of mass suffrage, well under way by the middle of the 19th century, not only coincided with emerging political ideologies representative of the interests of the working classes, but also led to the formation of mass parties. As Peter Mair (1990) writes, “The extension of [suffrage] incorporated the mass of the citizenry into the political system; mass parties mobilize and integrate these citizens and inculcate a set of enduring political identities” (p. 4). Mass parties are parties with a focus on national issues and thus on winning national representation. Unlike elite parties, mass parties depend on the maintenance of high levels of party membership. This is partly because of the need to attract votes and gain political representation but also because of the need to attract resources, most obviously financial ones. Elite parties, because of their small size, can rely on the support of wealthy backers, whereas mass parties need to appeal to large numbers of newly enfranchised working-class voters because mass parties need the dues of their members to remain financially solvent. As a consequence, the organization of mass parties is much more complex than that of elite parties. Katz and Mair (2002) describe the case of the mass party as follows:

The party in central office provides support for the expansion of the party on the ground and central coordination for its activities, while the party on the ground provides the resources that are necessary for the existence and success of the party in central office. (p. 117)

The necessity of coordinating activities between the party on the ground and the party in central office led to an increase in the importance of professional staff members. Adding to the necessity of strong organization is the importance of coordination with the mass party’s elected representatives, or the party in public office. Not only are elected officials answerable to the constituencies that vote them into office, but they also must answer to the party in central office, responsible for the electoral activities of the party. With mass parties, the importance of party organization is evident in the need to coordinate between the three faces of the party, on the ground, in public office, and in central office.

Understandably, elite parties, which represented a narrow constituency, would lose relevance in democratic societies when the franchise was extended. According to Otto Kirchheimer (1966), mass parties themselves would also begin to fade after World War II as the societal cleavages that Lipset and Rokkan (1967) described lost some of their relevance. The political and economic development of the modern state made distinctions based solely on class or denomination less divisive. Along with social and political changes within the electorate, political parties themselves changed, now with an increase in emphasis on winning elections and gaining seats in national legislatures. To win elections and gain seats, political parties needed to broaden their appeal past the narrow clienteles of the elite parties, or even the specific class-based focus of the mass parties. Some political parties developed a catchall approach, in which the aim was to catch all categories of voters, not just traditional constituencies based on societal cleavages. Ideological considerations were less important than not alienating a particular constituency group. Catchall parties would appeal to the median voter in society as opposed to a specific section of the electorate.

Organizationally, the catchall party differed from the mass party model on many fronts. New forms of media, such as television, made the activism associated with mass parties less of a crucial element for catchall parties. Rather than extend the effort involved in appealing to voters through personal contact and activist organization, political parties found that they could appeal to more voters through the media. It is important to note that the reach of the media also meant that catchall parties would emphasize the recruitment of party leaders who could appeal to the widest swath of voters. For the first time, the party in public office and the party in central office would be the most important faces of the party, as opposed to the party in the electorate and party in public office faces of elite parties and the party in the electorate and party in central office faces of mass parties. Catchall parties were formed specifically to win elections, and the way to do so was under the direction of a central office charged with the responsibility of running election campaigns and choosing the best representatives, from the point of view of the party, to stand for them.

Changes in political party organization echo changes in society and in politics. Modern political parties have placed more importance on winning elections, even though the importance of party membership has decreased. Catchall parties found they could win elections by appealing to the widest possible bloc of voters. At the same time, voters have become less likely to identify with a specific political party and more likely to shift their allegiances from election to election. With shifting voters comprising an ever larger proportion of the electorate, political parties are less likely to rely on voters for resources. Katz and Mair (1995) suggest a new type of party has emerged that has adapted to these realities: the cartel party. Cartel parties are characterized as comprising professional politicians whose main source of support is actually the state and public sources of financing for political parties. Although political parties may compete against each other for votes and seats, all implicitly understand that their survival depends on maintenance of office rather than ideological battles. Katz and Mair write that “as politicians pursue long term careers, they come to regard their political opponents as fellow professionals” (p. 23). The party in public office is the most important facet because elected officials both attract votes and make sure that sources of public funding remain in place for themselves.

IV. Political Party Systems

Both the competition and the prospects for cooperation between political parties in an electoral system constitute a party system. Party systems may differ on the basis of the types of parties within a system (both ideological and organizational) and the number of parties within a system. Which parties are included as part of a party system is decided on the basis of what Giovanni Sartori (1976) terms coalition potential and blackmail potential. Coalition potential refers to whether a party can be considered an acceptable coalition partner in order to control government. This definition does not imply that a party has to be in government to be considered a party of the party system, but rather that it has the potential to be part of a governing coalition. Blackmail potential refers to whether a party can affect the tactics of party competition of the parties that have coalition potential. This definition does not imply that a party must be part of a coalition, or have any chance of being part of a coalition, but that it can influence the political parties that do have coalition potential.

Early observers of political party systems such as Maurice Duverger (1951/1954) held that the number of parties within a system should be the main criterion for defining a party system. The number of political parties within a party system is largely dependent on the specific election rules of that political system. By election rules, Duverger meant the barriers to representation, or what percentage of the vote a party must secure in order to be represented in the national legislative body. The main difference is between systems following majoritarian representation rules and those following a proportional representation rule. A majoritarian system is one in which a party (or its candidate) must secure more than 50% of the popular vote. This type of system is also commonly referred to as a first past the post system, with the post referring to 50% of the vote: The party that first gets 50% of the vote gets representation. Majoritarian systems tend to limit the number of parties that compete in these systems because the parties must necessarily appeal to the widest range of voters. Were a party to appeal only to one or the other side of the political spectrum, it would only have the votes of a minority of voters. Thus, Durverger held that majoritarian systems tended to be two-party systems, with the parties themselves more moderate in their political ideologies because of the necessity of having to appeal to a wider group of voters. Two-party systems tend not to have cooperation between the major parties, given that one party necessarily has a majority of the seats in the legislative branch and thus does not need the opposing party to form policies. The United States is one of the most notable two-party systems.

Political systems that follow proportional representation tend to have a greater number of political parties because parties will win seats in the national legislature based on their percentage of the popular vote. Some systems, such as Germany, have instituted minimum-vote percentages, which lower the probability of extremist parties’ gaining representation because parties must win at least a specific percentage of the vote to gain seats. In political systems in which there is a minimum-vote threshold, the mean number of political parties tends to be lower than in systems in which there is no minimum-vote threshold. Even so, there is no standard number of parties within a multiparty system. Two and a half party systems are systems that have three parties, with the third party much smaller than the other two. Australia and Canada are notable two-and-a-half- party systems. The third party tends to alternate as a coalition partner between the larger parties, although a grand coalition between the larger parties is not unheard of. In a system with one large party and several smaller parties, the larger party tends to be in power for long periods, with a coalition of the remaining parties necessary to unseat the larger party. The party systems of Norway and Sweden exemplify this type of system. Systems with two larger par ties and several smaller parties necessitate the formation of coalitions between the larger parties and some, or several, of the smaller parties. In this case, a grand coalition between the larger parties is unlikely because of ideological distance. Israel can be said to illustrate this type of system. Finally, even multiparty systems consist of a broad category of multiparty systems that can range from systems in which there is complete cooperation between the parties to polarized and volatile party systems (Ware, 1996). Italy in the postwar era was long the main example of this type of system. The number of parties in a system is not sufficient in itself to describe the nature of the party system; the nature of party competition is an important component in the classification of party systems.

Following Duverger, Sartori (1976) suggested that ideological distance, as well as party fragmentation, determine the nature of party competition within party systems. Ideological distance is defined as the “overall spread of the ideological spectrum of any given polity” (p. 126). At the time of Sartori’s work, this primarily referred to parties aligned along a traditional left–right continuum. Ideological distance also refers to the attitudes of political parties toward the state, as well as toward other parties within the system. Thus, political parties may be close ideologically but differ in how they perceive themselves in relation to the state and to each other. Extremist parties, although having similar ideological tendencies as parties of the left or the right, may nevertheless be considered ideologically distant if their ideology incorporates antisystem tendencies.

Party fragmentation incorporates the number of parties within the system and whether any of the parties “approaches the absolute majority point” (Sartori, 1976, p. 124). The more parties within a party system, the more likely it is that a party system will be fragmented, especially if there is a large ideological distance between the parties. A large number of parties plus a large ideological distance between the parties can result in what Sartori refers to as a centrifugal system. A centrifugal system of party competition is one in which most parties exist at the extremes of the system, with a vacuum in the political center of the system. Conversely, a centripetal system of party competition displays a pull to the center for the political parties and is much more likely in systems with smaller numbers of political parties.

When party fragmentation is taken into account, the classification of party systems becomes more complex. Two-party systems tend to have lower levels of party fragmentation in general, although Sartori (1976) warns not to assume that they “always work.” Rather, Sartori suggests that the “centripetal mechanics of twopartism creates consensus” (p. 191). In a predominant party system, in which one party has the majority of votes although other parties are represented in the system, as long as the predominant party retains the majority of seats, party fragmentation is also low. Japan in the postwar era is an example of this. However, should the predominant party lose an outright majority, the system may change into one in which party fragmentation is higher.

Moderate multipartism describes party systems of about three to five parties, with moderate levels of party fragmentation and centripetal tendencies within the system. That is to say, the parties are pulled toward the center. In contrast, polarized multipartism describes party systems with about three to five parties and centrifugal tendencies. The center is weak in such systems, which are more likely to suffer instability. Societies that have deep cleavages within them, and many parties to represent these cleavages, tend to display segmented multipartism. Although the political tendencies are centrifugal, or a lack of center exists, such systems can endure through institutional design. The best examples of segmented multipartism through institutional design are the consociational democracies such as the Netherlands, described by Arend Lijphart (1969).

Party systems are defined through the prospects for party competition and party cooperation in a political system. Party competition is a straightforward concept; parties compete with each other for votes and seats in a legislature. Party cooperation, however, has a slightly different focus in that it describes how parties interact with each other after receiving votes and seats in a national legislature. Levels of party cooperation are determined by the willingness with which parties will go into coalitions in the formation of a government. In a predominant party system, or a two-party system, party cooperation is not a necessity as one party has a majority of the votes and seats. However, in party systems with more than two parties, coalitions are a necessity in order to form a government because there is no clear majority party. The extent to which political parties can cooperate in the formation of a ruling coalition is dependent on various factors and is the subject of the following section.

V. Political Parties and Formation of Government

One of the functions separating political parties from other interest groups in society is the translation of issue preferences into policy. Ian Budge and Hans Keman (1990) suggest that contrary to some conceptions of political parties, winning elections is not the most important goal for political parties; formulating policy is. Per Budge and Keman, “explaining the behavior of parties in government is a natural corollary to explaining how they gain the popular support necessary to sustain a governmental role” (p. 2). Without the ability to translate preferences into policy, political parties would not have support from the electorate. Thus the extent to which parties can make or influence policy is a key determinant of their longevity within a political system.

Within majoritarian political systems, the party that receives the most votes forms the government because it controls the most seats in the legislative branch. In multiparty systems, the formation of a government is much more complicated. Budge and Keman (1990) offer a general theory of party government to explain the factors influencing the party coalitions that may form when no one party controls a majority of votes. According to Budge and Keman, this general theory has four assumptions:

• The party or combination of parties that can win a legislative vote of confidence forms the government.
• Parties seek to form a government that can survive legislative votes of confidence and most effectively carry through policy.
• The chief preferences of all democratic parties is to counter threats to the democratic system; where no such threats exist, the chief preference is to carry through differences related to issues along the socialist bourgeois1 dimension of issue competition; where these two threats do not hold, the preference is to pursue group related preferences.
• Within parties, factions seek to transform their issue preferences into policies.

The implications of this general theory of party government affect explanations of party behavior, how governing coalitions form and how they change, what governments do in terms of their policy outputs, and how governments come to an end. The formation of governments refers not only to which parties are part of the ruling coalition but also to how government ministries are distributed among the coalition partners. In fact, Budge and Keman (1990) suggest that parties may influence government more through their tenure of specific ministries than through the negotiations that lead political parties into coalition.

The coalition process begins when it becomes apparent that no one party has enough legislative seats to control the government. William H. Riker (1962) suggested that the most obvious coalition to form would be a minimal winning coalition, in which there are enough members within the coalition to assure control of government, but no surplus members. This approach explains the behavior of political parties if their main goal is the maintenance of office but does little, according to Budge and Keman (1990), to explain the formation of policy. A policy-based approach to explaining coalition formation may be better at “explaining why governments adopt the kind of policy they do” (p. 19) and ultimately how responsive elected governments are to voters.

In forming coalitions, then, parties take into account the seats held by other parties within the system, as well as the policy positions of all parties within the system. Coalitions tend to form on the initiative of the largest parties within the system (Budge & Keman, 1990). Parties are more likely to enter into coalition with other parties that share the same policy preferences as they do and that have enough legislative seats to form a coalition of at least 50% plus one of all legislative seats. Policy positions are not static; they can change, given historical situations, which implies that particular coalitions are not necessarily a given. Nevertheless, parties will enter into the coalition that they figure will provide the best possibility of implementing their policy preferences, and they do so based on a calculation of policy preference overlap between the parties within a system. The more overlap in terms of policy preference, the more stable over time the coalition will be. Coalitions can form in the absence of policy overlap; in more fragmented systems, prosystem attitudes may be enough to enter into coalition, although these coalitions tend to be the least stable over time. Generally speaking, the smaller the coalition, the more stable the coalition tends to be.

Coalition agreements specify not only which parties will control the government but also which ministries are held by the specific coalition members. Generally, the largest coalition member holds the prime ministry, with other ministries allocated on the basis of the policy interests of the specific coalition members. The most likely scenario is one in which the number of ministries held by a coalition partner reflects the proportion of seats it holds within the coalition (Budge & Keman, 1990). In a broad sense, the policy priorities of political parties will differ by political families, so the distribution of particular ministries is somewhat predictable from the party family of a coalition partner. For example, an agricultural party would reasonably be expected to retain the ministry of agriculture within a coalition. If there are potential conflicts between coalition members over ministries, the parties will bargain over ministries until the ministries have been allocated to reflect the proportional distribution of seats held by the coalition members.

In their examination of coalition formation and government functioning in 20 states over time, Budge and Keman (1990) noted a correspondence between parties and the policies that governments made, with parties clearly moving “policies in the direction of their own preferences and values” (p. 158). The importance of policy also plays a role in the termination of governing coalitions; when there are policy differences between coalition partners, the termination of a governing coalition is more likely to take place. A single-party government tends to last longer than governing coalitions because of the absence of policy difference. However, the single most important cause of the termination of government is in fact an election. Voters ultimately decide on the longevity of a government. If they do not like the policies of a government, they are more likely than ever before to vote against the parties of a governing coalition. An overall trend of less stable voting patterns among voters is a major factor in this development.

VI. Decline of Political Parties

Party identification is defined as a long-term psychological identification with a particular political party (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960) and has long been one of the most reliable indicators of the individual vote. If a voter identifies strongly with a political party, the voter is likely to vote for that party in an election. Political partisanship is primarily transmitted during childhood; children will imitate their parents in terms of the political parties they identify with, and this identification lasts well into adulthood. Family is not the only agent of socialization; education, occupation, and social networks serve as alternative venues in the transmission of political partisanship. Although party identification can be influenced by social demographic factors, ideological and issue orientations play a role in the identification of a voter with a specific political party. Party identification has a central role in the study of democracies because political parties provide a linkage for the voters with their government. Political parties can serve as an information cue for voters in elections by educating voters on political issues and candidates, and political parties can mobilize voters to vote in elections.

The discovery of a decline in the percentage of citizens identifying with a specific political party at the end of the 20th century has led to some concern. Initially, partisan realignment was thought to be taking place because of fluctuations in elections in the 1970s and 1980s (Dalton, 2008). Voters were not voting consistently for the same parties over election cycles, as they once had. Partisan realignment is the conversion, or realignment, of large numbers of voters from one political party to another political party. Public opinion research supported a different argument: Voters were not realigning themselves, but instead were displaying dealignment, or an erosion in party loyalties. The evidence for dealignment included a decrease in party loyalty, lower levels of confidence in parties as political institutions, and an increase in the percentage of voters who not only shifted their votes from election to election but also waited longer to make their choices (Dalton, 2008).

The sources of voter dealignment are said to range from a decrease in the importance of sociopolitical cleavages to changes in the mass media and to changes in political parties themselves (Dalton & Wattenberg, 2000b). The modernization hypothesis put forth by Ronald Inglehart (1997) suggests that socioeconomic changes after World War II have led to higher levels of education and standards of living, which have led to an erosion of group-based politics based on class. If the cleavages in society that led to the formation of political parties no longer apply, then the relevance of these parties would also seem less applicable. Higher levels of education, coupled with changes in the mass media, also play a role in partisan dealignment. If the mass media have assumed many of the information functions that political parties once performed (Dalton & Wattenberg, 2000b), then it stands to reason that parties would lose some of their relevance. Finally, changes in political parties themselves, such as an increased emphasis on candidates over party ideology, have led more people to vote on the basis of specific issues and candidates, which further decreases the relevance of political parties.

Kay Lawson and Peter Merkl (1988) suggest that major “parties fail when they do not perform the functions they are expected to perform in their own society” (p. 5). The emergence of interest groups, single-issue movements, and different forms of political organization as motors of interest aggregation—one of the primary functions of political parties—serves as further evidence of party decline. In some systems, parties may fade away, while in other systems, new parties based on political movements may emerge. Party decline is not a uniform phenomenon but is influenced by the type of political system in which the party is located. Even so, Lawson and Merkl note that although there is evidence of party decline, the persistence of political parties in general suggests the continued relevance of political parties, although in different ways.

VII. Implications for the Future of Political Parties and Party Systems

Dalton and Wattenberg (2000a) indicate that political parties have made adaptations in the face of evidence of their decline. The emergence of cartel parties is one example of party adaptation. Dalton and Wattenberg further suggest that “parties are benefiting themselves (financially and electorally) at the expense of some of the functions that have made them so essential to the democratic process, such as socialization, mobilization and representation” (p. 269). Given that voters have a declining propensity to identify with the same party over time, and an increased propensity to change their identification from election to election, this loosening of the linkage between parties and voters leads to higher volatility within the electorate. More distressing to Dalton and Wattenberg is the possibility that parties may become less responsive to voters because of the decrease in ties to voters: “If organizational maintenance becomes a party’s primary goal, democracy will inevitably suffer” (p. 270).

Even so, the emergence of cartel parties, which may block the emergence of new parties as challengers within the political system, may not stem all democratic opposition or democratic representation. That is, cartel parties may limit competition among themselves but are unable to limit political opposition and challenges from outside the cartel (Katz & Mair, 1995). Referring again to Lawson and Merkl (1988), the emergence of social movements and single-issue groups suggests that interest articulation is alive and well in democratic societies. Although it is the case that there are lower levels of partisan identification in the electorate and lower levels of trust in political parties, some suggest that these developments reflect another stage in democracy itself (Dalton, 2008). Higher levels of education and cognitive mobilization have led to more politically sophisticated citizens who are even more likely to participate politically, although not through political party mechanisms.

Throughout much of the literature on political parties and political party systems, a common theme has been that of change. Over the stages of democratic development, we see that there have not been single types of parties in specific periods but rather many different types of political parties over extended periods. The organizational forms of parties tend to reflect changes within the broader system, be they ideological shifts, organizational shifts, or even shifts in the competitive framework. An example of this was seen in the transition from mass parties to catchall parties based on technological and social changes. Ideological shifts also take place over time; a party such as the Austrian Freedom Party was considered an example of a liberal party in the 1960s and 1970s but by the end of the 1980s was considered to be more an example of the New Right (Cole, 2005). As political parties remain part of the democratic framework, they must necessarily adapt to account for a greater proportion of the electorate with lower levels of partisanship but higher levels of political sophistication. This need may imply further changes in party organizations, or it may reflect different ideological orientations. It may also mean the fading of parties from party systems or the inclusion of new parties in party systems. Much as the formation of political parties and party systems reflected political conditions at their founding, transformations of parties and party systems reflect political conditions. This is perhaps the only constant in an area of study that is based on constant change.

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