Party Types and Modes of Representation

Abstract

In democracies, parties are key representative actors. Clearly though, not all parties are identical and, in fact, fall into a range of types characterized by differences in organization, constituencies, and behavior. Therefore, it stands to reason that different types of parties (mass, programmatic, catch-all, cartel, mainstream, etc) may fulfill their representative roles differently. Generally, though, the literature on representation treats all parties similarly or, at best, relies on party families and/or uni-dimensional ideological positioning to distinguish parties. However, conceptualizing party type goes beyond ideological positioning, as we would expect similarities between a religious mass party and a working-class mass party in terms of how the party interacts with their constituents despite being on opposite ends of the traditional left-right spectrum. This panel includes papers that contribute to the development of an empirical definition of party types and that explore whether and to what extent different party types differ regarding representation from a comparative perspective. The papers, as a collective, also speak to questions of how party type influences party strategy and, in turn, the functioning of representative democracy. The papers address the intersection of party types and representation from different angles and methodological approaches: ranging from how minority representation differs based on party type, how mainstream and niche parties represent the positions of their voters differently, how party responses to cleavage changes differs between party types, and whether catch all parties exhibit more or less congruence with their voters than ideological parties.

Title	Details
The Nomination of Minority Candidates for the 2013 German Legislative Elections: Testing the 'Catch-All Party' Hypothesis	View Paper Details
Bridging the Gap: Representation by Mainstream and Niche Parties in Dutch Local Politics	View Paper Details
Birds of a Feather: How Party Type Conditions Responses to Globalisation Pressures and Cleavage Change	View Paper Details
Party Policy and Party Politics of Immigrant Presence: Lessons from Germany	View Paper Details