Is Democracy Today Unthinkable Without Parties?

Abstract

This panel invites critical considerations of the normative and organizational functions of political parties both in the classic form of party-democracy and under the contemporary conditions of governance. We encourage papers reflecting on the parties’ mediating functions between society and the state: whether such functions continue to be necessary and whether they need necessarily be performed by parties. Specifically, we will consider the tensions between the party’s organizational functions of institutional compromise and partisan commitment; the relations between publics understood as “apolitical animals” and the “political animals” who represent them; the role of political parties in institutionalizing deliberation—especially in integrating political opposition into a democratic system; and we will examine the role of populist movements (both Left and Right) in Italy, Greece and Spain in both political communication and in politicizing neoliberal state initiatives.

Title	Details
Partisan Compromise	View Paper Details
Political Parties as Deliberative Fora	View Paper Details
The 5 Stars Movement and the Ambivalent Role of Beppe Grillo	View Paper Details
On the Abolition of Political Parties: Simone Weil and the Politics of Populism	View Paper Details
Apolitical Animals	View Paper Details