Political Parties as Offenders and Victims of Non-Participation and Increasing Importance of (Alternative) Social Movements

This presentation will show how parties are affected by non-participation and social movements. The diagnose of a crisis-ridden party democracy, which is empirical not undisputed, but journalistically undoubtedly a historical constant of the german party-state, often refers to non-participation and the increasing importance of alternative social movements as the most evident indicators of the critical stress test of the party system. Thus, political parties have three obvious points of contact with the Panels topic: as a (co-)perpetrator of current developments, as a victim of the resulting challenges and eventually as key institutions to counteract the crisis-prone symptoms. The "complicity" in current developments is due to the fact that the parties are no longer able to channel negative sentiments and integrate citizens into the political system as needed. This is due to a realistic-elitist paradigm of democracy that legitimately emphasizes competition, transparency and responsibility, but increasingly underrates the integrative and legitimatory effect of participation in parties. Because parties are no longer perceived as opportunities for participation, while there is de-politicization and non-participation in the political process, there is also a shift towards alternative movements and parties that are capable of channeling the negative mood. At the same time this results in the victim role of political parties: Of course there is no fundamental antagonism between social movements and political parties. Nonetheless, as a result of the erosion of their social base, parties are increasingly losing participants to alternative social movements, which are now competing with traditional institutions. Therefore, parties threaten to lose their exposed position in the political system. Empirically, this is reflected in decreasing membership and lower demand. In this context non-participation and the increased importance of social movements are considered as crisis symptoms of democracy, since they are accompanied by negative effects, such as increasing inequality and disparate representation. In addition, social movements are usually unable to formulate positive agendas. Growing alienation tendencies and political disenchantment are undoubtedly consequences of a lack of integration. If parties fail to participate satisfactorily in the political process, citizens either withdraw from the decision making process, or seek out other ways to express their will. Modern phenomena such as “Occupy” or “Pegida” underline this assumption. Thus, non-participation and the growing importance of alternative social movements are also indicators of the erosion of the party system. In the end, parties are also those key institutions to respond adequately to current developments. For that to happen, however, they have to increase their attractiveness as a channel for participation, and must again be perceived as suitable representatives within the representative democracy, and thus contribute to the reintegration of those who have left the political system. However, the reformation of political parties requires a proper understanding of intra-party democracy, which envisions the integration function of political parties as an important core element. For this purpose, a paradigm shift in democratic theory in party research is necessary. Neo-pluralistic approaches provide a starting point to this and make it possible to counteract the challenges of non-participation and social movements.