Is the party paradigm over

For more than 70 years, scholars of democratic politics have taken Schattschneider's renowned statement that "Modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of the parties." (1942/2004: 1) as an axiom rather than a hypothesis or a contested claim. Not only party scholars -- who make their living from studying the party creature -- but also scholars of electoral behavior, coalition politics, legislative politics, and additional fields treat parties as central political actors. But with party decline, political personalization, presidentialization, judicialization, and digitization of politics, do parties still deserve to be treated as central actors in democratic politics? Are they treated as central actors because of the conservative bias of the discipline? And if so, should they be abandoned in favor of alternative heroes, or should we stick to the party paradigm because it is still the best option for our needs? The article will begin by defining the time (since the 1950s) and space (fields, e.g., electoral politics but not international relations or political philosophy) in which parties are perceived as central actors in democratic politics. It will then examine the three possible reactions to the change in the status of parties in politics: First, no change is needed, and parties were and are the best analytical units for research of democratic politics. Second, paradigm stretching is necessary, a change that will adapt the party paradigm to changing reality. Third, the time has come to replace the party paradigm with a new paradigm (and which new paradigm).