Political Parties in the Changing Democracy

Political parties remain – although often lacking the trust of the population – at the centre of modern democracy. They are the key players in the competition for office, they select the personnel that represents the people and they govern in their name at several levels of government. Against this background of a lack of trust in parties, of increasing volatility and of declining voter turnout, parties feel the pressure to adapt, to change the way in which they function and the way in which they fulfill their role of representation and governing. In a democracy that is being questioned both for its lack of responsiveness and for its lack of good representation, political parties are at the same time in the centre of politics and in the eye of the storm. This Section welcomes Panels and Papers that reflect on the way in which political parties function today and in particular how they adapt (or not) to the changing context in which they function. Topics that might be covered in the Section are the internal organisation of political parties (membership, candidate selection, policy formulation, …), party strategies (electoral campaigns, coalition formation, …), parties in government, the challenges of new political parties, parties at the European level or any other theme that attempts to capture the role of political parties and democratic linkage in today’s democracies.