How relevant and vital are political parties in contemporary democracies? Do they fulfill the functions that any stable and effective democracy might expect of them, or are they little more than moribund anachronisms, relics of a past age of political life, now superseded by other mechanisms of linkage between state and society?
These are the central questions which this book aims to address through a rigorous comparative analysis of political parties operating in the world's advanced industrial democracies. Drawing on the expertise of an impressive team of internationally known specialists, the book engages systematically with the evidence to show that, while a degree of popular cynicism towards them is often chronic, though rarely acute, parties have adapted and survived as organizations, remodelling themselves to the needs of an era in which patterns of linkage and communication with social groups have been transformed. This has enabled them to remain central to democratic systems, especially in respect of the political functions of governance, recruitment and, albeit more problematically, interest aggregation. On the other hand, the challenges they face in respect of interest articulation, communication and participation have pushed parties into more marginal roles within Western political systems. The implications of these findings for democracy depend on the observer's normative and theoretical perspectives. Those who understand democracy primarily in terms of popular choice and control in public affairs will probably see parties as continuing to play a central role, while those who place greater store by the more demanding criteria of optimizing interests and instilling civic orientations among citizens are far more likely to be fundamentally critical.
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Paul D Webb is Professor of Politics at the University of Sussex. He has published widely on party and electoral politics, including the OUP books Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies (with David Farrell and Ian Holliday) and The Presidentialization of Politics (with Thomas Poguntke), and is co-editor of the journal Party Politics. He is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in the UK.
David Farrell holds the Chair of Politics at University College Dublin. A specialist in parties, electoral systems and representation, Professor Farrell’s most recent book was the award-winning Political Parties and Democratic Linkage, published by Oxford University Press in 2011. He was the research director of the Irish Constitutional Convention.
Ian Holliday is a political scientist and scholar with expertise in British and Asian Government, particularly Myanmar. He is currently the vice-president and pro-vice-chancellor of The University of Hong Kong.
Luciano Bardi is President of the Observatory on Political Parties and Representation at the University of Pisa and part-time Professor at the Alcide De Gasperi Research Centre of the European University Institute
He was member of the Executive Committee (2006-2009) of the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR) and then Chair (2009-2012). His main research interests include political parties at the national and European level, party systems, elections, democracy and representation in the European Union.
R. Kenneth Carty is Professor Emeritus and former Head of Political Science in the University of British Columbia, where he held the Brenda and David McLean Chair in Canadian Studies, and served as the Director of the UBC Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Carty is a past President of the Canadian Political Science Association. His publications include Big Tent Politics (UBC Press, 2015), When Citizens Decide (with P. Fournier, H. van der Kolk, A. Blais, and J. Rose; OUP, 2015), and Politics is Local (OUP, 2005).
Kris Deschouwer is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His research focuses on political parties, elections, regionalism and federalism, democracy in divided societies, and political representation. He is the central coordinator of the PartiRep research project on Political Participation and Representation in Modern Democracies, http://www.PARTIREP.eu. Kris was co-editor of the European Journal of Political Research (2003–2009) and authored The Politics of Belgium (Palgrave, 2012). He was ECPR Chair, 2018–2021.
John C Green is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Ray C Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron.
Simon Hix is Reader in European Union Politics and Policy in the Government Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Andrew Knapp is a Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Reading.
Ian McAllister is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The Australian National University.
Ronan Murphy is a Research Student in Political Science at Trinity College, Dublin.
Susan Scarrow is Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston. Her scholarship and teaching has focused on representation and electoral institutions, including political party development, direct democracy, and political finance. Her prior publications include Parties and their Members (Oxford University Press), Perspectives on Political Parties (Palgrave), and Democracy Transformed? (Oxford University Press, edited with Russell J. Dalton and Bruce Cain).
Jan Sundberg is Professor of Political Science at the University of Helsinki.
Jack Vowles is Associate Professor at the University of Waikato.
