Parties without Partisans

If democracy without political parties is unthinkable, what would happen if the role of political parties if the democratic process is weakened? The ongoing debate about the vitality of political parties is also a debate about the vitality of representative democracy. Leading scholars in the field of party research assess the evidence for partisan decline or adaptation for the OECD nations. It documents the broadscale erosion of the publics partisan identities in virtually all advanced industrial democracies. Partisan de-alignment is diminishing involvement in electoral politics, and for those who participate it leads to more volatility in their voting choices, an openness to new political appeals, and less predictablity in their party preferences. Political parties have adapted to partisan de-alignment by strengthening their internal organizational structures and partially isolating themselves from the ebbs and flows of electoral politics. Centralized, professionalized parties with short time horizons have replaced the ideologically-driven mass parties of the past. This study also examines the role of parties within government, and finds that parties have retained their traditional roles in structuring legislative action and the function of governmentDSfurther evidence that party organizations are insulating themselves from the changes transforming democratic publics. Parties without Partisans is the most comprehensive cross-national study of parties in advanced industrial democracies in all of their forms -- in electoral politics, as organizations, and in government. Its findings chart both how representative democracy has been transformed in the later half of the 20th Century, as well as what the new style of democratic politics is likely to look like in the 21st Century.

Table of Contents:
INTRODUCTION; CHAPTER 1 UNTHINKABLE DEMOCRACY: POLITICAL CHANGE IN ADVANCED INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACIES; PART I PARTIES IN THE ELECTORATE; CHAPTER 2 THE DECLINE OF PARTY IDENTIFICATIONS; CHAPTER 3 THE CONSEQUENCES OF PARTISAN DEALIGNMENT; CHAPTER 4 THE DECLINE OF PARTY MOBILIZATION; PART II PARTIES AS POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS; CHAPTER 5 PARTIES WITHOUT MEMBERS? PARTY ORGANIZATION IN A CHANGING ELECTORAL ENVIRONMENT; CHAPTER 6 POLITICAL PARTIES AS CAMPAIGN ORGANIZATIONS; CHAPTER 7 FROM SOCIAL INTEGRATION TO ELECTORAL CONTESTATION: THE CHANGING DISTRIBUTION OF POWER WITHIN POLITICAL PARTIES; PART III PARTIES IN GOVERNMENT; CHAPTER 8 PARTIES IN LEGISLATURE: TWO COMPETING EXPLANATIONS; CHAPTER 9 PARTIES AT THE CORE OF GOVERNMENT; CHAPTER 10 FROM PLATFORM DECLARATIONS TO POLICY OUTCOMES: CHANGING PARTY PROFILES AND PARTISAN INFLUENCE OVER POLICY; CHAPTER 11 ON THE PRIMACY OF PARTY IN GOVERNMENT: WHY LEGISLATIVE PARTIES CAN SURVIVE PARTY DECLINE IN THE ELECTORATE; CONCLUSION; CHAPTER 12 PARTISAN CHANGE AND THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

Review :
Landmark study ... there cannot be a shadow of doubt that this volume represents a milestone in the debate about the role of political parties in advanced democracies at the beginning of the twenty-first century West European Politics