Many recent discussions of the decline of party are predicated on the assumption that the Duverger/socialist mass-party model is the only model for parties. We contend that this assumption is misconceived, that the mass-party model is only one, temporally limited and contingent model, and that it is necessary to differentiate notions of adaptation and change from notions of decline or failure. Following an analysis of how various models of party can be located in terms of the relationship between civil society and the state, we contend that the recent period has witnessed the emergence of a new model of party, the cartel party, in which colluding parties become agents of the state and employ the resources of the state (the party state) to ensure their own collective survival. Finally, we suggest that the recent challenge to party is in fact a challenge to the cartel that the established parties have created for themselves.

We restate and clarify the idea of the “cartel party,” a concept that has found considerable traction in studies of parties throughout the democratic world, including those far from the original research site and data on which the cartel model was based. The cartel party thesis holds that political parties increasingly function like cartels, employing the resources of the state to limit political competition and ensure their own electoral success. The thesis has been subject to varied empirical testing and to substantial theoretical evaluation and criticism. Against this background, we look again at the cartel party thesis in order to clarify ambiguities in and misinterpretations of the original argument. We also suggest further refinements, specifications and extensions of the argument. Following a background review of the original thesis, we break it down into its core components, and then clarify the terms in which it makes sense to speak of cartelization and collusion. We then go on to explore some of the implications of the thesis for our understanding of contemporary democracies and patterns of party organization and party competition and we identify a possible agenda for future research in party scholarship.

The purpose of the current investigation was to apply the functional analysis described by Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, and Richman (1982/1994) to the inappropriate mealtime behaviors of 15 children who had been referred to an intensive program for the assessment and treatment of severe feeding disorders. During Study 1, we conducted descriptive assessments of children and parents during meals. The results of Study 1 showed that parents used the following consequences for inappropriate mealtime behaviors: coaxing and reprimanding, allowing the child to periodically take a break from or avoid eating, and giving the child preferred food or toys following inappropriate behavior. The effects of these consequences were tested systematically in Study 2 when we conducted analogue functional analyses with the children. During alternating meals, one of the consequences typically used by parents consistently followed inappropriate child behavior. Results indicated that these consequences actually worsened behavior for 10 of the 15 children (67%). These results suggested that the analogue functional analysis described by Iwata et al. may be useful in identifying the environmental events that play a role in feeding disorders. DESCRIPTORS: descriptive assessment, feeding disorders, functional analysis, negative reinforcement A feeding disorder is identified when a child is unable or refuses to eat or drink suf-

Candidate selection is vital to political parties but it also poses a dilemma, which is particularly acute in the cartel party, stemming from the position of MPs as both the base of the party in public office and the delegates of the party on the ground. One response is for leaders to democratize candidate selection in form, while centralizing control in practice. An inclusive but unorganized selectorate may give the appearance of democracy without the substance.

At least since the beginning of the 1980s, much of the writing on the strategies, tactics, and policies of parties has explicitly cautioned against the treatment of party as a “unitary actor”” (e.g., Daalder 1983; Laver and Schofield 1990). Party leaders, it is now argued, may differ from one another and from party followers with regard to the ends which they pursue and the resources which they employ; even within the leadership itself, it is suggested, the conflict between factions may be such as to militate against any theories taking the party as a whole as the relevant unit of analysis. Nonetheless, there is a striking lack of consensus regarding the number and type of different units into which a party may be disaggregated, and the extent to which this disaggregation may be applied to an understanding of processes of organizational change.

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Concerned with the development of party organizations in twentieth‐century democracies, and deals specifically with the shifting balance of power between what has earlier been termed the three organizational ‘faces’ of party: the party on the ground, the party in central office, and the party in public office. An evaluation is made of the changing balance among these three faces in the context of four models of party organization: the cadre (or elite) party, which was the dominant form of party organization prior to mass suffrage; the mass party, which emerged with, or in anticipation of and to militate for, mass suffrage, and which was widely regarded, particularly in Europe, as the ‘normal’ or ‘ideal’ form of party organization for most of the twentieth century; the catch‐all party, development towards which was first commented upon in the literature in the 1960s, and which has come to rival the mass party not only in prominence but also in the affections of many analysts; and finally, what is called here the cartel party, a new and emerging model of party organization, which Katz and Mair believe to be increasingly evident among established democracies in recent years. In tracing the shifting balance of power among the three faces and across the four models of party organization, the authors contend that the most recent stage of development has resulted in the ascendancy of the party in public office, and the concomitant ‘relegation’ or subordination of the other two faces. Moreover, while parties on the ground sometimes continue to flourish, they suggest that the ostensible empowerment of party memberships, or even their greater autonomy, may nevertheless, be compatible with an increased privileging of the party in public office. Finally, both the sources and implications of party organizational change are briefly discussed, and it is suggested that there is an association between the most recent shifts in the internal balance of intra‐party power, on the one hand, and the apparent growth in popular feelings of alienation from parties, on the other.

Political parties have long been recognized as essential institutions of democratic governance. Both the organization of parties, and their relationships with citizens, the state, and each other have evolved since the rise of liberal democracy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Going into the twenty-first century, it appears that parties are losing popular support, putting both parties, and potentially democracy, in peril. This book traces the evolution of parties from the model of the mass party, through the catch-all party model, to argue that by the late twentieth century the principal governing parties (and their allied smaller parties—collectively the political “mainstream”) were effectively forming a cartel, in which the form of competition might remain, and indeed even appear to intensify, while its substance was increasingly hollowed out. The spoils of office were increasingly shared rather than restricted to the temporary winners; contentious policy questions were kept off the political agenda, and competition shifted from large questions of policy to minor questions of managerial competence. To support this cartel, the internal arrangements of parties changed to privilege the party in public office over the party on the ground. The unintended consequence has been to stimulate the rise of extra-cartel challengers to these cozy arrangements in the form of anti-party-system parties and populist oppositions on the left, but especially on the right.