The discreet charm of political parties

Enyedi, Zsolt

doi:10.1177/1354068813519959

Cited by 33 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 58 publications

(40 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…While some scholars suggest that this points towards a potential crisis for contemporary representation (Enyedi, 2014;Van Biezen and Poguntke, 2014), others are more optimistic. The growth of interest group membership including social movements and online campaigning platforms provide evidence that, far from being in decline, representation is alive and well.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking up the baton? New campaigning organisations and the enactment of representative functions

Dommett

Rye

2017

Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Political parties have historically provided a key means by which citizens gain representation in the state, with parties enabling participation, integration, aggregation, conflict management, and linkage. Over recent years, parties' representative credentials have declined and new organisations have emerged as vehicles of representation. What is, however, unclear is the extent to which these new organisations have taken on the representative functions parties are traditionally seen to have performed. In this article, we examine Citizens UK and 38 Degrees as indicative examples to argue that, while opportunities for participation and integration can be found, aspects of aggregation, conflict management and linkage are no longer being performed. Diagnosing this change, we argue that these shifts in representation are having significant but as yet unrecognised consequences for how citizens relate to and engage with contemporary politics.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking up the baton? New campaigning organisations and the enactment of representative functions

Dommett

Rye

2017

Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Kitschelt and Rehm, 2015;Thomassen and Van Ham, 2014). A key challenger to Mair's argument is the realignment theory, according to which parties are now in a process of adapting to the changing preferences of voters (Dalton et al, 2011;Enyedi, 2014). According to this view, declining voter turnout and increasing popular dissatisfaction indicate only a temporary difficulty for parties, which will resolve itself once they recalibrate their political supply to the changing political demand.…”

Section: Responsive Versus Responsiblementioning

confidence: 99%

Responsive versus responsible? Party democracy in times of crisis

Karremans

Lefkofridi

2020

Party Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This essay introduces a collection of papers dealing with the responsive–responsible dilemma of party government. The political developments surrounding the Eurozone crisis attest that the duties of government and the demands of political representation may at times be in sharp contrast with one another. In such contexts, it becomes hard for parties in government to combine responsiveness with responsible policy-making. Late Peter Mair theorized this phenomenon as the increasing bifurcation between the growing complexity of governing in a world of interdependence and the need to respond to often polarizing electoral demands. The key question is whether and how in such contexts parties find the balance between their representative and governing duties. The papers included in this special issue deal with this question in the context of the Eurozone crisis and present evidence about parties’ behavior, rhetoric, and policy outputs. In introducing the contributions here, we illustrate how this collective endeavor helps advance the debate on the major challenges to contemporary representative democracy. More specifically, we first discuss how the framework of the responsive–responsible dilemma helps understanding contemporary political developments. We then critically reflect on the distinction between responsiveness and responsibility. Finally, we present how each individual contribution approaches the question of how parties manage the tension between electoral incentives and governmental duties.

show abstract

“…internal ballots) that link leadership directly to individual members may in fact be a form of elite control. Genuine intraparty democracy entails development of mid-level structures to promote deliberation and act as an incubator for alternative leadership (Enyedi, 2014). For that, large membership may not necessarily be required given the pan-European tendency away from amateur politicians and politics becoming a profession rather than a vocation (Biezen & Poguntke, 2014).…”

Section: Figure 3 Trends In Party Identification and Party Membershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Parties and Party Organisations

Sikk¹

2017

The Routledge Handbook of East European Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Stable parties that successfully perform their representative function and connect to citizens are essential for democratic consolidation (Innes, 2002; Kreuzer & Pettai, 2004; Markowski, 2011; Tavits, 2013). Whether such parties will form in new European democracies has been questioned from early on (see Mair, 1997), but some degree of democratic stability has been achieved in the new East European EU member statesparticularly if we contrast them to most of the Former Soviet Union or Western Balkans. This chapter focuses on the development of political parties in countries that joined the EU in the first two waves; trends elsewhere in other post-communist countries differ considerably because of much lower levels of political stability or political freedoms. This chapter first looks at types of parties found in the region using a combination of two common approaches: party families and party development. The second section focusses in on the remarkably successful genuinely political parties without clear roots in the transition period and the related phenomenon of major parties suddenly becoming defunct. We then look at the internal life of parties through the analytical lens of party resources: symbiosis with the state, party organisations and membership. The conclusion summarises important trends since early 1990s and critically discusses the relationship between party development and democratic quality. PARTY TYPES Eastern Europe has been rich in the number and variety of political parties; to understand and analyse them, several approaches to party classification have been used. Party families is a classic and generally insightful approach that identifies similar parties across countries (Beyme, 1985; Hloušek & Kopeček, 2010). However, some parties defy easy classification, some families are internally diverse and parties can even change families. Also, it is not obvious why West European party families should provide a good guide to understanding parties elsewhere. Firstly, even if patterns of party competition in Eastern Europe have come to resemble Western Europe, a unique divisioncommunist legacyremains important in the former (Rohrschneider & Whitefield, 2013, p.84). Secondly, many East European parties have traits that are at odds with their reference "families" in the West (for a discussion on centre-right see Hanley, 2004); others are programmatically vague or flexiblenote the transformation of Fidesz from a liberal to a conservative party (Kiss, 2002). A related approach to classification is based on parties' membership in European party organisations. Yet, sometimes foes in national politics sit together and close allies in different party groups in the European Parliament. For example, as of 2016, the Czech, Estonian, Lithuanian and Slovak delegations to European People's Party or the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats included parties both from national government and opposition benches. Three broad groups of parties can be distinguished using a developmental approach: (a) former communists, (b) p...

show abstract

The discreet charm of political parties

Cited by 33 publications

References 58 publications

Taking up the baton? New campaigning organisations and the enactment of representative functions

Taking up the baton? New campaigning organisations and the enactment of representative functions

Responsive versus responsible? Party democracy in times of crisis

Political Parties and Party Organisations

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About