Parties Without Partisans (Paperback)

Martin P. Wattenberg

ISBN 10: 0199253099 / ISBN 13: 9780199253098

Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002

About this Item

Paperback. 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 in this book. It documents the broadscale erosion of the public's partisanidentities in virtually all advanced industrial democracies. Partisan dealignment is diminishing involvement in electoral politics, and for those who participate it leads to more volatility in theirvoting choices, an openness to new political appeals, and less predictablity in their party preferences. Political parties have adapted to partisan dealignment 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, andfinds that parties have retained their traditional roles in structuring legislative action and the function of government-further evidence that party organizations are insulating themselves from thechanges 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. This book provides an analysis of the roles that political parties perform in twenty OECD nations. It finds that parties exercise their traditional roles in organizing elections and structuring the government process, but they are losing the allegiance of a public that is non-partisan and sceptical about political parties as institutions. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780199253098

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Parties Without Partisans (Paperback)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, Oxford
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199253099
• ISBN 13: 9780199253098
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

This book provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the roles that political parties perform in twenty OECD nations. It finds that parties continue to exercise their traditional roles in organizing elections and structuring the government process, but that they are losing the allegiance of a public that is increasingly non-partisan and sceptical about political parties as institutions. These findings lead to a discussion about the changing nature of representative democracy as these nations enter the 21st Century.

About the Author

Russell J. Dalton is in the Department of Political Science, University of California, Irvine,. Martin P. Wattenberg is in the Department of Political Science, University of California, Irvine,.