dc.contributor.author | MAIR, Peter | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2007-10-16T10:38:53Z | |
dc.date.available | 2007-10-16T10:38:53Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2007 | |
dc.identifier.issn | 1725-6755 | |
dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1814/7158 | |
dc.description.abstract | At a time when the literature on political parties is brimming with health and vitality, the parties themselves seem to be experiencing potentially severe legitimacy problems and to be suffering from a quite massive withdrawal of popular support and affection. This paper addresses one key aspect of the problems facing contemporary parties in Europe, which is the challenge to party government. I begin by reviewing the changing pattern of party competition, in which I discuss the decline of partisanship in policymaking and the convergence of parties into a mainstream consensus. I then look again at the familiar ‘parties-do-matter’ thesis and at the evidence for declining partisanship within the electorate. In the third section of the paper I explore the various attempts to specify the conditions for party government, before going on in the final section to argue that these conditions have been undermined in such a way that it is now almost impossible to imagine party government in contemporary Europe either functioning effectively or sustaining complete legitimacy. | en |
dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | |
dc.language.iso | en | en |
dc.relation.ispartofseries | EUI SPS | en |
dc.relation.ispartofseries | 2007/09 | en |
dc.rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess | |
dc.title | The Challenge to Party Government | en |
dc.type | Working Paper | en |
eui.subscribe.skip | true | |