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POLITICAL PARTIES, SOCIETIES AND REGIMES IN EUROPE: SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE LITERATURE *
Author(s) -
URWIN DEREK W.
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
european journal of political research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.267
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1475-6765
pISSN - 0304-4130
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1973.tb01227.x
Subject(s) - politics , order (exchange) , unit (ring theory) , subject (documents) , sociology , positive economics , political economy , political science , epistemology , economics , law , computer science , psychology , philosophy , mathematics education , finance , library science
Many studies of European party systems have not taken into account fully the complexity and richness of party life on the continent. We need more multi‐level, multi‐dimensional analyses within a cross‐national framework in order to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the relationships between parties, social structure and regimes. The discussion of some of the lacunae in the existing literature and of various ways of looking at political parties‐emphasizes that because of the large number of alternative approaches available to the political sociologist, there is no single source of data, unit or level of analysis suitable for considering all facets of the subject. By crossing back and forth between levels or units of analysis, we may well gain in precision and detail what might be lost in methodological purity.