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Political parties and democracy: A mutual murder?
Author(s) -
DESCHOUWER KRIS
Publication year - 1996
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.1475-6765.1996.tb00652.x
Subject(s) - politics , democracy , political science , criminology , political economy , law and economics , law , sociology
Democracy is good at generating demands and bad at satisfying them. Autocracy, on the other hand, is in a position to stifle demands and is better placed to meet them. (Bobbio 1987: 39)Abstract According to the classical Eastonian approach a political system faces stress when it is not able to respond to an acceptable number of demands. The support for the system then drops. In this article we use this conceptual tool to attempt to explain in very general terms the existing anti‐party sentiment in Western democracies. We try to show how democracy itself produces substantial stress for the system that could however be contained as long as political parties were able to act as collective identities between the citizens and the state. The adaptation and change of the traditional parties has made democratic systems more vulnerable to the erosion of support, and the parties themselves, as central actors in the systems, are the target of the protest.