Critical Parties: How Parties Evaluate the Performance of Democracies

Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies 1 Paul Webb 2 Political Parties in

Parties in Government: Incumbency and Representation in Parliamentary Democracies

[150 words] In spite of electoral change since the 1990s, party composition of government changes less and established parties stay in office longer than others regardless their electoral fortunes. This development is conducive to incongruence between the changing pattern of parties represented in parliament and those getting into government. It is argued that office seeking behaviour has becom...

Parties in Government: Incumbency and Representation in Parliamentary Democracies

[150 words] In spite of electoral change since the 1990s, party composition of government changes less and established parties stay in office longer than others regardless their electoral fortunes. This development is conducive to incongruence between the changing pattern of parties represented in parliament and those getting into government. It is argued that office seeking behaviour has becom...

Who Do European Parties Represent? How Western European Parties Represent the Policy Preferences of Opinion Leaders

Several recent studies explore how American politicians represent the policy views of subconstituencies within the electorate. We extend this perspective to 12 West European democracies over the period 1973–2002 to examine how mainstream parties responded to electoral subconstituencies. We find that parties were highly responsive to the views of opinion leaders, i.e., citizens who regularly eng...

Political Parties in a Critical Era