Democratic Performance and Legitimacy of Parties in Europe

This paper reports an explorative analysis on the development of legitimacy across 20 European democracies. I contend that processes representing democratic performance are conducive to changes in legitimacy. A conceptual and empirical discussion is presented to establish this relationship. Democratic performance appears to change due to less trust in parties as representatives and variations in government efficacy. The empirical analysis shows that both responsive (relating electorates to parties) and responsible (relating parties to government) party behaviour are not always performing to expectation. Institutional factors and party behaviour indicate that parties’ responsiveness is hardly representative and governmental responsibility is closer to party interests than to public concern. Hence, there seems to be a democratic deficit across Europe reinforced by voting behaviour, the emergence of new parties, lower rates of survival and higher rates of innovation of party government. This affects the efficacy of government, responsive and responsible party behaviour and in the end political legitimacy. [154 words]