Parties, Party Systems, and Electoral Behavior
- Why are political parties important in modern democracies? What function do they play? Can you imagine democracy without them?
- Summarize Lipset and Rokkan’s argument (as summarized in Gallgher et al. and Boix). Descriptively, how accurate is it? What explanatory power does it have, both in Western Europe and elsewhere? What predictions does it make about when party systems change?
- European party systems were “frozen” for decades in the 20th century. Why did they freeze? Why did they unfreeze?
- What sorts of policy positions would you expect parties to adopt if Lipset and Rokkan are right? If Downs is right? If Stokes is right? When would these positions change?
- Thinking of new democracies as a sort of natural experiment in party system development, which explanations for the formation of party systems—or some other explanation—seems most compelling?
- How are social divisions politicized, in the sense that they become the basis for electoral decisions? When will divisions be formed around class (i.e., sectors, occupation, or income levels) and when will they form around ethnic identities (e.g., language, religion, or race)? When will they form around something else entirely?
- What assumptions about the cognition and motivations of individual voters lie behind different analyses of parties and party systems? Do you find these assumptions plausible? How would altering them affect the conclusions these authors reach?
