Political party
A political party is a pressure group whose objective is to participate in, or challenge, government.
The Origins
In 1967 the sociologists Seymour Lipset and Stein Rokkan traced the origins of the party systems of the western democracies to the four "cleavages" that had arisen as a result of national and industrial revolutions, which they identified as centre versus periphery, church versus state, landowners versus industrialists, and capitalists versus workers [1] ; and in 2001 a group of researchers traced the subsequent development of those party systems in a range of countries [2]. Lipset and Rokkan had hypothesised that party systems had become "frozen" in those patterns but later studies indicated that, although those patterns had not changed, increasing signs of volatility suggested the prospect of future change [3]. Among symptoms of that prospect are the growing strength of "green" party in Germany and of the nationalist party in Switzerland.
References
- ↑ Seymour Lipset and Stein Rokkan Party Systems and Voter Alliances:a cross-National Perspective Free Press New York 1967
- ↑ Karvonen and Kuhnle (eds) Party Systems and Voter Alliances Revisited Routledge 2001
- ↑ Andrew Drummond Electoral Volatility and Party Decline in Western Democracies 1970-1995 Political Studies 2006 vol 54