Mair, P. (2008) ‘The Challenge to Party Government’, West European Politics, Vol. 31(1-2), 211-234.

Mair, P. (2008) ‘The Challenge to Party Government’, West European Politics, Vol. 31(1-2), 211-234.

• This paper was potential for source mining on party politics and party systems.
• The conflicts that have traditionally divided European political parties have been resolved or ameliorated over the past 30 years, as anti-system parties have moved closer to the mainstream, or changed their goals to work within electoral regimes. Examples especially include the reconstruction of far-right political parties.
• This may seem naturally, until one remembers that through-out the 1980s, far-right and far-left groups in Italy pursued political goals through terrorism rather than democracy.
• Recently the policies advocated by different political parties have also moderated. Whereas the British parties of the 1970s varied wildly on what policies they pursued, the differences in policy between the major contemporary political parties of Europe are mild and based on specific issues.
• A general neoliberal consensus and the stress on competitive economies that followed have reduced the degree to which parties can independently influence economic or budgetary policy in their nation and thus the distinction between political parties has become less pronounced.
• The author argues that political parties are a reflection of social cohesion being expressed through political participation and due to a lack of cohesion in a more individualist and globalized world, political parties are increasingly less relevant as a mode of political organization.
• Classes, races, and religious groups in the rest have stopped voting as blocs, further undermining the differences between political parties, as they are now forced to garner votes from the general population rather than interested groups.
• The author outlines a number of qualification of what forms of organization constitute a party system (pg. 222-225). The author then claims that these traits are increasingly absent in modern democracies.
• The first change in the current party system has been a trend toward bi-polarity, which is common in all of the European new democracies (i.e., Greece, Portugal, Spain, Turkey) and increasingly true for the rest of the continent. Grand coalitions are becoming less common, and even if there are multiple major parties, they always side in consistent coalitions.
• These 2 party divides are always right-left, as only this system is flexible enough to absorb the European voter population, in all its diversity.
• Even the left-right divide will becoming increasingly blurred as economic issues become more internationalized and both parties will tend towards the centre to such a degree that 'political parties' will be virtually indistinguishable.