What holds a democracy together – political parties, or the party system itself?

Political parties and party systems are generally regarded as essential in a democracy. But is it the health of the parties themselves that is vital, or a strong party system? Fernando Casal Bértoa looks at the relationship between the institutionalisation of parties and party systems in 64 European regimes since 1848. He concludes that the health of the system itself is the crucial element – a finding with major implications for democracy promotion

Political parties or party systems?: assessing the ‘myth’ of institutionalization and democracy

No matter the region of the world under study, party (system) institutionalisation has been traditionally considered to be a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the survival of democracy. Despite being one of the most quoted statements in the democratisation literature, the few studies looking at the relationship between institutionalisation and democratic endurance have found no evidence of the ‘almost magical’ powers of the former. This article revisits the abovementioned research question by making use of an original dataset covering all European democracies between 1848 and 2014. The main findings are threefold: (1) it is not the institutionalisation of political parties but the institutionalisation of party systems as a whole that has fostered the prospects for democratic survival in Europe; (2) there is a threshold of systemic institutionalisation which, once reached, will avoid democratic collapse; and (3) systemic over-institutionalisation does not seem to be so perilous for the survival of democracy

Five paradoxes ahead of this sunday’s presidential election in Poland

Poland will hold the first round of its delayed presidential election on Sunday. Piotr Zagórski and Fernando Casal Bértoa present five paradoxes that make the election exceptional

What explains the destabilisation of the German party system?

The German party system has become increasingly fragmented in recent decades, following years of relative stability. Drawing on a new book, Fernando Casal Bértoa and Zsolt Enyedi illustrate the factors that have driven this process of destabilisation

Democratic backsliding, Poland’s election and Covid- 19: what needs to be considered?

Poland is still planning to hold its presidential election on 10 May, despite the Covid-19 outbreak. Fernando Casal Bértoa and Simona Guerra write that the decision to go ahead with the election raises some important issues in relation to public safety and democratic standards

Portuguese elections: Portugal is now a country caught between stability and disaffection

The governing centre-right coalition in Portugal won parliamentary elections on 4 October, but lost its majority in the Portuguese parliament. Luís de Sousa and Fernando Casal Bértoa assess what the results mean for the country’s party system. They write that Portugal has had an exceptionally stable party system in recent years and that this trend has continued, despite the financial crisis badly damaging the Portuguese economy. Nevertheless, there are high levels of disaffection among citizens, evident in the election’s record low turnout

Presidential Elections and European Party Systems (1848–2020)

Political scientists have long been concerned that a popularly elected presidency may destabilize competitive party systems. We develop and test a new theory holding that the impact is more immediate and severe than previously assumed. Coexisting legislative and presidential coalitions first and foremost impede the evolution of predictable party interactions at the executive level, which is the domain of the cabinet. This quality has become accessible for comparative research thanks to the concept of party system closure. Using a new dataset for all European democracies since 1848, we show that presidential elections undermine party system closure in two ways: (1) by confounding patterns of government formation (notably under powerful presidencies) and (2) by disturbing electoral/legislative politics, which in turn affect executive politics. The former, direct effect emerges as dominant from a series of panel analyses and case illustrations. These findings have important implications for current problems of constitutional design and institutional reform

Party and Party System Institutionalization: Which Comes First?

Parties and party systems are treated as separate phenomena in theory, but not in research practice. This is most clearly so in the literature on the institutionalization of party politics, where the party level and the systemic levels are often analyzed through combined fuzzy indices. We 1) propose separate indicators for measuring institutionalization at the party and at the party system level, 2) demonstrate their different dynamics in twentieth and twenty-first century European countries, and 3) investigate the direction of causality. Using a dataset that covers more than 700 elections, 800 parties, and 1,400 instances of government formation in 60 different historical party systems across 45 European countries, we find that party-level institutionalization tends to precede systemic institutionalization. The opposite pattern occurs only in a few countries