Political Parties and the European Union

Abstract

The role of political parties in modern democracies is contested. Traditionally, parties have been associated with a number of functions and, especially in a western European context, given a more or less hegemonic role over the political process. However, the question of whether political parties actually have (or should have) this prominent role in modern democracies has long been debated. In this so-called party decline debate, a number of tendencies, such as voter de-alignment and membership decline, are used to indicate the less dominant role of political parties, and it is argued that their adaptive capacity is poor (Webb, 2002: 3). Even though some of the critical remarks regarding the future role of political parties are pertinent, the ambition of this chapter is not to judge in this debate. It is rather written with the assumption that political parties are (still) indispensable parts of representative democracy as we know it, and if political parties fail to integrate the political system, express demands, represent various views and identify political leaders, democracy will lose in the end.