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New Forms of Political Representation: European Ecological Politics and the Montreal Citizen's Movement*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Timothy Thomas
Timothy Thomas
Affiliation:
Royal Military College of Canada
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Abstract

In his examinations of the ecological parties of Belgium and West Germany, Herbert Kitschelt argues that he has found a new form of political representation that defies patterns of behaviour outlined for political parties by all previous scholarly work. These parties, which Kitschelt calls “left-libertarian,” are unique because they lack the organizational structures common to traditional parties, and include in their membership constituencies that are normally more comfortable in social movements. This article compares the political platforms of these parties and the sociological characteristics of their activists with those of the Montreal Citizen's Movement (MCM) and concludes that the MCM is indeed a left-libertarian party. However, an examination of the MCM reveals that although Kitschelt has found a new form of political representation in the left-libertarian party, this new form does not actually defy the developmental patterns outlined by the classical studies of political parties.

Résumé

Herbert Kitschelt a démontré par ses études des partis écologistes de Belgique et d'Allemagne de l'Ouest qu'il existe maintenant de nouvelles formes de représentation politique qui ne ressemblent en rien au type de comportement organisationnel généralement identifié par la litérature qui fait autorité à l'égard des partis politiques. Ces partis, que Kitschelt qualifie de «libertaires de gauche », sont uniques en ce qu'ils n'affichent pas les structures organisationnelles que l'on retrouve généralement dans les partis traditionnels et s'appuient sur des effectifs qui s'identifient plus volontiers aux mouvements sociaux. Cet article compare les programmes politiques de ces partis et les caractéristiques sociologiques de leurs militants avec ceux du Rassemblement des citoyens de Montréal (RCM). Il conclut que le RCM s'apparente en effet à un parti libertaire de gauche. Toutefois, bien que Kitschelt ait associé le parti libertaire de gauche typique à l'émergence de nouvelles formes de représentation, un examen attentif du RCM révèle que ces nouvelles formes ne remettent pas nécessairement en question le mode de développement organisationnel mis en relief par les études classiques des partis politiques.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 509 - 531
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1995

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References

1 Kitschelt, Herbert, The Logics of Party Formation (London: Cornell University Press, 1989), viiGoogle Scholar.

2 Ibid., vii–viii.

3 Ibid., 2,276.

4 Ibid., 2,75–97.

5 Ibid., 3.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid., 4.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid., 285.

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