Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T05:43:19.135Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Party Systems of the Established Liberal Democracies in the 1990s: Is this a Decade of Transformation?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Extract

DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE 1990s ABOUT ONE THIRD OF the countries which had been governed continuously by liberal democratic regimes since the mid-1950s experienced major electoral upheavals at a general election. In the case of eight countries an argument could be made that electoral politics was not as it had been, and that the party systems were now experiencing problems that were quite different in scale from those with which they had contended during the previous forty years. The countries concerned were:

– Sweden, where the 1991 general election produced a major decline in the share of the vote (5.5 per cent of the total) for the governing Social Democrats; this was the largest change in its vote share between consecutive elections since 1944.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Mair, Peter, ‘Myths of Electoral Change and the Survival of Political Parties in European Democracies, 1960–1990’, European Journal of Political Research, 24, 1993, p. 129.Google Scholar

2 Pedersen, Mogens N., ‘The Changing Dynamics of European Party Systems: Changing Patterns of Electoral Volatility’, European Journal of Political Research, 7, 1979, pp. 1–26.Google Scholar

3 Mair, ‘Myths of Electoral Change and the Survival of Political Parties in European Democracies’, op. cit, p. 124.

4 Katz, Richard S., Mair, Peter et al, ‘The Membership of Political Parties in European Democracies, 1960–1990’, European Journal of Political Research, 22, 1992, pp. 329–45.Google Scholar

5 Stewart, Gordon T., The Origins of Canadian Politics, Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press, 1986.Google Scholar

6 Franks, C.E.S., The Parliament of Canada, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1987, p. 76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Hine, David, ‘Italy: Parties and Party Government under Pressure’, in Ware, Alan (ed.), Political Parties, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1987, p. 74.Google Scholar

8 Hine, ‘Italy’, p. 78.

9 Katz, Richard S., Mair, Peter et at., ‘The Membership of Political Parties in European Democracies’, European Journal of Political Research, 22, 1992, p. 334.Google Scholar

10 Katz, Richard S. and Mair, Peter, ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’, Party Politics, 1, 1995, pp. 5–28.Google Scholar