A System Perspective on Party System Change

Gordon Smith

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 1989, vol. 1, issue 3, 349-363

Abstract: Discussions of party system change may be unsatisfactory if insufficient attention is given to the defining properties of a system. A number of dimensions have to be considered, but - as with `social cleavages' - there can be disagreement as to whether a truly constitutive element is involved. In addition, it is necessary to distinguish the various degrees of change that are possible, and in this respect a study of the process of change is essential. Party system typologies are of little help, so that an alternative in the form of `working models' can be employed. The emphasis in this approach is on the identification of the `core components' of the particular system against which the degree of change can be assessed. An examination of representative West European party systems reveals that these core components show a strong persistence.

Keywords: parties; party systems; Western Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1989
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951692889001003005 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:1:y:1989:i:3:p:349-363

DOI: 10.1177/0951692889001003005

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Theoretical Politics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().