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A B S T R A C TDespite the scepticism that increasingly surrounds their role and standing in contemporary democracies, scholarly interest in political parties continues unabated. But this interest is also proving uneven, with relatively little attention now being given to the study of party systems. More specifically, the level of theoretical interest in party systems remains limited, with almost no substantial innovations being made since the publication of Sartori's classic work of 1976. In this article, we seek to redress some of this neglect by identifying the relevant parameters that can be used in the definition of party systems and, possibly, in the explanation of party system change. We then go on to look at the minimum defining characteristics of a system of parties (as opposed to a set of parties) before finally arguing that party systems are best understood as multidimensional phenomena in which we identify and discuss the implications of three types of division -vertical, horizontal and functional.KEY WORDS Ⅲ electoral arena Ⅲ governmental arena Ⅲ parliamentary arena Ⅲ party systems PA R T Y P O L I T I C S

The main objective of this report is to assess the impact of institutional factors and elections on the transnationalization of European parties and on the evolution of the European Union's (EU) party system. Institutional factors, which are effective during the European Parliament's (EP) legislative term, appear to favor the consolidation of the longerestablished and larger EP party groups (EPP, PES, LDR) and ultimately of the EU party system. By contrast, elections can be very disruptive, especially for the more recent and smaller EP groups, and are a negative factor in party system consolidation. The two combined effects appear to have contributed to the creation of a two-speed party system in the EU, characterized by an increasingly institutionalized core and by a mutable and unstable periphery. KEY W 0 R D S • elections • Europarties • European Union

This article attempts to assess (a) the extent to which anti‐party sentiment has been a factor in Italy's current political changes, with particular reference to the party system; (b) whether such changes can in turn be considered to be a preliminary step towards the rejection of the party‐based model of democracy. Elite and mass indicators, whose values rose sharply at the end of the 1980s and culminated in the early 1990s, reveal that anti‐party sentiment was indeed a factor in Italy's recent party system changes. The ability of anti‐party and anti‐system lists to attract many dissatisfied electors resulted in the major 1992–1994 party system realignment. Mass anti‐party sentiment, however, appears to have ebbed after the 1993 referendums on party financing and on the electoral law, which were arguably the highest manifestations of popular rejection of the old party‐system. It would seem that with realignment popular anti‐party sentiment has reached its goals. Perhaps as a consequence, at least some of the successful anti‐party parties are already becoming more party‐like. In the transition between Italy's first and second Republics, the party‐based model of democracy has not yet been replaced.