Political parties or party systems? Assessing the ‘myth’ of institutionalisation and democracy

Does the Iron Curtain Still Exist? The Convergence in Electoral Volatility between Eastern and Western Europe

“…There is a lot at stake in the vanishing of this symbolic Iron Curtain. Although additional information is required, we consider that our conclusions are particularly important for future research on the implications of party system change for the functioning and the quality of democracy (Casal Bértoa 2017). Our analysis confirms that Central and Eastern European party systems offer a laboratory for understanding trends in party system volatility that are emerging in Western Europe and across the globe (Haughton and Deegan-Krause 2015: 61).…”

Good Governance and Party System Change

“…As Casal Bértoa (2017) recently recalled, the democratization literature has often claimed that institutionalized parties are a necessary, albeit in itself insufficient, condition for the consolidation of democracy. By analyzing European data for 1848 to 2014, Casal Bértoa found that what matters is not so much the institutionalization of political parties but rather the institutionalization of party systems.…”

“…In light of this evidence, Casal Bértoa (2017) argued that the relationship between the institutionalization of political parties and that of a party system is complex, nonlinear, and ambiguous. The complexity and ambiguity of this relationship are due to a conceptual and to an operational problem.…”

“…And yet, precisely because this conceptual issue had not adequately been grasped, many party politics specialists have devised a wide range of approaches to estimate the institutionalization as if such estimates were precise and efficient predictors of its level. This is why Casal Bértoa (2017, 410) noted that several of the previous efforts to assess or measure the level of institutionalization of a party system failed to “distinguish between party (supply‐side) and systemic (demand‐side) institutionalization.” Finally, Casal Bértoa noted that Mair's notion of “party system closure” as operationalized by Casal Bértoa and Enyedi (2016) provides analysts with a better tool to estimate the institutionalization of a party system.…”

“…They are whether there is total or partial alternation in government, the familiarity of government formulae, and access to government. While this approach is far superior—for the reasons mentioned by Casal Bértoa (2017)—to the way in which party system scholars had previously attempted to quantify the level of institutionalization of a party system, it is nonetheless somewhat problematic. The relationship between the three variables discussed by Casal Bértoa and Enyedi and party system institutionalization is as ambiguous, nonlinear, and complex as the relationship between party and party system institutionalization.…”