Why Do Political Parties Survive?

Abstract

This article examines the reasons for the survival of the political party as an institution despite its constant change - in many cases its decline - as an organization and its loss of social and political roles. Parties have emerged and survived in every political regime that claimed its legitimacy, in full or in part, from the concepts of consent and representation. The party developed its unique and routine institutional role, however, only within the democratic regime. Parties regularly manage - legitimize and partially organize - two regular sources of democratic instability: competitive elections and the factionalization of the legislature (and, possibly, the government). There has been no institutional challenge to this specialized role of the political party, which has proved to be uniquely capable of reconciling the basic conflict between equality and representation. The extent to which the party can survive is thus conditional on its success in making the representative regime not only operative but legitimate. The progressive development of a communicative society may eventually test, though not necessarily put an end to, the viability of the political party and its specialized role under new conditions.