IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v1y1989i3p251-276.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Problem of Party System Change

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Mair

Abstract

The wave of electoral volatility which swept across most of the West European polities in the late 1960s and 1970s has led many scholars to suggest that the European party systems are now experiencing a major transformation. Given such an emphasis in the contemporary literature, this article attempts to identify some of the key problems in defining what is meant by party system change. Four such problems are identified. First, that of distinguishing party change, on the one hand, and party system change, on the other. Second, the problem of treating measures of electoral volatility as indicators of cleavage decline, and the extent to which evidence of electoral change can be seen as a valid challenge to the Lipset-Rokkan `freezing' hypothesis. Third, the problem of determining the level of electoral volatility which actually `matters' in discussions of party system change. Fourth, the problem of the electoral bias itself, which often leads researchers to neglect other, non-electoral, dimensions of change which, in turn, may well prove to have been both more fundamental and more enduring.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Mair, 1989. "The Problem of Party System Change," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 1(3), pages 251-276, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:1:y:1989:i:3:p:251-276
    DOI: 10.1177/0951692889001003001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951692889001003001
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951692889001003001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daalder, Hans, 1984. "In Search of the Center of European Party Systems," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(1), pages 92-109, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zim Nwokora & Riccardo Pelizzo, 2017. "Measuring Party System Change: A Systems Perspective," Research Africa Network Working Papers 17/048, Research Africa Network (RAN).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Reuven Y. Hazan, 1995. "Center Parties and Systemic Polarization," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 7(4), pages 421-445, October.
    2. A. M. A. van Deemen, 1991. "Coalition Formation in Centralized Policy Games," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 3(2), pages 139-161, April.
    3. Selim Jürgen Ergun, 2015. "Centrist’S Curse? An Electoral Competition Model With Credibility Constraints," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 60(05), pages 1-18, December.
    4. Giovanni Capoccia, 2002. "Anti-System Parties," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 14(1), pages 9-35, January.
    5. Jonathan White, 2010. "Left, Right and Beyond: the Pragmatics of Political Mapping," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 24, European Institute, LSE.
    6. Christoffer Green‐Pedersen, 2004. "Center Parties, Party Competition, and the Implosion of Party Systems: A Study of Centripetal Tendencies in Multiparty Systems," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 52(2), pages 324-341, June.
    7. Jonathan White, 2010. "Left, Right and Beyond: the Pragmatics of Political Mapping," Europe in Question Discussion Paper Series of the London School of Economics (LEQs) 4, London School of Economics / European Institute.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:1:y:1989:i:3:p:251-276. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.