Party Change, Recent Democracies, and Portugal

Political Parties are central institutions of representative democracy, even if they are failing to perform many of their democratic functions. Exploring the relationship between political parties and democratization in Portugal, this book is a major contribution to the comparative study of party system configurations in Europe. -- António Costa Pinto, University of Lisbon
Marco Lisi's carefully crafted new book on Portuguese parties will be of great interest to a wide range of readers. The book provides an in-depth analysis of Portugal's political parties alongside an acute examination of major theoretical controversies in the comparative literature on political parties. The book manages to adeptly serve as an easy-to-follow introduction for those unfamiliar with these topics while simultaneously providing much in the way of valuable new analysis for those already familiar with Portuguese politics and the study of parties. -- Robert M. Fishman, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Using a variety of sources of quantitative and qualitative data on party membership, voting behavior, leadership selection, party platforms, and election campaigns, Lisi shows how the Portuguese party system and its adaptation to internal and external constraints have been characterized by a fundamental inertia regarding mechanisms of internal transparency, recruitment, and representation. It is true that, unlike what has occurred in other comparable cases, this has not resulted (yet?) in party system disaggregation on the face of recent massive economic and societal challenges. However, such resilience comes at a price of a ‘divorce’ between citizens and parties with no signs of reconciliation, with detrimental consequences for the quality of democracy itself. -- Pedro C. Magalhães, University of Lisbon