Diminished Parties

This book critiques the conventional definition of a political party and assesses parties' role in contemporary democracies.

This volume proposes a new, analytically more powerful conceptualization of political party. It provides in-depth analyses of seventeen contemporary political parties in Latin America and shows how and why they vary in the degree to which they fulfill the functions of democratic representation.Many contemporary party organizations are failing to fulfill their representational role in contemporary democracies. While political scientists tend to rely on a minimalist definition of political parties (groups of candidates that compete in elections), this volume argues that this misses how parties can differ not only in degree but also in kind. With a new typology of political parties, the authors provide a new analytical tool to address the role of political parties in democratic functioning and political representation. The empirical chapters apply the conceptual framework to analyze seventeen parties across Latin America. The authors are established scholars expert in comparative politics and in the cases included in the volume. The book sets an agenda for future research on parties and representation, and it will appeal to those concerned with the challenges of consolidating stable and programmatic party systems in developing democracies.