The debate on citizen images of political parties is long standing, but recently it has
taken on added importance as the evidence of party dealignment has spread across
Western democracies. This article assembles an unprecedented cross-national array of
public opinion data that describe current images of political parties. Sentiments are
broadly negative, and this pessimism has deepened over the past generation. Then, we
demonstrate how distrust of parties decreases voting turnout, contributes to the
fragmentation of contemporary party systems and the electoral base of new protest
parties, and stimulates broader cynicism towards government. Although political parties
are the foundation of the system of representative democracy, fewer citizens today trust
political parties, and this is reshaping the nature of democratic politics.
Perhaps no institution is so closely identified with the process of
representative democracy as are political parties. The renowned political
scientist E.E. Schattschneider (1942: 1) penned the oft-cited conclusion that
‘modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of political parties’.
Similarly, James Bryce (1921: 119) stated ‘parties are inevitable. No one has
shown how representative government could be worked without them’.
More recently, Giovani Sartori wrote, ‘citizens in Western democracies are
represented through and by parties. This is inevitable’ (Sartori 1968: 471).
Many other political scientists and political analysts share these views,
ranging from the American Political Science Association’s call for more
responsible party government in 1950, to a 1999 Economist article that
examined the role of political parties as the basis of democracy.1
Yet even if parties are generally seen as essential to democracy, there is
dissent on the nature of their contributions. On the one side, the party
government literature stresses the positive role that parties play in framing
political choice, socialising elites, mobilising citizens, and organising
government (e.g. Sartori 1976; Hershey 2004). On the other side, there is
a long history of anti-party sentiment from Rousseau to Madison that criticises the mischief of faction and the ways parties can impede the
democratic process (Ignazi 1996). Alexis de Tocqueville, for example, called
political parties an evil inherent in free governments. These sentiments were
echoed in Bale and Roberts’ review of the recent debate on electoral reform
in New Zealand: ‘voters are not particularly enamoured of parties, but they
reluctantly recognize – if not consciously – that they are a necessary evil’
(2002: 17).
The theoretical debate on the political role of parties is long standing, but
recently it has taken on additional importance as evidence of growing
public disenchantment with parties has spread across Western democracies
(Dalton and Wattenberg 2000). The membership rolls of most established
parties have decreased (Scarrow 2000; Mair and van Biezen 2001). Electoral
turnout is in decline. Psychological attachments to political parties – party
identifications – also are weakening. Finally, the rise of anti-establishment
protest parties on the Left and Right is yet another sign of this malaise.
In addition, these sentiments are fuelling demands for institutional
change. Italy, Japan and New Zealand have recently transformed their
electoral systems, at least partially due to spreading popular dissatisfaction
with political parties (Shugart and Wattenberg 2001). There are also current
demands for electoral reform in England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada
and other nations (Norris 1995).
This article examines the public image of political parties in contemporary
advanced industrial democracies. Our research first reviews the current
evidence on how citizens view political parties and the system of party
government. We assemble data from a diverse array of public opinion
surveys to describe contemporary opinions and track them over time. The
evidence suggests that distrust of political parties is spreading across these
nations.
Then, the second section of this article examines some of the potential
political implications of spreading distrust in political parties. We examine
the link between party trust and participation in politics, and more broadly
images of the democratic system of representative government. We also
consider how distrust shapes electoral choices, potentially contributing to
the fragmentation of contemporary party systems and the electoral base of
new protest parties. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for
the workings of the democratic process in contemporary democracies.
Public Images of Political Parties
Because parties are central to democracy, public orientations toward
political parties are an important research question. However, scholars
differ on how contemporary publics view political parties. In his review of
this literature, for example, Thomas Poguntke concluded: ‘the data I have
analysed do not support generalizations about a broad decline of parties
and the rise of anti-party sentiment in Western democracies’ (Poguntke 1996: 338). Similarly, writing in the same volume, Paul Webb (1996) did not
see clear evidence of growing anti-party sentiments in Britain.
At the same time, there is mounting evidence of declining support for
parties and party government in the past two decades across Western
democracies. Survey data and membership statistics generally document a
drop in party membership over the 1980s and 1990s (Scarrow 2000; Mair
and van Biezen 2001). Election turnout and campaign participation are
decreasing (Wattenberg 2003; Franklin 2004). Moreover, Dalton (2000)
described a general erosion of party attachments across nearly all advanced
industrial democracies. He found that the proportion of the public
expressing a partisan attachment has declined in 17 of the 19 advanced
industrial democracies; the strength of party attachments has decreased in
all 18 nations for which there are long-term opinion poll data. Dalton
attributed these trends, at least in part, as signs of a growing disenchantment
with political parties as agents of representative democracy (also Dalton
2004). A recent cross-national review of political parties similarly found
evidence of significant anti-party sentiment across more than a dozen
advanced industrial democracies (Webb 2002).
The discussion of public images of political parties often relies on indirect
measures, such as the rise of electoral volatility, party membership, turnout
levels, or party identification. These indictors provide useful evidence, but
they are potential correlates of party sentiments – not the sentiments
themselves. Thus, what is needed is more direct attitudinal evidence on what
contemporary publics actually think about political parties as actors in the
process of representative government. For instance, Poguntke and Scarrow
(1996) edited a special issue of the European Journal of Political Research
that focused on the issue of anti-party sentiments, but there was little
empirical evidence on how Europeans actually viewed political parties.
Indeed, the discussion was based primarily on the observations of political
experts or indirect indicators such as turnout or party membership.
Now a new set of public opinion surveys enables us to examine directly
and in greater depth how contemporary publics view political parties. We
begin with data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES,
module I).2 Table 1 presents opinions on two essential ingredients of the
current debate about party images: first, are parties necessary to democracy,
and second, do parties care what people think.3 These two questions reflect
the paradox of current opinions. When asked if parties are necessary, about
three-quarters of the public in these 13 democracies respond affirmatively.
This supports Schattschneider’s (1942) view that democracy without parties
seems unthinkable to most citizens (also Schmitt 1983).
However, contemporary publics are simultaneously sceptical about
whether parties care about their interests. On average, less than a third of
the public are positive toward parties on this question. Often the contrasts
are striking. While 80 per cent of Swedes say parties are necessary to make
the political system work, only 23 per cent believe that parties care what ordinary people think. Similarly, 80 per cent of the Germans think parties
are necessary, but only 18 per cent of the public believe that parties care.4
Before discussing the impact of these party images, we want to consider
two arguments that question the potential significance of the findings. First,
some scholars have suggested that public scepticism about parties is the norm
for democracy, rather than a new development (e.g. Mu¨ller 1999; Scarrow
1996). Yet longitudinal data from several nations points to the erosion of
trust in parties over the past generation. Gallup Canada found that only 30
per cent of Canadians expressed quite a lot of confidence in political parties
in 1979 – already a fairly low level of support – and this dropped to only 11
per cent by 1999 (Carty 2002). Enmid surveys show that the proportion of
Germans who express confidence in the political parties has decreased from
43 per cent in 1979 to only 26 per cent in 1993 (Rieger 1994: 462). Surveys in
Sweden found that in 1968 a full 68 per cent of the public rejected the
statement that parties were only interested in people’s votes; this dropped to
23 per cent by 1998 (Holmberg 1999). Similarly, the British public has
become significantly less trusting of political parties over the past two
decades (Bromley and Curtice 2002). The American National Election Study
found that in the 1960s about 40 per cent of Americans thought parties were
responsive to public interests; this decreased to about 30 per cent in the 1970s
and 20 per cent in the 1980s. There is parallel evidence of extensive public