Several of the world's leading scholars present critical analyses (both conceptual and empirical) of important substantive themes on political parties in contemporary democracies. They critically re-examine the classic concepts and typologies that have guided research in this field over the past decades, and explore new challenges faced by parties today.

• Introduction


• Part I. Reconceptualizing parties and party competition


• Parties: denied, dismissed, or redundant


• Still the age of catch-allism? Volksparteien and Parteienstaat in crisis and reequilibration


• Electoral and party competition: analytical dimensions and empirical problems


• Part II. Reexaming party organization and party models


• The ascendancy of the party in public office: party organizational change in 20th-century democracies


• Beyond the catch-all party: approaches to the study of parties and party organization in contemporary democracies


• Party organization and party performance: the case of the French Socialist party


• A crisis of institutionalisation: the collapse of the UCD in Spain


• Part III. Revisiting Party linkages and attitudes toward parties


• Antiparty sentiments in Southern Europe


• Parties in contemporary democracies: problems and paradoxes