Political parties are an integral part of representative democracy and fulfil essential functions within a representative system: they bring together people with similar political ideas and provide forums for debate among the like-minded.
Despite their dominance within representative systems, parties have long been seen as in decline and deteriorating as upholders of legitimacy for modern democracy. It is puzzling that much research into local democracy focuses on deliberative practices and participatory democratic innovations. There is a need for more research to fill the many gaps that remain in our knowledge of parties and mechanisms of representative democracy in local government.
Although the study of parties is a 'mature field' (Wolinetz 2007), given the crucial role that parties play in political life, it is surprising that little scholarly attention has been paid to questions relating to the state of local representative democracy compared to the focus on parties at the national level. The premise of the proposed workshop is that it has the potential to significantly advance our understanding of parties, party systems, and the quality of representative democracy by focusing on party politics in local government (Clark 2004).
Local party politics has very important specificities relevant in both substantive and analytical terms. Smaller municipalities have been disproportionately underrepresented in political science research over the past 20 years, especially outside the United States (Kumar and Stenberg 2023). As a result, political participation and party politics may differ in these smaller municipalities, and we suggest that scholars consider how smaller municipalities might differ from larger municipalities and highlight political issues unique to small cities as new areas of inquiry.
Two prominent developments of contemporary democratic politics are critically relevant as referred to local party politics. The first is the increasing salience of the personalisation of politics (RAHAT & Kenig 2018), which strongly bears on the role of political parties and political competition. The second is the rise of locally generated political actors running exclusively for local elections, such as local parties and independent local lists, very often associated with anti-establishment traits (REISER & Holtmann 2008).
CLARK, A. 2004. The continued relevance of local parties in representative democracies. Politics, 24 (1): 35–45.
KUMAR, T. and Stenberg M. 2023. “Why Political Scientists Should Study Smaller Cities.” Urban Affairs Review 59 (6): 2005-2042.
MONTERO, J. R. and GUNTHER, R. 2002 . “Introduction: reviewing and reassessing parties”. in Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges, Edited by: Gunther , R., Montero , J. R. and Lintz , J. J. 1 – 38 . Oxford : Oxford University Press .
RAHAT, Gideon, and Ofer Kenig, (2018) 'The Presence and Success of National-Level Parties in Local and Regional Elections', From Party Politics to Personalized Politics? Party Change and Political Personalization in Democracies, Oxford.
REISER, M., & Holtmann, E. (Eds.). (2008). Farewell to the party model?: independent local lists in East and West European countries. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
SCHATTSCHNEIDER, E. E. 1942. Party Government, New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
WOLINETZ, S. 2007. Coping with cornucopia: the parties literature in the new millennium. International Political Science Review, 28 (5): 571 – 84.
1: What is the state of local representative democracy compared to the focus on parties at the national level?
2: What is the relationship (interdependence and autonomy, etc) between local and national party politics?
3: What is the role played by anti-establishment, radical, extremist and populist parties?
4: What are the models of coalition building and coalition government at the local level?
5: What is the specific role of opposition government in comparative perspective?
1: Inter-party politics and party system dynamics in local government
2: Internal life and intra-party democracy within parties in local government
3: Relationships, interdependence and autonomy from national party politics
4: Anti-establishment, radical, extremist and populist parties;
5: Local party behavior (in opposition and coalition)
6: Coalition building and coalition government;
7: The role and conditions of opposition in local government.
