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Abstract
Political party think tanks (PPTTs) are important to the performance of parties' core functions. Despite their importance, they have largely escaped academic attention. To understand the role of PPTTs in contemporary politics, we develop a typology of their key functions (distinguishing between political party and think tank functions), and target audiences (distinguishing between internal and external target groups). Based on a comprehensive literature review and 22 in-depth interviews with leading representatives of PPTTs in the Netherlands and Flanders, we identify four types of PPTTs: Party Assistants, Party Supporters, Party Promoters and Party Intellectuals. The characteristics of the four types of PPTTs are illustrated through the analysis of four paradigmatic cases: the Study Centre Open Vld as an example of a Party Assistant, the Scientific Bureau GroenLinks as an example of a Party Supporter, the Renaissance Institute as an example of a Party Promoter, and the TeldersFoundation as an example of a Party Intellectual.

An article based on the contribution or three authors. Former political secretary of the Flemish ecological party Green! Geysels remembers the main strategies at the start of the sanitary cordon in Belgium in 1989. After summing up the effects and impact of these statements, he defends the cordon as an instrument which helps to protect the bases of democracy. De Lange, in the second contribution, Right-populist political parties and sketches the academic outlines of the discussion. She warns against unilateral, unfounded and unwise propositions in the debate, certainly when it concerns translating the Belgian experience to the current Dutch situation. Professor Fennema, the third author, studied the forming of extreme Right parties in Europe and is president of the Center of Radicalism and Extremism Studies CRES. He writes of the Dutch experience with the sanitary cordon and its consequences on contemporary political debate in the Netherlands, which has changed into a debate in terms of fear and hate. All three authors emphasize that a comparison between the Flemish and Dutch experience falls: in Flanders, where the cordon functions since 20 years, no party was ever forbidden. In the Netherlands, where discussion on the sanitary cordon has been bled, that happened. O. van Zijl

Populism has become the issue of comparative political science today. The rise and continuing success of populist parties is by now evident across Europe, despite persistent cross-national variations. Populist parties' electoral success and their participation in government have raised questions about their impact: not just on established party systems, but also on the systemic core of European democracies. In theory, this impact can be both beneficial for, as well as a challenge to democracy in general, and the tenets of liberal constitutional democracy in particular. The presence of populist parties has, in several cases, increased electoral turnout and public participation, which is generally seen as a positive effect when measuring the quality of democracy. However, populist parties' rise also points to negative effects. In addition to profoundly reshaping European party systems, they advocate what the populist Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán calls "illiberal democracy". Both as an ideal and as an institutional practice when in government, the illiberal remaking of democracy implies eroding the separation of powers and subordinating constitutionally guaranteed individual civil and human rights to an alleged "general will" and a particular conception of "the people". The thematic issue explores the ideological supply, favorable conditions, political contexts and dynamics, as well as the impact of the populist surge in Europe in relation to the systemic consolidation of (il)liberal democracy on a theoretical and comparative empirical level.

Populism has become the issue of comparative political science today. The rise and continuing success of populist parties is by now evident across Europe, despite persistent cross-national variations. Populist parties' electoral success and their participation in government have raised questions about their impact: not just on established party systems, but also on the systemic core of European democracies. In theory, this impact can be both beneficial for, as well as a challenge to democracy in general, and the tenets of liberal constitutional democracy in particular. The presence of populist parties has, in several cases, increased electoral turnout and public participation, which is generally seen as a positive effect when measuring the quality of democracy. However, populist parties' rise also points to negative effects. In addition to profoundly reshaping European party systems, they advocate what the populist Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán calls "illiberal democracy". Both as an ideal and as an institutional practice when in government, the illiberal remaking of democracy implies eroding the separation of powers and subordinating constitutionally guaranteed individual civil and human rights to an alleged "general will" and a particular conception of "the people". The thematic issue explores the ideological supply, favorable conditions, political contexts and dynamics, as well as the impact of the populist surge in Europe in relation to the systemic consolidation of (il)liberal democracy on a theoretical and comparative empirical level.

Political parties are increasingly confronted with electoral volatility. However, the support for some parties is more stable than that of others. Although it has been established that parties' links to civil society stabilised their electorates in the period until the 1980s, it has not yet been investigated whether such links still fulfil this function in our volatile age. In this paper, we argue that traditional party connections, as well as links to modern day civil society organisations, continue to tie voters to parties. Using a novel dataset covering 149 parties in 29 elections in 14 West European countries, we establish that parties with stronger links to civil society do indeed have a more stable support base. This relationship holds for parties of the left and right. Our results demonstrate that parties' societal embeddedness continues to play a role in understanding party competition in the 21st century.