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An introductory chapter notes that the last 25 years have exhibited both an unprecedented increase in democracies around the world & growing dissatisfaction with them. The decline in confidence in government throughout North America, Europe, & Japan is accompanied by an erosion of partisan attachments. The attachment to political parties is even weaker in the developing "third wave" democracies of Asia, Latin America, Africa, & the postcommunist world, where the legitimacy of democracy is not as deeply rooted. Various explanations for this decline are examined. The essays in this volume focus on the roles that parties play in contemporary democracies, & whether they are living up to citizens' expectations & fulfilling the functional demands implicit in the concept of representative democracy. The urgent need to understand how parties are evolving & changing is discussed. The essays are organized in four sections that address theoretical/historical perspectives; parties/party systems after reform; developing & postcommunist party systems; & challenges facing contemporary parties. J. Lindroth

LANGUAGE HAS OFTEN BEEN THE BASIS OF NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS WHEN A POPULATION IS LINGISTICALLY HOMOGENEOUS, LANGUAGE MAY CONTRIBUTE TO THE UNITY AND POLITCAL SSTABILITY OF A STATE. WHEN, OON THE OTHER HAND, A COUNTRY CONTAINS SIZABLE MINORITES SPEAKING DIFFERENT LANGUAGES, COMPETING MICRONATIONALIST MOVEMENTS MAY ARISE, POSING SERIOUS CHALLENGES TO AN ESTABLISHED STATE.

Compares the manner in which church-state relations were treated by the framers of the 1931 and the 1978 constitutions. Reprinted from Revista de Estudios Políticos (Madrid), Mar./Apr., 1980.

Não há um consenso claro sobre se as atitudes de apoio à democracia, de um lado, e a cidadania democrática, de outro, constituem um único domínio atitudinal, ou se são empiricamente distintas uma da outra. Em estudos empíricos de atitudes e comportamentos na Bulgária, Chile, Grécia, Hong Kong, Hungria, Itália, Espanha e Uruguai, encontramos provas claras de que essas atitudes são conceitual e empiricamente distintas, formando três dimensões atitudinais diferentes: apoio difuso à democracia, satisfação com o desempenho da democracia e indiferença política (que podem ser divididas ainda nos clássicos clusters "interno" e "externo" de eficácia). Esses três grupos têm correlatos comportamentais bem diferentes: a insatisfação leva a votos contra o partido que está no poder; uma falta de apoio difuso ao sistema está associada ao voto nos partidos antidemocráticos; e a indiferença leva a um baixo envolvimento dos cidadãos na política democrática. Não encontramos provas consistentes de que o apoio difuso à democracia (um componente chave da legitimidade do regime) dependa da satisfação com o desempenho da democracia.

Introduces an edited volume that discusses empirical & theoretical research regarding political parties in democratic systems. Traditional concepts & model of parties require reassessment, especially regarding their capacity to deal adequately with contemporary challenges. Many scholars believe the study of political parties has been exhaustive, others that political parties are becoming irrelevant & are in a state of decline, & others question the quality of scholarly research on parties. This introduction considers each assertion & argues for the importance of research on political parties & the formulation & systematic testing of more sophisticated & empirically grounded hypotheses to arrive at effective middle-range theories. This introduction provides an overview of each contribution & examines the core concepts used in its empirical research on political parties. The chapters in this volume provide contemporary evaluations of factors that have contributed to the extraordinary continuity of parties, despite their decline & public cynicism toward them. L. A. Hoffman