Parties and the Party System: Pluralisation and Functional Change within Limits

Abstract

When studying institutional change in the party sphere one has to distinguish two levels of analysis, the party and the party system level, as well as two dimensions of analysis, the structural and the functional dimension. This chapter will first concentrate on the party level, discussing the structural development of the German parties and how they perform the functions assigned to them. The second part of the chapter then deals with the core characteristics of the party system and their stability or change.