A Crisis of Political Parties

Abstract

The idea of a crisis of political parties is not new. In the UK, and comparatively, there has been a long debate about the decline of parties (Rokkan 1970, Crewe, Sarlvik and Alt (1977), Selle 1991, Daalder 1992, Whiteley 2011). Crisis is in many ways endemic to parties as they battle over losing elections, retaining members and finding suitable leaders. Indeed, it is easy to mistake the everyday waxing and waning of parties’ fortunes for a more profound crisis. Parties within the UK political system have considerable resilience and continue to be the main structuring element of politics in the UK. Indeed much of the party literature suggests we cannot write parties off and they continue to be central mechanisms of political organisation (Fisher et al. 2014). However, the argument of this chapter is that there is currently a particular problem with the major UK political parties and their role in the process of representation that has become critical because it is beginning to undermine the legitimacy of the political elite and consequently reinforces the wider process of political disillusionment. Parties and party leaders view politics in self-referential terms and see little alternative to parties as the framework of politics, while the electorate is increasingly distanced and disillusioned by the existing party system. Indeed, the key point is that parties are 19th-century political institutions that have increasingly less relevance to how people practise politics day to day.