Authors: Bobbio, Matteucci, Pasquino
Summary: In about 5,200 words, the entry defines the term, analyzes the historical evolution of parties, and considers the nature of political participation. The entry adopts Weber's definition: "A political party is an association with a specific aim, either objective (such as the realization of a program based on a material purpose or an idea), or personal (in order to obtain advantages, power and regard for leaders and followers), or both." The entry treats parties as those associations within civil society that arose when the people, in theory and in fact, gained the right of taking part in the management of political power.
The origins of parties date back to the first half of the 19th century in Europe and the United States. Starting from the "party of notables," clubs set up by a limited number of persons that worked only during elections, parties grew into the "mass organizational party" or "machine-party" at the end of the 19th century. The socialist party was linked to the working class. Next, the entry describes the "mass-electoral party," which developed after the introduction of universal suffrage, a time when middle-class parties broadened their following. This process took place in England after the First World War, and in the other European countries after the Second World War. Finally, the entry considers the "catch-all" party as the last stage of the transformation of political parties. "Catch-all" parties stress their electoral characteristics and loosen their links with specific social classes on behalf of general social requests.