Parties play a central role in democratic governance around the globe. However, many doubt that they are doing it well. The writings on the wall are manifold: The decline of former core parties, the fragmentation of party systems, the rise of populist challenger parties, the rise of populist leaders within and past established parties – the list could easily be continued. To be sure, not all of these problems are a direct results of party failure. To a considerable degree, parties may simple suffer from the effects of wider societal wider societal trends over which they have little control.

Also, it is debateable whether or not all these changes really indicate a crisis of democracy. While the decline of the traditional French parties may not be a problem for democracy, the continuing strength of Le Pen’s political party certainly is. Similarly, the ongoing changes in the Italian party system may not be problematic, but the tendency to take refuge to non-party Prime Ministers may be a sign of democratic erosion. Brazilian democracy has been under severe stress ever since Bolsonaro was elected president even though he was only backed by a minor party but fought successful social media election campaign. The list could be extended to African or Asian democracies.

Clearly, we need a set of criteria to determine what a ’crisis of democracy’ involves. This will be done in the first part of the course. Thereafter, we turn to a series of country studies to shed a clearer light on a number of suitable cases. The core reading for the course will be a forthcoming book on political parties in 23 countries. While a set of countries has been selected to ensure appropriate coverage of different cases, several additional cases can be chosen by seminar participants from the countries that are included in the forthcoming book.