The Liberal Democrats’ 2010 general election battle bus on a campaign visit to Newport, South Wales
Jeff Morgan 16/Alamy
Few, if any, would deny that political parties are integral to representative democracy as we know it. But it has become increasingly commonplace to encounter references in both academic literature and journalism to the ‘decline of party’, a contention usually based on the view that parties are ‘failing’ in a variety of respects.
Such criticisms are generally alleged to relate to the weak performance of one or more of the well-known functions or tasks that political parties are said to fulfil on behalf of democratic political systems. These functions include, among others:
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