Comparative Political Analysis, Ist Edition

CHAPTER 21

Party and Party Systems

Babita Verma

Reader’s Guide

Political parties are ubiquitous actors of the modern democratic form of governance and form the core of representative politics and governments. Modern governments are basically party governments where parties perform many crucial functions and, therefore, any political system in contemporary times cannot be imagined without them. There are numerous instances where parties have become instrumental in reorganizing society. They try to mould society in a definite direction through various means of policy formulation and implementation, violence, coercion, shift in cultural practices and ideological propaganda. The political parties have become the harbinger of democratic transformations, ...