Keywords

Introduction

The literature primarily interested in party politics has focused on the relationship between the characteristics of party systems and democracy. In this context, the focus has been especially on party system institutionalization. More recently, party system polarization has been increasingly added to party system characteristics, considered to be factors that impact democracy. Poor party institutionalization and high party system polarization have been found to endanger at least the quality of democracies if not democracy itself. However, it has not always been clear what the relationship between institutionalization and polarization is. Also, it is not clear how other party system characteristics, such as party system stability, freezing, closure and fluidity, are related to either institutionalization or polarization. Furthermore, some party system characteristics have been observed both on the level of the party system and on the level of individual parties. Among these characteristics are institutionalization, polarization (parties’ shift to extremism), personalization and populism. The aim of this chapter is to clarify: (1) the relationships among the mentioned characteristics; (2) the relationship between the party system and the party level of these characteristics and (3) the relationship between the studied characteristics and democracy. We start with some introductory theses and then continue by detailing particular party systems and party characteristics and their relationship with democracy.

The first theses are related to institutionalization. As the history of modern democracy is built on political parties, researchers (Mainwaring and Torcal 2006, 221) expect that institutionalization has important consequences for democratic politics and that democracy may have some deficiencies where parties are less stable mechanisms of representation, accountability and structuring.

Institutionalized parties and party systems have been viewed as necessary conditions for effective democratic governing (Stockton 2001). Institutionalized party systems especially are believed to give rise to democratic qualities of legitimacy and predictability (Lindberg 2007). More precisely, it has been argued that it is the institutionalization of party systems as a whole (and not individual party institutionalization) that matters for democratic survival in Europe, and that achieving a threshold systemic institutionalization ensures avoiding democratic collapse, but over-institutionalization may not be supportive of the survival of democracy (Casal Bértoa 2017).

Based on Western European history, researchers interested in party systems and democracy have stressed the importance of the party system’s institutionalization, but recently it has been found that party systems in old democracies may change while democracy remains unchallenged (Casal Bértoa and Weber 2019). Contrary to earlier theses, it has also been found that highly institutionalized party systems may even become problematic for democratic developments when parties become too closely linked to the state and lose touch with developments in a society.

During the last decade, more interest has been focused on party system destabilization as one specific dimension of party system institutionalization. Former simple distinctions between stable Western party systems and unstable party systems in other parts of the world have proved to be wrong as Western party systems have also destabilized during the last decade. Destabilization trends have been emerging in Western Europe as well as across the globe, accompanied by a global trend of declining democracy. Nevertheless, a belief persists that new party systems may be more prone than old party systems to crises.

Research into parties in post-socialist contexts has developed the thesis that post-socialist party systems stabilize while democracy is consolidating (Kitschelt 2009). The research has pointed at many obstacles to party and party system institutionalization (Enyedi 2006). As party system destabilization has recently evolved in parallel with a decline in democracy, the thesis that it is the party system’s destabilization in the post-socialist context that challenges democracy in these countries evolved logically. However, not all post-socialist democracies have joined the trend, and not all democracies backslide at the same time, at the same pace or with the same outcome.

In 2022, for the first time since 2004, the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI) recorded more autocratic than democratic states, while short- and long-term trends have been negative even when looking solely at more advanced democracies (“Global Report”, n.d.). However, not all countries with destabilized party systems have experienced a radical decline in democracy. Furthermore, recent Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) data revealed that some older democracies do backslide. It is therefore important to gain a better understanding of whether and under what circumstances party system instability causes democratic backsliding.

Also, it should not be disregarded that party system destabilization and de-democratization trends have evolved in the context of major international crises, particularly international financial and economic crises, migration, environmental and health crises. In the past, comparative research findings have shown that major international economic crises (1929, 1973 and 2008) have not contributed to serious party system destabilization per se, but rather to a restrained change in various party system dimensions (Casal Bértoa and Weber 2019).

The relationship between party system polarization and democracy appears to be less studied. Still, the negative impact of polarization on democracy prevails in literature. More precisely, severe party system polarization is believed to create problems of governance (McCoy et al. 2018). It goes hand in hand with populism (Kaltwasser et al. 2017; Orenstein and Bugarič 2020). In contrast, some studies point to potentially positive impacts of party system polarization. Among these are an increase in party identification, clarification of voters’ choices and a rise in election turnout (Lupu 2015; Dalton 2021). In any case, it is important to take into account that polarization has been increasing in the world, including in wealthy nations (Dalton 2021).

To summarize, what appears to be a critical element in discussing the relationship between party system institutionalization and democracy is predictability of the party system’s functioning, including both legislative and executive functions in managing societies. When it comes to party system polarization, more concern is devoted to governability and effective steering of a particular society due to sharp political divisions.

A summary of more globally sensitive research findings includes three main theses: (1) the average level of democratization on a particular continent may remain largely unchanged over a long stretch of time; (2) there is significant variation across country cases and (3) the party system is just one of many factors that have an impact on democracy (Arriola et al. 2023).

Besides an overview of currently available findings on the relationship between party system characteristics and democracy, more detailed definitions of party system characteristics and suggestions for their measurement are needed in order to prepare a methodology for the case study research. The next sections are devoted to that goal.

Party System and Party Institutionalization

Party System Institutionalization

A party system is usually understood as ‘a system of interactions resulting from inter-party competition’ (Sartori 1976, 39). As it is about parties—which may change or even disappear, and new parties may enter the party arena—party systems are also dynamic. The term ‘institutionalisation’ has been developed to describe the characteristics of one particular party system. However, institutionalization has been associated with both the predictability of a party and the party system functioning.

As a rule, the institutionalization of party systems is believed to be a rather lengthy process in which fluid party systems evolve into a stable party system. However, Stockton (2001) has warned against such a simplistic definition of party and party system institutionalization, stressing that most analyses in this field have been divided by regional investigation. His cross-national comparison has revealed a curvilinear relationship between institutionalization and consolidation. Stockton pointed at Taiwan's path to consolidation, which has been predicated on a pattern very similar to those taken by Latin American cases, and at the case of South Korea, which theoretically should not be as close to consolidation as it was at the time of analysis. There are also cases showing that institutionalization does not necessarily occur over an extended period—as Lindberg (2007) showed in the case of Africa and as can be seen in some post-socialist countries, examples being the Croatian (Čular 2004), Hungarian and Czech party systems (Toole 2000).

Even more relevant for research in this book is that in the past, a thesis also evolved on a critical difference between Western and post-socialist party systems. The difference was believed to be in the level of institutionalization: in late democracies, party systems were characterized as well established, and in third-wave democracies, party systems were viewed as weakly institutionalized (Mainwaring 1988). However, there have been considerable differences among post-socialist countries, too (Casal Bértoa 2014). Also, both Western and post-socialist party systems have become destabilized.

Individual Party Institutionalization

It is logical that a party system cannot be institutionalized unless a sufficient share of relevant parties is institutionalized. But when can a party be considered to be institutionalized? The answer still very much relies on Huntington’s (1968) criteria of institutionalization (adaptability, complexity, autonomy and coherence), which have been applied in empirical examination of the institutionalization of parties (Dix 1992).

The autonomy of parties and, indirectly, of party systems is related to problems of clientelism (and political corruption). At the core of clientelism is the exchange between the party in power and the ‘clientele’, in which the clientele receives public resources and/or positions in exchange for political support. This phenomenon is sometimes also called patronage.

Authors have used the qualification of a party’s ‘strength’ (e.g. Mainwaring and Scully 1995a) when referring to the characteristics of parties. But what is party strength? Looking into party literature, the core understanding is that it is the organizational strength of a party. In that sense, Panebianco (1988, 58–59) distinguishes between weak and strong parties. However, as a rule, the party strength is not defined; rather, the discourse focuses on party institutionalization (e.g. Mainwaring and Scully 1995a; Stokes 1999).

According to Panebianco’s ideal model of organizational evolution, based on the previous work of Michels and Pizzorno, a party goes through three phases: genesis, institutionalization and maturity (Panebianco 1988, 17–20). Furthermore, Panebianco (1988, 58–59) offered the idea of various degrees of party institutionalization based on: (1) the degree of development of the central extra-parliamentary organization; (2) the degree of homogeneity of organizations on the same hierarchical level; (3) the regularity and number of financial sources; (4) relations with external collateral organizations (party autonomy) and (5) the degree of correspondence between a party’s statutory norms and the actual power structure.

In this frame, strong parties are expected to increase the predictability of their behaviour (Ribeiro and Locatelli 2019), and in so doing contribute to party system predictability.

Here, the time factor again comes in. The finding from Latin America (Ribeiro and Locatelli 2019) is especially relevant from the time perspective: the ancestral party origin in previous regimes has been found to have a large impact on organizational strength.

Party and Party System Institutionalization in Relation to Democracy

In spite of the party’s organizational strength not guaranteeing the stability of a party system, strong parties are factors of predictability and by that may contribute to democratic processes (Ribeiro and Locatelli 2019). Particularly in new democracies, strong party organizations remain important factors of democracy (Tavits 2012). However, this relationship is not straightforward.

On the one hand, researchers interested in party systems and democracy have stressed the importance of the party system institutionalization present in Western Europe (and presumably lacking in post-socialist contexts). On the other hand, party systems in old democracies have been changing while democracy remains unchallenged (Casal Bértoa and Weber 2019). However, recent V-Dem data revealed that some older democracies do backslide. Furthermore, other studies have shown that: (1) the average level of democratization on a particular continent may remain largely unchanged over a long stretch of time, while (2) there is significant variation across country cases and (3) the party system is just one of many factors impacting democracy (Arriola et al. 2023).

However, Hungary (with a high level of party system institutionalization) and Poland (with a highly fragmented and volatile party system) stand out with illiberal trends. Among other post-socialist countries, Croatia serves as an example of party institutionalization, which clearly has a negative impact on democratization. More precisely, in Croatia, the institutionalized party system during the 1990s went hand in hand with the freezing of democracy.

The institutionalization of parties is also linked to their organizational autonomy. There are several ways in which party autonomy is endangered. At its core, it is a form of corruption—the abuse of power for private gain. When it becomes a substantial political practice, clientelism damages not only parties but also party systems. This is because parties’ clientelism always serves to acquire or maintain power in political competition while parties misuse the allocation of public goods and services for this purpose. Political corruption damages government efficiency and trust in the political system (Mungiu-Pippidi and Johnston 2017). However, corruption is not only concentrated in developing nations. Kubbe (2017) points to frequent scandals as an illustration that corruption is a serious problem in nearly all European Union states and that it impacts Europe’s citizens’ concern about politics. A whole other level of the role of money and wealthy individuals in politics can be found in the United States, and probably in some other parts of the world, too.

Party System Stabilization as a Dimension of Institutionalization

Stability in the rules and the nature of inter-party competition in the party system is believed to be the most important property of an institutionalized party system (Mainwaring and Scully 1995b; Meleshevich 2007). However, stability of the party system is a rather complex dimension of party system institutionalization.

When analysing post-WWII Western party system development, scholars have recognized not only processes of stabilization, but also the phenomenon of the freezing of party systems. The thesis on the freezing of party systems was to some extent challenged by the finding that European party systems differed in terms of electoral volatility—i.e. rates of net change in the electorate. While some of the party systems which had traditionally been considered volatile had become less so, others had changed into highly volatile party systems (Pedersen 1979).

East European party politics continues generally to be characterized by instability and unpredictability at all levels (Casal Bértoa 2013). Here, again, big differences exist. For example, Hungary experienced an early freezing of the party system during the 1990s, while Slovenia's party system has been rather dynamic and inclusive of new political parties since the transition to democracy.

However, the openness of the party system to regular entry of ever-new political parties in a short time span reflects a low degree of stability and a low level of institutionalization. This is especially critical if new political parties are influential political forces with a very short existence (Meleshevich 2007). This phenomenon has opened a window for a whole new subset of party literature focusing on new political parties entering party systems (e.g. Sikk 2005; Tavits 2008; Haughton and Deegan-Krause 2015) and on party survival (Deegan-Krause and Haughton 2018). The mortality rate among new parties has been very high, especially when they participate in government. This is why Deschouwer (2017) compares new parties to canaries in a coalmine: they are very good indicators of the malaise within democratic governance, but so far not the remedy.

A combination of various indicators of party system stability has been suggested for empirical research. Among them are the total number of parties; the absolute and relative number of new parties at each election; the absolute and relative number of parties voted out; the share of seats of the two largest parties and the share of legislative seat volatility (Lindberg 2007).

The opposite of stability is fluidity of party systems. Party system fluidity is determined by a high number and high turnover of parties, which is accentuated with successive elections (Lindberg 2007). This definition of a fluid party system resonates with Slovenia's party system since the early elections in 2011.

Indeed, time has been exposed as a relevant variable. A study of the first decade after the transition in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic showed that the stabilization of party systems in new democracies may not be a lengthy process as is commonly assumed, and that there are institutional and behavioural factors that impact the party system’s stabilization. Among them are the electoral system design and consequent patterns of elite behaviour, and the fact that stabilization not only occurs in spite of ongoing volatility in party-voter alignments, but actually serves to reduce it (Toole 2000).

Another dimension of stability is programmatic stability. The empirical analysis has shown that the combination of party replacement and programmatic instability shapes patterns of party competition (Borbáth 2021). Borbáth determined four ideal types of party system instability based on the interaction between the party replacement and the programmatic instability: empty labels, general instability, ephemeral parties and general stability.

Electoral volatility may also be assumed to be an indicator of party system instability. It is interesting that in Central and Eastern Europe it was found that electoral volatility follows from, rather than leads to, changes in the supply of parties (Tavits 2008). This points to elites’ responsibility for instability in the early stages of party system development and not so much to voters’ behaviour.

The instability thesis has gained additional purchase with the phenomenon of a ‘hurricane season’ (Haughton and Deegan-Krause 2015) characterized by numerous new political parties emerging in Central and Eastern Europe after the 2008 financial and economic crisis. This phenomenon has not stopped an illiberal trend in either a country with high party system institutionalization (Hungary) or a country with a highly fragmented and volatile party system (Poland). In the context of war during the 1990s, party system institutionalization led to the freezing of democracy (e.g. Croatia). Similarly, the fluidity of party systems may either contribute to democracy (by increasing competitiveness, participation and representation) or prevent institutionalization and the development of strong social roots (Lindberg 2007).

Government Formation and Party System Closure

In order to fully grasp party system institutionalization, characteristics of government formation are added as a special dimension of party system institutionalization. At its core, party system closure is about the stability of relations between parties that leads to government formation (Casal Bértoa and Enyedi 2021). According to Casal Bértoa and Enyedi (2021), characteristics of government formation may be determined by democratic age and birth, party institutionalization, number of parties and fragmentation and polarization. However, other researchers have pointed out that government stability can only be fully understood by taking into account that it is interactively determined by whole constellations of party attributes (Grotz and Weber 2012).

This thesis is particularly relevant in the current context, where in shaken party systems it has become very difficult to form governments. The issue is not only including parties with very different ideologies and political programmes, but also the complicated and lengthy process of government formation, difficulties in government functioning and the related short lives of such government coalitions. All these phenomena may negatively affect the steering of societies.

Government Formation and Democracy

Based on empirical research including almost all democracies that existed between 1946 and 1999, Cheibub et al. (2004) found that minority governments are not less successful legislatively than majority coalitions, and that the coalition status of the government has no impact on the survival of democracy in either system.

However, in the context of party system destabilization and polarization, formation of a coalition government is politically unpredictable. So is such governments’ policymaking, which may not only shake trust in individual coalition parties, but also lead to major governance problems and the related challenge to voters’ trust in political parties and institutions in general. All these factors may damage democracy per se while creating fertile ground for populism.

Personalization—The Opposite to Institutionalization

Personalization is the opposite phenomenon to institutionalization. It relates to issues of party autonomy and identity. Essentially, institutionalization is ‘the process by which an organization incorporates its founders’ values and aims’ (Panebianco 1988, 53). According to Panebianco, through the institutionalization process, an organization loses its character as a (founders’) ‘tool’ and the organization becomes a value in itself.

Personalization is also related to the phenomenon of charisma. Charisma is ‘the authority of the extraordinary and personal gift of grace (charisma), the absolutely personal devotion and personal confidence in revelation, heroism, or other qualities of individual leadership’ and can be ‘exercised by the prophet or—in the field of politics—by the elected war lord, the plebiscitarian ruler, the great demagogue, or the political party leader’ (Weber 1946, 4–5). Devotion to the charismatic leader means that ‘the leader is personally recognized …as the leader of men’ (Weber 1946, 4–5). So, charismatic leaders are dominant based not on tradition or statute, but rather on followers’ belief in such a leader. In contrast, the process of party institutionalization is a process of building control of the personal executive staff and the material implements of administration.

A charismatic party is essentially a vehicle for a charismatic leader, although the charismatic leader does not necessarily create the party in its early stages. It reflects the primary role of a political leader in a political environment where the party and party politics are dominated by individual politicians’ personality and actions (Frantz et al. 2021).

The time factor also matters in party development. Institutionalization can be understood as the second stage of a three-phase ideal model of party development: involving genesis, institutionalization and maturity (Panebianco 1988, 19–20). Institutionalization is actually the party’s organizational development, which is expected to ensure the organizational basis for the long-term survival of the party. However, the natural history of a particular party may differ from the model and may even show radical shifts in the direction of change. Nevertheless, Panebianco’s model helps understand that a party is at first a social movement type of organization in which the leaders have broad freedom of action. It is a system of solidarity, characterized by a manifest ideology and the goal to achieve a common cause with a strategy of domination of the environment. The process of institutionalization in the model leads to the third phase in which the party as an organization becomes a system of interests, and the main goal becomes the organization's survival and counterbalancing of particular interests. In this process, ideology remains latent while within the organization selective incentives prevail (professional participation) and leaders have restricted freedom of movement.

Contrary to the theoretical expectations in Panebianco’s ideal model, political parties have recently been increasingly opting for personalization. This has been evolving in spite of theoretical warnings that political parties ‘must institutionalize to a certain in extent in order to survive’ (Panebianco 1988, 54–55). In fact, political parties somewhat ‘gamble’ in search of an optimal relationship between personalization and institutionalization.

Empirical research has recently confirmed the intuitive thesis that democratic politics is growing more personalistic (Frantz et al. 2021). The personalization of parties is expressed in particular forms of the party name and logo. The critical situation comes when voting is ‘a mere popularity contest among personalities rather than being about issues that need to be addressed’, as Sutter (2002, 28) puts it. It is a situation where competition is not about ideas for solving social problems, which is expected to be inherent in political parties.

With party personalization, issues of individual politicians’ characteristics become extraordinarily important. It is not just that all personalities who want to play leading roles in politics need to have necessary qualities and skills. Lowenthal and Bitar (2015, 15) reveal the need for luck besides skill when politicians make critical decisions. All this has also proved to be valid for successful economic entrepreneurs entering into politics.

With personalization, the question also arises as to what role the party plays in relation to political leaders. Political parties may recruit publicly recognizable personalities (film actors, singers, sports stars, comedians, entrepreneurs) to support their own likeability. However, it is not simply that political parties may use individual personalities in party competition for electoral votes: political parties may also be misused by strong individuals in the process of candidate selection, election of candidates and filling government and parliament offices. Publicly recognizable personalities or (not necessarily previously publicly visible) entrepreneurs may pursue their personal political ambitions by establishing their own personalized political parties.

Personalization has also been linked to the phenomenon of presidentialization (Poguntke and Webb 2005), which include both the increasing role of personalized party leadership and the process of centralization of power within a party. This resonates with Michels’ iron law of party oligarchization (Michels 1915, 11) while also tackling the issue of internal party democracy, which has been under-researched for a rather long time.

Personalization, Presidentialization and Democracy

Researchers have warned about three negative sides to the personalization phenomenon. Firstly, personalization in the implementation of the political party supply function ‘may cause problems and dangers to both parties themselves as well as the democratic order’ (Hofmeister 2022, 34). Secondly, while this phenomenon seemingly helps achieve better electoral presentation of the party, it adds to poor recognizability of party politics and feeds back into anti-party attitudes (Poguntke and Webb 2005). Thirdly, greater personalism is associated with several negative phenomena such as higher levels of populism, a higher probability of democratic erosion and greater political polarization (Frantz et al. 2021).

Personalization brings a greater impact of a particular personality on politics. This is especially critical when a politician has personality traits that may present a danger to democracy. Psychologists have revealed the Big Five trait domains, which are highly stable through the lifecycle and are believed to affect political judgements and how individuals engage with their environments (Gerber et al. 2011). The domains are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability (sometimes referred to by its opposite, neuroticism) and openness to experience (Gerber et al. 2011). Here a ‘dark triad’—Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy—is exposed (Aichholzer and Willman 2020; Tilley 2021). However, it is not only about the politician inserting him/herself into political positions: there is variation in what people want a political leader to look like (Emamzadeh 2020). Also, party supporters’ personality characteristics differ among political parties (Limited 2016; ‘The 16 Personality Types and Political Preference’ 2023).

Personalization and presidentialization have generally been found to be damaging for democracy (Poguntke and Webb 2005). Leaders’ creation of their own political parties is a key sign of impending personalization, and the election of such leaders is a red flag for democracy (Frantz et al. 2021).

Party Social Rooting—An Indicator of Party Institutionalization

Modern parties are important institutions of representation, but the question is—who do they represent? In theory, the citizens in modern democracies are represented by parties (Sartori 1976, 24). However, with increasing problems of party representation, parties’ social roots have been questioned. A reduction in voter identification with parties, loss of trust and membership and lower turnout have been exposed as indicators of this macro problem, together with the phenomenon of new and anti-establishment parties of various types. Nevertheless, the issue of party financing should also not be disregarded. This brings us also to party models.

Based on Western experiences, several historical party models have been revealed based on the relationship between society and the state, with a historical tendency to move from society to the state (Katz and Mair 1995). These authors exposed the (at that time) new party model, the cartel party, which functions as a set of parties heavily dependent on state resources and acting as agents of the party state while taking care of their own collective survival. This model has been especially critical in Europe, which has favoured state party financing for a rather long time.

As shown in the case of party models, time is a relevant variable in the understanding of party social roots, but it is also relevant for understanding how party organization matters. At least two ways of linking time and party organization can be found in the literature.

Firstly, a party’s organization, including its societal linkages, can only be developed over time (Panebianco 1988). Here, the party’s status in relation to the executive also matters, since parties in long-term opposition have more time to develop the party organization than parties in the executive (Ribeiro and Locatelli 2019). So, the question is whether the party occupying the executive position is better off due to its easier access to public resources than a party in opposition with more time to develop linkages with society.

Secondly, there are interesting aspects of time in the context of studying transitions to democracy. Here, both kinds of party organization may matter—both the reformed old and new political parties. There are mixed findings about the impact of parties from an authoritarian regime on party system institutionalization. On the one hand, Ribeiro and Locatelli (2019) show that an ancestral party origin in previous regimes has a significant positive impact on the party’s organizational strength. On the other hand, parties from a socialist regime have very different success (Bukowski and Racz 1999), and so various impacts on post-authoritarian party systems.

All in all, we can again point to the notion that context matters.

Party Social Roots and Democracy

Mair (2005) goes more into detail showing the link between the changing character of political parties and the changing character of democracy. He reveals the political parties’ contribution to the trend of steadily stripping a democracy of its popular components, leading to a notion of democracy without demos. Not only does he find the cause of such negative trends in democracy political parties’ failure, but democracy itself is exposed for tending to adapt and change to these party failings. These phenomena have evolved into a vicious circle of parties steadily becoming weaker and democracy becoming even more stripped down in many Western democracies. It appears that a very similar phenomenon has been happening in post-socialist countries, but in a shorter time.

Polarization and Populism

Polarization is ‘a process whereby the normal multiplicity of differences in a society increasingly align along a single dimension and people increasingly perceive and describe politics and society in terms of “Us” versus “Them”’ (McCoy et al. 2018). Extreme polarization even brings about the growth of ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’, making a sharp distinction between ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’ and the related need to protect one’s way of life from ‘the enemy’ (Svolik 2019).

McCoy et al. (2018) stress that severe polarization brings about a particular political dynamic composed of increasing distrust and an inability to search for common solutions in the process of governing. Such a dynamic further causes increasing distrust and problems in communication between the two polarized blocks of parties.

The question is, why do parties move to extreme positions? Based on party manifesto analysis, Wagner (2012) lists the following circumstances: (1) the relatively small size of a party’s vote share; (2) taking the extreme position on a particular issue makes the party more distinctive from other parties and (3) other parties fail to emphasize the issue. Although other authors have also looked at other factors, such as income inequality and electoral systems, no linear causal relationships have been found. However, an analysis of a cross-national dataset of party polarization, income inequality and electoral institutions in 24 advanced democracies between 1960 and 2011 revealed that greater income inequality under permissive electoral systems contributes to growing party polarization (Han 2015).

There is a particular psychology of polarization that underlines the process of polarization. In case of severe polarization, the tribal nature of intergroup dynamics enhances group members’ loyalty to their group and a strongly biased or prejudiced attitude against the other group, which enables ‘mechanisms of dehumanization, depersonalization, and stereotyping [which] all contribute to the emotional loathing, fear, and distrust of the out-partisans’ (McCoy et al. 2018, 23). This affective dimension of severe polarization also impacts the perceived legitimacy of political systems and leaders, since they are judged according to moral convictions related to particular issues or leaders when they fail to deliver moralized ends (McCoy et al. 2018, 19, 25).

Psychological mechanisms may be mass- or elite-led and start from the political mobilization of major groups in society based on newly constructed cleavages to achieve fundamental changes in structures, institutions and power relations (McCoy et al. 2018, 22). A particular discourse is used for deepening social cleavages and/or resentments using both rhetoric and symbols.

Polarization has undoubtedly been favoured by the rise of populist parties of various prevalent ideological tendencies on the left-right continuum. This is because polarization is at the core of populist ideologies. It is based on the alleged antagonism between the people (presented positively as a homogeneous collective—e.g. of underdogs, nation or other kind of common denominator in a particular context) and the elite (presented negatively—e.g. as corrupt, immoral, a group of people's enemies) (Canovan 1984, 15–17; Sartori 1987, 22; Fink-Hafner 2019, 11–13).

In spite of quite profound research findings on polarization, there is no consensus on measures used for party system polarization. While the common ground of the concept of polarization is some kind of ideological dispersion of parties’ positions in the frame of electoral competition, many specific measurements have been in use and their combination is recommended (Schmitt and Franzmann 2020).

Polarization, Populism and Democracy

With polarization, politics loses its rationality, pragmatism and tolerance and increasingly focuses on the struggle between ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’. The political elite thus tends to disregard critical social and economic issues in a particular society and further contribute to problems of governability and social cohesion. Populism—which arises from problems in representation by the established political parties—can unleash its destructive effects when political parties do not react in time to the rise of populist parties or leaders and win back the trust of a larger electorate (Hofmeister 2022, 11–13).

Among the negative outcomes for democracy are political gridlocks, which disable governing; discontinuity of policies after a change in government, which damages overall socio-economic development; socio-spatial disintegration of a society and increasing hostility and even violence among social groups, which may even lead to the collapse of democracy (McCoy et al. 2018, 19).

In contrast, Svolik (2019), for example, does not simply believe that the politics and discourse of opposition and the social-psychological intergroup conflict dynamics produced by this alignment are a main source of the risks polarization generates for democracy: rather, he recognizes that this can also produce opportunities for democracy. So, he suggests the following three possible negative outcomes for democracy: gridlock and careening; democratic erosion or collapse under new elites and dominant groups; and democratic erosion or collapse with old elites and dominant groups; and one possible positive outcome, reformed democracy.

However, before violent episodes, political parties may threaten democracy if relevant political parties weaken democratic institutions (Daly and Jones 2020). An even more direct threat to democracy may be the size/relevance of anti-system parties (Sartori 1999, 329, 331, 336).

The Role of Actors

Scholars studying democratization processes have revealed that such processes are not automatic. Actors’ activities are required to actually make a change (Linz 1990). Besides constitutional dimensions, behavioural and attitudinal dimensions matter for democracy (Linz and Stepan 1996, 14). It is very relevant for our research that political parties are not the only kind of actors recognized when studying democracy. Among important actors, a free and lively civil society was particularly noted. The term covers self-organizing and relatively autonomous groups, social movements and individuals’ attempt to articulate values, to create associations and solidarities and to advance their interests (Linz and Stepan 1996, 17). As a different but complementary set of actors, a relatively autonomous political society has been recognized. This includes political actors competing for the legitimate right to exercise control over public power and the state apparatus. A robust civil society is expected to have the capacity to generate political alternatives and to monitor the government and state. This does not only mean that such actors help democratization: they are critical in the search for an alternative when political parties, as institutions, lose the ability to represent—that is, the ability to deal with crucial social and economic issues. Last but not least, a robust civil society is critical in resisting reversals of democracy.

However, collective actors are not the only category of actors that matter in political processes. Many such processes could not take place without the micro-level actors, particularly citizens/voters and partisans.

So, the question is how political parties and political elites (re)act, and what citizens and partisans’ (re)actions are.

Parties, Elites and Partisans

Parties’ reactions to political representation problems may include various strategies, such as: (1) developing extremist parties, which exploit citizens feeling alienated from politicians; (2) personalizing party politics and enhancing individual political leaders’ roles; (3) enhancing polarization (polarization increases voter turnout); (4) turning to direct communication channels between citizens and the government (instrumentalizing private mass media, social surveys, social media, (mis)-use of new technologies) and (5) shifting from socio-economic issues, national-global cleavages and ideological differences to socio-cultural issues.

In such a context, the elite’s commitment to democracy is not automatic. Yet it is precisely political elites’ commitment to democracy that can help overcome otherwise adverse conditions in constructing democracy (Lijphart 1977). Without political elites’ commitment to democracy, prospects for democracy are poor (Dahl 1971).

However, it should not be forgotten that political parties, even in times of shrinking party membership, rely on their partisans—and they are not homogeneous and simple followers. Rather, they, too, have a role to play, and this is not automatically a pro-democratic role.

Recently, it has become obvious that in certain circumstances partisans tolerate a party leader subverting democratic norms. This may happen in the form of executive aggrandizement, which leads to democratic backsliding. Based on the experiment held in the United States and Canada, Gidengil et al. (2021) showed that partisans in both countries are willing to choose candidates who will empower the executive in relation to other powers. It is interesting that such fundings have proved to be valid regardless of party. According to Gidengil et al. (2021), the reasons for such behaviour by partisans may be multiple. Firstly, there may be strategy—partisans may condone executive aggrandizement in order to advantage their party and disadvantage the opponent in the context of affective polarization. Secondly, there may be ideological reasons—partisans may be willing to trade democratic norms in pursuit of their ideological agenda.

Nevertheless, a study has shown that gradual erosion frequently culminates in democratic breakdown, but not always (Laebens and Lührmann 2021). Based on in-depth case studies involving substantial democratic erosion where democracy did not break down, the accountability mechanism was found to play a role in halting democratic regression. However, the accountability mechanism (horizontal accountability in the form of parliamentary and judicial oversight; diagonal accountability in the form of pressures from civil society and the media; vertical accountability in the form of electoral competition between and within parties) appeared to be of critical importance. It has been effective in halting the erosion of democracy in very particular circumstances, when institutional constraints (such as presidential term limits or judicial independence) and contextual factors (in particular economic downturns and public outrage about corruption scandals) worked together to create simultaneous pressure on the incumbents from civil society and from vertical or horizontal accountability actors.

Citizens

Citizens’ reactions to political representation problems may also include various strategies, such as: (1) abstaining from a vote (many citizens believe it makes no difference who they vote for and therefore do not participate in voting); (2) turning from parties to personalities (supporting parties for their leaders, voting for personalistic parties); (3) supporting newly founded parties and (4) turning to protest politics, social movements and interest group activities.

Nevertheless, there are circumstances in which voters are willing to give priority to partisan interests over democratic principles. Such circumstances may be a combined polarization of both parties (polarization among party elites) and voters (McCoy et al. 2018; Svolik 2019). In fact, polarization reinforces ideological voting (Lachat 2008). Another circumstance in which citizens/voters tolerate non-democratic or even anti-democratic parties and leaders may be found, for example, in Latin America. Citizens in Latin America may be willing to delegate the executive (President) additional authority at the expense of democratic principles (Singer 2018). Based on survey data from Latin America, Singer (2018) shows that reasons for such citizens’ behaviour may be socio-economic. More precisely, the analysis revealed that: citizens’ (1) vote for the ruling party in the previous election and (2) perceptions that the economy is strong are linked to citizens’ (1) liking democracy, (2) opposing coups and (3) supporting limits on critical actors and opposition parties, as well as (4) being willing to let the President bypass the legislature and court. Singer’s (2018) research therefore points to the need for a complex understanding of the breakdown of democracy. The author believes that two kinds of conditions need to be taken into account in analysis: (1) the conditions under which losers of political and economic processes are satisfied with the process which led to their defeat; and (2) conditions under which winners tolerate electoral and institutional challenges and are willing to protect space for public criticism.

To conclude, a distinction must be made between the optimal conditions for democratization and optimal strategies of actors (Bunce 2003). However, it should not be forgotten that there are other relevant actors besides political parties (particularly citizens), and that contextual factors of democracy—socio-economic structures, demographic and geopolitical realities, deep national histories and cultures—matter (Lowenthal and Bitar 2015) for real-life political processes in particular and democracy in general.