European Political Parties Where Now?

In European culture political parties play an important role. Parties are foundations in which nationals with same political views classifies, develop political agenda and actively contribute in the political process. They are vital for democracy because parties offer the most clear-cut political options that are put to the voting public. Parties are also recruitment organizations, through which parliamentarians and members of government are sourced. Even on the other hand the concluding functions are vital, the general effectiveness of parties is closely linked to the first feature their societal embeddedness, the main source between a party and citizens. And in this deference, political parties have been declining considerably.

The failure of political parties is not a fresh happening. Since no less than the 1980s, parties in all set up. European democracies have go through massive membership losses to the point where they only preserve a very restricted competence to engage citizens. The societal anchor of political parties is seriously threatened. Vernon Bogdanor wrote in 2006 that 'the story of the rise and fall of the mass political party is one of the great unwritten books of our time'. So why do I choose this slightly old problem up again in 2009? Not because I want to write the obituary of the accumulation political party but because we can now see where the development of political parties might go ahead of us. This potential new future became apparent during the US Presidential campaign.

In addition to his extraordinary personal qualities, Barack Obama - throughout the elected primaries, the Presidential movement and now even as adhockery president has been tremendously successful in using new communiqué technologies to join directly with citizens. Through make use of social networking instruments, online video messaging and almost real time bring up to date on what was occurrence on the movement trail - and by making many of these devices available to his followers too - he was able to create a group of people that was not only get ready to vote for him but ready to systematize and movement on the local level. He was able to create a political movement he can now put together upon.

The creation of this group was above all feasible because new message practices offered a way of being actively involved in the campaign for change. But if you look behind the scientific tools you observe that Barack Obama's campaign was able to restructure old - moderately than create new - distinctiveness that traditional European parties, especially left-of-centre parties, have lost over the years wisdom of community and belonging.

Let us take the oldest social free party in the world as an example: the German SPD. When the party was founded in 1863, its stamina was learning leagues founded to teach members of staff. The civilizing and community aspect was therefore not just a by-item for consumption but very much the founding rules of the party. Being a social democrat was not a question of membership in an organization but rather a way of life. The characteristics of the party was toughened by the large diversity of social democratic newspapers and pamphlets that contributed to this separate culture. The cultural foundations of political parties were also apparent elsewhere and it seems that it has been mainly this characteristic that used to give the closest link to society, which has declined most dramatically in current decades.