Comment on the decline of political parties and examine whether new social movements shall be alternative strategy for establishing link between government and society. (2016, 10 Marks)
Parties are organisations of like-minded people seeking office to realise a programme. Their core democratic function is linkage: aggregating citizens’ demands and carrying them into government. That linkage is weakening, and new social movements (NSMs) are often presented as its replacement.
The decline of parties
- Evidence: Ingrid van Biezen, Peter Mair and Thomas Poguntke (2012) found that only about 4.7% of electorates in 27 European democracies belonged to a party in 2007–09. Party identification, turnout and trust have fallen, and electoral volatility has risen.
- A widening gap separates voters’ preferences from manifestos, as Otto Kirchheimer‘s catch-all convergence blurs choice.
- Causes: Russell J. Dalton‘s cognitive mobilisation means educated voters no longer need party cues, and class and religious bases have eroded. Mair’s Ruling the Void (2013) shows cartel parties withdrawing from society into the state.
NSMs as an alternative linkage
- Kay Lawson and Peter H. Merkl (When Parties Fail, 1988) argued that when parties stop linking, alternative organisations step in.
- Claus Offe‘s “new politics” and Alain Touraine‘s post-industrial movements show environmental, feminist, peace and rights movements voicing identities and long-horizon issues that parties neglect. For Jürgen Habermas they defend the lifeworld against colonisation by market and bureaucracy.
- Rajni Kothari‘s “non-party political process” (1984) saw grassroots groups filling the space left by decaying Indian parties. The Right to Information Act (2005) grew from such mobilisation, and the farmers’ protest forced repeal of the three farm laws in 2021.
Why they cannot replace parties
- Movements articulate but do not aggregate: they cannot assemble majorities, form governments or be voted out.
- Their successes still pass through parties. India Against Corruption became the Aam Aadmi Party, and Nepal’s Gen Z uprising of September 2025 found its governing vehicle in the Rastriya Swatantra Party, which won 182 of 275 seats in March 2026.
- Parties adapt: Green parties absorbed environmentalism, primaries and digital membership revive participation, and voters still value parties’ familiarity and stability.
- Movements are often episodic, middle-class and unaccountable. In developing societies livelihood struggles still need party access to the state, and anti-institutional mobilisation can be captured by populist leaders.
Conclusion
Parties have declined as membership communities, not as governing organisations. NSMs are a complementary linkage that widens popular space and keeps parties responsive, not an alternative. Elmer E. Schattschneider‘s judgement in Party Government (1942) still holds: parties created modern democracy, and it remains unthinkable without them.