ABSTRACT
It has commonly been suggested that the public in post-industrial societies has become increasingly disenchanted with the traditional institutions of representative government, detached from political parties and disillusioned with older forms of participatory activity. The political parties – the most important intermediary link between the people and the centre of government – seem to have lost their hold on the voters. Fewer voters are able to identify with a single party, the voting behaviour becomes more and more flexible and the number of party members decreases (Gidlund and Möller 1999). In addition to this, there is an increase in the general distrust felt towards parties and politicians. Field surveys indicate that confidence in politicians and parties during the last decades has been undermined in almost all countries where time series surveys have been conducted (Norris 1999a). In Sweden, formal studies are available since the 1960s, and they all indicate that confidence in politicians has been undermined, slowly but constantly (Holmberg 1999). Due to this evidence, there is a ‘crisis of democracy’ debate running.
