ABSTRACT
A number of relatively recent developments in advanced, and well established, liberal democracies (e.g. the dominance of the executive over the legislature and the concomitant statist tendencies, new patterns of interest intermediation, the emergence of new institutions of political representation) have cast some serious doubts upon the role of political parties. While this debate continues, and quite often produces a number of analyses of great theoretical insight, the growing literature on transition to and consolidation of democracy in southern Europe seems to converge upon the opposite conclusion: political parties have proven to be key factors in the democratisation process. In this sense any discussion of parties’ role in these polities is vital to the understanding of recent developing trends (and shortcomings) in the functioning of these democracies, and may prove didactic in evaluating the democratisation processes well under way in eastern Europe.
