ABSTRACT
Maurice Duverger, in the early postwar years, made a most notable attempt to provide just this kind of theoretical framework for understanding political parties. American specialists, notably of the responsible-party school, have explicitly wanted parties in the United States to develop in a similar way. They have been bolstered in their position by European political scientists who, like Duverger, found American parties backward both organizationally and ideologically. Distinguishing parties from interest groups is a broader matter than deciding whether minor parties are parties. The linkage between electoral and governing parties may be close or remote, and the way in which each function is performed may be of varying effectiveness or pervasiveness. Moreover, parties may perform other functions as well. It is only that parties usually seem to perform the electoral and governing functions in some degree. All parties, of course, do not perform both functions, since minor parties are unlikely to have a chance to manage governmental affairs.
