ABSTRACT
Democratic parties and their institutional development are important not only – or even primarily – in their own right but rather because of their relation to one another. Their capacity to represent distinctive segments of society and pursue the particular interests associated with them, and on this basis to seek power through competitive elections, are the raison d’eˆtre of political parties in a democratic system. From this point of view, parties operating within a pluralist order are fundamentally different from the monopolistic party that dominates under communism. In the democratic context, too, it only makes sense to judge the overall significance of a party in terms of its relations with others and its position within the broader political framework. Parties are, in short, particularly interesting to the extent that they make up a party system. Party systems can be classified by any number of principles, but four main classificatory schemes have been used:
. the ideologies of the parties;
. the extent to which parties penetrate society;
. the stance of parties towards the legitimacy of the regime; and
. the number of parties in the system.1
