ABSTRACT
The decline of political parties has been observed for more than three decades. Studies of political parties have given much evidence and many reasons for the decline. A political party is a social coalition. If a political party is a coalition and if a party can regain its popularity by reshuffling the coalition, political parties as social coalitions should change their constituent members in order to increase their popularity and survive longer. This chapter investigates such possible coalition reshuffling within a political party. It argues that some political parties are given a chance to reform the social coalition at a time of crisis and demonstrates this by examining the survey data compiled by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). The chapter explores why an economic crisis can be a good opportunity for political parties to overcome decline and then examines the survey data and presents a few pieces of evidence for the reform of social coalitions by political parties.
