ABSTRACT
The concepts of interest aggregation and articulation are usually associated with individual parties, not party systems. Political parties vary in the extent to which they aggregate (gather) and articulate (express) political interests. 1 Green parties, for example, typically articulate policies that protect the environment, which override all other interests. Leftist parties tend to favor green policies too, but they also balance environmental issues against job losses in fossil fuel industries, aggregating conflicting interests in the process of converting them into policy alternatives. 2 Large parties usually aggregate broad interests; small parties articulate narrow interests. Party systems too can vary in articulation and aggregation according to the number and size of their parties. Arend Lijphart contends, “The best aggregators are parties in two-party systems like the Anglo-American democracies, but the larger the number and the smaller the size of the parties in a system, the less effectively the aggregation function will be performed; in the Continental European multi-party systems only a minimum of aggregation takes place.” 3 Lawrence Mayer says, “Aggregation becomes a meaningful concept only when its converse, fragmentation, is a possible alternative”; he adds that “a party system with many parties fits with what is commonly understood by the term fragmented than a system with fewer parties.” 4 In the view of prominent scholars then, we can consider the number and strength of parties as indicative of party system aggregation or its converse, party system fragmentation.
