ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter will highlight what we believe to be some of the most significant overall insights provided by the comparative framework applied in this volume. Our empirical focus will be restricted to the four archetypal West European consociational democracies: Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland. We will address first the role of pillar parties within their respective subcultures and then their role in inter-subcultural accommodation. Thereafter, we shall offer some tentative conclusions about the role of pillar parties in the dynamics of continuity and change in consociational democracies.
