Political Party Formation in Presidential and Parliamentary System By Aurel Croissant/Wolfgang Merkel Institute for Political Science of the University of Heidelberg About Us Core Themes Activities Publications Online Materials FES Dialogue on Globalization FES International Policy Analysis Unit FES Journal ­International Politics and Society Introduction The structure of Governments and party systems are of crucial importance for the functioning and consolidation of young democracies. But students of Comparative Politics hardly ever seem to wonder what the impact of governments on the formation of party systems exactly is. It is this question I will focus on in my presentation, which I have divided into seven sections. The first section discusses the significance of political parties for representative democracies in general, as well as their significance for the consolidation of young democracies and the functioning of governments in particular. The second section introduces a typology of political parties and party systems, and the third a typology of government forms. The fourth section advances some hypotheses about the impact of government on the formation of party systems, which are tested on their empirical validity in the fifth section. In the sixth section I will discuss some proposal for institutional reforms that are likely to reinforce the favorable effects national party systems have on democracy. Finally, I will end my presentation with a brief conclusion. 1. The Significance of Political Parties When comparing the young democracies of the third wave of democratization(1974 and after), one soon notices a common characteristic: In each case the authoritarian regime was superseded by a representative democracy. The principle of representation as the intermediate link between state and society is undoubtedly the most stable and efficient solution to the problem of organizing political authority, equally faced by all territorial states of modern societies. In representative democracies, political parties are the central actors within the institutional framework of government. They perform the important function of legitimizing the political system by representing the different social groups and lending authority to political decisions. Moreover, by seeking votes and government offices and by engaging in policy-making, they also perform a variety of other functions: the aggregation and articulation of social interests, the recruitment of political elites, and the formulation of political programs and alternatives. They are the preeminent intermediate institutions between the population and the political elites (Almond/Powell 1978; Morlino 1998, pp. 169ff). To be sure, democratic theory does not equate democracy with party democracy. Numerous institutional variants are at least theoretically conceivable(Parekh 1992). But the form of democracy required by mass society and large territorial states necessitates an inclusive, responsive, and responsible representation of civic interests. This holds true for all democracies independent of their respective cultural roots. Therefore, if conceptual alternatives to political parties are to be taken seriously, they need to provide for functional equivalents. Such equivalents, however, which supplant rather than complement political parties, as yet exist neither in the consolidated democracies of the West nor in Asia's young democracies. A party system's structure and development is of central importance for the consolidation of young democracies. But a successful consolidation requires that a system of competitive mass parties take root in society, for only such a system fosters