Introduction

Abstract

Topics are examined according to their current relevance and fashion. Topics in political science are no exceptions to this rule. The research on political parties reflects this mechanism exceptionally well. During the 1980s the consensus among political scientists was that the role of political parties is marginal (Randall 2005: 1). At the time, political parties were hardly on the agenda. However, ever since the new democracies saw political parties displacing other actors with the first free and fair elections, they have also experienced a comeback in political science. For example, Huntington’s “strong government” thesis, which dates back to 1968, was widely discussed again and referred to in literature. Huntington characterized the political party as the most important institutional means of building a strong government or state (Huntington 1968), Furthermore, Lipset underlined the significance of parties in the political system by coining the phrase of the indispensability of parties for democracy (Lipset 2000).