In the paper, I revisit how a modernisation- and individualisation-induced loss of trust, membership, and voters has been addressed in party research for a while. However, social theory authors such as Beck, Bauman, Sennett, and Taylor have pointed to further organisational dilemmas that have not been addressed in depth: a. That demands for flexibility, individualisation and non-bindingness and demands for centralized political leadership might go hand in hand; b. That notwithstanding increasing individualisation citizens might demand new forms of social collectives and belonging. In this article, I compare how different established party families perceive these contradictions and seek to create new party-society linkages. Based on a series of qualitative in-depth interviews with Social Democratic and Conservative party functionaries, I emphasise that different party families and their reform attempts reflect individualisation, flexible and liquid identities differently and thus refashion the way citizens are linked with political parties and representative democracy.
Felix Butzlaff (2024). Creating new participatory linkages? Political parties and democratisation in Germany, Austria, and the UK. Party Politics. https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688241306727