Il partito oltre il "secolo breve": tracce per un ripensamento

(The Party Beyond the “Short Twentieth Century”: Paths for a Rethinking)

Abstract

This essay critically examines the debate on the “crisis” of political parties by focusing on two points. First, it emphasizes that the “crisis” is today a crisis of a specific type of party, namely, the mass-based party, which in Europe had its golden age during “the Short Twentieth Century” (1914-1989). Second, it argues that the contemporary transformation must be understood as a product of three processes: a) the “fiscal crisis” of democratic states, b) the “crisis of governability’' of all Western political systems, and c) a “cultural” process, which is a result of the Western belief that history has ended in 1989 and of the fall of progressive cultures of the Twentieth Century.