Maltese political parties and political modernization

Abstract

Until fairly recently, political parties, in Europe as in Malta, have been the principal vehicles for political action. Through their activities and organization, they have provided the means by which popular interest and participation in politics could be achieved (Lane & Ersson, 1991, p. 102; Birch, 1970, p. 111). Various factors - in particular the widespread rise of professionally organized and managed pressure and lobbying groups - have led recently to a decline in the strength and influence of political parties. This is not to say that parties are no longer important to the politics of democratic societies for in the final analysis it is parties that govern; but merely to highlight the fact that, today, other secondary associations also play an important political role and are legitimate power-brokers and agenda setters in their own right. Nonetheless, as Blondel (1978, p. 1) has observed, political parties are still the principal means by which democracy, or at least a large measure of it, is maintained in modern politics and by which democracy from below and leadership from above can blend in our complex and changing world. Nor should one ignore the fact that it was political parties that gave practical expression and meaning to such commonly used concepts as choice and competition, rights and political equality, free association and political participation, representation and accountability.