Travelling concepts of party institutionalization? A comparative perspective

Concepts of party institutionalization and party change were developed during the 1980s with regard to the European mass party model of party organization. Since then we have been observing the breakthrough of new political parties from the whole political spectrum in both, 'established' and 'young' democracies. But the birth and institutionalization of parties has been analyzed separately in different world regions. The focus of analysis in these research studies is either on Western parties and established party systems or on parties and party systems in 'young' democracies. We argue that we should integrate this coexisting research to get a better understanding for the context-specific aspects of a party's first steps of establishment in the party system. This article, first, gives a review on the main analytical concepts of party institutionalization and party change and clarifies how they travelled through different world regions. Second, it discusses the approaches and outcomes of the different contribution made to this special issue. Where do we find commonalities and differences in the analytical concepts - and in their applying in different world regions? How can the comparative analysis of party institutionalization processes benefit from these findings? It is our primary contention in this article, as well as in the entire special issue, that the building of concepts and theory on the institutionalization of political parties can be enhanced by bringing together the research on party institutionalization and party change in different world regions (areas) and by recognizing, that it is a multi-dimensional (objective, internal and external) and sequential process. Therefore we seek a unified language to talk about party institutionalization and clearer boundaries of the concept when we analyze it comparatively in different areas of the world.