(Original Article published in Italian in
Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, XXXIV (3), 2004, pp. 379-404)

(For Tables and Figures omitted here see Source)

Abstract
The debate on citizen images of political parties is long standing, but recently it has taken on added importance as the evidence of party dealignment has spread across Western democracies. This article assembles an unprecedented cross-national array of public opinion data that describe current images of political parties. Sentiments are broadly negative, and this pessimism has deepened over the past generation. Then, we demonstrate how distrust of parties decreases voting turnout, contributes to the fragmentation of contemporary party systems and the electoral base of new protest parties, and stimulates broader cynicism of government. Although political parties are the foundation of the system of representative democracy, fewer citizens today trust political parties, and this is reshaping the nature of democratic politics.

Introduction.1
Perhaps no institution is so closely identified with the process of representative democracy as are political parties. The renowned political scientist E.E. Schattschneider (1942, 1) penned the oft-cited conclusion that “modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of political parties”. Similarly, James Bryce (1921, 119) stated “parties are inevitable. No one has shown how representative government could be worked without them”. More recently, Giovani Sartori wrote, “citizens in Western democracies are represented through and by parties. This is inevitable” (Sartori 1968, 471). Many other political scientists and political analysts share these views, ranging from the American Political Science Association’s call for more responsible party government in 1950, to a 1999 Economist article that examined the role of political parties as the basis of democracy.2

Yet, even if parties are generally seen as essential to democracy, there is dissent on the nature of their contributions. On the one side, the party government literature stresses the positive role that parties play in framing political choice, socializing elites, mobilizing citizens, and organizing government (e.g., Sartori, 1976; Hershey 2004). On the other side, contrasting voices have criticized the mischief of faction and the ways that parties can impede the democratic process. Alexis de Tocqueville, for example, called political parties an evil inherent in free governments. A long history of anti-party sentiment ranges from Rousseau to Madison (Ignazi 1996). In reviewing the recent debate on electoral reform in New Zealand, Bale and Roberts concluded: “voters are not particularly enamoured of parties, but they reluctantly recognize – if not consciously – that they are a necessary evil” (2002, 17).

The theoretical debate on the political role of parties is long standing, but recently it has taken on additional importance as the apparent evidence of public disenchantment with parties has spread across Western democracies (Dalton and Wattenberg 2000). Most established political parties have seen their membership rolls wane. Turnout in elections is declining across Western democracies. Psychological attachments to political parties – party identifications – also are weakening. The rise of anti-establishment protest parties on the Left and Right is another sign of this malaise.

In addition, these sentiments are fueling demands for institutional change. The electoral systems of Japan and New Zealand have recently undergone major structural reforms at least partially due to growing popular dissatisfaction with political parties (Shugart and Wattenberg 2001), and there are current demands for electoral reform in England, the Netherlands, Belgium and other nations. The crisis of the Italian party system, from the ‘clean hands’ scandal, to the collapse of the party system, to the reform of the electoral law is, perhaps, the archetypical (but not unique) example of growing public disenchantment with party politics, and not just specific parties or political figures (Morlino and Tarchi 1996; Bull and Rhodes 1997; Bardi 2002).

This article examines the public image of political parties in contemporary advanced industrial democracies. Our research first reviews the current evidence on how citizens view political parties and the system of party government in these nations. We assemble data from a diverse array of public opinion surveys to describe contemporary opinions and track them over time. The evidence suggests that the spreading distrust of political parties is a common pattern across these nations.

Then, the second section of this paper examines some of the potential political implications of spreading distrust in political parties. We examine the link between party trust and participation in politics, and more broadly, images of the democratic system of representative government. We also consider how distrust shapes electoral choices, potentially contributing to the fragmentation of contemporary party systems and the electoral base of new protest parties. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for the workings of the democratic process in contemporary democracies.

Public Images of Political Partes
Because of the centrality of parties to democracy, public orientations toward political parties are an important research question. However, scholars differ on how contemporary publics view political parties. In his review of this literature, for example, Thomas Poguntke concluded “the data I have analyzed do not support generalizations about a general decline of parties and the rise of anti-party sentiment in Western democracies” (Poguntke 1996: 338). Similarly, writing in the same volume, Paul Webb (1996) did not find clear evidence of growing anti-party sentiments in Britain. An earlier study found broad public support for the concept of party government across the European Union in the late 1970s (Schmitt 1983).
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At the same time, there is mounting evidence of declining support for parties and party government in the past two decades across these same nations. Survey data and membership statistics generally document a drop in party membership over the 1980s and 1990s (Scarrow 2000; Mair and van Biezen 2001). Election turnout and campaign participation are decreasing (Wattenberg 2003; Franklin 2004). Dalton (2000) described a general erosion of party attachments across nearly all advanced industrial democracies. He found that the proportion of the public expressing a partisan attachment has declined in 17 of the 19 advanced industrial democracies; the strength of party attachments has decreased in all 18 nations for which there are long-term opinion poll data. Dalton attributed these trends, at least in part, as signs of a growing disenchantment with political parties as agents of representative democracy (also Dalton 2004). A recent cross-national review of political parties similarly found evidence of significant anti-party sentiment across more than a dozen advanced industrial democracies (Webb 2002).

The discussion of public images of political parties often has relied on indirect measures, such as the rise of electoral volatility, party membership, turnout levels, or party identification. These indictors provide useful evidence and they may be related to public images of parties and party government, but they are potential correlates of party sentiments – not the sentiments themselves. Thus, what is needed is more direct attitudinal evidence on what contemporary publics actually think about political parties as actors in the process of representative government. For instance, Poguntke and Scarrow (1996) edited a special issue of the European Journal of Political Research that focused on the issue of anti-party sentiments, but there was little empirical evidence on how Europeans actually viewed political parties, most of the discussion was based on the observations of political experts or indirect indicators such as turnout or party membership.

Now, a new set of public opinion surveys enable us to describe and analyze how contemporary publics view political parties directly and in greater depth. We begin with data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES, module I).3 Table 1 presents opinions on two essential ingredients of the current debate about party images: first, are parties necessary to democracy, and second, do parties care what people think.4 These two questions seem to reflect the paradox of current opinions. When asked if parties are necessary, about three-quarters of the public in these thirteen democracies respond affirmatively. This supports Schattschneider’s view that democracy without parties seems unthinkable to most citizens (also Schmitt 1983).

= = = Table 1 about here = = =

Yet, contemporary publics are simultaneously skeptical about whether parties care about their interests. On average, less than a third of the public are positive toward parties on this question. Often the contrasts are striking. While 80 percent of Swedes say parties are necessary to make the political system work, only 23 percent believe that parties care what ordinary people think. Similarly, 80 percent of the Germans think parties are necessary, but only 18 percent of the public believe that parties care.5

Before discussing the impact of these party images, we want to consider two arguments that question the potential significance of these findings. First, some scholars have suggested that public skepticism about parties is the norm for democracy, rather than a new development (e.g., Muller 1999; Scarrow 1996). Yet, longitudinal data from several nations points to the erosion of trust in parties over the past generation. Gallup Canada found that only 30 percent of Canadians expressed quite a lot of confidence in political parties in 1979 – already a fairly low level of support – and this dropped to only 11 percent by 1999 (Carty 2002). Enmid surveys show that the proportion of Germans who express confidence in the political parties has decreased from 43 percent in 1979 to only 26 percent in 1993 (Rieger 1994, 462). Surveys in Sweden found that in 1968 a full 68 percent of the public rejected the statement that parties were only interested in people’s votes, this dropped to 23 percent by 1998 (Miller and Listaug 1990; Holmberg 1999). In 1983 Japanese trust in parties reached a highpoint; 70 percent felt that political parties help people’s voice be heard – by 2001 this had decreased to 21 percent (Tanaka 2001). Similarly, the British public has become significantly less trusting of political parties over the past two decades (Bromley and Curtice 2002). The American National Election Study found that in the 1960s about 40 percent of Americans thought parties were responsive to public interests; this decreased to about 30 percent in the 1970s and 20 percent in the 1980s. There is parallel evidence of extensive public dissatisfaction with Norwegian political parties (Strøm and Svåsand 1997; Miller and Listaug 1990). The national election study series in six Western democracies have asked whether parties are only interested in people’s votes and not their opinions (Dalton 2004, 29-30). Four of the six nations show a clear downward trend in party images (Austria, Britain, Finland and Sweden); only one (the Netherlands) displays a significant increase. Indeed, very few scholars today argue that public support for political parties and the structure of party government is increasing in their nation of specialization.6

Second, other skeptics of these trends have suggested that parties are suffering from the general erosion in trust that is affecting all social and political institutions, thus parties per se are not primarily at fault. For instance, Gildengil and her colleagues (2002) suggest that “Even if feelings about political parties are becoming more negative, we should not rush to infer that the problem lies with the parties themselves. It is possible that political parties are simply serving as a lightning rod for frustration with the political process at large”. Miller and Listaug (1990) also linked the erosion in support

5 These are not isolated findings. For instance, the 1997 Canadian election study asked a battery of party image questions (Gidengil et al. 2001). They found that sizeable minorities see the parties as untrustworthy and uncaring, with one Canadian in three believing that parties hardly ever keep their election promises (32 percent) and do not care what ordinary people think (35 percent). Similarly, Torcal et al. (2002) found that citizens in Southern Europe believed parties were necessary for democracy to function, but they were simultaneously skeptical about the performance of parties.

6 Another possibility is that voters are expressing doubts about parties other than their own. In other words, most parties might be considered untrustworthy – except the party that the respondent personally supports. Yet, attachments to one’s preferred political party have also diminished over the past several decades in most of these nations (Dalton 2000). It is likely that voters hold their own party as more trustworthy than the opposition – democracy functions on this premise – but it is also apparent that attachments to one’s preferred party have also weakened for political parties in Norway, Sweden and the United States to the general decline in trust in government.

It is true that trust in other political institutions has been generally decreasing across Western democracies (Dalton 2004; Norris 1999). Political parties are part of this general pattern of decreasing political support. However, when we broaden our perspective to compare political parties to other social and political institutions, the patterns are not reassuring.

Table 2 presents Europeans’ trust in various social and political institutions from several recent Eurobarometer surveys commissioned by the European Union. What is most striking is the poor rating that political parties receive across the EU. In the 15 EU member states combined, only 17 percent of the public trust political parties. Across the thirteen organizations assessed in the Eurobarometer surveys, political parties come in last by a significant degree. There is little change over time. Confidence in political parties is less than half that given to national governments and they fall far behind unions and big business, as well as the legal system and the media.

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The Eurobarometer surveys also allow us to compare party images across the member states of the European Union (Table 3). Using 2004 as an example, there is some variation in trust in parties across nations, but not much. The proportion trusting parties ranges from a high of 32 percent in Denmark to 10 percent in Britain. Nowhere do parties engender much trust. While there has been some variation over the past seven years, the overall pattern is one of general consistency. In each nation, political analysts often turn to the specific problems of the nation or the specific structure of political institutions to explain these patterns. Seen in cross-national terms, however, it is clear that negativity toward political parties is a general feature of contemporary public opinion. Voters lack confidence in parties across this range of large and small nations, strong and weak economies, majoritarian and proportional electoral systems, and other systemic characteristics.

= = = Table 3 about here = = =

In summary, contemporary publics appear to view political parties as democracy’s necessary evil – needed for running elections and organizing government, but with doubts about how political parties represent their interests within this process. Moreover, the negative sentiments toward political parties have become more common over the past generation. Whereas parties once were seen as the pillars of democracy by academics and the publics, contemporary publics now see political parties as unresponsive, untrustworthy, and unrepresentative. If democracy without parties is unthinkable, many citizens today seem to be skeptical about how parties perform this democratic role.

The Consequences of Partisan Images
Today, cynicism about political parties seems a common element of political discourse among political elites and the public at-large. Indeed, the Zeitgeist, which once viewed parties as pillars of democracy, now appears to view parties as an impediment to the democratic process. It is chic to be anti-partisan in politics today.

If these images of parties are more than just rhetoric and the fashion of the day, they should affect citizen attitudes and behavior in meaningful ways. This section examines several potential consequences of party images. We first examine how growing distrust of parties might affect patterns of political participation, and images of the electoral process. Then, we analyze whether distrust of parties provides a basis of support for protest parties and other non-establishment options when citizens do cast ballots.

Electoral Involvement
One potential consequence of the spreading distrust in political parties may be declining involvement in elections and other aspects of partisan politics. Turnout in elections has generally decreased across the advanced industrial democracies (Franklin 2004; Wattenberg 2003). In Italy, for instance, turnout decreased from 90 percent in the 1979 parliamentary elections to 81 percent in 2001, which is about typical for the decline in other Western democracies. At the same time, there also appears to have been a decrease in other forms of campaign activity, such as attending party rallies, working for political parties, or displaying campaign materials (Dalton and Wattenberg 2000, ch. 3).

The erosion of trust in political parties may have contributed to these trends. Although there are long-standing debates on whether political support stimulates or discourages participation in election (Dalton 2004, ch. 8; Norris 1999), the impact of trust in parties seems more predictable. Individuals who distrust the reliability of parties and the system of party government have less reason to become active in a campaign structured around party politics. In contrast, citizens who trust parties are more likely to want their party to win at the next election and participate to achieve this end.

The first column of Table 4 illustrates the relationship between confidence in parties and voting turnout in national elections. Those who feel that parties care what they think generally vote more often, although the modest size of the correlations minimizes these effects because of the restricted variance on turnout in many nations.7 The percentage difference in turnout rates between those most and least supportive of parties better illustrates the total magnitude of these effects. To use the British survey as an example, reported turnout in 1997 is 72 percent among those who are most skeptical of parties, compared to 89 percent among the most trustful British. This is a considerable gap in electoral participation.8

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7 For instance, 90 percent of the Swedes and Spanish respondents reported voting in the previous election, as did 96 percent of the Danes and 99 percent of the Australians. We excluded Australia from Table 4 because only 18 people reported not voting in the election (and 11 of these were in the category of least trust in parties). In addition, reported turnout often exceeds official statistics; for instance, 77 percent of Americans said they voted in the 1996 election, although official turnout rates are 49 percent of the voting age public.

In other analyses (not shown) we combined party images, age and education in a multivariate model to predict turnout to ensure that the correlations in Table 4 are not spuriously due to other basic predictors. The coefficients for party images remained significant and little changed from the patterns presented in Table 4.

8 Distrust in parties seems to have a general demobilizating effect upon voters that reaches beyond electoral participation. For instance, in most nations those who distrust parties also score lower in national indices of political knowledge included in the CSES survey. However, many of the knowledge questions are based on political parties or elected officials, and this might exaggerate the partisan effect.

The second and third columns of Table 4 repeat these analyses with a measure of trust in parties from the 1999 Eurobarometer survey and past/future voting turnout in the European Parliament elections. Again, there is a consistent tendency for trust in parties to encourage citizens to vote whether we use reported vote in the previous EP election in column two or expectations about voting in the upcoming election in column three. Moreover, studies using other cross-national surveys and tracking this relationship over time in the United States come to the same conclusion (Dalton 2004, ch. 8). Consequently, the substantial decline in trust in parties over the past several decades could be a significant contributor to the overall decrease in turnout in Western democracies.

Additional evidence on the impact of distrust on participation comes from relating the party trust question from the CSES project with measures of campaign participation from several of the national election studies in this project.9 Figure 1 plots the percentage who participated in some form of campaign activity by the belief that parties care what people think. Although these relationships are also modest, campaign activity is clearly more common among those who trust parties to respond to their interests. Among Americans, for example, only 10 percent of those distrustful of parties participate beyond voting, compared with 26 percent among the most trustful respondents. The percentage differences are modest, but in absolute terms this represents more than a doubling of campaign activity as a function of political support.

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In summary, as trust in political parties has eroded over time, this has decreased the motivation for citizens to participate in a process that lacks their confidence. Moreover, there is some evidence that political distrust is prompting these same individuals to seek access to politics through other non-partisan means, such as direct contacting of politicians or other forms of direct action (Dalton 2004, ch. 8; Cain, Dalton and Scarrow 2003). Thus, public doubts about parties are reshaping participation patterns, which leads to new means of citizen influence and changes in the workings of the democratic process.

Electoral Choice
If citizens do vote, how do party images impact on their electoral choices? Elections, for many, are the defining feature of the modern democratic process. They are critical junctures where individuals take stock of their various political attitudes and preferences, and transform them into a single vote choice. The aggregation of votes, in turn, determines the formation of government. For this reason, it is of particular importance to examine more closely the impact of anti-party sentiments on electoral behavior.

In the preceding section we presented evidence that those who are distrustful of parties are more likely to abstain from voting. While abstaining is an important manifestation of anti-party sentiment, it is not the only option available to disenchanted citizens. They also may choose to “vote for a party that vows to do politics differently, or they can vote in the hope that its behavior will change” (Gidengil et al. 2001, 494; also see Hetherington 1999). Recent decades have seen the emergence of many new anti-party parties on both the Left and the Right. Green and left-libertarian parties first made electoral breakthroughs in the 1980s, and shortly thereafter, the extreme-right experienced a surge of support across several advanced industrial democracies. Although they hold vastly different ideologies and policy goals, these parties have echoed a common message that the established parties are self-serving, corrupt, and indifferent to citizen interests (Mudde 1996).

Moreover, previous research on far-right parties, for example, has found a strong element of anti-party sentiment among their supporters (e.g., Kitschelt and McGann 1995; Lubbers and Scheepers 2000). It is unclear, however, whether anti-party sentiment actually leads to support for an anti-party party when we compare far-right voters to other citizens. A comparative study of far-right supporters in France, Belgium and Germany found little evidence of such a link (Brug et al. 2000). On the other hand, a recent study of Canada’s Reform Party did find that its voters were significantly more dissatisfied with parties than those of other parties and non-voters (Gildgengil et al. 2001). In short, the continued existence of these anti-establishment parties gives distrustful and disenchanted citizens another viable option at the ballot box.

The final option is simply to support one of the traditional parties. Some have argued that those who are dissatisfied with parties may not view abstaining or anti-party parties as viable options, and hence, they support a traditional party in the hope that it will change its behavior (Gildengil et al. 2001). It is also possible that individuals express dissatisfaction with parties in general, while being content with their own political party. Furthermore, the measure of anti-party sentiment may be simply tapping dissatisfaction with the current ruling parties. This is especially relevant given the large number of distrustful citizens that continue to support traditional parties.

In short, citizens who are disenchanted with political parties have three basic options at election time: abstaining, voting for an anti-party party, or voting for a traditional party. In order to address this issue with greater precision, we separate anti-party parties into those on the Left and Right,10 and divide traditional parties into incumbents and opposition based on the parties that formed the government at the time of the survey.

Table 5 shows the electoral behavior of those who believe parties do not care what individuals think, using data from the CSES project. For comparison purposes, in the final row we also present the average difference between those who do believe parties care what individuals think. To simplify the discussion, we label the former as “party cynics” and the latter as “party optimists”. As can be seen from the table, the most common choice for party cynics is neither abstaining nor supporting anti-party parties, but rather voting for one of the traditional parties. On average, 68 percent cast their vote for an established, traditional party. Australia, which has limited viable protest options.

10 The literature is uncertain about which parties should be defined as anti-establishment parties. We include all far-right nationalist, Communist, and extreme-left Socialist parties. In addition, we include Green parties as long as they were not more ideologically centrist than the mainstream left party. Specifically, we defined the following as anti-establishment parties: Australia, Greens (L); Canada, Reform (R); Denmark, Red-Green List (L) and Danish People’s Party (R) ; Germany, PDS (L), Greens (L), Republikaner (R), and DVU (R); Japan, Communist (L); Netherlands, Green Left (L); New Zealand, Alliance (L) and NZ First (R); Norway, Red Electoral Alliance (L) and Progress Party (R); Spain, Communist (L); Sweden, Extreme Left (L) and Greens (L); Switzerland, Swiss People’s Party (R). 8

and compulsory voting, is at the high end with 94 percent.11 On the low end is Switzerland, the only country where a majority of party cynics fails to vote for a traditional party. Moreover, there is no clear relationship between the type of political system and support for traditional parties. For instance, the Netherlands and Norway, which have highly fragmented party systems, are at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of the support party cynics give to traditional parties.

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Although party cynics tend to remain loyal to traditional parties at election time, there is a clear difference in the traditional parties they support. On average, party cynics support incumbent parties only 28 percent of the time. This is in stark contrast to the 41 percent support that incumbents enjoy from the party optimists (the -13 percent difference in the last row of column one). In fact, as one can see from the differentials at the bottom of the first three columns, the gap in support for incumbents accounts for the total gap between party cynics and party optimists in support for all traditional parties. Taken together, these findings demonstrate the difficulty in determining the extent to which the expression of anti-party sentiments is an indictment of traditional parties as a whole, or simply dissatisfaction with the current ruling parties.

In terms of voting for anti-party parties and abstaining, there are a couple notable findings. First, in several countries party cynics are more likely to vote for an anti-party party than to abstain. This is particularly pronounced in Canada, Denmark, and New Zealand. Nonetheless, abstaining from the electoral process remains a common choice for party cynics as we noted above, especially in countries with majoritarian electoral systems. Overall, party cynics are nearly twice as likely as party optimists to either vote for anti-party parties or abstain from voting. Second, comparing support for left and right anti-party parties, it is clear that the far-right parties are much more likely to garner support from those who are distrustful of parties. In the five countries where there are viable anti-party parties on both sides of the ideological spectrum, only in Germany does the left gain more support from party cynics than the right.

The importance of anti-party sentiment for far-right support becomes more evident when we compare party cynics with party optimists. In the countries where there is a viable far-right party, party cynics vote for it 18 percent of the time, whereas party optimists vote for it only 7 percent of the time. That is, party cynics are more than two and a half times as like to vote for a far-right party as are party optimists. A different pattern emerges, however, when we compare support for leftist anti-party parties. There is virtually no difference in the likelihood that party cynics and optimists will vote for these parties (a 1 percent difference). A possible explanation for this finding is that distrustful voters no longer view extreme left parties as a viable protest option. These parties tend to be older than the new far-right parties that emerged in the 1990s. Moreover, far-right parties have tended to indict the far-left as part of the political establishment, bolstering themselves as the only true anti-party party alternative (Schedler 1996).

The existence of anti-party sentiment among the supporters of anti-party parties does not mean that anti-party sentiment actually predicts this behavior. As we showed above, a significant majority of those holding anti-party sentiments continue to support traditional parties. Therefore, in Table 6 we examine the extent to which trust in parties correlates with the specific types of electoral behavior.

Although the correlations are relatively modest, most are significant relationships and indicate that anti-party sentiment does influence electoral behavior in important ways. The first column reveals that those who believe parties do not care what individuals think are less likely to vote for the incumbent party. The relationships are relatively strong for Canada, Japan, and New Zealand. The respective elections in Canada and Japan were critical in that they offered new, viable alternatives to disaffected citizens. In Canada the Reform party emerged as a clear alternative to the political establishment, vowing to do politics differently. The elections in New Zealand were the first time they had moved from a majoritarian electoral system, giving voters several alternatives to traditional parties.

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The correlations between anti-party sentiment and anti-party voting are in columns 2 through 4. As noted above, there appears to be no relationship between anti-party sentiment and voting for a far-left party. Yet, a closer inspection of the correlations in each country suggests a more complicated picture. Anti-party sentiment tends to more strongly correlate, albeit still modestly, when there is not a viable far-right party. Except in New Zealand, the presence of a far-right party eliminates any correlation between anti-party sentiment and support for a far-left party.
Distrust in parties is consistently correlated with far-right party support. This is strongest in Denmark, but is relatively robust for all countries except Switzerland. Anti-party sentiment apparently does lead to a vote for anti-party parties, but all such parties are not equally attractive to cynical voters. The far-left attracts dissatisfied voters primarily when they are the only anti-party option. Far-right parties, however, seem to be the preferred choice of the cynical. Distrustful citizens are not only more likely to support far-right parties, but as secondary analyses not shown here indicate, a large number of far-left voters actually are quite optimistic about political parties as agents of democracy.

The final column shows the relationship between anti-party sentiment and all modes of anti-party establishment behavior – including, spoiling one’s ballot, abstention, and protest votes. The correlations are again modest, but they are all in the expected direction and significant.

Finally, given the many citizens who distrust parties, yet continue to vote for one of the mainstream political parties – primarily the opposition – we might ask whether this reflects actual support for the opposition parties, or a continuous rejection of incumbents regardless of who holds power. That is, no party really has their loyalty. This logic implies that distrust of parties may stimulate increased volatility in voting behavior because citizens are skeptical of all parties. Thus, if anti-party sentiment increases voter volatility, it further suggests that distrust of parties is a general indictment of all parties, and it directly contributes to the weakening of partisan attachments.

Employing data from national election studies in five countries that included the CSES party image question, we examine whether party images contribute to voter volatility. Figure 2 plots the percentage who voted for a different party in two adjacent elections by the belief that parties care what people think. The relationships show that distrust in parties stimulates a marked increase in voter volatility. Among Canadians, for example, only 10 percent who trust parties voted for a different party in the previous election, compared with 45 percent among the most distrustful respondents. It appears, then, that dissatisfied citizens contribute to the growing segment of floating voters in advanced industrial democracies. Even when they vote for mainstream parties, these parties cannot depend on them for sustained support.

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In summary, anti-party sentiment is widespread in advanced industrial democracies, but such sentiment does not directly translate into anti-party establishment behavior. More than 2 out of 3 disenchanted citizens continue to vote for one of the traditional political parties. However, when voting for a traditional party, they are much more likely to vote for the opposition than the incumbents. This suggests that anti-party sentiment is at least partially a criticism of the ruling parties, not an indictment of the established party system per se. Moreover, given the option between either abstaining or voting for anti-party party, dissatisfied citizens are more likely to choose the former. Far-right parties are preferred to their counterparts on the Left, but equally important is that a large proportion of the Left anti-party voters do, in fact, believe parties care what individuals think. In other words, the Left attracts both party cynics and party optimists, whereas supporters of the Right are overwhelmingly cynical of parties in general.

The Generalization of Distrust
Dissatisfaction with political parties has its most direct impact on features of electoral politics and participation in parties and elections. Yet, because the system of party government is so closely tied to the democratic process in most nations, these sentiments have potentially broader implications for citizen images of government and the democratic process. Indeed, prior research routinely demonstrates the strong relationship between trust in parties and other dimensions of political support (e.g., Dalton 2004, ch. 3). Miller and Listaug (1990) even argued that trust in parties is a major source of broader system evaluations.

The link between party evaluations and other elements of political support is demonstrated in Table 7. For instance, the first column displays a pattern of consistently strong correlations between confidence in parties and satisfaction with the way democracy works in the nation. These correlations are among the strongest presented in this article. The next column in the table presents the relationship between confidence in parties and the belief that votes make a difference. Again, a lack of party support erodes the belief in this basic tenet of the democratic process.

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Perhaps the most striking finding comes from the last column in Table 7. The CSES survey asked respondents if they felt the most recent national election was conducted fairly: sentiments which touch the very legitimacy of the system of representative democracy. Fair and honest elections are the norm in the advanced industrial democracies included in this study. But in several nations there is a significant minority who question the fairness of elections: Switzerland 7%, Sweden 8%, Spain 9%, the United States and Britain 15%, and Japan 27%. Moreover, there is a disturbing link between a lack of confidence in parties and the belief that elections are not conducted fairly. To use the United States to illustrate this relationship: a full 90 percent of those who believe parties care about the public also believe in the integrity of elections, versus a bare majority of 51 percent among those least confident in parties. Certainly, it is a challenge to the very system of representative democracy when such doubts exist among a significant part of the electorate.

At least indirectly, there is evidence that such popular doubts about political parties is fueling demands for reforms in the structure of electoral politics. Growing public disenchantment with political parties lead to electoral reforms in Italy, Japan and New Zealand during the 1990s (Shugart and Wattenberg 2001). There are mounting pressures for electoral reform in Britain as well, and the current Dutch government is committed to restructuring that nation’s electoral system. In the United States, dissatisfaction with parties and politicians stimulated term limit reforms in several states. Frankly, we doubt these changes in election procedures will fully address the public’s scepticism. Initial survey evidence suggests that the reforms in Japan and New Zealand, for instance, did not restore public confidence in parties (Dalton 2004, ch. 8). In addition, the fact that distrust in parties extends across different electoral systems and party configurations suggests that institutional reform will not resolve this problem. Rather, the urge for reform illustrates the public’s underlying negativity toward parties and the system of party-led government.

Without addressing the issue of causality, it is clear that party support is part of a syndrome of general evaluations of the institutions of representative democracy and the overall evaluations of the democratic process. Thus, it would be a mistake to treat these measures of party support as distinct from other measures of political support. A negative image of parties is linked to negative images of other elements of the democratic process.

Distrust of Parties and Democratic Governance
It would be premature to write an obituary for political parties. Political theory, and contemporary publics, agree that political parties are a necessary and important component of the democratic process. The positive contribution of political parties is indisputable, and democracy without parties is still difficult to imagine.

At the same time, citizens today express widespread skepticism about political parties as institutions, and the process of representative government based on political parties. Most citizens believe that parties do not care what they think, are not sufficiently responsive to public interests, and cannot be trusted to represent the public’s interests. Such sentiments have also become more common in the past generation.

Initially, the explanation for such partisan malaise was linked to the specific history of a nation. Americans supposedly lost trust in parties because of the scandals and policy failures of government, illustrated by Watergate, Congressional scandals, exposes on campaign finance, and similar problems. Italians were alienated by the exposure of corruption in the political and economic systems. Canadians lost faith because of the strains of regional tensions reflected in the party system. Germans were frustrated with the problems that flowed from unification. The research literature in most nations tells a similar tale of how unique national conditions contributed to these patterns.

Such national conditions are undoubtedly relevant, but our data suggest that spreading dissatisfaction with political parties (and other institutions of representative government) is a general pattern across the advanced industrial democracies. Rather than coincidental crises or scandals separately affecting these nations, it seems more likely that these trends represent a broader change in the role and image of partisan politics in contemporary democracies. It is certainly possible that trust in parties might rebound as elites attempt to change to these opinions, such short-term change is likely (but also likely temporary). In the long term, we suspect that citizen images of government have changed in ways that will continue to limit popular support for parties and the traditional pattern of party government.

If we accept this conclusion, then we must consider the implications of popular distrust of political parties. Our findings suggest that distrust of parties reshapes patterns of political participation. Distrust of political parties has contributed to the erosion of voting turnout and campaign activity in Western democracies. If growing proportions of the public believe that parties do not care about their opinions, why should these individuals then care to vote? Instead, it is likely that distrust will spawn more involvement in non-partisan forms of political action, such as unconventional participation, citizen interest groups, and other forms of direct action (Dalton 2004, ch. 8).

If the skeptical citizen does turn out to vote, we have demonstrated that this will affect their voting choices. Distrust in parties contributes to the support of two types of parties: traditional opposition parties and far-right parties. These two options represent different paths for remedying the ills of political parties. The first has helped to bring about reforms across several countries intended to make traditional parties more responsive to the citizens. The second is a more radical rejection of traditional party politics and it represents a desire to change from without the fundamental nature of modern, representative democracy. A second important finding is that despite the criticism far-left parties have leveled at the political establishment, their supporters are no more likely than other citizens to express disenchantment of political parties in general.

Even more important, our findings have implications beyond these immediate effects on citizen political behavior. Spreading distrust of political parties will likely lead to pressures for institutional changes that alter or diminish the role that parties play within the democratic process (Cain, Dalton and Scarrow 2003). One set of reforms has aimed at improving the system of elections and representative democracy to improve the system of party government. For instance, dissatisfaction with parties has fueled demands for reform of electoral systems in several nations.

A second set of reforms has focused on expanding non-partisan aspects of the democratic process and institutional changes to facilitate this access. Thus, increasing use of referendums, citizen hearings, and other forms of direct action allow voters at least partially to bypass partisan politics. Changes in policy administration are also likely to follow, as people demand a direct voice in politics because they distrust parties as their agents.

In summary, this public skepticism about political parties is one piece of a general syndrome of the public’s growing doubts about representative democracy, and a search for other democratic forms. Parties are likely to retain their central roles in structuring electoral choices and organizing the working of the parliamentary process, but their broader role in the system of democratic politics is being challenged.

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