Renewing Party Scholarship: Lessons From Abroad

Abstract

In no domain of political science scholarship have we paid a higher price for our discipline's insistence on separating "American" and "Comparative" studies than in the domain of parties, and never has the error of our ways been more striking than now. Although we have readily consented to weave such terms as "globalism", "interdependence", and even "new world order" casually into our discourse, most of us have not seriously imagined that the momentous developments these terms summon to mind have serious meaning for the way we study our own political parties-nor have we made significant changes in the way we study the parties of others.