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Critical Debate

The nostalgia of the mass party

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  • Piero Ignazi
Piero Ignazi
University of Bologna
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/qoe-17132

Published 2025-11-30

Keywords

  • Mass Party,
  • Nostalgia,
  • Disaffection,
  • Retrotopia

How to Cite

Ignazi, P. (2025). The nostalgia of the mass party. Italian Journal of Electoral Studies (IJES). https://doi.org/10.36253/qoe-17132

Copyright (c) 2025 Piero Ignazi

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Why are political parties on the defendant’s bench? What do people want from parties today? Is there any chance of recapturing citizens’ hearts and minds? This paper addresses questions linked to the crisis of confidence in parties in western European countries. After surveying some hypotheses on the origin of the discontent, the paper suggests that parties are trapped by an untenable pledge derived from their original connotation.  The pledge concerns intra-party workings more than party activity in the political system. The paper sustains that although extensive criticism of parties is justified, they show some resilience. People still expect party profile and behaviour to be as they were in the post-war golden age, though recent transformations have downplayed many features that characterized the popular model of democracy. Nostalgia for past party politics clashes with present party reality and further depresses public esteem of political parties.

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